Telegraph - Scottish school transitions child behind parent back

If Watson's have any common sense they will listen to concerned parents - with likely VAT on private schools the competition for new pupils in Edinburgh will increase notably. Nothing focuses the mind like money and bad publicity. They have acted terribly in this specific case, and well done to the family for getting press attention. I hope this empowers other gender critical parents and pupils to speak up

Yes, they deleted their X account within the past 24 hours. They had not used it since last summer though after their latest draft transgender policy was leaked to the press (nothing to do with me, have no idea who did it) and people started commenting on their posts.

Oops, I meant to add this screenshot:

Just saw this in the replies on X...

Is the deletion of their X account a recent thing?

https://twitter.com/Jo_Roseate/status/1786385084972478723?t=fa669XhRRSluzpRcI1DhJw&s=19

If I were a prospective parent looking at this school, I'd be looking in to whether it really did support families well, the moment I came across anything in the press about the school.
Although they are clearly trying to suppress this as much as possible, including in their comms to parents by the sounds of things, they are creating a slowly snowballing Streisand Effect.
People talk when it comes to choosing a school. They are starting to come across like a political advisor who clings to the idea that everyone will believe that a short trip out to Barnard Castle is a perfectly reasonable way to test your eyesight.

polyglotter the email to parents basically said, as you’d expect, due to the current political environment there’s a lot more to the story than what is on the press, we and our regulator spent ages investigating and nothing of note was found wrong, we’re in the clear, thanks for your support.

I mean yes, there is a lot more to the story but does the school really want me to start highlighting that my son was told “in confidence” that his sister was now a boy at school and how they lied to the regulator saying they’d tried to get us to meet to discuss the clinical advice/social services decision but no luck, when in fact there’s an email trail of us (multiple times) agreeing to meet and just being ignored. It’s a shame the regulator didn’t have any issues with the school’s processes (he doesn’t investigate individual cases, just the underlying policies) and went with the fact that the school follows the ScotGov guidance (which was not in place at the time).

They can spin however they want but I have a war chest of documented evidence.

It must only be a matter of time before a school is sued by a parent. It’s such a betrayal of trust to be doing this to children against medical advice. You would think turning a blind eye to a youth experimenting with “identity” whilst simultaneously not going along with the fantasy would be the perfect stance for teachers to take. Put it back in the youth culture box where it belongs.

Well, this happened to me.

The information sent to parents about the media coverage is so vague that if it wasn't for Mumsnet I would have ignored it. Nothing to say the topic or publication. Pretty poor in my opinion and I've replied saying that.

Grrrrr. But yes, these apologies are never heartfelt.
Even if it was directly to you by name, you can bet it would be of the non-apology type, as demonstrated by Rachel Parris:

(Irrespective of Nish Kumar's woeful understanding of the impact of gender identity belief, this is still a good piece of hard-hitting satire about public apologies IMO)

Huge respect to you @rogdmum for having the strength to support your daughter and navigate the school's public and private approach to all of this 💪💐

The individual teachers who piloted this also need to be taken to account. Yes, at an institution level there is culpability but my concern is that the individuals who drive the ideology and process melt away only to pop up later perpetuating the same BS. One day, hopefully they will be successfully sued in their personal capacity and ruined.

I stand in awe of your fight, @rogdmum

I've read what you've posted here, over the years, and your words have helped so much, with challenging the policies and attitudes at my DD's school.

I hope that your daughter is doing well, and feels a d know the love and support that you have for her.

Oh it’s OK, I’m not that fussed about what is in the Times- I can go around correcting it. It’s technically correct. The PR statement from the school includes an apology for distress caused for those involved. It doesn’t say that’s an apology to us and given what has been said to Watson’s parents yesterday, I suspect it’s aimed more at the staff involved than us!

I’m so shocked they’d call in SS against you. Couldn’t SS act against the school? It was shocking.

How is she? Any light in sight?

@rogdmum sorry you have had to go through this.

Also can you contact the Times and get that amended? Ie point out that actually the school hasn't apologised? There needs to be accountability here.

I just can't believe what they did to you and your family! I hope everything is better now. X

In the Times today but I’d like to point out that despite the first sentence, we’ve not had so much as a peep of an apology from that school.

Not that one would be sincere anyway and that’s not what I’m after. I want proper discussion to understand why staff behaves the way they did- why did they lie to us. Why did they lie about us. Why did they make so many false accusations.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0e3d2b58-2bf1-4d12-be75-0c76db05587b?shareToken=d6ea93dd06353d20fb7a025b7503c849

It's been in the Times now; Joanna Cherry tweeted about it. Hopefully this scandal starts to break and more stories come out showing how deeply this is embedded in schools.

I'm so glad Dr Cass has shone a light on this.

That’s my DC school - it’s like social contagion. I’m sure there’s loads feeling pressure to change pronouns & names just to fit in (according to DC)

And while we're on the subject of Scottish schools, let us not forget this from 2022:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/teachers-face-significant-challenges-to-avoid-outing-trans-pupils-to-their-parents-2fwhwrnpx
https://archive.ph/G6d3D

https://archive.ph/G6d3D

Thank you @rogdmum for not letting this go. I'd heard rumbles about George Watsons and seen your threads but not put two and two together. Glad they've realised at last that LGBTYS are not the word of God. I hope your DD is doing well.

It's so circular. LGBTYS appeal to the government and the government appeals to them. It's like "international best practice" that everyone defers to - well who decided it's good practice in the first place, and why?

Indeed the circular nature is exactly what the Dentons report recommended with their getting people in place to influence and then implement policy to roll out to other groups and vice versa. And WPATH does the same.

Thank you @rogdmum. The more sunlight the better.