We are a Safeguarding Organisation - Not a Gender Critical Campaign - Safe School Alliance

SSA is a safeguarding organisation, but it's predicated on the fundamental gender-critical view that humans can't change sex.

To be gender-critical, I'd say you need to believe:

1. Humans can't change sex.
2. There is no such thing as an inner sense of gender identity - but even if there was, it shouldn't be allowed to override biological sex in situations where we usually differentiate between the sexes.
3. Biological sex matters and is important.

People with gender-critical beliefs tend to have a wide range of political views, but they all hold those three fundamental beliefs.

Yes, framing everything as about 'rights' or 'beliefs' and the EA 2010 ignores safeguarding law, and creates the impression that EA2010 is more important than safeguarding law, and it shouldn't be for children.

I'm very glad SSA are making it clear that they are a safeguarding organisation - there are lots of people arguing about GC 'beliefs' and employment protections for adult women but far fewer that put safeguarding first for all children, not just gender questioning children.

It's ridiculous that Rachel Meade's win didn't address the massive safeguarding failures that denying the reality of biological sex (and making it an unsayable fact as happened to RM) will mean for those who need social services. The regulator was shown as incapable of putting safeguarding above ideological capture and yet, no job losses. Not fit for purpose at all.

Biological sex - the reality of biological sex - is vitally important for safeguarding children. That's the overlap with GC 'beliefs', but it's not a belief issue, it's a matter of fact and reality.

The truth is, safeguarding has been breached so consistently and for so long as a result of gender ideology in schools, that we're almost at the point where safeguarding means nothing. Compelling children to use wrong sex pronouns for another child or teacher is a huge safeguarding failure. It already breaches KCSIE but nothing is done and no-one is held accountable.

Ditto the RSE / PHSE organisations going into schools. One group actually asked children to draw dick pics they'd received FFS. That's clear and obvious abuse - yet no-one prosecuted or barred as far as I can tell. Last I looked the group who broke safeguarding so horrendously were invited onto radio 4.

Thank you SSA for all that you do. Your resources are invaluable as a parent.

@YellowAsteroid

Safeguarding is important but it’s not really the bedrockfeminist issue, in my view. It’s actually not always necessarily a feminist issue at all, really.

Agree. The current mess affects safeguarding for women and children, and inclusion for certain religious people of any sex or age and fairness for women.

@MarieDeGournay safeguarding is probably a central concern for many parents, and this is Mumsnet. and I think, like the Safe Schools Alliance, there are posters for whom it is a single issue and there’s a bit of a purity spiral about it sometimes.

Safeguarding is important but it’s not really the bedrock feminist issue, in my view. It’s actually not always necessarily a feminist issue at all, really.

Excellent summary @MalagaNights

Thanks to the SSA for coming on here, that sort of direct engagement is much appreciated.

I think the original statement left a lot of us very confused - that unfortunate remark about lesbians getting a thrill out of wearing male clothing [in fairness, I do like a bit of sharp tailoring, but it's definitely not a sexual thrill, just a sartorial one!] was made quite a long time ago by Stella O'Malley who is in no way a spokesperson for GC-ness, and who withdrew it. And, coincidentally, is the subject of a lot of very critical comments on this thread.

I didn't choose the label 'gender critical', but it has been applied so often that in the end you just go along with it. To me it means critical of oppressive gender stereotypes, and I have no control over what other people claim it means.

I can't get my head around: 'the Forstater case can take us down a path where safeguarding is overlooked.' I can't see any link. What am I missing? The term 'safeguarding' seems to be cropping up a lot in ways that are not entirely clear - the apparently unrelated Forstater case, the LGBA helpline although they directly address the issue of safeguarding themselves..

I believe safeguarding of children is one of the fundamental elements of the critique of the extremes of trans ideology that appears on FWR, so it's difficult to understand why it is now being used to suggest that FWRers, or GC women in general, are complacent about it.

Time to break out the Venn diagram!

https://deadwildroses.com/2019/10/07/handy-venn-diagrams-the-radical-feminist-position-on-gender/

Everyone in the green circle (Greer, Forstater) is both sex realist and GC. The red circle (the Patriarchy, Religions) are sex realist cultural sex role-enforcers.

SSA care about keeping children safe in situations of physical vulnerability by retaining (reinstating!) sex-segregation based on birth sex not legal sex. If the school makes the girls do home economics whilst the boys do woodwork, that is outside their remit.

Is that it?

I agree with this ^^

I think different organisations having differing focuses is good and shouldn't need to create conflict.
And I think clarifying their position is good.

I think Genspect is more focused on the evidence for the psychological presentation and the treatment models.

I think sex matters have been focused on utilising the law to ensure sex based rights.

I'm glad SSA which is about children and schools is focused on safeguarding. I think they are entirely right to do so and clarify their position.

I'm confused about this too. 'Legal sex', as in the legal fiction that law can make a man a woman or vice versa, is not something I recognise as being GC.

Does it though? If you bring in "legal sex" then where does that end?

I think we agree here Rex. The whole point of the "GC movement" is to stop men being taken seriously when they larp as women. The GRA needs repealing and the concept of a male legal woman binning.

Absolutely. It's a shame when the natural developments in policy and politics are seized on in an attempt to create dissent. There a massive swirl of political change in society at present and it's a shame (but probably inevitable) when an organisation dedicated to safeguarding children gets caught up in this way.

But it is an opportunity to showcase some of the resources that they offer:

https://safeschoolsallianceuk.net/resources-2/factsheets/

https://safeschoolsallianceuk.net/schools-resources-and-policies/

That is precisely where we can't have belief trumping safeguarding. Be it in a religious school where children are made unsafe due to belief, or be it in wider discussions about changes in the law where the GC groups keen on "legal sex" drown out other views. Whether they mean to or not, to be clear.

I'm really confused by this. What GC groups are keen on legal sex being a thing? How would believing that a man can legally be a woman, be a GC belief? If you think men can become women in any way, you're not GC

I would and still do call myself a "gender critical feminist". But a lot of people whose opinions and views I am aligned with and who I respect, would not.

Absolutely.

I think it would be much more helpful to note that this is NOT an "either/or" situation.

It's a "Yes, and"

We can be feminists and sceptical of gender stereotypes and roles - better known as sex-based stereotypes - and also aware of safeguarding issues.

I am confused by this, as they seem to link "gender critical" with some strange ideas about what being a lesbian is, or do they think that being gender critical means you are homophobic?

I think part of the issue is that the advent of aggressive transactivism alerted a lot of women to the dangers that gender extremist ideology poses to the very fundamental basics of 51% of the population's lives: the attempt to redefine what a woman/girl is. And all that streams from that eg TWAW and assaults on single-sex spaces & services, and the very language that we use to describe ourselves.

These are obvious feminist issues (some of us have been thinking/talking/publishing on them for the last 20 years eg Julie Bindel), but there's quite a gap between long-term committed feminists, particularly those of us from the second wave, and much younger women today who've largely grown up under the guise of "liberal feminism" and "girl power" - mostly without a cogent analysis of the structures of power which work to oppress women and position them as "other" to the default male. Liberal feminism tended to say: "We're all equal now, and I can do what I like. That's feminism because I'm a woman."

Women are waking up now, but a lot of them are not well-read in feminist classic literature and don't have an overview or structural analysis.

There's a wonderful resurgence of the grass roots movement, which is something like the Women's Lib movement that I was part of in the late 1970s, but like all grass-roots movements, there are many (and often conflicting) views.

The focus on the trans issue has distorted things somewhat - I notice this in the discussions in various fora about voting intention in the general election.

They are clearly making a point about some of the more racist, far right info being shared by GC people on line, particularly on twitter. E.g.

x.com/IamGCWendy/status/1802808341267186102

I'm not interested in getting into a fight about whether or not the tweet I linked is OK, but I agree that to be effective and to be able to continue to work with schools SSA need to distance themselves and make it clear they aren't aligned with this kind of rhetoric.

Good for them.

Cross posted with 2falls.

I agree, but I’m not sure its evolved as such , more like been twisted

which I appreciate is me being petty and not the point of the thread but its just annoying

Yes I take your point, I more meant the understanding of it, often by people who are unfamiliar.

I've so much admiration for SSA and all the work they do.
While dissent, argument and discussion is important, if an organisation decides that their focus is solely on safeguarding children and they wish to distance themselves from other discussions, that's their right.
Presumably they've felt some pressure to join in with some of the more challenging debates and wish to keep their focus clear. Good for them.
There are enough bad faith individuals trying to create dissent as we see daily on here.
SSA are doing so much good work - don't let's trash them on here.

Thanks for replying @2fallsfromSSA

I agree, but I’m not sure its evolved as such , more like been twisted

which I appreciate is me being petty and not the point of the thread but its just annoying

Just popping on to say thank you for the tag and bringing this thread to our attention. We are sorry our statement is not clear and on reflection we can see why there is some confusion.

Thanks to the posters who have completely understood our position- we appreciate the support.

We will review and republish this morning.

Yes.

I think sometimes statements to clarify intent and purpose in order to avoid purity spirals and conflation within a movement, can look like a purity spiral.

Presumably this organisation recognises the wide range of beliefs and positions of those who recognise biological sex and are trying to avoid being associated with all of them.

They are a safeguarding organisation, and nothing else. They may have internal variety of opinions on politics, gender roles, and preferred cakes. They agree on issues of safeguarding.