Girlguiding looking for a head of safeguarding

DSDs are rare. DSDs that could cause sex to be wrongly identified at birth are very rare. Cases in which sex actually is misidentified at birth, and the mistake not spotted well before puberty, are astoundingly rare -especially within a modern medical system in a country not known for genetic clustering of these conditions.

In the incredibly unlikely event of it happening to a Brownie, the question of whether they might need to move up to the Scouts instead of the Guides is probably quite low on their list of concerns. I would hope the Guides would deal with it with tact and sensitivity, but it's not a common enough eventuality to need a dedicated policy, any more than they need one for a meteorite hitting the roof of the Guide hut.

They did that once before - went from the The Girl Guides Association to The Guide Association, eventually moving back to Girlguiding UK (then Girlguiding) because I. nobody knew who “The Guide Association” was & ii. everyone still referred to “the Girl Guides”. Girlguiding really doesn’t understand the power &/or value of its own brand &/or product; & continues to erode both.

The ableism, classism & racism alone means I’d not go back; but creating a nonsensical Promise simply to remove any trace of faith-based values only to demand obeisance to The New Religion? That’d be a hard no. I admit to having contemplated asking WAGGGS about The Rules (& any funding available…) to set up a single-sex organisation in the UK. Because Girlguiding are unwilling to provide that although UK Law permits it, so…

It’s only a matter of time before they drop ‘girl’ and just become ‘Guiding’

The person who brought all this in went on to work for Action for Children. You know, that charity that was supposed to be about looking after and safeguarding children.

You couldn't make this shit up.

Thank you for this.
I think most of us realised that GG were fatally compromised when they appointed a TW transactivist with a deeply inappropriate online presence involving whips and weapons as a District Commissioner:

https://www.whatisawoman.uk/MonicaSulley/

All dsds are rare. In most of them the child will still identify as their genetic sex. So the chance of a male child identifying as a different sex and wanting to join guides is remote in the developed world.

If this were Algeria (say) DSDs might not be picked up. Not so in the developed world. This would be picked up early. The bigger problem might be young pre-pubescent males IDing as girls and having done so since early childhood? Thankfully rare I assume.

Gender ideology aside, how should the system work for children with DSDs in these types of organisations? My working knowledge of DSDs is sparse, but if some DSDs aren't usually picked up until puberty, how have the social issues these children face been managed before gender ideology came along? What's the ideal?

Agree. You can bet your house on it.

I’m a guide leader and it isn’t like this at the grass roots level, I don’t know any men or boys who are involved in my area. HQ are totally out of touch and many aren’t from a guiding background- it’s really depressing and frustrating tbh. We pay so much on subs and to think of the salaries being paid on such nonsense 🤬. I had an issue with wheel chair access for a girl to a large scale regional guiding event and they couldn’t care less - no access to the dining area and the suggested solution was that she could eat somewhere else and they’d bring some food over - not inclusive at all! We didn’t go.

All the leaders I know (I know lots) are very sensible and put the interests of girls first. The policy for hq might be that if a gender distressed/questioning boy wants to join a unit and go camping they can share a tent, but in reality I’m not aware of it happening. I don’t know any leaders who would allow mixed sex tents (apart from anything it’s very much not our own interests to facilitate such a massive safeguarding risk - we’d be risking all sorts of trouble). We just wouldn’t go camping - it’s a massive amount of work. If such a child wanted to join my unit I’d probably just close it, I do it specifically to give girls a girl only space, it’s a lot of work and if it is no longer single sex so not much point. The sad thing is that TRAs win either way and women and girls lose out.

I’m surprised GG is recruiting for anything - seriously, who would send their daughter to Guides (etc) now?

I agree with pp - GG used to be a fab, female-centred organisation, but apparently that’s no longer allowed….

FFS. What a disgrace.

FFS. Do these people live in a bucket? When even Stonewall and Good laugh project throw in the towel you might suppose someone there could tell which way the wind is blowing? Or maybe not.

It'd be really unfair if gg stopped because of blokes. They've been wanting to stop women congregating for decades and they may have finally succeeded in running yet another female only service into the ground or making women uncomfortable to use it.

They’ll take the money and unpaid labour from that biological sex. And pay themselves £70k jobs with the proceeds. But they won’t pay women and girls the courtesy and respect of being truthful in return.

IMO they also shit on the lower level staff and do nothing to respect or empower them either, even going as far as ignoring you in public. I’ve also witnessed harassment from male staff that was brushed under the carpet. GG can fuck right off.

“In summary, Girlguiding don’t believe that girls and women exist in material reality.”

They’ve decided to treat “girl” as a mixed sex category and to treat “woman” as a mixed sex category.

They’ve decided that their original purpose as an organisation is no longer relevant, necessary or justified.

But they won’t be truthful about that to the members of the biological sex they were originally set up to serve.

They’ll take the money and unpaid labour from that biological sex. And pay themselves £70k jobs with the proceeds. But they won’t pay women and girls the courtesy and respect of being truthful in return.

they can.
My unit do not do any over nights with another unit for this reason.
The scout association also have the same policies.

Let's hope they find a nice drag queen willing to take it on.

And could this be why Girl Guides is in financial crisis.
Whenever consulted it was made clear that Guides did not want to be mixed or admit boys. So now it's become mixed by the back door and is no longer a safe empowering space for girls.

So some thoughts on the wording that GG have used in this job description. I’m an ex Leader who was a District Commissioner so oversaw recruitment of volunteers including DBS. I’ve monitored the language GG have been using. They have a document called the Unit Roles document and it shows what roles are available to who and it was my ‘bible’ when managing our volunteers and girl members. For the whole time I’d been in GG, this document listed which roles were open to females only. In early 2023, they updated it to say ‘women’ only. I presume this is because they view that ‘female’ means only female and the definition of ‘women’ can include males too. But the problem is that the document lists all the girl roles too: brownies, guides etc. So now you have the perverse situation where GG are now describing them as ‘women’ even though they are under 18. So hence the wording in the job description.

In summary, Girlguiding don’t believe that girls and women exist in material reality. That males who say they are female are indeed female and should be treated as such.

If you haven’t been following it, the tribunal of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre was illuminating: two volunteer members of Girlguiding Scotland were employees of ERCC and gave evidence. And one employee of Girlguiding Scotland was a trustee of ERCC. It just reflects how deep gender ideology is embedded in the organisation. I had a zoom call with my head of region to discuss my concerns after GG posted on Trans Day of Visibility and it was evident she was a fully paid up TRA (professional day-job in the NHS to boot).

i can’t in all good conscience volunteer for GG and my daughters won’t be joining.

And parents sending their daughters to a Guides activity won't know whether or not that is the case, because GG won't tell them.

What could possibly go wrong?

Pure queer theory.

Girls become women and so do the boys and men.

Oh no it isn't.

Perhaps you should read up on the Tickle Vs Giggle case to see what Australian law makes of single sex spaces. (Spoiler: they don't exist).

How to frame your ad to ensure you dont get anyone who puts safeguarding girls first.