Secondary School complaint about mixed sex changing rooms. Update, school response and request for help writing the escalated complaint to governors

Knowing Brighton quirtewell from years ago, it shouldn't surprise me that this is an issue across the city. What a battle to be fighting, especially with a head who appears to confuse being gay, lesbian or binary with transsexualism.

You probably know this anyway, but follow the school's complaints procedure to the letter. Then, if the governors don't offer a satisfactory resolution, you can escalate to the Department for Education (DfE). Although as a general principle I'm in favour of school autonomy so heads can tailor what the school does to the school community, I do think there is a need for prescription from the DfE when it comes to safeguarding and provision for self-idenifying trans pupils. The right for girls to be able to use single-sex toilet and changing rooms free of male-born pupils isn't something parents should have to fight for school by school. Determination will win the day!

BTW, buckets of the best of British luck to you @TangenitalContrivance You're a mensch.

I think the problem is that gender reassignment is never really defined properly. It doesn't say it's surgery, for instance.

Indeed, @Datun It's this sort of lack of clarity which Stonewall have exploited, and then it's swallowed up and mangled third-hand as we see that @TangenitalContrivance 's Head teacher has done (eg. talking about LGB children when the issue is trans-identified children).

Hello @TangenitalContrivance

I have been campaigning for safe toilets. Their reply mentions toilets so I presume they may be lumping them in together so I have some comments.

Your school and council are being selective in the guidance they like and follow. From their reply they are prepared to follow The Technical Guidance for Schools in England of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (no date given - the latest is July 2024) and know they have to follow KCSIE 2024. So I am just going base what I think in relation to those two.

Safety inside premises used by schools
Ten years ago in Parliament it was discussed that there was at least 1 rape inside a school premises each day (over 600 in a 3 year period). The data, collected by the BBC, mentions an example occurring in a store cupboard. It was found that there were thousands of sexual assaults and hundreds of rapes inside schools. This wasn’t down to the government investigating - it was actually the BBC who contacted every police force in the country via FOI around 2015/2016. There was talk about getting a database - this didn’t happen.
Then some wonderful young people started ‘Everyone’s Invited’ which again shone a light on how prevalent sexual abuse was and how much was going unreported. Some accounts on ‘Everyone’s Invited’ mention school toilets as the location of in-school sexual assaults, including disabled toilets (the mixed sex private toilet space). This time the government asked Ofsted to have a look. Ofsted found it was widespread and how much was going unreported. They were disappointed they had to refer back to BBC investigation data as there wasn’t a more recent data. Ofsted published the Review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges (2021). Ofsted said ‘It is hard to get an accurate picture of the scale and nature of sexual harassment and violence between children and young people in schools and colleges, as there is no centralised data collection …’
Ofsted said the problem was so widespread, and incidents are so commonplace that ‘It recommends that schools, colleges and multi-agency partners act as though sexual harassment and online sexual abuse are happening, even when there are no specific reports’.
‘Children…especially girls…do not want to talk about sexual abuse for several reasons, even when their school encourages them to. For example the risk of being ostracised by peers or getting peers into trouble is not considered to be worth it…They think they will not be believed, or that they will be blamed. They also think that once they talk to an adult, the process will be out of their control.’

These findings are also in line with ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education (2024)’:

15.Staff working with children should maintain an attitude of 'it could happen here’ where safeguarding is concerned. When concerned about the welfare of a child, staff should always act in the best interests of the child.
456. Whilst any report of sexual violence or sexual harassment should be taken seriously, staff should be aware it is more likely girls will be the victims of sexual violence and sexual harassment and more likely it will be perpetrated by boys. Children with disabilities are also three times more likely to be abused than their peers’.

87. Provisions within the Equality Act allow schools and colleges to take positive action, where it can be shown that it is proportionate, to deal with particular disadvantages affecting pupils or students with certain protected characteristics in order to meet their specific need. A school or college, could, for example, consider taking positive action to support girls if there was evidence that they were being disproportionately subjected to sexual violence or sexual harassment. There is also a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled children and young people.

These are a few of the more recent statistics of sexual assaults and rapes in school premises from Freedom of Information requests. Obviously the exact location is not noted but it is reasonable to assume most serious assaults will be unsupervised areas open to mixed sex like toilets and cubicles:
Essex Police
Metropolitan Police
Warwickshire Police

HOWEVER when someone tried to get the figures for Brighton and Hove they were taken to the ICO as they did not comply to FOI requests.
https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/decision-notices/2022/04/ic-162697-k9n7/
I have still not found out if Brighton and Hove did reply to FOI requests.

Relating back to your complaint, there is NO evidence to say that there is not a significant safeguarding risk if they were to use a changing room of the opposite sex. However there is plenty of information which evidences the opposite view. There is no evidence to suggest that trans students might pose a significant safeguarding risk if they
were to use a changing room of the opposite sex. No studies have been done, I expect because it was never thought to be a situation that would arise before and schools wouldn’t agree to it.

However, the guidance NEVER suggests that boys should share with girls.

The Technical Guidance for Schools in England of the Equality and Human Rights Commission includes:
3.20 The way in which school facilities are provided can lead to discrimination.
Examples:
̶ A school fails to provide appropriate changing facilities for a transsexual pupil and insists that the pupil uses the boys’ changing room even though she is now living as a girl. This could be indirect gender reassignment discrimination unless it can be objectively justified. A suitable alternative might be to allow the pupil to use private changing facilities, such as the staff changing room or another suitable space.
5.10 Sex segregation is permitted in certain situations, such as where it is necessary and appropriate to preserve privacy and decency. The law requires schools to provide single sex toilet facilities for children over eight and single sex changing facilities for children over 11. These may be either in sex-segregated communal facilities or in single-user lockable rooms.

My campaign is against rooms that are completely private, such as toilet cubicles or single-user locker rooms. That’s because they are dangerous when children collapse or when they are assaulted. For example there will typically be on average at least a dozen children with disabilities such as epilepsy, diabetes and heart conditions within a typical secondary school. That’s why private school toilets are now designed to never be completely lockable - they are designed to be able to be opened outwards from the outside because bodies stop the door opening. Of course, this means someone could let themselves in. The design has been criticised by so different people because in reality they are dirty, people have sex in them, self-harm, and do drugs. However the Department of Education don’t hold any Equality Impact Assessments or risk assessments for enclosing toilets (from a FOI).

I very much doubt anyone has even thought about risk assessments for a mixed sex changing room as it seems so unbelievable.
I don’t know how it can be justified to Ofsted or the Government.

I think the problem is that gender reassignment is never really defined properly. It doesn't say it's surgery, for instance.

"In the Equality Act, gender reassignment means proposing to undergo, undergoing or having undergone a process to reassign your sex. To be protected from gender reassignment discrimination, you do not need to have undergone any medical treatment or surgery to change from your birth sex to your preferred gender."

So for all anyone knows, it could be bloody clothes. Or a mindset. Plus Proposing to undergo', is so woolly, it could be just thinking about it, or telling your mum.

and you don't even have to possess that protected characteristic, to be discriminated against because of it.

For instance, you can discriminate against someone because you think they're gay, even if you subsequently find out they're not gay.

The actual issue is, that it doesn't matter if you've got that protected characteristic, you can still be excluded from women's changing rooms.

Really apologise for not rtft if someone has already mentioned it. But the quote from Kcsie that talks about harm actually means LGB/T children are not by their mere existence at more risk of being harmed themselves. The headteacher's misunderstanding of this in itself is a massive concern. Secondly it doesn't matter who thinks who is a risk. We don't let boys and girls run around changing rooms looking at each other. Full stop. God at 14 even the idea of seeing an unwanted phallus at a hockey match would have put me off sport. It's hard enough to get girls to play sport as it is.

@Ereshkigalangcleg I understand that - but I also understood that children under 18 couldn't legally be contemplating reassignment ...

Someone just posted this on another thread:

https://www.legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/09/02/a-practical-guide/

It’s a review by Naomi Cunningham (of Sex Matters and of Sandie Peggie v Fife NHS) of an….interesting…book about trans law. The book and review will mostly be irrelevant to you, but at one point she discusses the authors’ take on children using the wrong sex bathrooms at school, and corrects them. Her understanding of the law is pretty solid, so you may find it useful.

The problem is there is no definition of what “transitioning” is, and that is how the law was written, following intensive TRA lobbying. So the EA pc applies to the majority of males who “identify as women” on a permanent basis, however that’s defined.

Yes. A GRC causes cognitive dissonance all round. Imo the GRA is a terrible piece of legislation - badly drafted, ill thought out and all of the concerns raised during its passage through parliament have come to pass (and more!)

Cementing and affirming a trans identity in young people is far too early when the brain hasn’t fully developed as Cass found in her review.

I would recommend against this. It's an issue for parents of pupils at this school, not for everyone who lives in Brighton and Hove. If the aim is to get the school to have all pupils use toilets and changing facilities for their sex at birth, inflating things by involving the press doesn't help and the reporting parent then has to deal with journalists as well as the school.

Eresh has answered my questions (I am still finding this new app hard to follow in discussions.)

but the impact of the cognitive dissonance if an individual who is 18 and still in school gets a grc, is extremely concerning

My concern is that yes, if an 18 yr old could have a grc the day after they turn 18, it means some sixth forms would have a harder issue around this. An older child could turn 18 in September and have a grc for the whole of the upper sixth. And what would certain schools/ lawyers say there? Hopefully it’s becoming clearer with current cases pending but it really really does need to be clarified.

editing to add the concept of this is quite disturbing and confusing for other 17yr olds around such an individual under all the current rhetoric. Hopefully over time much more caution will prevail

Well done for pursuing this, OP. You've had some great advice here.

Unfortunately some misinformation keeps popping up on the PC of gender reassignment. Eresh has been giving great information on this PC in the thread.

As has been mentioned above - and I think you've picked up on it too, OP - it is key that the Head is conflating LGB and gender questioning children in the comments made about risk. This is a misrepresentation/misunderstanding of the statutory KCSIE guidance, which makes it clear that there is a significant difference in relation to risk.

You've got plenty of good info on this thread so hopefully you're armed with plenty of ideas for the response. Your brilliantly worded original complaint suggests you'll nail this. Good luck, OP 💪

(I was initially concerned that you had put info about the draft Gender Questioning Children guidance under the title of "statutory" information, but the fact that you only pulled out the "must" sections is genius. The Head is on the back foot here and floundering, but as has been said above, this is likely to be a long slog 😬)

Yes, the whole ideology requires many breaches of basic safeguarding rules and too many people in positions of power are willing to go along with it for *reasons.

Are you referring to the ‘qualifying’ period for a GRC?

There are parents who have transed their very young children and schools that have supported it.

In theory it may be possible to apply for a GRC just after your 18th birthday? Obviously this school is very confused as even a GRC doesn’t mean you are required to treat someone as if they were the opposite sex for ALL purposes.

Yes. The other legal issue that's never been explored is the conflict between this PC and safeguarding. In schools, safeguarding children from harm is meant to be the priority. So it never makes sense that adults compelling girls to undress in changing rooms, showers, dormitories are not challenged for putting girls at risk, especially from sex offences of voyeurism and indecent exposure. To my knowledge, so powerful are the men insisting on male access to undressed girls that no education institution dares challenge them and they all ignore the undermining of safeguarding.

My concern is the live as for two years part

so can that start at 16??

Or does the processs start at 18.

What the gender reassignment pc doesn’t do though, is give a positive right for males to use female spaces and vice versa. Single sex spaces are an exception to the general prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sex. As a pp said, the legal comparator in a gender reassignment case is likely to be another person of the same sex without the GR protected characteristic.

@LittleBigHeadit isn’t contingent on having a GRC or applying for one.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/7

1)
A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.

This.

Gender reassignment as one of the 9 protected characteristics cannot apply to anyone under 18. Whereas sex - another of the 9 protected characteristics - applies from birth.

They're breaking the Equality Act, it seems to me - creating an education setting where there is the potential for sexual harassment?

Yes, exactly.

This.

It's also hard to miss that there is a clear hierarchy in their minds that is sex based. That boys have the right to use girls. That boys' wishes and feelings and dignity/privacy is of high value, where it is not even granted the most cursory notice when wishing to use girls as a resource to award to boys.

It is binary sex class based thinking. And extremely sexist in who it privileges and who must submit.