Bridget Phillipson blocking EHRC guidance - thread 2

The right, predictably, have jumped on this as evidence of the 'loonie left'. It's a big leap at primary age from 'boy fancies wearing a dress at school' to 'this is the state conspiring to force children to transition'.

Why is it difficult to just let children be, children. We loved dressing up as kids and pretending to be someone else, my DB often dressed up as a girl and it was just part of a game. Part of normal development and childhood, no one ever suggested otherwise.

Agree! Imagine an 8yo googling transgender and seeing all of the horrific crimes and attitudes they spout about women and thinking that is what they are.

It's maddening. Why is our schools minister putting a ideological stance on kids who might just enjoy dressing up. Vegan cats indeed.

From the Telegraph column

If, therefore, a boy as young as five tells his teacher “I’m transgender!”, the teacher should not eagerly reply: “How wonderful! Please feel free to start coming to school in a frock!” Instead, the teacher <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/H1QOh/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02/02/women-fighting-to-keep-trans-activism-out-of-classrooms/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">needs to ponder some serious questions. Such as: “Where has a boy this young picked up the word ‘transgender’? What – or who – has made him think he’s transgender? And, whatever the answer to that, is it definitely in his best interests for the school to reinforce this belief, by letting him wear a dress?”

Perhaps Phillipson should be advised to carefully read and digest this column. This is what safe guarding looks like

Phillipson's comments

“Children will experiment at different points, they will consider who they are. But just taking a watchful approach, not coming down too hard on that, actually reduces what we see in terms of children moving towards a more medicalised model.

By allowing the child to socially transition at school you are not just taking a watchful approach, you are affirming. Social transition is not a neutral action

“I’ve been clear that anything in that space, unless there are very strong safeguarding reasons where a child is at risk of harm, parents should be involved in those important decisions.”

I hate this wording, it seems to be part of the government script.

Does it leave room for a school to decide its own interpretation of what a risk of harm is? Perhaps the school decides that a parent not agreeing with a child's gender views puts the child's mental state at a risk of serious harm?

This Q&A discusses the factors involved in the voting behaviour of MPs both in Labour and Conservatives - it's quite inside baseball but interesting:

Watching that man trying to throw women's rights under the bus almost makes me want to vote Reform. I doubt I'm alone.

I know Reform probably aren't a friend to women either, but you can't get worse than this. At least Nige can answer a question and that counts for a lot after having to listen to this shite endlessly on a loop since the Supreme Court's admirably comprehensible judgement that is not in any way difficult to implement or comply with.

Sex Matters have posted video of the noble Lord's waffling answer to Baroness Falkner - the government's current answer seems to be along the lines that they are so consumed with ensuring they get this legal guidance completely correct and future proof that they are reluctant to put it before parliament until they have built a time machine and can be 100% sure, by viewing the future, that it all goes well and nobody is ever upset by it 😬

https://x.com/SexMattersOrg/status/2018372408176955769

https://nitter.net/SexMattersOrg/status/2018372401570931000#m

The Lords are not having it.

I forgot Lord Rooker was still with us, but he seems in good form:

"I say to the Government that the inexcusable delay in operating this makes it look like political party management is being elevated above the national interest. That is not good enough."

Hansard reporting of HoL discussion (yet again) on when we might see the updated code of practice.

Government minister is caught with his pants down by Baroness Falkner...

"My Lords, the Minister is a Minister in the Cabinet Office. I know that he would not have wished to have misled the House in his recent response to the noble Lord, Lord Harper. He assured the noble Lord and the House that all government is in conformity with the Supreme Court ruling. Is he aware that the charity Sex Matters wrote to the head of the Civil Service, asking for the Cabinet Office to withdraw the model policy on gender identity from 2019 because it was unlawful? The chief operating officer of the Cabinet Office declined to do so, despite acknowledging its unlawfulness. Can he explain to the House how he has made the statement that he is convinced that all government is in conformity with the Supreme Court ruling?"

https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2026-02-02/debates/60534F2F-BDE1-4A95-A863-284B2AFE756B/Single-SexSpacesEHRCGuidance

*massaging = messaging, damn typo! Or Freudian Slip, lol.

I think ive said it before on this thread, but if the SC said that men with a GRC are female under the EqA, the government would be in much the same place as they are now because if anyone thinks knowing someones sex is a mystery, knowing they have a GRC is far harder.

There wasn't that many possible outcomes, but did they really expect the SC to say the SSE is illegal?

Of course. Just feels like a damp squib compromise is coming. And the delay in advice is as much calculating costs and sorting the massaging as a "victory for everyone".

I don’t know what the government is going to decide. All we have heard from Phillipson is it is going between the HSE and the EHRC which is the right thing to do. Other departments will have to be involved for costings etc.

That sounds hugely awful for those parents, can't imagine how they cope.

To me taxing private education without sorting out SEN first, knowing what a huge % of SEN end up having to pay for education due to the dire state of support in state, was a disability lawsuit waiting to happen.

Phillipson, as my wife so eloquently puts it, is in our collective "slap cupboard".
First thing she does before she gets her feet under the desk is stop the FE Free Speech Act rolling out. Then she dies her class war totem against private schools. And now she takes forever on the SC ruling.
And old school class warrior, happy to co-opt the modern IDentarian culture war for her own purposes.
And has her eye on the big prize, PM.
A totally predictable path for TU inspired vision of the future, her paymasters in the unions must be very pleased with their useful idiot.
Certainly the new head of Unite is.

This is something I was thinking while watching Queer Eye. If every trans male was gay women would have less issue. If you put the adjective as to their sexual motivation in before trans I think a lot of people might see what women mean...

The straight trans man changing in female spaces doesn't have the harmless ring to it, esp when you add details such as married to a woman or show a picture of them with a beard in a dress.

She doesn't GAF about women and girls - there are no free non selective girls schools in my county but 6 state non selective boys schools. The tax of private education just punishes girls who are targeted by bullies and boys in state education and is slowly pushing the option of single sex girls schools out of most parent's thought. We know girls do better in the all girl environment but boys benefit from having girls in the room. So again, we have to do what is best for the boys and remove all other options.

Is this really what Phillipson is going to finally decide? Effectively unisex loos with full length doors and maybe integrated basins?
What is the cost of this to the country when we have no money for things that really need to be done?
And all because adults (?) won't stand up the screaming children demanding society bend to their whims?
Less "Broken Britain" than "Broken Minds".
Who'd ever have thought that the major beneficiaries of this movement would be lawyers...and plumbers?