Working Group - KCSIE 2026 changes - improve the guidance via the consultation process, promote more responses & more

I wonder if a child who was assaulted in a mixed sex toilet could bring a legal action as an adult against the school / council / whoever was responsible for putting illegal mixed sex toilets in?

It's a very difficult thing to do if you're still receiving an education and at the mercy of the adults who are imposing this. But as an adult it might be easier to seek justice, though still traumatic I'm sure. It's probably only a matter of time as the sex realist wins rack up.

Thanks @Keeptoiletssafe . I wonder how quickly certain schools will return to complying with the law and offering girls privacy and safety with single sex toilets & changing rooms? Given that so many of these changes happened "in secret" without any open consultation with girls or parents, schools that do continue to breach the law will be in receipt of unwelcome publicity. As well as negative Ofsted attention - compliance with the law is a basic expectation of schools and Ofsted are no longer in thrall to Stonewall or any of the other dubious trans lobby groups.

I don't think it is clear on sinks. It says the individual toilets have to be in a room lockable from the inside. It doesn't mention individual sinks having to be in that room.

The successful Scottish case with school toilets went back to rules from 1967 for separate girls and boys toilets that don’t apply in England. Thats how the Scottish case easily won. Scotland are looking at changing the 1967 rules at the moment. Also England’s DfE ‘Education Estates’ have just changed their school output specifications. This means my school toilet report, from last year, is out of date but in a good way. Both countries’ new specs seem to be clear on girls and boys toilets being separate. No more schools only having mixed sex toilets or, I believe, sinks. These single sex designs need to be worked on now to be the safest ones to prevent misuse, enhance hygiene and keep any children safe that are having a medical emergency.

For all teachers on here, they will know these changes are massive - 25% of secondary schools have got mixed sex provision that will have to be altered. Since the early 2000s schools have experimenting with mixed sex toilets. There’s been some awful incidents that could have been prevented with different, single sex, designs.

But unlike bodies which can be observed names aren't inherently one sex or another, it's just a convention. There are plenty of names that are associated with one sex in England and another in other cultures too. On another thread recently there was discussion about this around the name Gwyn.

I just think given the massive red flag safeguarding failure that is the coercion of pupils into pretending pupils have changed sex and allowing of boys into girls toilets and changing rooms and PE sessions, forcing girls to strip off in front of boys in their changing rooms, penises in girls changing rooms, names is a lower level concern and should be secondary.

People can and do change name quite a bit - or go by a nickname. This isn't unusual.

Obviously a decent school would question WHY a child wanted to change their name. But no school that allows indecent exposure and voyeurism in the girls changing room is going to care much about that surely?

And given the actual law around toilets and changing rooms has been routinely ignored and the bit in KCSIE about emotional abuse, and the much higher risk of sexual assault in mixed sex spaces (given the very high existing known numbers of rapes and sexual assaults in schools), it seems a bit odd that this much less concerning safeguarding risk affecting far fewer numbers of pupils is suddenly so important.

I see, so you’re only considering the impact on the people around Susan and not of the impact on Susan of giving up their male name and adopting a female one. I’d say changing the name that everyone calls you every lesson on the register is a bigger deal than pronouns that are barely ever used when you are around.

We know social transition is not a neutral act and schools should not be facilitating this. Being casual about changing names doesn’t seem to fit with that concern.

Children do sometimes select names that are distinctly of the opposite sex.

I don't think this is a safeguarding risk in the same way wrong-sex pronouns are, no. It's just a boy named Susan. As long as everyone is free to say it's a boy who changed his name to Susan because for some reason he wanted to, and no-one is any way confused that he's a boy, then he just has an unusual name choice. The students could go around saying 'oh there's that boy that wants to be called Susan' of course if they get it wrong and call him by his original name (that they knew him by before) they shouldn't be punished for doing so as it can be hard to remember someone has changed names.

I think a boy wanting to call himself Susan should be treated in the same way any other child wanting to change name is. Presumably anything offensive is off limits? How does the school decide?

I also think it's highly unlikely any child would change their name to 'Susan' or 'John' or anything else traditional. It's usually something more distinctive, surely?

You don’t think John changing their name to Susan and having everyone switching to calling them Susan would conceivably form part of ‘social transition’ (which we know is not a neutral act) for a child and instead is merely a harmless preference?

There are gender neutral names. John and Susan are not.

I think the motivation for using very gendered names in adults is often fetish driven but names are and always have been individual and something everyone else has to learn about an individual (you can't observe someone's name just by looking them unlike their biological sex).

For children the adoption of another name seems a pretty reasonable way for them to assert a different identity. It's not requiring everyone else to mangle normal language and grammar rules.

Also obfuscating sex is always a safeguarding concern because sex matters for safeguarding.

'She's going to sleep in the tent with the kids' suggests it's a female teacher. If this is said about a male teacher (who thinks or pretends to think he's a woman) then that's lying about a very important safeguarding fact. Everyone hearing that sentence ASSUMES woman because that is how these pronouns are used 99.999% of the time. Based on sex Many parents don't ever see their children's teachers at secondary. It's a way to lie to parents, essentially in this context.

It's not that much better -in safeguarding and consent terms - if you're using this sentence about a teenage boy.

And you can't reasonably lie and use wrong-sex pronouns for children and not adults.

Because pronouns are sex-based in the English language and based on the observation of the speaker.

This is how it has always been. Requiring that the rules change for only one person, or a small group of people, whilst everyone else is treated in the original grammatical way is coercive and compelled speech.

Whereas everyone has an individual name and can choose what that is, if they wish.

Not rocket science. It's preferential treatment that required compelled speech outside of normal English language usage.

In the English language, as we learn it, we don't need to ask someone before we can use pronouns about them. We just have to see them and observe their sex. So I can say 'she did it, the one in the red dress'. I don't need to know her name. I need to ask what her name is. No-one ever (until the recent madness) asked for someone's pronouns. The main way in which it's abusive is one rule for a special few and another rule for everyone else. And the everyone else have to change their normal English language usage in a very, very difficult way to accommodate the few. Whereas names are always something you have to learn about an individual.

I find it bizarre I have to explain this.

Why do you not care if John is now to be called Susan but calling John ‘she’ would be absolutely unacceptable?

I don’t understand why one is social transition, coercion and so on but the other, with obviously gendered names is no biggie.

Will it though? Other laws and safeguards haven't stopped the adults doing this. The SC ruling is really crystal clear. Previous legislation is crystal clear. I'm not totally convinced that it being in KCSIE will stop these adults. I don't think ANYTHING will until they become personally legally accountable and / or lose their jobs.

They just redefine the word 'sex' to mean both sexes, if they want it to, just as they've already redefined 'boy' and 'girl'

Edited to add: I hope I'm wrong, but there's already the emotional abuse definition in KCSIE which should prevent the coercion of other children to pretend that boys or girls can change sex and yet hasn't in many cases done so. I really think there need to be consequences for the adults pushing this who are in positions of power.

The draft guidelines - while not perfect - do make some progress - especially as they're embedded KCSIE. They are completely clear that
"schools must not allow pupils into toilets, changing rooms, or boarding or residential accommodation designated for the opposite sex, with no exceptions".
This in itself will bring to an end the pretence that children can "change sex" and is a clear legal boundary. It will also stop the adults with the predatory belief that girls must undress in front of boys, in their tracks.

No-one cares what kids are called. That's a total non issue. Anyone can change their name.

Avoiding pronouns is a way to avoid a pain in the arse parent. But if parents are insisting on it I'd consider that a safeguarding red flag. Why are they so wedded to the idea everyone must pretend their child is something other than what they materially are? It's all a bit Munchausens by proxy. If it was about literally anything else than biological sex, there would be safeguarding flags raised.

Edited to add: it's now not legal to give puberty blockers or cross sex hormones to a child so they WILL go through puberty and their biological sex WILL be obvious. Pretending to the child they can opt out of their sex is at best deep unkindness and at worst abuse.

I really hope at some point all the parents of all the girls in a school forcing them to undress in front of a boy will take a class action lawsuit. Or indeed the other way around (even though the safety issues aren't there in that direction, the dignity ones are). Because it's not just about 'balancing rights' of two people with different protection characteristics it's about completely abandoning safeguarding and forcing the vast majority of children to suffer harm because of 1 or 2 students, who could easily use a separate toilet and changing area, if needed.

It's about imposing adult wants on children to their detriment and harm. It's utterly shocking beyond belief it's been allowed to happen.

All it means is that they cannot be treated worse than a pupil without the pc of GR

It potentially means that the school can’t refuse a parental request for John to be called Susan though, as other pupils will be allowed a preferred name on the register.

I think the jury may be out on preferred pronouns. Usually the advice to those uncomfortable (I’m talking teachers as employees rather than other students) is to avoid pronouns and use names, using wrong pronouns deliberately would be an issue.

Having the pc of gender reassignment does not equal a right to use opposite sex spaces (destroying safeguarding for all other children) nor a right to force or coerce other children to use wrong-sex pronouns (aka emotional abuse as defined in KCSIE).

All it means is that they cannot be treated worse than a pupil without the pc of GR (with the same sex). And given other children aren't demanding teachers call them 'your highness' or coerce all the other children to call them 'your highness' or whatever else they fancy based on their inner feelings, then I really fail to see how this affects a schools actions at all. As long as teachers offer them the same support services as any other vulnerable pupil then there is no chance of any successful litigation.

The same cannot be said about forcing girls to submit to voyeurism, indecent exposure and sexual harrassment by forcing them to share with boys (XY) in private spaces. (edited to add as hopefully OP will very shortly be proving).

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/2024/Technical%20guidance%20for%20schools%20England%20updated%20September%202023%20-%20amended%20July%202024.docx

Which says “The Equality and Human Rights Commission (‘the Commission’) has prepared and issued this Technical Guidance on the basis of its powers to provide information and advice under s13 of the Equality Act 2006 (EA 2006).
This Guidance is not a statutory code issued under EA 2006, s14, but it may be used as evidence in legal proceedings. If education providers follow this Guidance, it may help them to avoid the court making an adverse decision in such proceedings.”

It was updated relatively recently to clarify that children can have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. That’s the legal advice.

That’s the EHRC’s interpretation of it and it is in the documents aimed at schools,

It’s what we have to work with.

This is incorrect. All that is required to acquire the protected characteristic of gender reassignment is to propose undergoing a process of transition and thus applies to children too. GRCs are irrelevant.

The protected characteristic is based on the GRC and no child can get a GRC, so schools can't use that to justify social transitioning.
Another point worth making is that Cass advised against social transitioning.