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

In fairness, the guidance could state explicit criteria for when these "exceptional" social transitions could be considered. Given that schools are not experts the guidance could say who has the expertise to make such a judgment. A letter requesting these changes from a psychiatrist, say.

And in any case social transition can't include the use of wrong-sex facilities. Names and uniform is all it can be. Guidance can't even insist that other children use wrong-sex pronouns because that's an infringement on them.

Well quite. These vulnerable children don't need to "demand" pronoun changes. They ask, they get. Sometimes they only hint, they get, adults fall over themselves to go along with it. It might be the only area of their lives where they get that much response so readily from adults.

That doesn't make it healthy or a good idea.

1. The only way to tell if children will persist is with hindsight, with what happens after children have left school and long after they have left primary school. The evidence is that around 80% will desist and there is no way to identify the other 20% who wont. Unless the schools inspectorate is handing out crystal balls there is no way to identify the minority of children who would persist. And there is no explanation of how social transition could benefit a child in any other way, we now know for example that it does not decrease suicidality. There is no way to identiify "exceptional" cases who would benefit from social transition and therefore no reason ever to include it in the guidance.

1. The Cass Review pointed out that social transition has psychological consequences. Those consequences include increasing dysphoria as the gap between social and physical widens, and an increasing need for affirmation from more people and in more situaitons. The consequences of social transition also include embedding the wish to transition more deeply and drawing children in to physical transition. Social transition extends persistence but it can't guarantee that there wont be regret much later on. Social transition creates persistence.

Sorry, my previous post was long and rambling and may have misinterpreted PPs.

To be clear, my position is:
Social transition in schools is potentially damaging to ALL children and shouldn’t happen (this includes name changes). The government guidelines should protect teachers, who should not be expected to take sides or get involved in any way

Gender questioning children are extremely vulnerable and need help from well qualified services (I don’t think these exist yet). Teachers can’t fill in for these services in the meantime.

I am the parent of one of these autistic, anxious, depressed, trans identified girls and yes she is extremely vulnerable and suggestible I think both @noblegiraffeand @womendeserveequalhumanrightsmay be saying the same thing with noble focused on the needs of vulnerable trans identified kids and women focusing on all the other children.

Both groups are important and IMO social transition at school doesn’t help either. The school my DD attended did not allow the kids to change their names on the register (even for an abbreviation) without parents’ permission. We did not give permission for this but lots of parents did. Some teachers did informally use trans identified kids’ preferred names without parents permission even after the school explicitly said they would not do this in their gender questioning kids policy (which was never published or properly explained to teachers due to not having the government guidelines to back up the school’s position).

The school never agreed to change pronouns yet a large cohort of trans identified kids persisted. IMO not using pronouns wouldn’t make a difference if names are accepted.

I think it’s crucial that the new guidance makes the point that teachers are not qualified to socially transition any child(even if parents want them to) and doing so can be harmful to this cohort; AND it is harmful to all children to coerce speech (and even thoughts). Shared toilets/ changing rooms/ sports between the sexes is clearly high risk for all and should not be allowed.

Just because I've come to a different conclusion than you doesn't mean that I don't know anything about it. I suspect that your school has done things you now feel uncomfortable about but just throwing out personal accusations will not change that.

There are several posters on here who actually have children who are 'gender questioning' who have more or less the same opinion as me. Who have been keen to safeguard their children by not pretending they can change sex and who have had to face enormous pressure and opposition from their schools. This was never in the child's best interest.

Do you really think these vulnerable children would be asking to change their names and pronouns without adults pushing it? If so, why wasn't there loads of this in the 80s?

I do have direct experience of some of these children. Yes, they're vulnerable but a name and pronoun change on the register doesn't happen for vulnerable children without someone pushing for it. Who makes the decision this will benefit them more than counselling? As Cass pointed out it's an intervention.

There is no evidence, none, that this benefits these children more than counselling would. Why are adults lying to them and setting them up for a fall?

As has been noted many times on this board, the people who benefit from this are adult male transitioners, they are the ones who've pushed this agenda in school.

@noblegiraffe You clearly have a visibility of these children that many of us don't. Please could you shed some light on what actually happens in your school when a pupil informs the school that they have had a change of gender?

You said

"I personally think that without the enforced pronouns it's highly unlikely we'd see children demanding name changes. It's all about forcing others to pretend they're the opposite sex, name change alone doesn't do that."

You have no idea about these kids, do you?

What is social transition if it's not pretending they're the opposite sex?

And there have been multiple reports that affirmation has resulted in other conditions being missed / not treated and there is no evidence at all that 'social transition' helps. So why are schools doing it? It's not in the best interests of the child, Cass recommended against it without medical involvement. Any school continuing to do it without consultant level medical advice is on thin ice IMO.

I really don't recognise your version of what's going on in schools as any way resembling mine.

Children aren't 'demanding'. There aren't 'activist teachers' 'pushing' in my school.

There are generally extremely vulnerable pupils. Remember the majority of referrals to gender clinics are female, most likely autistic, anxious, depressed, possibly traumatised. Do you think that those kids will be 'demanding' anything? Their parents aren't usually pushy but desperate for help. Teachers generally want what's best for the children and for over the last decade that has been considered to be name and pronoun changes if that is what is wanted. There has been no guidance on how to deal with this from the government and schools have generally muddled through as best they can. Respected institutions who previously gave trusted advice have been turned to in the absence of official support.

Your 'it's all about forcing others to pretend they're the opposite sex' is nothing like my experience of these kids.

If the kids aren't demanding it, who is? Is it activist teachers or their parents?

If it's an adult pushing a child into it, that's safeguarding red flag territory.

I certainly don't think teachers should be socially transitioning children without even knowing why it's happening and who's asking for it.

I don’t think there’s a secondary teacher in the country who hasn’t been asked to do that.

Your view of the type of children in secondary schools who are changing their names/pronouns also doesn’t match my experience in any way. They are usually an extremely vulnerable population who don’t ‘demand’ anything. Name changes appear on the register, pronoun changes have been communicated but I’ve never been instructed to police anything. Kids using pronouns rarely comes up as I don’t usually talk about pupils when they are not there, but name changes are usually adopted without question and kids will self-correct if they get it wrong.

Have you been asked to do that?

I personally think that without the enforced pronouns it's highly unlikely we'd see children demanding name changes. It's all about forcing others to pretend they're the opposite sex, name change alone doesn't do that.

I suspect without the pronouns coercion the rest will fall away.

People claim that ‘people change their names all the time’ but while it’s quite common for children to use a recognised shortening of their legal name as their preferred name, it is actually really uncommon for a child to change their first name to something completely different. The only examples I can think of in the last decade or so have been children from China/Hong Kong who choose an English name, and trans kids.

I find that bonkers and wonder how many architects have just followed the rules as standard till more recently- I have a relative who is an architect who when quizzed seemed to know these in relation to school building design; specifically sinks.

Whilst I understand the argument to allow other names, their birth name is a legal name. When we record incidents on Cpoms it becomes a legal record which could be read out in court if needed.

Due to historic abuse cases, schools have a legal duty to hold records for a number of years.

It is potentially a document safeguarding problem to change a name as it is an obstufication of fact.

Because I'm a teacher and it's my job.

If I am to actively socially transition a child by using, probably multiple times a lesson, a name for them which is obviously wrong-sex, a social transition which we know is more likely to put them on a pathway to irreversible medical changes, I'd quite like to be able to query that without being told that it's not important.

There's a push to profiteer from overly complicated 'solutions' (which rarely solve anything) for things that should be basic in education at the moment. No wonder there are problems with attendance! I do know a couple of people who home educated because they didn't feel their children were safe (with medical conditions) in schools.

One of whom was a qualified teacher, so the system lost a child due to failures such as those so well described above and also an experienced teacher.

So they spend money on stuff they don't use.... lovely.

My Year 9s would have driven the staff mad with those voice activated alarms! In fact if you look what happens in real life, schools turn them off, particularly the vape smoke sensing ones at exam times. They cause too much disruption.

And it doesn't solve the problem if a student collapses so suddenly they don't have time to say 'stop it' or 'help' does it?

The lack of common sense and deprioritisation of children's health and safety is staggering and depressing.

I very much hope an adult who was harmed does bring this to court as sadly it seems this is what it will take for children's safety to be prioritised.

It's bonkers they need the voice activated systems and no teenager would ever ever abuse that by shouting 'stop it' and running off... oh no... it's the world gone mad. Expensive (no doubt) technology (that may go wrong) from school budgets that can ill afford it rather than door gaps in single sex spaces so teachers and other students can use their eyes.

It would be debatable if it were illegal and schools certainly don’t want their girls and medically vulnerable children to be unsafe (well, you would hope not). The Department of Education were signing these designs off. However they say keeping children safe ultimately is the responsibility of the school.

Full height mixed sex toilets round a central sink that lead straight onto a general circulation space were supposed to be a way of stopping trouble in toilets. This is what I expect the Brighton School has a version of that the OP is fighting. Yet if you look at what happens in reality (which is also commonsense), they are much worse for girls and can be life changing for anyone having a medical emergency. We got this crazy system in schools where they have defibrillators (if people collapse) and all toilets doors are supposed to be openable outwards (if occupants collapse and the occupant’s body prevent rescue) but there’s no way of knowing if an occupant has collapsed in the place the child rushes to when feeling ill mentally or physically.

This system which some uk schools apparently have bought into, sums up the situation. Because of privacy and being mixed sex, there’s voice activated systems with ‘stop it’ and ‘help me’ presets. If there’s one thing that can show you ‘gender neutral’ toilets don’t work for safety it is that this business is needed.
https://spaces4learning.com/whitepapers/2023/09/single-use-bathroom-security.aspx

p.s. door gaps in single sex designs are cheaper, help with cleaning and ventilation, and don’t rely on the occupant to have the ability, or want to say ‘help me’ or ‘stop it’. In fact ‘stop it’ would be less likely to get to that stage in the first place.

Here’s the link attached but I will copy it out too below:

Smart Sensor Technology Is Keeping Single-Use Bathrooms in Schools Secure

Single-use restrooms in schools are becoming prime real estate for students to vape, vandalize, and more due to the lack of monitoring and witnesses in these restrooms. The shift of schools switching to single-use or gender-neutral restrooms further complicates the security of the school restrooms. This often leads to school restrooms being used for prohibited activities, such as loitering, bullying and aggression, unpermitted vaping, and even as extreme as drug usage and sexual activity. Devices like the HALO Smart Sensor are designed to help keep all school bathrooms safe through:

• Vape and THC detection
• Aggression and vandalism detection
• Motion and occupancy detection
• Alerts for Keywords, Panic Buttons and Occupancy counts
• Keeping bathrooms secure while also protecting the privacy of individuals

And here is the link to uk schools using these systems:
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-install-toilet-sensors-that-actively-listen-to-pupils/

And here is a link to children having seizures in schools due to spiked vapes and teachers doing successful cpr on children because the children have fortunately collapsed in a place where they have been seen. Children go to toilets to vape.
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/english-school-children-unwittingly-smoking-spice-spiked-vapes-finds-university-of-bath/

I know how those teachers feel which is why the full height designs need to go.

The old DfE design output specifications have gone but they are only ‘guidance’. Its little nuggets like this that are in the design guidance which I love:

Period Dignity - Where women and girls have access to period products, as and when they are required, to use in a private space (with toilet, hand washing facilities and hygienic waste disposal) that is safe and dignified.

There’s a few other nuggets that are new. Btw it’s quoting 1992 legislation for teachers now which is a start! I was told 1992 legislation didn’t apply to schools which I wondered why as surely it is a workplace. I would presume they also apply to toilets that were used by the public - workplaces have a duty to keep people safe (1974) legislation which schools are under. Children aren’t afforded such legislation!!

And there’s this from the version of British Standards way back when the 1992 legislation was created. (When is a room not a room? When it’s a cubicle- this makes it clear):
WC compartments should be self contained, but where a range of WCs is provided, each in a separate cubicle within a single room, e.g. in schools, offices, factories, public buildings and public conveniences, it simplifies ventilation, cleaning and, to some extent, supervision and prevention of wilful misuse, if the cubicle walls terminate above the floor as well as below the ceiling. These advantages are gained only at the expense of a certain degree of privacy. Where cubicles are used, the whole room in which they are situated may be regarded as a single unit for the purposes of ventilation.
Where partition walls and doors of WC cubicles are kept clear of the floor, the clearance should be not less than 100mm and not more than 150mm. Partitions and doors that terminate below ceiling level should be not less than 2 m in height from the floor.