All - girls school accepted a trans pupil and refused to admit it

No idea about other LAs but it was definitely a birth certificate that was sent.

However I looked at the admissions documents for last year and interestingly nowhere are people asked to confirm sex. The birth certificate was to control for age

It's been ages since I added my children to the school admissions system.

Does it definitely require a birth certificate as ID or would a passport suffice?

The policy should also cover trips and accommodation.

If a school is going to include any boys at all then it needs the same safeguarding policies as a mixed school and most (if not all) of the same facilities. Because that's what it is, even if boys are a minority of one.

Fo example the policy should make it clear that a boy will not be sharing toilets or changing facilities with girls and will not be taking part in contact sports with girls or in other sports (eg volleyball) where his sex would pose a physical danger to girls.

In terms of discrimination a policy might also say that boys wont be eligible for competitions that are based on sex such as sports competions where their sex would give a competitive advantage over girls.

The school has lied about having a boy in the same changing rooms as girls

it is not protecting the boy (and he IS a boy because self ID is not the law in the UK)

it is not protecting the girls

school changing rooms must be single SEX

What an annoying headline. Girls' schools should be accepting "trans pupils". Non-binary girls, girls who want to be boys, "transboys", etc.

The pupils they shouldn't be accepting are boys. And if for some reason they do accept a boy (Derry Girls!) or udner "Social and Medical" then they have to be very cafeful that they are properly safeguarding all the girls.

The school might be allowed to discriminate in favour of accepting this boy under the Equality Act if they could argue it's a proportionate way to educate a very unusual boy in a way that works for him and that couldn't be provided by a boys' or mixed-sex school. But it's still a safeguarding issue although it's difficult for a parent to pursue it if their own DD doesn't encounter this boy personally. A complaint would have to be more generic, about having satisfactory safeguarding policies and procedures in place rather than about an individual pupil.

Thanks for the legal run down but without a GRC - which isn’t available to under 18s - the pupil in question has a male birth certificate.

Gender are-Assignment is irrelevant to schools admissions procedures which are clearly based on sex. Gender self ID isnt legal and shouldn’t be relevant in this situation

School applications are usually very strict computerised affairs and require submission of a birth certificate.

So there’s no way of “arguing” your case in any way based on the usual admissions criteria of sex and distance. You upload your details, they are verified by the LA and if acceptable they are passed through into the computer sorting system.

The only way you can possibly navigate this set of rules to get a boy into a girls school is if the LA have other criteria which might permit this situation - which is unbelievably tightly controlled because people go to great lengths to get their kids into a school of choice… usually by adjusting their address in some way.

All LAs are different but the only two possible criteria i can think of (if they exist in OP’s area and will depend on the specific wording) are:
a) Social & Medical
b) Teacher’s own children

If this boy has been admitted with a male birth certificate under the regular distance criteria then the LA have broken their own rules snd are acting unlawfully. If they have used a different entry criteria to permit this, then they may have acted within their admissions rules, but theyve acted unlawfully under the EA by discriminating against all men and disadvantaging the girl who wasn’t accepted when the boy was.

He has no “right” to a single sex girl’s space in law while she does. Trouble is that she won’t know she was bumped by a boy because it’s all secret. OP may find it difficult to get support from the parents in the school but anyone who’s daughter failed to get a place that year is going to be right behind her if she can get the word out!!

I hadn't been aware (or perhaps had forgotten) that parents could change the sex on their child's passport.

So yes......

The school potential has potentially accepted the child based on a passport that says "female". This would mean that according to the school's system, the child is a girl.

The school would be able to say it had fulfilled its legal obligation to collect and record the sex of the child. So if neither the child nor the parents actually say to the school "my daughter is a biological male", the school will be in a position where it acts as if the child is a girl.

I've now got the "her penis, you bigot" Ricky Gervais sketch playing in my head, imagining a scenario where all the "girls" are in the changing room and this "girl" accidentally/purposefully strips down and everyone gets an eyeful of "her" penis.

I assume the school would refuse to accept that there was a boy in the changing room because "her" passport says male.

As it's against the law for biological males to enter single-sex girls' changing rooms, I assume the school has broken the law by allowing this to happen. I wonder if the Passport Office has also broken the law by providing the ID that allowed this to happen? I can well imagine the school doing exactly what the IOC did in the Olympics re the boxing: "this child is a female because her passport says she is." Obviously there won't be cheek swabs and genetic testing as part of the school's admission process... so what next?

Edited for errors.

Then the school is teaching what is not true, which makes them inadequate as a school, to say the least. They are teaching a lie. It's on a par with teaching creationism. I'd move my child somewhere decent, especially if paying.

it's legally impossible for anyone under 18 to obtain ID that says they are the opposite sex

It depends what you mean by ID. As long as Birth Certificates are used for ID, it is all fine and hunky dory.

With passports, the parents of a child under the age of 16 can obtain a passport for the child that says they are the opposite sex. So can the Local Authority if it has Parental Responsibility under a Care Order.

For 16-17 year olds, the Passport Office assumes that the application will be made by the "young person", who will require parental consent - although exceptions can be made. (Consent from Local Authority if it has Parental Responsibility.)

Change of gender: child and young adult applications

"This section tells HM Passport Office staff how to deal with an application for someone under the age of 18 years who has asked for a change of gender. This section includes information about parental consent you may need to change a child or young adult’s gender on a passport.

As with an adult application, medical confirmation and change of name evidence will be needed (see Names - change of name passport applications) although it is likely to be different to the evidence for an adult.

You, the examiner, must deal with a change of gender application for a child or young adult (16 to 17 years old) sensitively.

HM Passport Office will apply discretion to how we deal with each individual case and there are some exceptions we can apply if a young adult cannot get consent. These exceptions only apply to young adults and do not apply to children under the age of 16."

More info at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gender-recognition/gender-recognition-accessible#change-of-gender-child-and-young-adult-applications

The school wouldn't have known the sex of the child before offering the place, as they dont get sight of any checking documents submitted to the LA and there is no way of knowing that the column marked gender actually meant gender identity and not sex this time, even if female isnt a gender identity, it's a sex category.

Once they've offered, they still may not have known, as primaries can be very cagey about sharing information despite legal requirements to do so.

There is also the consideration that this may not be true and it's actually for clicks.

It's in every lesson, not just PSHE, it is shoe horned in everywhere as a backdrop to discuss History, Geography, even maths.

I don't know how many different lessons it appears in at my daughters' school - I did try and find out how the governance on lesson content worked, but got no clarity.

It turns out that today in Spanish the lesson covered how to say "I identify as a girl/boy".

Appalling abuse of all the children subjected to this indoctrination by schools! It has to be stopped!

how does the LA justify giving a place to a male when under 18s cant have a GRC?

If this is to do with provisions under the Equality Act 2010 (I don't know if that is the case, just assuming) then acquisition of a GRC is not relevant because the EA2010 Protected Characteristic of Gender Reassignment includes school children.

EA2010 does not specify a minimum age limit for the PC of GR:

7 Gender reassignment

(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.

(2)A reference to a transsexual person is a reference to a person who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

(3)In relation to the protected characteristic of gender reassignment—

(a)a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a transsexual person;

(b)a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to transsexual persons.

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

Section 85 mentions pupils with the PC of GR:

85 Pupils: admission and treatment, etc.

10. In the application of section 26 for the purposes of subsection (3), none of the following is a relevant protected characteristic—

(a) gender reassignment;

(b) religion or belief;

(c) sexual orientation.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/85

EA2010 Explanatory Notes mention that transsexual pupils are protected from discrimination:

EA2010 Explanatory Notes

Section 85: Pupils: admission and treatment, etc.

295. This section is primarily designed to replicate the effect of provisions in current legislation applying to schools. In addition, it extends protection from discrimination to transsexual pupils and pupils who become pregnant.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/6/1/2

Shockingly, the GRA2004 does not set a minimum age limit for diagnosis of "transsexualism":

GRA 2004:

25 Interpretation

“gender dysphoria” means the disorder variously referred to as gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder and transsexualism,

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/25

The GRA does however set a minimum age (18) for application for a GRC:

1 Applications
(1)A person of either gender who is aged at least 18 may make an application for a gender recognition certificate on the basis of—

(a)living in the other gender, or

(b)having changed gender under the law of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom.

+++++

This is how the concept of the "transgender child" aka "transsexual child" was smuggled into UK legislation.

It might be argued that the concept of "gender identity" as some sort of "inner essence" was also smuggled into the GRA 2004, in the reference to "gender identity disorder". However, even transactivist Law Professor Stephen Whittle and Lewis Turner could not settle in this 2007 mind-bendingly muddled article whether they thought the GRA2004 reflected a "new cultural concept of gender identity" or whether it was the same thing as "gender" or actually the determinant of "sex".

Whittle, S and Turner, L (2007) ”Sex changes’? Paradigm shifts in ’sex’ and ’gender’ following the gender recognition act?’. Sociological Research On-line, 12 (1). pp. 1-15. ISSN 1360-7804
https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/621107/

Whittle was busy advising Parliamentarians on both the GRA2004 and relevant sections of the EA2010 so we have her to thank for the "gold plating" of both, going well beyond what was actually required of the UK Government.

The only way I can see this being possible is if there is a “Social & Medical” criteria by which the application could be made/approved by the LA?

ETA - OP does that criteria exist in your LA area?

That part of the EA is interesting. Exceptional might refer to gender identity but how does the LA justify giving a place to a male when under 18s cant have a GRC?

By admitting a male they are disadvantaging a female and simultaneously discriminated against all males.

The LA cant pick and choose which admissions criteria they apply. If they are allowed all sorts of exceptions then the religious criteria have to be ignorable or distance or teacher’s children etc etc

Thank you for clarifying the law. Very useful to know that and then separate out the different issues, eg. regular boy admitted to the school in "exceptional" circumstances vs school complicit in misleading other children and their parents about the sex of a male pupil.

seems like an official complaint to the school, then if that is unsuccessful/exhausted then a complaint to the complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman? Whats the route to get this completely unlawful activity resolved?

Forget the FWS/SC timings.

School secondary applications require submission of a birth certificate as part of the submission. A child cant get a GRC so somehow the LA accepted a male on to roll.

This means the LA broke their own admissions criteria. Thats illegal?!?

Under the EA2010, single sex girls' schools are allowed to admit boys if their admission to the schools is "exceptional", and still be counted as a girls' (only) school. See Schedule 11 part 1.

I presume though that such a boy still has to be provided with boy's toilet and changing facilities; admission of a boy to a girls' school doesn't remove the need for appropriate safeguarding etc.

On safeguarding, since the child has identified as female since primary school does that mean they will have started on puberty blockers before going through male puberty? If so, I guess that means some of the safeguarding worries associated with having an adolescent male in a female space would be diluted.

I disagree about safeguarding. Regardless of what treatment this boy has or hasn’t had and irrespective of how he dresses and presents, the school have permitted a male into female spaces. Toilets where girls are dealing with their first periods, changing rooms when adolescent girls are dealing with novel changes to their bodies, and potentially sleeping accommodation on residential trips. On top of that, the school has lied to and gaslit a whole cohort of girls into thinking that their privacy and dignity is worthless. They have taught them not to believe the evidence in front of their eyes and have forced them to be complicit in a lie. What is the point of educating young people to think critically and then binding them in a lie?

Teachers first duty is to safeguard their students and they have manifestly failed here.

Sounds as if the student was accepted by the school before the Supreme Court judgement on the basis of legal advice given to the school at the time.
Many organisations received legal advice saying that transgender status was a protected characteristic and that transgender individuals had to be treated as the gender with which they identified. The Supreme Court has said that interpretation was wrong but I have some sympathy for the school here.

On safeguarding, since the child has identified as female since primary school does that mean they will have started on puberty blockers before going through male puberty? If so, I guess that means some of the safeguarding worries associated with having an adolescent male in a female space would be diluted. They could quietly introduce a separate changing room and loo arrangement though.

The school is still in a difficult place because the D of E has still not come out with clear cut guidance on what schools should do. Should they now remove this child? Given that they admitted them knowing they were male, I imagine the legal process will be long and drawn out and the child will have left the school before a resolution is found. They also have to consider the well being of this child.

I recognise all the arguments around girls’ boundaries but I am not sure that

an individual and hopefully unusual case like this is the right place to focus. Much better to continue to press the D of E to issue clear guidance for all schools as quickly as possible and avoid any repetition of this scenario.

Speaking from direct knowledge, this is happening all the time in Brighton.

All Sorts https://allsortsyouth.org.uk visit the classroom and ram home the 50 genders thing, they clearly state this is fact and anyone who objects needs reeducation.

It's in every lesson, not just PSHE, it is shoe horned in everywhere as a backdrop to discuss History, Geography, even maths

It happens from a very early age, we are talking below 10, getting them early - telling impressionable children, who trust their teachers - because every parent told them to - and now they have been conditioned to not notice, not object and not do anything about the Cuckoo who has been placed in their toilets, changing rooms and classrooms.

Inclusion - yay!

Pity about the girl who was excluded from a place at this over-subscribed school because a boy wanted it.