Furious: Girl Guides now admitting boys

[shinynewusername]

Sorry for DM link but this is important. Brownies and Guides are going to admit boys if they identify as girls. Girls will have to share 'single sex' facilities including tents & changing rooms with them. Parents won't be told. Oh, and men who identify as women can become Brownie & Guide leaders, where they will get to supervise girls in those tents, changing rooms etc.

How is this possible? There is an epidemic of sexual abuse. We are still in the fall-out of Rotherham, Saville etc yet we are enabling men to have access to every safe space for girls. AIBU?

Ifitquacks:

"Because a boy may say he's a girl it doesn't make him one. Making children change in front of the opposite sex despite them being uncomfortable about it, is wrong. It's telling girls that their feelings don't count.
They are allowed to feel uncomfortable changing in front of 'real' boys but not ones who think they're girls. There's no difference from the girl's point of view - just what's inside the boy's head."

YES!

This has been said on another thread but not really discussed here. What is sad for me is that Guiding is supposed to be about busting gender stereotypes.

Gender is just stereotypes. e.g. Girls have long hair and don't like getting dirty or climbing trees.

By becoming single-gender rather than single-sex the organisation is saying that gender is more important than sex.

I love GG and I don't think girls wouldn't be safe in a multi-sex group. It's that the whole point of GG is empowering girls and as someone on another thread said: GG, by accepting the idea of gender instead of sex, are reinforcing the stereotypes that they are supposed to be smashing.

Gender is just stereotypes about what girls and women should be like.

By becoming single-sex the organisation loses it's whole purpose.

A trans girl is just as likely to be a lesbian as a naturally born girl.

A trans-girl being a lesbian is not the same as a girl being a lesbian. A transgirl being a lesbian has a penis. The same as any other heterosexual coupling.

Women have been sharing their spaces with lesbians for years. But as 98% of sexual crime is not committed by lesbians it's never been a problem. Calling a man lesbian does not put that man into any category of lesbian that has any kind of similarity to a lesbian.

Seriously. You cannot believe that. These are the same male lesbians who are telling actual lesbians that they are bigoted and discriminatory for not sleeping with them, despite the presence of a penis.

I used to volunteer with Rainbows and Brownies and this makes me very uncomfortable.

Adult leaders of either sex don't share tents or get changed with the girls. That isn't the issue here. It's that a boy who 'identifies' as a girl will be allowed to do so, and that so-called best practice is for neither the girls nor their parents to be told.

Scouts is a mixed-sex organisation. I've never been involved with Scouting, but I presume that when they go camping, there are separate tents for boys and girls. Just as on school residentials the boys and girls sleep in different rooms. They're separated on the basis of biological sex, not genderfeels.

I wouldn't have wanted to share a room or tent with a boy when I was a teenage girl, regardless of how he identified. Some teenage girls might be happy to - the point is that with their policy, the Guides are saying that the only option for a girl who is uncomfortable with this is to leave. Girls from conservative or religious families, or anyone else who objects to sharing a changing room with a male teenager will no longer be able to take part in Guiding, and I think that's disappointing, to say the least.

Why should the feelings of a gender-dysphoric boy who would like to be a Girl Guide matter more to the organisation than the feelings of actual girls? If it's just about being inclusive, why not let any boy join?

would you prefer this reaction?
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/28/transgender-boy-scouts-new-jersey

Looneytune - how do you "live as a woman" then?

*Datun
Your reference does not deconvolute for sexual crimes
"criminal conviction during follow-up was counted; specifically, violent crime was defined as homicide and attempted homicide, aggravated assault and assault, robbery, threatening behaviour, harassment, arson, or any sexual offense"

*Stealth
I disagree on your statement regarding equality (or what it is not) in term of the right of trans children (and their parents) trumping anyone's to a single sex space and right to privacy. That's it. I am not asking you to change opinion. I just do not agree.

Overnight women and girls have lost their right to meet without a male being present, that's really going to help with their fight for equality.

@Celaena, you voiced my views and much more articulately than I could.

I am the mother of two girls and guess what, I welcome that the doors are open to boys now, I like that my children are able to take part in groups if that they so wish that are not closed or bigoted, that welcome all and are not divisive.

The transphobia on MN is horrible, and it makes me very sad that there are so many people out there who are still so bigoted.

Dame - I do somehow see your point. Not being able to share a tent with other girls who share the same sex than you as assigned at birth, in the context of the Guides.

But then - they still have a choice - to walk away and set-up elsewhere if they believe their right is eroded. Others will not perceive this as an erosion of their right, if they believe in a truly equal society where gender is never relevant.

Bottom line - I feel sorry for the transgender kids (despite never having yet met any who fit the description) - as they do not fit anywhere under this thinking. I also feel sorry for boys and their parents - with being male / having a penis being readily linked with lack of positive moral attributes (may these be respect, self-restraint, or else).

hear hear, Mistress.
Exactly the same here.

No worries about the pedophile angle. But I would be concerned that boys (or men) who identify as girls (and women) won't have the same empathy and personal experience that young girls need e.g. periods, body changes, sex etc. Their experience is very different and would be a distraction. Not to devalue it, but it is different. Since brownies/guides is single gender, and scouts is not, perhaps scouts is a better fit?

Here we go again...

So just because 'Danielle Muscato' isnt making 'any effort' then all the trans are bad? and by effort, do you mean she should be wearing skirts and make up and no facial hair? (remember not so long ago, all 'the gays were peados' too)

Celaena no, that's not at all what I mean. I was addressing a pp's post that all trans people work hard at presenting as the other gender, up to and including gender realignment surgery. Many trans people do not do this, Danielle Muscato being a case in point. I don't expect any woman to wear a skirt and make up and no facial hair.

I do take exception to trans women who keep their penises and tell lesbians they're transphobic for not wanting to sleep with their female dicks, but that's another thread I feel.

living as a woman

For a woman:
Having periods and period pain
Fear of being pregnant
Angst at not being pregnant
Breastfeeding
Problems with breastfeeding
Gynae problems
Gestating and giving birth
Street harassment and catcalling
Growing up in an environment that sexualises young girls and women.
Sexual harassment from school right the way through to (hopefully) menopause.
Menopause
Endemic sexism and discrimination in the workplace
Wife work (optional, but still mostly falls to women)
Globally: FGM, honour killings, having to stay at home/from school for one week each month due to no sanitary products.

Living as a woman is a reality for all women that cannot be replicated due to the way somebody feels inside their head. However hard that may be.

A young woman who identified as a man was raped in the back of a taxi. She went to the police, sobbing and kept saying, 'but I told him I was a man'. Unfortunately she could not identify out of her biology.

A man living as a woman by presenting as such will rarely be perceived as one. Nor will he have the real life experience of being one.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't enjoy the female persona that he craves. But it is just that.

I spotted this quote regarding scouts:

"Earlier this year, the Boy Scouts told the Associated Press that it would admit transgender children to its coeducational programs, but not to programs that are for boys only, like the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts."

Shouldn't this also apply to Girl Guides?

Walk away and set up elsewhere....fab, just fab.

And you are not assigned a sex at birth, assigned means allocated. Sex is observed at birth, there are two sexes and a small amount of people are intersex. Being a girl is not a feeling in someones head, an unhappy boy disappointed with his lot is not a girl.

Jax, but girls have to be nice and inclusive, even if it hurts them.

The transphobia on MN is horrible, and it makes me very sad that there are so many people out there who are still so bigoted.

It is not bigoted not to agree with self identification.

Do you realise the impact the word 'transphobia' has on transgender children?

'Transphobia' now prevents them from being able to access help from mental health professionals.

'Transphobia' now pushes children who are struggling with gender dysphoria/gender identity disorder down a path of blockers and hormones and surgeries.

'Transohobia' now means that children who are struggling down this path are being pushed to use facilities in schools for the sex they present as, whether they want to or not, so the schools can claim they are inclusive.

'Transphobia' means it's near impossible to find a private counsellor who doesn't follow the line of convincing children that they are not their biological sex for fear of being accused of being a bigot.

Just who do you think you are helping by screaming transphobia and bigotry? It certainly isn't the people you think you're defending.

Jax I don't know where that quote came from, but Cubs and Scouts are already open to boys and girls, there are a lot of girls in DS' pack.

Personally I am sick of the homophobia that is pushing young gay kids down a road filled with puberty blockers, chest binding and living their lives limited by outdated fifties stereotypes.

drugging children, removing healthy body tissue, all because people are scared of being called trans phobic.

Others will not perceive this as an erosion of their right, if they believe in a truly equal society where gender is never relevant.

Gender isn't relevant, it's made up stereotypes about the sexes.

Sex, however IS relevant and is the reason why women are paid less (for the person who said the wage gap isn''t real. It is. Mainly because women give birth), are aborted in favour of males, are left to die in sheds because periods www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-38384889.

If females were treated equally there would be no need for GG to be single sex. It's whole purpose is/was empowering females.

Today 11:30 MarasmeAbsolu

*Datun
Your reference does not deconvolute for sexual crimes
"criminal conviction during follow-up was counted; specifically, violent crime was defined as homicide and attempted homicide, aggravated assault and assault, robbery, threatening behaviour, harassment, arson, or any sexual offense"

I don't know what deconvolute means (despite googling it). But I think you are saying they didn't specifically include sexual crime in the stats? Even though the collective term 'violence' was used.

I'm wondering if that might be due to stats for sexual crime being distinguished by sexual orientation?

Men who identify as women but remain attracted to men tend not to have autogynephilia. Men who remain attracted to women do tend to. one of the drives to transition is sexually underlined - but maybe only for the latter group.

Either way, both groups appear to retain male pattern violence which certainly makes the 'I AM a woman' rhetoric questionable. And the resultant demand to access even more so.