This was the first web chat question I have put forward, despite being a mumsnetter for over a decade.
Mumsnet told me about the web chat. Though I can't remember if it was directly on the forum or on their Facebook group.
So I searched the forum for NSPCC and found the web chat questions thread and posted my question.
"I would like to know the difference between a boy and a boy who indentify as a girl ?
No child can have a GRC, so all children are biological and legally their birth sex.
There must BE a difference as a standard boy is subject to many safe guarding rules, where as a boy saying he feels like a girl is subject to none !
How does declaring an unverified internal feeling mean safeguarding rules can be ignored ?"
I am concerned with the breaking down of safeguarding rules which are in place to protect females (I.e. girls and transboys).
Plus I am also concerned that a minority of teenage boys will use these rules to upset females.
My 12yo daughter is very pretty and starting to develop. She has to wear cycle shorts under her school skirt, as boys stand under the stairs with gaps, in order to take upskirting pictures. This is IN school.
When my child walks home from the bus stop. Teenage boys film her walking down the street whilst shouting 'banter' at her.
I have told her to report the first set of boys again and ignore the local ones.
She needs a break from the male gaze and the thought that any cheeky boy who is willing to say "I am a girl" being allowed to follow her into the toilets and changing rooms, makes me worry.
Any boy willing to push into female space knowing the distress he will cause, is precisely the boy who needs to be kept out.
All children are legally and biological their birth sex, a third space should be created for those children who don't want to use the bathroom for their sex.
Safeguarding rules need to apply to everyone and in relation to reality of biological bodies. Not ignored when a boy claims to have an internal feeling, which does not decrease the risk he poses to the girls over any other boy.
Interestingly girls who claim to be boys are happy to stay in female spaces. Strange that female bodied people have a good grasp of how to keep themselves safe.
The exception being female Gavin in USA. The boys and the boys parents sited embarrassment and lack of privacy as issues when a girl wants to share with boys. The boys didn't like it and initially the boys opinion took priority, like it always does over the opinion of a girl.
I am very disappointed that the NSPCC refused to answer any questions. I want to be reassured. I want to know the right way of protecting my young daughter as she grows into a young woman. If my daughter who is confident and speaks up for herself is having so many daily incidents from boys, how her shyer peer group is coping I don't know.
My daughter is human and deserves the right to live her life free of street harassment. Until that day arrives, she deserves female only spaces where she isn't followed by boys. Spaces to regroup or call home.
Boys with biological male bodies do not belong in female spaces.
Feelings do not change this fact !