To think that if Girl Guides is for girls, it should allow all girls to be members?

[OrchidInTheSun]

Girl guides have confirmed that if a girl identifies as a boy, they'll kick them out.

So they are no longer a single sex organisation, they are a single gender one.

Mad

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ban-for-girl-guides-who-identify-as-boys-dlj8mjk23

Swimming again use a single cubicle. My local baths has communal changing rooms with loads of cubicles

Great - we'll make sure everyone goes swimming at your local baths Mrs Arch

Plenty of school pools only have communal changing areas with no cubicles. Many of the outdoor activities Guides do (because believe it or not it's not all knitting and sparkles and baking) involve changing in a wooden hut next to the reservoir/beach/river etc which may not be as well equipped as your local baths. Similarly changing in a dorm environment or in a tent doesn't give much privacy.

Swissgemma when you talk about a vulnerable child I presume you are talking about the female girl who needs a sex-segregated space to be able to relax & talk in safety and privacy.

All children are vulnerable, none should be put above the others.

If GG want to be welcoming to children who are transitioning, then they need to be a lot more open about it, not try and pretend it doesn't have an impact on anyone.

Boys do not belong in girls' spaces. .

Race is not just skin colour.

You seem to be shocked that racial groups have many and varied cultures just like white people.

Are you seriously telling me that the reason a black person gets pulled over for having a "good car" in many places, or is attacked and berated on sight is because of the food they eat?

I'm honestly not sure if you are an out and out racist or just mind numbingly ignorant.

By living life I mean they wake up, walk, talk, eat, go to sleep female

Jesus!

Also to be clear I have never once said that as white I can chose to identify as black. I have clearly said that you cannot change skin colour. However, to repeat, race is not just black or white, it is more than that. Aspects of race can be adopted. I was merely saying I didn’t agree that race and gender are the same. I didn’t make the comparison.

Why is it ok to ostracise a vulnerable child?

Is it ostracising a boy (who 'feels like a boy') by saying 'no, you can't join girl guides because it's for girls'? The answer is no, it's not. Trans children are not the opposite biological sex- that's the whole point. Pretending that they are does nobody any favours.

It's not ostracising white kids if they can't join a black kids club.
It's not ostracising able-bodied kids if they can't join a support group for kids with disabilities
It's not ostracising neurotypical kids if they aren't given extra SEN support in school
It's not ostracising kids without dyslexia if they don't get extra time in exams

Do you not get it? It's not about ostracising anyone. It's that GG is a single sex organisation and that despite if a club is mixed sex, you follow safeguarding protocol and do not let biological males share certain spaces with biological females.

I saying that race is not just skin colour. Aspects of race have nothing to do with skin colour.

I am not saying that race is not skin colour. Not am I denying racism or profiling based on colour exists.

I am saying that race is not just skin colour.

And again. Why is it ok to ostracise a vulnerable child?

Nobody is. They are saying guides is single sex, for girls. How do you get ostracism from that?

I was merely saying I didn’t agree that race and gender are the same. I didn’t make the comparison.

And you have been utterly unable to explain WHY they are not the same.

You can't change skin colour- you can't change biological sex. You have admitted to agreeing with both these points.

Black people are oppressed because of skin colour and require extra protections and rights as a result. Women are oppressed because of biological sex (e.g. Serena playing 200-seed guy) and require extra protections and rights as a result. Why is this hard to grasp?

If they want to identify as male they have to deal with the fact they can't be part of an all female group! You can't have it both ways.

Except they are female though and a great number of them are confused, unhappy and possibly have other mental health struggles. This is why the government is looking into the meteoric 4000% rise in referrals of young girls to gender clinics.

Pushing them out of a safe, familiar environment, especially as many will not want to leave, is cruel.

You are talking as if young children and teens are always certain of who they want to be. For many gender identity will be a form of expression. Studies show that left to figure it out with support most will desist and become comfortable with themselves by adulthood.

It feels like in a lot of cases we are treating entirely normal adolescent feelings as pathologies. Acute gender dysphoria is a thing but it's not anywhere as prevalent as the numbers suggest. A high proportion of these young girls are just experiencing normal discomfort with a changing body and there is a ready made ideological movement for them to latch onto that tells them this discomfort means they are a boy.

I was merely saying I didn’t agree that race and gender are the same

Which of course, no one has said.

Race and Sex are both things we are born with and are comparable. They can't be changed fundamentally although you might use chemicals and surgery to try.

It is sex related criteria which result in women being second class from the moment they are born. You might live in a fluffy bubble where money mitigates the experience but that doesn't make it less real for the vast majority of women.

We need a clear dictionary definition of race and racism too. Race is just the morphological characteristics, and do not define identity or behaviour. The social constructs collectively called culture are something else, and do.

Personally I think a genetic boy who makes the tough decision to try life as a girl. Who decides to live every day as a girl. Who believes they are a girl. Needs support. If that child feels that they want to join guides as a girl so be it.

Girls in that group are not disadvantaged. My experiences of guiding is that it is a supportive environment to all. It would be rare that highly personal feelings etc are discussed in large groups and absolutely if a girl born as a girl chose not to share in a large group I would expect a small group option to be given. But that is no different than any group of people -you don’t open up with people you don’t feel comfortable with whatever sex/gender.

It never fails to stun me that the needs, wants and rights of those born with penises always come first.

And again. Why is it ok to ostracise a vulnerable child?

Nobody is saying it is. Read carefully. The issue is NOT with the individual trans child. The issue is with the lack of due process, transparency by the GG as an organisation.

The "Why be nasty to a trans person?" question is ALWAYS a red herring, designed to disrupt, distract and derail.

If GGs, like the Scouts, said they were changing from being single sex organisation in order to include any and all children who wanted to join them there would be a quite different discussion.

They would also have to do a lot of risk assessments, re writing of policies and considerable re branding.

But they have not been that honest. They have chosen to ignore the EA2010 and to take advice from 2 organisations whose SOLE AIMS are to increase access to all areas for trans girls / women (never any mention of trans boys / men).

They are breaking the law. EA2010 is clear and fairly concise on sex as a protected characteristic and how it does NOT clash with the rights and protections of any transgender individual.

All I, as a gender critical woman, can continue to say: This is not about transgender individuals. It is most definitely only about transgender ideology!

a genetic boy who makes the tough decision to try life as a girl. I have absolutely no words...

From the oed:

1Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics.
‘people of all races, colours, and creeds’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.1mass noun The fact or condition of belonging to a racial division or group; the qualities or characteristics associated with this.
Example sentencesSynonyms
1.2 A group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.; an ethnic group.
‘we Scots were a bloodthirsty race then’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.3 A group or set of people or things with a common feature or features.
‘the upper classes thought of themselves as a race apart’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.4Biology A population within a species that is distinct in some way, especially a subspecies.
‘people have killed so many tigers that two races are probably extinct’
More example sentences
1.5 (in non-technical use) each of the major divisions of living creatures.
‘a member of the human race’
‘the race of birds’
More example sentences
1.6literary A group of people descended from a common ancestor.
‘a prince of the race of Solomon’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.7archaic mass noun Ancestry.
‘two coursers of ethereal race’

In discussing race I was responding to someone who used race as equivalent to gender to make a point. And I disagree that they are the same.

Personally I think a genetic boy who makes the tough decision to try life as a girl. Who decides to live every day as a girl. Who believes they are a girl. Needs support. If that child feels that they want to join guides as a girl so be it.

They need support. As I said, my issue is not so much membership of a group, but the absence of regard for safeguarding by allowing mixed sex sleeping and facilities.

Girls in that group are not disadvantaged.

I think this really sums up the thinking of Gemma and others. You just don't agree that females are an oppressed group and that they should shut up and get over it. I mean, we have the vote- what more do we want? You might secretly think it about people of colour too, but you know it's not PC to say so. But when it's biological females- it's fair game.

The reason why distinctions are made between the utterly comparable race and sex categories is that although most people will grudgingly agree that race can bring about disadvantages, they don't believe sexism is a real thing. That is why when I talk about violence against women, I get woke colleagues jumping in to tell me about how violence against men is so much worse and violence against trans women is worst of all. It's just misogyny pure and simple.

I feel that it is inappropriate for people with penises to share tents and toileting facilities with girls in their teens. Teenage girls are vulnerable enough and girl guiding is a place where they shouldn't have to worry about what they might encounter in the female changing rooms.

On the flip side, why would a girl who wants to be a boy want to go to girl guides anyway? I can't think it will be a big problem as I would imagine they can't wait to leave.

How do you ‘live as a girl’?

This phrase gets thrown around a lot but what does it actually mean? Because the only it’s of my daily life that differ from my husband’s are those to do with BIOLOGY.

We are both wearing jeans and s long sleeved t shirt today. We both took turns holding a baby with a cold upright all night so the other could sleep. We have similar jobs. The ONLY bits of our lives that differ are BIOLOGICAL.

He can’t breastfeed the baby. I can’t piss standing up.

what does it mean to live as a woman?

In discussing race I was responding to someone who used race as equivalent to gender to make a point. And I disagree that they are the same.

They are entirely comparable, Gemma. Why can't you answer the question of why they are not comparable? Why?

I have to use the analogy to make the point because it illustrates how deeply offensive this movement is. If I don't use the analogy, people don't get it, because their misogyny is so ingrained as to make it impossible to grasp that point. They can't see the issue with Pips Bunce being on a list of female leaders. However, they might start to see the point when we talk about white people taking awards meant for black people.

And as I said, Gemma, I am waiting for your explanation as to why race and sex are not COMPARABLE. (Not THE SAME, comparable).

Susan where am I backtracking hugely? It’s utterly disingenuous to say if you speak out about it you will be made to leave. Do you not think it was the manner in which Helen and the other leader spoke out which has resulted in their expulsion. Don’t get me wrong (as it appears you would like to do as I am not falling in line with your “resign or you are complicit” stance) I admire Helen and her sacrifice enormously but let’s not pretend the media storm she (quite rightly) caused is the reason why she is out.
Again back at ground level leaders have been talking about this with mounting concern for a while. It takes time to galvanise action because we are scattered units that run for an hour or two once a week and leaders at district or division level only rarely meet up. A lot of Guiders have not had to address this issue head on before, because the issue of accepting trans-girls and trans-women into our own units has never (and in all likelyhood will never) happen. The recent email to parents and Guiders will have changed that and more conversations I hope will occur with feedback heading back up to GGHQ. I cannot have conversations with girls, my other unit Guiders, or at district or division level, and feedback our concerns if I am no longer a member of Girlguiding. You still think I can help make change happen if I just give up?

Who believes they are a girl. Needs support.

And again, nobody has said otherwise. Needs support !=Must be encouraged to enter sex segregated spaces.

Girls in that group are not disadvantaged

Based on what? Your "beliefs and assumptions" from your bubble? You do realise that Guiding has made great efforts to be a space for girls from strict religious backgrounds who would be pulled out. It makes a space for female victims of male abuse, most of who you will not even know about.

Your assumption that the girls already in the groups are of no consideration compared to the boy who thinks he is a girl shows you centre the trans girl over all the needs of the girls in the group.

Your complacent assumption that men and older boys won't abuse that is to ignore all the evidence about the lengths predatory men will go to to attack women and girls.

Hey but who cares if a bunch of girls miss out on Guiding or get assaulted as a result of this? I mean they are so disposable that vast numbers are aborted before birth on grounds of biological sex.