To wish this 13 year old girl the best of luck and hope she is successful?

[Whatisthisfuckery]

A 13 year old girl is taking Oxfordshire County Council to court over its transgender toolkit for schools. According to the toolkit students who identify as trans can choose with which sex they get changed, or with whom they share a room on over night school trips.

This is madness, right? Potentially letting teenage boys get their kit off with the girls or share a dorm? When my DS has been on residentials he’s not known in advance who he’s sharing a room with, I just assume, naively, that the rooms will be single-sex.

Kids who are trans need to be supported and made to feel comfortable, but surely that shouldn’t come at the expense of everybody else?

AIBU to hope this 13 year old girl wins her case and gets this nonsense out of schools? As I understand it it’s not just Oxfordshire that would be affected. There are toolkits like this throughout the country, so if it’s ruled unlawful in court all of them will have to come down.

Sorry for the DM link.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7971457/Girl-13-launches-High-Court-fight-block-councils-advice-trans-pupils.html

I’ve also found an article in the Oxford Mail, for those of you who understandably don’t want to click on the DM.

www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/18213788.oxfordshire-girl-seeks-judicial-review-trans-toolkit/

Areyoureallylistening, I'm so sorry for what your DD has been through. She seems to have encountered the perfect storm of whistle-blowing girls being disbelieved, trans being the top-trumps of protected characteristics, and the fact that some schools are just shit at dealing with bullying - particularly online bullying. I'm glad she has some teachers looking out for her at the very least.

Rachel97, perhaps you're one of the lucky women who have never experienced sexual harassment, let alone anything worse.

But most women are all too aware that men as a class represent a risk to women as a class, which is why we have sex segregated spaces. And there is no evidence that things are getting better for girls.

There is widespread sexual harassment and abuse of girls at school, including on average one rape every school day.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/dec/12/are-we-ignoring-an-epidemic-of-sexual-violence-in-schools.

Quimreaper as far as I know Oxford and Warwickshire are the only councils to have published explicit guidance to schools, but many schools have been infiltrated independently by organisations like Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence, Allsorts, The Kite Trust, etc. If you go onto your child’s school website and look for their equality policies you should find reference to who they have used for guidance.

All this seems to be being done on the assumption that transgirls are gay, isn't it?

Can you be more precise by what you mean "gay"?

Do you mean the standard, accepted definition where a male likes other males, i.e. is homosexual (regardless of either's clothes, name or other identity preferences) .

Or the new wokey-cokey version where a male who likes females is now able to class himself as a lesbian, i.e. a female homosexual (regardless of either's clothes, name or other identity preferences)

As you specified "gay", I assume you don't mean the boring old "male who likes females, i.e. hetereosexual" (regardless of either's clothes, name or other identity preferences)?)

Arguably you would feel worse changing in front of the same sex if they were homosexual (as they have attraction to your sex) than a transgender person that identifies as heterosexual?

I think it's already been mentioned that this is veering towards homophobia. And that girls are at risk from boys as a class due to strength difference and structural power imbalance and the fact girls can be impregnated.

I just want to add that the conflation of sexual assault, which is about power, and sexual attraction, is extremely damaging. It is hard enough when rape prosecution is at such a low.

Look at those on twitter defending the middle aged SNP guy's texts to the 16 year old boy and calling detractors homophobic. These attitudes are dangerous for our children.

Lesbian school girls are not raping their female co students at the rate of one a day - it’s the boys who are doing that.

It makes me want to cry that teenage girls are not allowed any space away from boys, even when they are changing and sleeping.

SarahTancredi thank you for reminding everyone about the girl guides situation. I would love a 13yo girl guide to challenge GGUK on this matter. No guider is allowed to protect the youth members any more, so it will have to be a girl member. (Unless KA’s case is successful).

Rachel97
I very much hope that separate sex loos and change rooms are kept. Perhaps you had a breeze with your periods as a teen but I (and now my daughter) have heavy flooding type periods. I could never have used any shared facility eVen if it had floor to ceiling walls and doors and a basin inside. Just the pressure to hurry up and get out of there while someone would be kicking on the floor etc to hurry me along would be enough to put me off using them let alone the embarrassment of boys being around. Therefore, I probably would not go to school on those days.

Plus sexual harassment was rife at my school. And from reports from my daughter and her friends, it hasn’t changed.

@Blackandgreenteas

In all this transgender stuff, the meanings of words are getting lost and it is hard to speak plainly. I mean the authorities and guidance is assuming that the boys who identify as girls are only attracted to males. The implied "transing the gay away" is right there.

I have a 3 week old and by the time he's a teenager, I totally expect same sex spaces to have pretty much been phased out, and why not?

On top of all the other points that have already been raised, you do realise Rachel that Britain is multicultural and Orthodox Jews, Sikhs and Muslims will be forced to terminate their education early rather than sleep and undress in the presence of males.

I seem to be a little alone with my opinion here

Perhaps you'd like to have a think about why that is @Rachel97

Ah i see, thanks! I was confused that you were saying attraction to girls made them gay, as “trans girls” but you were actually using it in the same way i would 🤦🏻‍♀️

*And that girls are at risk from boys as a class due to strength difference and structural power imbalance and the fact girls can be impregnated.

I just want to add that the conflation of sexual assault, which is about power, and sexual attraction, is extremely damaging. It is hard enough when rape prosecution is at such a low.*

^^
This is another thing I’d like to have said!

All this seems to be being done on the assumption that transgirls are gay, isn't it?

I do wonder whether some of the more naive proponents of this ideology assume that transgirls must be exclusively sexually attracted to boys so pose no possible threat to girls. It's the only explanation that makes any sense (though they must be incredibly dim).

When was public consent obtained for these radical policies?

Never.

Someone, somewhere, is expecting people to just put up with it. I am in no doubt they are watching to see how far they can go with it. If you shrug and say it’s fine the goalposts will move.

Areyoureallylistening That's dreadful - your poor DD. What a spiteful, sick and perverted world these people live in.

And since when did a "dick pic" become a "just"?

Or, equally arguably, not. I'm happy to change in front of lesbian or straight women. I am not happy to change in front of gay men

It's not about sexual attraction. It's about sex of bodies

Exactly!

I feel now this is becoming a big issue, they need to organise their school residential trips at venues that can cater for boys, girls, boys who identify as girls and girls who identify as boys ... so that all 4 categories can be catered for. If there is only one or two of the transgender boys, they could share a room or have a room of their own ... similarly if there was only one girl or one boy, you'd expect a room of their own.

Can anyone tell me how widely distributed these "Toolkits" are?

They're everywhere. A search for 'council trans school guidance' brings up 'toolkits' for Brighton, Leeds, Shropshire, East Sussex, Leeds, Denbighshire, Bath, Cornwall, Wrexham and Berkshire just in the first couple of pages.

YADNBU Go Miss A.

YANBU. It’s shameful that the adults have left the building and left a young girl to fight alone for her rights to dignity, privacy and safety. Which are already enshrined in law - a fact which is being ignored and misrepresented by some deeply dodgy lobby groups.

Good luck to her. This madness has got to stop. For all the binary hating, why are there not trans spaces? Why do they want to be part of binary spaces?

My worst and most prolonged experience of serious harassment came when I was twelve and from boys in my class.
They were utterly brazen and it was just written off as boys being naughty. I have no doubt that the worst of those offenders wouldn't have thought twice about identifying as female to make my (and other girls) life worse by forcing us to get changed in front of them. They would have thought it hilarious and were more than capable of putting on angelic faces when they wanted.
It fills me with absolute horror that not only does nothing seem to have improved since I was at school, but that there will be woke teachers actively supporting this kind of boy and chastising the girls speak up.

Arguably you would feel worse changing in front of the same sex if they were homosexual (as they have attraction to your sex) than a transgender person that identifies as heterosexual?

Erm..no. Not at all.

No problem changing when lesbians are there, they are women. Its male people who I want out of female spaces, sexuality matters not one bit.

Serious question: is this something which is now making difficulties in private boarding schools? Mixed-sex dormitories have as far as I know never happened in such schools (even Dartington which was amazingly relaxed about adolescents and sex, though I might be wrong about that): what do they do about it if their pupils transition? Hope they have enough pupils going in each direction to make up transitioning dormitories? I have no idea, and I would like to know, not because I have a personal interest but just because I am interested full stop.

areyoureallylistening

I am so very very sorry that your daughter has been subjected to that