To ask if you are OK with your daughter's subs being spent on this?

[KatieAlcock]

I've just come to update you on my case against Girlguiding, where they expelled me for raising safeguarding concerns and for asking why we had to believe in inner gender identity to be a leader.
Girlguiding have spent AT LEAST £35,000 and probably more like £100,000 of the subs you pay for your daughter to go to Rainbows, Brownies or Guides, on defending a case against me, a committed leader who wants to make sure girls are safe and leaders have freedom of expression.

Full text of my update in the next post so as not to bore you to death!

@OneEpisode oh wow, that is not acceptable. My daughter is in GG and I had no idea.

Ihavelostit GG leaders are great and cope with problems incredibly well.
But this policy maybe meant well but needs people like Katie to challenge it!

@OneEpisode thank you for the link just having a read

@KatieAlcock

GG have no safeguarding policy for males on overnight trips Actually they do. If Mr Brown Owl or Son of Brown Owl go on a trip they have separate sleeping and toilet facilities. My son went on camp aged 4 and had to use the gents' toilets because he wasn't allowed in the Ladies. There were male Scout leaders on a separate camp at the site so I had to hang around and check he was OK in there/ask them to check on him/keep talking to him.

I'm a leader who happened to have sons. It often is not practical for them to go on residentials because we can't meet the appropriate conditions to cater for their sex. Fair enough.

It baffles me that the words "I am a girl" is all that it would take for all that policy to be out of the window and for me not to have to declare to my unit that they will be sharing dorms/ tents with a biological male. Much of my unit is currently at school/ in the class of either of my sons.

They do often attend pack night for childcare reasons, but that is a transparent arrangement and hasn't yet been a problem for a member/ potential member.

Well done Katie. I’m very glad my daughter is now grown up. I wouldn’t let her join guides now, with this appalling policy. All those who say they don’t have a problem with a person with a penis sharing a tent with their daughter have serious boundary issues and should not be putting their daughters at risk just so they can feel nice and inclusive and woke. Really just revolting actually.

Sorry, I might be being slow here...are you telling me that an adult male can just decide he identifies as a female and therefore can volunteer at GG?

Yes!

Is there a process someone has to go through before identifying as the opposite gender*

No!

Or they can literally just wake up one morning and decide and that's that?

Yes!

I suspect that all the members of BogRollBOGOF‘s family are honest and value their social reputation, their guiding values etc.
But this policy requires that all adults and children share those values.

@KatieAlcock I don’t follow your logic. Girls only organisations are not going to solve the issues of gender inequality. We need to influence leaders (typically men) to be able to do this. My DD5 plays football and is the only girl and it is teaching her that she can do what the boys can do, and teaching them the same (and their dads, who are usually the ones raising eyebrows or making sexist remarks tbh)

@Captainj1 no, girls only organisations won't solve gender inequality, but they do provide girls with a safe space away from boys/men. It's empowering for girls to feel they're not going to be spoken over/dismissed/ignored/insulted - and that then provides them with the confidence they need when challenged purely because they are female.

Katie, I back you 100%. I was never in Brownies or Guides, and DD never will be either. But thank you for defending the rights of those girls who do want & need that space.

Captainj1 guiding also allows girls to see older girls and women as leaders. That can be valuable for many children, to supplement family and school role models.

Girls are just as likely to speak over each other, insult each other etc. My DD gets much more flack from other girls than from boys, the girls are more emotionally mature and manipulative. But each to their own.

It shows them leading girls. Much more powerful role models if they are girls leading both boys and girls.

Would you expect your dd to shower with the boys in the team?

Whether irs just girls or girls and boys don't you think a) parents should know
B) sleeping showering and changing facilities remain single sex?

I'm an afab woman who identifies as enby, but doesn't need to make a song and dance about it in real life.

And I'm a Brownie leader.

How I feel about my own gender has absolutely no bearing on my capabilities as a trusted leader and safeguarder.

It's known I'm enby, and it's not a problem.

Incidentally, the last person to assault me sexually - twice - was an afab female.

It's a real shame that GG are being dragged through such expense. Because if you don't agree with how we do things, and have opinions on our ability to practice inclusion, safeguarding and so on, then you can go and set up your own organisation aimed purely at afab girls who identify as female.

No ones assigned female at birth.

Sex is observed and recorded. Girls don't identify as girls. They are girls.

Theres no identifing out of what lies ahead fir them.

Sex segregation in certain circumstances is basic safeguarding.

Whats enby?

Where's the eyeroll emoji.

So, it's unsafe to potentially have anyone who doesn't identify as female AND have been born with female genitals between their legs, in a well supervised hall for activities?

We don't have any Brownies who don't fit that description. But if we did, I don't see how this would be a problem.

As for this obsession with showering together... I honestly don't know what camping policy would be but I would assume there is protocol for this situation should it arise.

Because safety is paramount.

This whole thing really grinds my gears.

I'd be more worried about how I manage being a leader whilst also being in a wheelchair.

Always disappointing to see money spent this way.

At least some lawyers are secure in their jobs.

I’m a mum of boys so don’t have anything to do with girl guides (at this stage, it could change perhaps?!) and I always do my own risk assessments. I think girl guides need to make their policies available (as they have) and parents need to be proactive in making their own risk assessments. So important to take an active role in safe guarding your own children and maintaining the power of the safe guardian as a parent.

It's a real shame that GG are being dragged through such expense

She has the right to bring this case, as a whistleblower and victim of discrimination. What the GG choose to spend on it, is up to them.

Whats enby?

It doesn't really mean much, it's short for "non-binary", but that describes every human on the planet as it's about gender rather than sex.

If the GG was a mixed sex organisation there would be the appropriate safeguards in place to ensure (or try to ensure) that the issues people are worried about don’t happen (as happens with the scouts). For the reasons discussed By otherS above, GG is not a mixed sex organisation so if membership for guides and leaders is based on being of the female sex alone, the safeguarding required in relation to sexual assault and abuse is considerably less (although not absent) than when compared with a policy based on a gender identity that anyone can adopt.

With relation to safeguarding the obvious answer would be to make gg mixed sex and create the relevant sex based protections HOWEVER that does not address the fact that many girls attend because there are no males there - be that for religious/cultural reasons or reasons of comfort and openness.

Girl guides are for girls who are approaching and in the midst of puberty. It breaks my heart when women especially do not recognise the vulnerability of the age group in question. It’s bad enough changing in front of female peers At varying and different stages of bodily development without adding a penis to the mix. Daughters struggle discussing periods and bras etc with their much loved dads between 10-14, let alone needing to address these issues with a relative stranger who happens to be male in a tent in the middle of a field.

I am in no way averse to male or trans leaders being involved in guiding but any male or trans leader who puts their own needs or gender affirmation before the safety and comfort of girls in their care, should not be in a position of responsibility for young girls. Any male or trans leader should be willing to have parents aware of their attendance/involvement and understanding why it’s so important - this is about girls at a very vulnerable stage in their life not adults. The adults should have the resilience to accept this and not force young girls to have to adapt to accommodate them.

I think the issues relating to involvement young trans guides is a bit more complex.

As for this obsession with showering together... I honestly don't know what camping policy would be but I would assume there is protocol for this situation should it arise.

Good that you admit you don't actually have a clue. It didn't work that way in prisons, despite safeguarding and duty of care.

@Captainj1

It shows them leading girls. Much more powerful role models if they are girls leading both boys and girls.

Scouts already offers this potential option for those who consider it more important and desirable than showing women leading in a female organisation.

[quote Captainj1]@KatieAlcock I don’t follow your logic. Girls only organisations are not going to solve the issues of gender inequality. We need to influence leaders (typically men) to be able to do this. My DD5 plays football and is the only girl and it is teaching her that she can do what the boys can do, and teaching them the same (and their dads, who are usually the ones raising eyebrows or making sexist remarks tbh)[/quote]
OK,so when her team go away for a weekend/football vamp/day match/whatever
does your daughter use the boys loos, get changed with the boys, share bunks with the boys etc?

@Yawwwwwwwn

Where's the eyeroll emoji.

So, it's unsafe to potentially have anyone who doesn't identify as female AND have been born with female genitals between their legs, in a well supervised hall for activities?

We don't have any Brownies who don't fit that description. But if we did, I don't see how this would be a problem.

As for this obsession with showering together... I honestly don't know what camping policy would be but I would assume there is protocol for this situation should it arise.

Because safety is paramount.

This whole thing really grinds my gears.

I'd be more worried about how I manage being a leader whilst also being in a wheelchair.

"As for this obsession with showering together... I honestly don't know what camping policy would be but I would assume there is protocol for this situation should it arise."

the policy is that a male would have access to the female shower unit if they so desired, and there's NOTHING the females are allowed to say or do about it.... no matter their discomfort. Once again male rights and feelings are being raised above female rights and feelings - in an organisation that claims to empower the young women of this world....

be empowered...except when a man wants something, then kowtow