To argue that this should is not a suitable topic for the Girl Guides

[MovedByFanciesThatAreCurled]

Girlguiding is for girls, aged 10-14. So why then do they feel the need to promote this on their social media?

This week is #AceWeek - a time to raise awareness and understanding of the asexual community. So here’s a shout-out to all of our asexual volunteers and members – thank you for everything you do in Girlguiding.

The reference to ‘members’ is quite clear. What on earth were they thinking in making reference to young girls’ sex lives (or lack of them according to the focus of the Tweet). How, as an organisation, have they strayed so far? I have two boys in the Scouts/Beavers and if this came up on either of their social media pages I would pull them out. Why is it seen to be an acceptable for Girlguiding?!!

@AosSi

I'd tell them that it's perfectly normal to not fancy anyone at their age and that they might fancy people when they're older. And that they may not fancy anyone which is perfectly ok too.

But I knew from 10y/o that I was bi (don't think I knew the term). A reassurance that that's ok and normal would have done me a lot of good. We were having sex ed at that age anyway but it all focused on hetero sex. Maybe it's similar for asexual people re: knowing from a young age - couldn't tell you as I'm not one. And as Irish Girl Guides go up to about age 30, I'm sure they have members who've realised they are asexual.

Pshe in England doesn’t focus on heterosexual sex.

It has very little to do with sex at all in primary outside of the biological facts of how babies are made. It doesn’t tell kids about for play or oral sex or anything else like that.

It includes the likes of puberty and why these changes happen and consent, of any sort, unsafe touching, how to speak up about. Safeguarding stuff.

The relationships curriculum has lots of lgbt+ visibility and schools use ‘people like me’ to ensure diversity is visible and normalised throughout ks1&2.

So if you were at school now you’d be well aware that bi is entirely normal.

• previous post was in regard to primary pshe, as pp I replied to was talking about ten year olds.

It's really bizarre

That's great that bi is included in sex ed these days. I would support ace also being included. Wouldn't want any kids to go through a similar "holy shit, I'm a freak" kind of mental panic that I had back then.

But you don’t have to tell people about the intricacies of asexuality and the sex lives they may or may not have

Exactly!

Why do GG - who work with girls - need to raise awareness of this actually quite complex sexuality?

The “asexuals are people who aren’t sexually attracted to other people but who can enjoy sex with those people they don’t desire and be in relationships” is too complicated for children.

Lots of children are identifying as one of the 100 plus genders and are pinning down their sexualities at primary school age.

A girl who identifies as “ace” is at risk of coercion from both sexes (ace people enjoy sex with people they don’t fancy). A quick Google shows that “ace people still have sex” is a prominent on line theme.

do any of the people up in arms about this have children in guides, or are any of you guide volunteers.

For the hard of hearing at the back, despite the fact this has been pointed out many times:

A SOCIAL MEDIA TWEET DOESNT MEAN THIS COMES UP AT MEETINGS

I've literally never been at a meeting where anything like this has come up other than by the children themselves e.g. I have two mums etc.

all this kerfuffle and fuss about something that doesn't actually happen, its pathetic.

If you feel like guiding isn't go the way you have an opinion on, fucking volunteer and change the direction instead of coming on here and having a paddy about a conclusion the OP has come to which has no basis in fact

[quote MolkosTeenageAngst]@BloodinGutters
How can you not be familiar with the guidance if you are a teacher? It’s compulsory it be taught from sept of this year. And it’s a required to be a whole school plan, so all staff need to be 100% clear on it, the same way you are required to be 100% clear on kcse guidance. Ofsted have updated their criteria on assessing schools about this so you should get familiar with it incase they are in.

I teach in an independent special school for children with very complex and severe learning difficulties. Most of the students I teach are non-verbal and all have complex disabilities so our curriculum is highly differentiated. Obviously the statutory RSE curriculum is not really suitable for my students who are functioning at very early stages of development so our school has had to significantly adapt it. I am aware Ofsted will ask about it and am familiar with our whole school RSE plan and as such aware of which broad areas the RSE curriculum covers but the content within each area has been so thoroughly differentiated/ adapted from what would be taught in mainstream that I doubt it has that much resemblance to the original guidance. (I also admit I have no idea what kcse guidance and have never even heard of it but as an independent special school we largely follow our own curriculum so I’ll assuming it’s not relevant to my area of teaching rather than that I’m a complete failure of a teacher!)[/quote]
You don’t know the keeping children safe in education guidance? Compulsory for all education staff for under 18s to be familiar with it and expected to answer questions on it on the spot?

It’s statutory guidance from d of e issued under section 175 of the education act 2002, the education independent schools standard regulations 2014 , non maintained special schools regulations 2015, the education training and (welfare of children act) 2021.

So yeah you are failing miserably if you don’t learn this before ofsted come in.

Like I said up thread, one of my daughters is at a special school. They don’t follow the national curriculum, but they still have a duty of care to regard the d of e statutory guidance on pshe. Their plan of how this is delivered is highly differentiated, but the policy must follow the guidance. And all their teachers and ats have the same legal duty to know kcse inside and out like all teachers are expected to.

@RhymesWithOrange

*"RhymesWithOrange No social discrimination against people who don't have sex for whatever reason? There have been whole films made to laugh at those who haven't had sex. Being a virgin is often seen as a bad thing after a certain age, and something to mock.

Being mocked is not discrimination."
Legally, no. Socially, definitely, which is what you said.*

hurty feelz is not discrimination.

Being a dick to someone because they're a virgin is cunty though. And yes, is it a form of social discrimination. It's not in law, but discrimination e.g. for jobs is not the only form of discrimination, which you know full well.

If you feel like guiding isn't go the way you have an opinion on, fucking volunteer and change the direction instead of coming on here and having a paddy about a conclusion the OP has come to which has no basis in fact*

Step into that safeguarding nightmare? Don't fancy taking that fall when it comes.
I'll stick with teaching thank you, much better for child protection.

@RhymesWithOrange

*"RhymesWithOrange No social discrimination against people who don't have sex for whatever reason? There have been whole films made to laugh at those who haven't had sex. Being a virgin is often seen as a bad thing after a certain age, and something to mock.

Being mocked is not discrimination."
Legally, no. Socially, definitely, which is what you said.*

hurty feelz is not discrimination.

This ^^

I mock people with handbag dogs all the time. Rightly so.

@BloodinGutters handbag dogs are a choice. Sexuality is not.

Bullying, name calling, taunting etc is a form of social discrimination. @RhymesWithOrange said being asexual is not discriminated against legally, economically, and socially. I pointed out there is very established form for mocking adults who don't have sex and that social discrimination against older virgins is very real.

Step into that safeguarding nightmare? Don't fancy taking that fall when it comes.
I'll stick with teaching thank you, much better for child protection.

Google 'how many teachers in the uk jailed for sexual assault' - lots of results.

Google 'how many girl guide leaders jailed for sexual assault' - guess how many results there were to that..

But sure, teaching is perfection and guide leaders (who are not actually teaching girls about being asexual despite the frothing on the thread) are in fact the demon spawn themselves

@RhymesWithOrange

Being a dick to someone because they're a virgin is cunty though. And yes, is it a form of social discrimination. It's not in law, but discrimination e.g. for jobs is not the only form of discrimination, which you know full well.

Discrimination is a legal term.

So what you are saying is that asexuals are not actually discriminated against, just that their feelings are hurt by some people.

Welcome to the world snowflake ❄️

You were the one to use the term discrimination. You talked about legal, economic, and social. I agree with you on the first two. I do not agree with you that older virgins or asexual people are not discriminated against socially. Discrimination in the social sense can involve many things and yes, can involve deliberately hurting another person's feelings.

@AosSi

That's great that bi is included in sex ed these days. I would support ace also being included. Wouldn't want any kids to go through a similar "holy shit, I'm a freak" kind of mental panic that I had back then.

As long as it keeps within the d if e guidance.

So it has to be sensitive to age and development, mindful of safeguarding, doesn’t promote stereotypes.

I think it would be difficult for primary schools to come up with a definition of asexual for kids that communicates that not yet feeling attraction to anyone is a normal developmental stage and they shouldn’t rush to label that asexual, but that some people might also feel this way as adults and that’s fine.

Any definition needs to stay the hell away from telling 10yr old girls they might not feel attraction to anyone, but still have sexual relationships. This is a breech of safeguarding and relies on regressive female stereotype socialisation that expects women and girls to put out even if they don’t want to.

If primary schools can come up with a definition that doesn’t breech their statutory guidance then fine. I expect they’d struggle though.

@BloodinGutters

Oh! I have never seen the keeping children safe in education guidance abbreviated to kcse, I thought the cse related to some sort of certificate like gcse. Yes, i have read the statutory guidance, we were handed the updated document on the first inset day back in September and all told to read it again as it has changed since last year, which obviously I did. I just didn’t recognise your abbreviation as it isn’t one we have used when referring to it in my setting.

As I said, we have a whole school plan regarding to how to teach RSE and PSHE in line with the guidance which has been highly differentiated. I am fully aware of how to teach the subject to my small class of 5 pupils, indeed they all have individualised plans but the topics covered included things like body awareness and although we do teach the same areas for subjects like consent it’s around the contexts of things like the students being able to indicate they are ready for us to pull down their trousers when having their nappies changed. I am not saying I don’t understand the RSE plan my school has in place because I do, but that I recognise the way we teach it is so highly differentiated it would be wrong for me to say I understand the content that would be coveted within a mainstream school.

I used to be a guide leader.
Their safeguarding is not robust.

@catsandhens

do any of the people up in arms about this have children in guides, or are any of you guide volunteers.

For the hard of hearing at the back, despite the fact this has been pointed out many times:

A SOCIAL MEDIA TWEET DOESNT MEAN THIS COMES UP AT MEETINGS

I've literally never been at a meeting where anything like this has come up other than by the children themselves e.g. I have two mums etc.

all this kerfuffle and fuss about something that doesn't actually happen, its pathetic.

If you feel like guiding isn't go the way you have an opinion on, fucking volunteer and change the direction instead of coming on here and having a paddy about a conclusion the OP has come to which has no basis in fact

Safeguarding relies on a kerfulful and fuss about things that might never happen.

It relies on the thinking ‘what’s the worst case senario’ and working to prevent that.

So, for the hard of hearing at the back SAFEGUARDING SAFEGUARDING SAFEGUARDING.

Safeguarding laws trump everything. The list of organisations that are exempt from them are here:

You talked about legal, economic, and social. I agree with you on the first two. I do not agree with you that older virgins or asexual people are not discriminated against socially. Discrimination in the social sense can involve many things and yes, can involve deliberately hurting another person's feelings.

Deliberately hurting someone's feelings is not discrimination.

@BelleOfTheProvince

* If you feel like guiding isn't go the way you have an opinion on, fucking volunteer and change the direction instead of coming on here and having a paddy about a conclusion the OP has come to which has no basis in fact*

Step into that safeguarding nightmare? Don't fancy taking that fall when it comes.
I'll stick with teaching thank you, much better for child protection.

Women go fix the problem yourself.

Can’t expect organisations to follow safeguarding laws now can we?

sure because frothing on here about something that doesnt even happen is clearly safeguarding!

If people are genuinely worried that some tweet means that guiders are teaching their guides its okay to be asexual, and thats somehow a bad thing, then complain to the organisation.

People coming on here and making uninformed and at times insulting comments about asexuality is not safeguarding, its stupid, pointless and pathetic

This website has more moral fucking panics about nothing than the Daily Mail and the Daily Express combined

@RhymesWithOrange

You talked about legal, economic, and social. I agree with you on the first two. I do not agree with you that older virgins or asexual people are not discriminated against socially. Discrimination in the social sense can involve many things and yes, can involve deliberately hurting another person's feelings.

Deliberately hurting someone's feelings is not discrimination.

It is a form of social discrimination. Just like any other bullying.

It is not discrimination in law.

I don't know how many times this needs saying.

[quote Lockheart]@BloodinGutters handbag dogs are a choice. Sexuality is not.

Bullying, name calling, taunting etc is a form of social discrimination. @RhymesWithOrange said being asexual is not discriminated against legally, economically, and socially. I pointed out there is very established form for mocking adults who don't have sex and that social discrimination against older virgins is very real.[/quote]
Are you mocking my coping mechanisms of flippant humour?

DISCRIMINATION!!!

@BloodinGutters

Women go fix the problem yourself.

I mean its an organisation for women/girls run by women/girls - not sure why you would expect anyone other than women to fix the "problems" women are flagging up. I'm pretty sure this isnt a problem for men to fix - so.....