To be worried about Rainbows

[justanotherguider]

As a guide leader and as a mother I find this worrying:

girlguiding.foleon.com/guiding-magazine/guiding-summer-2022/rainbow-girl

No it isn't.
Believe me HQ know how leaders feel- and have made it clear we will be kicked out if we say anything.

I haven't left because my unit would close, and then those girls would be missing out totally - similar to other posters I have been involved since I was a Brownie myself, I genuinely believe that the worldwide Guiding / Girl Scouting movement is a force for good and I want to stay part of it.

I did sign the letter in The Times ages ago, I believe if I were to raise it again with HQ directly I'd be asked to change my thinking or have my membership removed, as has happened to others.

I have considered moving to Scouting but I think the girl only space is really important, so while I can maintain that at my local group level, I will.

It used to make me so frustrated when DS was little , as people would comment on the fact he had a doll, and liked pink. Many times I had to say that boys can play with any toy or wear any colour they like, it's adults who have the problem. Now this madness is rearing it's ugly head again, I see many father's caring for their children. Lots of men wear pink shirts/shorts, nobody is telling them they are women; what on earth possesses parents to think they should start 'supporting' their children to live any other way, than the way they are, whether that's a cat, dog, princess or train driver, at that moment in time.

The stereotyping in that article. 🤯

Like reading something from the 50s. The 1850s.

This. I think we should work on breaking down "gender based norms" it's fine for children to want to wear a dress etc. Rigid sterotypes are confusing for children, let them play/ dress up/ have a childhood without needing to conform.

Thank you applekate and other leaders expanding why you don't want to leave.

It must be heartbreaking to volunteer for an organisation that you love so much and know you will probably have to leave.

But there is 2 of you on here that say if you leave your unit will close. And I get that is awful, but if 10 of you or 100 of you or 1,000 of you leaders all leave at the same time, surely it would make an impact and cause them to reassess their safeguarding issues.

I do see you are between a rock and a hard place letting your guises down and being worried about the safety.

So awful it's come to this, I have so many happy memories of the Brownies and guides.

There are some boys who like all the things that society thinks are for girls but know themselves to be boys, and there are some who feel like they are girls inside

This is one of the things that worries me about this whole debate. I don't think there is a definite line between these two concepts and I don't think it's something a child can decide.

There will be many boys who feel feminine and like "girly" things (and girls who feel masculine and like "boyish" things). Some will change their likes and dislikes as they grow up. Others will accept themselves as a feminine man (or masculine woman), of which some will turn out to be gay. And a (historically) very small percentage may decide as adults that they want to transition, which I have no problem with as long as they have enough life experience to fully understand the downsides.

But current thinking is pushing any feminine boy, or masculine girl, down the trans path.

It is ridiculous and I totally disagree with the ideology.

But in reality, it just isn't an issue. It's all just made up bollocks trying to show how woke they are. But how many of you have actually come across this in real life? I certainly haven't (as a teacher or a parent).

And if the situation ever arises where one poor little boy who likes dressing up gets forced by a bonkers parent allowed into Rainbows, it's the boy I'd feel sorry for.

Now, boys allowed in girls' rooms on Guide camp is another issue, but for Rainbows? Meh.

I think the other issue which would mean we wouldn't get mass resignations is that there is another group of volunteers who would also roll their eyes at this and say they don't believe in it - but they are also the volunteers who see most stuff that comes from HQ as "Woke Nonsense" or "Policital correctness gone mad", they tend to ignore most of what comes out at National level and carry on exactly as they've done for years. Eg, they would say they don't agree with this - but they also don't agree with the majority of changes in Girlguiding over the past 30 years, and they get around that by ignoring them. So they wouldn't quit over this as they haven't quit over all the other things they don't agree with, like the programme updates, changing the Promises, Brownies Camping, etc.

( in my opion only, I know there is a huge variety of leaders, volunteers and units, etc etc)

See, this isn’t my experience at all. The transgender child I know has fought, struggled, jumped through hoops and battled some more to get puberty blockers. They had to go private in the end, but it was still a bloody performance. Whether or not I think it’s the right thing for her, she was cautioned, delayed, assessed, reassessed and counselled at every turn. She was not by any stretch of the imagination, pushed. She had to work so hard for it, I can’t imagine anyone going it on a whim. I really can’t.

So I’m struggling to reconcile what I know with what people say. It’s totally possible she’s an outlier of some sort. But not all that likely really.

Children (not 'children') are pushed into this because if left to their own devices they will desist. They insist they're a girl, boy, horse, dog, tractor, Superman for a bit, then they move to the next stage of development and it's forgotten. But when a parent gets involved, they encourage the child to stay fixed in that pretence longer than they naturally would. They reward and ask leading questions (like the ones in the article). They give lots of attention. The child comes to learn the 'script'. It's like Munchausen's by proxy, essentially.

Or as the saying goes, a trans child is like a vegan cat - we all know who's making the decisions.

Some children - an extremely tiny number - do have persistent gender dysphoria. But the advice is still the same - wait it out. It will likely go away of its own accord, and many of these kids turn out to be happily gay or lesbian. If dysphoria persists into adulthood and no psychological interventions have helped, an adult might decide on some degree of medical or surgical transition. But this is a decision only an adult can make.

I’m the same - leader with many years experience and was horrified to read this in the latest newsletter -
especially due to the v young age of the case they have showcased’
just awful
it looks like a safeguarding issue to me, not something to be shown as a good example 😩

@Eeksteek a prepubescent child has absolutely no capacity to make an informed decision about the implications of not going through the appropriate puberty for their body.

a child may well push extraordinarily for that to happen and not be pushed be parents. They are likely to have been subject to the many social pressure and fads. Or indeed they may be one of the very small proportion of people who ultimately turn out in adulthood to be genuinely dysphoric. Most dysphoric adult men choose to keep their bits and sexual function. So even for that tiny group puberty blockers would have very likely been i appropriate.

just because a pre pubescent child pushes something very much does not make it the right thing.

'There are some boys who like all the things that society thinks are for girls but know themselves to be boys, and there are some who feel like they are girls inside'

What does it even mean to 'feel like a girl inside'? It sounds like an odd statement to make - as if there's some universal 'girl' feeling which all females have...and I would highly doubt that to be the case.

This is my experience too. And the parents in the vast majority want their child to be anything but transgender.
There are, of course, a minority of parents who are so entrenched in societal gender expectations that they think their young children are the opposite gender because of basic likes and dislikes. And I hope they do go to Tavistock because then they (the parents) would also ge subject to scrutiny on motivation.

The child in question was 12/13/14 during this process. Are you familiar with Gillick competency? It’s the process used by a clinician assesses an under 18’s understanding of the decision they are making, and it’s impact. If children of this age are judged to be Gillick competent, they are allowed to make the decision. Just as they are listened to about other medical decisions where they live in divorce cases and so on. It’s not new for them to be treated like this in medical settings. They aren’t 5. No one can consent on behalf of another person. Not even a child. You can only make a decision in their best interests.

The child in question also decided to identify as a comic book character at about 14 and requested to be called by that name from now on. Their parents told them not to be so fucking stupid. Again, I’m not seeing what people are saying. I’m not saying their wrong, but the evidence suggests it. So I’m confused.

See, this isn’t my experience at all. The transgender child I know has fought, struggled, jumped through hoops and battled some more to get puberty blockers. They had to go private in the end, but it was still a bloody performance. Whether or not I think it’s the right thing for her, she was cautioned, delayed, assessed, reassessed and counselled at every turn. She was not by any stretch of the imagination, pushed. She had to work so hard for it, I can’t imagine anyone going it on a whim. I really can’t.

But @Eeksteek this was surely the parent's doing? A child can't 'go private'. It's good that people were trying to stop the child going on puberty blockers - they should be completely banned for this usage. They are not reversible, as is so often claimed. They are dangerous drugs and put children on an almost-inevitable lifelong medical pathway. Presuming the child in question is a biological male, they are likely to go on cross-sex hormones and almost certainly this will cause infertility. If the child later wants to have 'sex change surgery' there won't be enough 'material' to create a neo-vagina. This surgery has an extremely high risk of complications and is likely to cause a lifetime of chronic pain.

So it's good that this family were put off, but bad that they decided to push for this to happen to their child. It may be that there are more safeguards in place on the NHS since the Keira Bell case and the Cass review and so on. I truly hope so. These are serious decisions that turn healthy children into disabled adults.

I'm not saying it's 'on a whim' by the way. I don't think that's the case at all. But there's a lot of pressure on children and parents now. You're told that if you don't 'affirm' your child you're a bigot and they'll kill themselves, for example.

The child in question was 12/13/14 during this process. Are you familiar with Gillick competency? It’s the process used by a clinician assesses an under 18’s understanding of the decision they are making, and it’s impact. If children of this age are judged to be Gillick competent, they are allowed to make the decision. Just as they are listened to about other medical decisions where they live in divorce cases and so on. It’s not new for them to be treated like this in medical settings. They aren’t 5. No one can consent on behalf of another person. Not even a child. You can only make a decision in their best interests.

I was talking about the child in the Rainbows case. But okay. At age 12, would you have understood what it meant to never be able to have a sexual relationship or an orgasm? Would you have been competent to decide that you didn't want to have children? Would you have been willing to become a lifelong medical patient, to live in pain, to be incontinent, to be dependent on medication? Would you have understood what these things really meant and what it really meant to lose them?

I wouldn't have. And I don't think most 12/13/14 year olds would, either. In fact, there are more and more detransitioners now telling us they were too young to understand the consequences - and many of these were even older than 14 when they began their transition.

No child should be able to make a decision of this magnitude. They do not have the capacity to understand what they are giving up.

The child in question also decided to identify as a comic book character at about 14 and requested to be called by that name from now on. Their parents told them not to be so fucking stupid.

But they were okay with the child going on puberty blockers? That's messed up.

Wow. So incredibly one-sided that they can’t even bring themselves to mention SEX based rights in their legal blurb. As a mother of girls there’s no way is allow them to join the GG and I say that as a third generation QG with several aunties who were devoted Owls of varying experience!

My DD and DS can play with whatever toys they wish, I don't agree with gender stereotypes, BUT at 5, that is far too young to make such a huge, life decision! I would not be comfortable with my DD going on a sleep away trip with girl guiding if there was a boy going too, if I wanted them to be mixed, I'd send them to scouts!

That's an interesting take on it which had genuinely never occurred to me.

DS1 wore rainbow dresses when he was little, with pink glittery wings. And glittery nail varnish. And bought fairy doll magazines. I just let him.No big deal. People at church told me I would 'turn him gay' if I carried on letting him . Then eventually he just lost interest and became a soldier instead. Glitter was swapped for camo make up and wings for fatigues. And he is gay. And a cadet not a fairy princess. Though either would be fine.

I just didn't have any concerns about gender stereotypes. But if I had, if I had worried that these things were feminine, do you think that might have led him to believe his taste indicated he was a girl? I had to tell him some people would laugh at him because they thought his doll and dress were for girls but if he didn't care, nor did I and he didn't.

Rainbow leader here and also horrified.
What on earth goes through the heads of those at HQ?!! 🤯😡🤯😡

No, they were deliberately not facilitated. The parents did as little as possible to ensure they were ‘sure’ and that the process was driven by them and meant a lot to them. They were almost practically obstructive, whilst being openly supportive, but clear the kid would need to be fully responsible for the process. I suppose you could say they ‘enabled’ in that they drove her around. I’m willing to bet she’d have got herself to appointments, then though. They didn’t even pay for all of it. Kid had to get a part time job and is aware it’s partially funded from savings for other things, and doesn’t have funding for other things (extra curricular and FE savings) that their siblings have.

I’ve been truly impressed with their dedication and mature attitude. Especially given that they can be a proper teenage little madam about other things. I don’t know how anyone could be any more mature about it. And that’s why I’m wondering where this ‘babies are being pushed into changing sex’ attitude comes from. Because it’s totally, completely the opposite to what I’ve personally seen.

Can you elaborate?