Girl Guides are now GIRL ONLY!

[Iamwhoiamwhoareyou]

Following April's supreme court ruling, the Girl Guides have FINALLY made a statement and will remain GIRLS ONLY - Finally closing the door on admitting trans members or allowing BOYS to invade female only spaces/camp (which, would be done without informing parents that their daughter would be sharing a room with a biological male!) - I have a previous post in feminism chat for anyone wanting to read the previous thread on this

EMAIL RECEIVED HOT OFF THE PRESS 5 MIN AGO -

As the parent of a young member in Girlguiding, following April’s Supreme Court decision relating to sex and gender, we wanted to give you an update. Many organisations across the country have been facing complex decisions about what it means for girls and women and for the wider communities affected, including us.

Girlguiding’s governing charity documents set out that the membership and people who benefit from our organisation are girls and women. In April, the Supreme Court ruled that girls and women are defined in the Equality Act 2010 by their biological sex at birth.
Following detailed considerations, expert legal advice and input from senior members, young members and our Council, Girlguiding’s Board of Trustees has made the difficult decision that Girlguiding must change Girlguiding must change, following the Supreme Court’s ruling.

From today, 2 December, it is with a heavy heart that we are announcing trans girls and young women will no longer be able to join Girlguiding. This is a decision we would have preferred not to make, and we know that this may be upsetting for members of our community.

There will be no immediate changes for current young members but more information will be shared next week.

Most adult roles, including unit helpers, district helpers and administrative support, are already open to all, so we are confident that no volunteers will have to leave the organisation.

Girlguiding believes strongly in our value of inclusion, and we will continue to support young people and adults in marginalised groups. Over the next few months, we'll explore opportunities to champion this value and actively support young people who need us.

You can find our full statement and updated policy on our website.

We are proud to be the UK’s largest youth organisation dedicated to girls and is focused on creating an equal world for girls and young women. For over 100 years, we have been a welcoming space for all girls to have new experiences, support their communities, build friendships and grow their confidence.

While Girlguiding may feel a little different going forward, these core aims and principles will always be the same. We remain committed to treating everyone with dignity and respect, particularly those from marginalised groups that have felt the biggest impact of this decision.

If you have any immediate questions, we have our special support team in place, to give volunteers, parents and carers the best support we can. We are asking Girlguiding HQ, trading and country/region staff to refer any volunteer or parent who has questions about this announcement. Details below.

Contact [email protected] or 020 7532 3970
All calls/emails will be confidential, and the service will be open 24hrs, 7 days a week.
Find out more, including how this team will handle personal data.

Denise Wilson (Chair of Trustees), Felicity Oswald (CEO) and Tracy Foster (Chief Guide)

Truly that's not why I said it - it's just that my views are very different to the majority on here, and they will be completely shaped by growing up alongside trans people. That's not something I can or want to deny. I don't believe that I am more enlightened than anyone else on here, but I have been surprised to find my views quite so out of kilter (for better or worse). It's just a difference of opinion isn't it, and opinions are shaped by our lived experience.

There have been several contributers on Mumsnet over the past few years who have said they have left/been pushed out of GG over their gender critical views or that if they ever had to accept a boy in their troop they would leave. One of the key facets of transgenderism is that trans rights activists are so obnoxious people often just self exclude rather than expose themselves to accusations of bigotry and transphobia for having the perfectly sane believe that you can't change sex and your sex matters in certain situations.

It affects the young GIRLS, who now have their single-sex group back.

There is no such thing as 'trans exclusion' ( and 'non binary' is not even a thing). It is MALE exclusion from a FEMALE ONLY space.

Putting a 'trans' label on males does not give them a loophole to access female only spaces.

It's sad that you centre males so much that you don't care about the needs and rights of the female sex.

@dahliadream You say that MtF trans people are no longer male? What do you think they are then?

GG exists not only to provide a male excluded space for female children, who may not be in spaces with male people for many reasons, including abuse by male people.

Female people have not achieved equality either. They still experience negative sex discrimination. So why would anyone remove a programme that was developed to provide female people with opportunities that they don’t have to compete with male people for when there are reasons those male people might get chosen that show that pattern of sex discrimination? And why remove a programme in this time of exceedingly high male child on female child abuse, sometimes driven by pornography, when female children want to have spaces away from male people?

Hear, hear!

All this talk of BOYS being a danger, yet no one has mentioned the (much more likely) danger of MEN volunteering at the groups!!!

It's been mentioned and discussed quite a bit up thread

@Thulpelly don’t you feel it’s really awful that young muslim girls would excluded from joining these groups due to boys taking part? Or is it just little boys you care about? Do girls not matter, no matter how much they deserve space away from their homes, a space in which to explore what being a girl might mean in wider society?

Again, it's not the adult men who are sleeping in with the girls. It's the boys (trans identified boys). Hence the difference.

In terms of the statement that they don't expect any adult volunteers to have to leave, I think what they are alluding to is the fact that certain volunteer roles are already open to men as well as women. So volunteers wouldn't have to leave altogether but they may have to change roles.

You are free to pretend that your loved ones are the opposite sex. You cannot demand that other people make the same pretence.

I know a few trans people. One is a complete arsehole for reasons entirely unrelated to being trans. The others are all very nice. I like them. But in every case it is embarrassingly obvious which sex they are. There's just nothing to differentiate them from other members of their sex. I'm sorry that they aren't what they want to be but that's how it is and they have the same rights as everyone else.

'Trans girls' ARE boys. They are fully intact boys with penis and testicles. What is it about that, that you don't understand?

Or are you confusing trans girls (males with penis and testicles) with trans boys (female with female organs and anatomy)?

When we went to secondary school open days for our kids, one of the schools had signs up in the classroom, along the lines of, "Boys, you can be thoughtful and caring!" and "Girls, don't be afraid to speak up in class!" They obviously had a problem with boys dominating the classroom.

Definitely have mentioned the issue of men in girl guides in my posts.

The most important issue being that parents are aware that there are men in girl guides, rather than being lied to that they are actually women.

Not all positions in GG are open to men.

No male person has a ‘girlhood’.

They might reject their ‘boyhood’ but that doesn’t give them a ‘girlhood’. Their version of ‘girlhood’ will be nothing like a female child’s experience at all.

There is no way possible for any male person to experience ‘girlhood’. Why do you spread such misinformation?

Sport is different because it is physically competitive. Prisons similarly so because it is a physically violent place. Healthcare in some instances segragates by sex for reasons of privacy and dignity.

In other areas of life though, boys and girls should be considered equal, treated equally and have access to the same opportunities. They need to get to know each other, become friends with one another and not treat each other like another species.

Otherwise, you will end up with a segregated society, where men and women are strangers to each other. Like Afghanistan.

Sex being binary and immutable in humans is not an opinion. It is fact.

I think that it's been touched on?

I'd expect Brown Owls and Guide leaders, etc to be women. There's been previous discussion on these boards about how problematic it is that trans identified men have applied to be Guide leaders etc, given the need to supervise girls whilst camping etc.

I'm no longer involved in Guiding, so I can't comment on what role men currently play though it's not unusual for men to be brought in as outside speakers, drivers or interpreters. They wouldn't be allowed anywhere near accommodation.

This happened in the first place because it was a trendy bandwagon onto which all the 'right on' people jumped, another divisive bandwagon will be along shortly.

So you think they have actually literally changed sex then?

Or are you just subscribing to a "polite" fiction which happens to take away from women and girls, while offering them up as emotional support NPCs for men and boys?

That's "be kind" but only to the males of the species, which isn't actually kind at all is it?

In fact it's pretty sexist wouldn't you say, when you really think about it, isn't it?

Yup. That was what happened at our joint events - the boys tried to take over. (Ditto the Scout leaders.)

Oh COME on - having single sex spaces means we risk becoming like a Taliban-led state?!

Single sex organisation. Relying on legal sex discrmation. No boys allowed, even the perfectly lovely ones.

Where's the apology for being wrong for so long and wanting to use girls as props to facilitate boys' falsehoods?

This should read "sorry, what we did was wrong. We are even more sorry that we have 100% known it was wrong since April and stalled. Sorry to all the girls who just wanted to do activities with and spend time amongst other girls and were not only denied that but made to participate in perpetuating a delusion.

Sorry also to all the owls and volunteers who were put in an appalling position."