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)

I completely agree with you, yet even when there are teenagers who are trans, yet the parents are still blamed for causing it.

And that some parents seem to be pushing this on their very young children without care for how this might effect either their own child or female children in general. They think they are being kind and progressive, but I think they are setting their children up for a huge emotional fall, and possible life-limiting effects of "trans health care" if they go down the medical route.

No 4 year old, or child who cannot even speak yet has a trans identity. It's my opinion that that definitely comes from the parents or lessons they are absorbing from their immediate family circle. They might like things that are stereotypically seen as "boys" or "girls" things, and they might fervently wish to be something they are not and can never be.

I wanted to be a dog with every fibre of my being at 5 years old, it looked like great craic! Then when I realised around the same age how girls were treated differently, and how boys treat girls I wanted to be a boy too!

Thankfully I grew up before the world lost its collective mind, as a healthy-ish for my age feminist, who still likes a lot of "boy" things, only now I know they are just Things and it doesn't make me any less of a girl to enjoy them.

I also remember one incidence of actual sexual assault by two 6 year old boys happening around that age. I was so confused and humiliated at the time I never told anyone, I still haven't told anyone in real life about it.

I think it makes people very uncomfortable to think that these things can be done by 6-7 year old boys. I think most children of that age don't understand it in the way that adults understand it, but they know it is wrong, and similar to adults, when sexual assaults happen between children, it's mostly male on female assaults so they absolutely know the difference between girls and boys.

One of the other reasons it is offensive for posters to declare that GG should be mixed sex because Scouts is, is because it dismisses the huge and heavy investment that mainly women have made to make sure that GG continues.

The calls to open GG up to male children because some posters have wrongly claimed it is sexist to not do so are entirely mischaracterising the issue. The right is there for a group to be only for male children. Just because Scouts was not viable anymore as a male only group does not logically mean that GG which mostly women kept viable should be changed.

There is not logic or coherence in that demand.

Rather than demanding that women’s success be diminished by removing the female single sex provision, the solution is to add a male only group. Either offer it as part of scouts or a purpose created group.

I was sexually abused as a child. It was by an older boy when I was about 8 or 9 years old.

It does happen. I am surprised by the denial that it doesn’t and that girls don’t need single sex spaces at a young age. I would have been horrified if I had to be in a group like GG with my abuser.

I'm sorry that happened to you too

I know a few women who have similar experiences of abuse from boys the same age, or older than them.

Male on female peer to peer sexual abuse is much more common than people realise I think.

It's just one of eleventy-million reasons why girls and women need single sex spaces and groups.

The Scouts decided to open up membership to girls in the face of declining memberships from boys.

Why is this the fault of girls and why should they be penalised for this choice by having their single space group removed?

I'm so sorry that happened to you. It never leaves you, does it. I remember one boy touching my breast when I was a tween. It was a very quick touch but it felt like a violation.

Even looking beyond the risks of abuse and assuming good intent all around. The issue with safeguarding with transgirls within guiding was that transgirls were seen as biological girls. But teenage transgirls will still have consensual sex with girls, they are teenagers after all , these things happen. Yet they were expected to share facilities with girls. There was no informing parents that a boy would be sharing the facilities, because we weren't allowed to see them as boys. There have been threads on Mumsnet in the past asking if they would allow a boy to their teen DD's sleepover (DD says they are just friends) and the answers are always a resounding no, for obvious reasons. Yet, this is what has been happening in guiding.

Scouts I am assuming don't allow this as they are set up to be mixed sex.

I'm sorry that happened to you.

Also apologies that my post about looking beyond the risks of abuse comes after women shared their experience of abuse. I'm a slow typer and cross posted.

I live in a town with Scouting and GG groups at all levels. There are no girls in the lower levels of Scouting and only 1 female scout. She has her own tent on camps ( probably safeguarding risk) none of the boys would want to share accommodation with her, and why should they?
In the next village there are only scouts and the membership is roughly 50/50 girls and boys. But none of those girls have gone on to join the combined Explorers group. (14-18).

There were girls in our local scout group when my boys were there. They always had a separate tent and a female adult at camp. As it should be.

No apologies needed. And you are quite right about those issues as well.

One word - good

There seems to be a lot of opposition on line to this. Is it just a vocal minority? I suspect yes but I hope they don’t backtrack.

But single sex spaces are defined by sex not gender, so someone’s gender is irrelevant in this situation. The only thing that matters is their sex.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0efmkiwk1f8

Here is a YouTube video interview with Helen who was one of the first people to be raising the alarm about this in the public sphere.

Weird the way all these posts concerned about scouts being mixed sex are all coming out of the woodwork now, isn't it? One would think so many concerned posters would be able to point to a record of previous activism on the subject. If they actually gave a shit, of course.

Oh, and biology isn’t an ideology! 😂 It’s a fact.

To me, the difference here is the way you dealt with the ‘gender feels’ of your child. Many children go through a phase of wanting to be the other sex - I did. I remember doggedly wanting to be a boy when I was around 8 then again around puberty. This was a subconscious response to what I’d seen of gender in society. I saw my DB treated differently, encouraged to do ‘boy things’ that I also wanted to do, spoken to first about ‘boy topics’ when I actually knew more than him, etc.

Fortunately, my parents, particularly my dad, instilled the idea in me that I was equal to any boy and that I could do what I want. At no point did they imply that because I liked ‘boy things’ and wanted to ‘be a boy’ that I wasn’t a girl. Interestingly, I grew up to be bisexual, preferring women over men. I think some of my gender confusion around puberty was connected with that.

So, your son can be as feminine as he wants, he can do ‘girl things’, he can grow his hair long, wear pink, have the majority of his friends be girls, etc, but none of those things make him a girl (as defined by the EA) and so he can’t join the GG.

Frankly, I’d have assumed most gender things would have faded now, because it was starting to look that way in the 1980s, when we were far more accepting of ‘gender-bending’ as it was called then. But GI has contributed to this regressive promoting of gender stereotypes.

Teach your son pride in himself as a feminine boy; be aware that he might grow up to be gay; and explain why women and girls aren’t support humans and have been discriminated against for centuries. We are allowed to have things for ourselves and that means having some things as single sex.

Morning @CohensDiamondTeeth that's okay, if you want to. I'll get people telling me I'm doing the wrong thing for affirming and supporting her but that's okay, I'm getting used to it on here.

I'm busy thinking of the wording for a positive email to HQ.

I’m sorry that your child is sad but that’s on the people that have colluded to entertain the idea that your child is something they are not.

This is likely to lead to serious harm to your child’s long term physical and mental health in the long run.

Respectfully I suggest you find an objective counsellor who will help your child explore his feelings fs objectively and productively and not just agree that the impossible has happened. You may also want to have a few sessions to understand your feelings.

In the meantime your child can join the Scouts which is already mixed sex.

Ultimately you're handing your child a cheque that you're expecting the rest of the world to cash.

Humans can't change sex. You are setting your child up for a lifetime of problems of their happiness depends on everyone having to pretend they are something they aren't.

If your child was diagnosed with any other condition and there were a variety of treatments, some extremely harmful to health and some non invasive m, I’m sure you’d explore all wouldn’t you? Agreeing that your son is a girl before he even really understands what a girls is does not help him in the long term.

There is an activist belief that the law is an episode of Strictly and the vote is what carries the day. The law however is the law. GG have accepted very grudgingly their duty to girls due to legal advice. Unfortunately it turns out that the girls have rights too.