Girl Guides are now GIRL ONLY! - Thread 2

[CohensDiamondTeeth]

I hope no one minds me starting thread 2, I clicked post on my last reply but the thread had filled up.

There was some interesting discussion had, and on the last page @LostMySocks posted that she was thinking of sending a positive email to HQ, which I think sounds like a great idea. Maybe those who support this move could do the same? It would show Girl Guides that people are paying attention.

Link to the first thread here: Girl Guides are now GIRL ONLY! | Mumsnet

The first post of the thread was so good I'm just going to copy and paste it here too. Girl Guides statement is incredibly begrudging in tone.

@Iamwhoiamwhoareyou · Yesterday 14:41

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)

ah... Well, it could be a lorikeet or a love bird even... I learned to read those as a kid too.... and they too can be taught to mimic words.

But now I get what you intended. I don't think you parroted on though.

This is another unfair and rather insulting prejudice, in jumping to the conclusion that "different views on how best to accommodate trans people = not knowing trans people". I do know and encounter a number of trans people, and my concerns are based directly on what I see.

It is very contradictory.

You could have made the effort to explain without adding too much personal information. I wasn't expecting answers to all my questions, but you have practically avoided answering any.

Ok so in that case even though we were asking genuine questions in order to understand and clarify your position and experiences we are to be left in the dark.

We are also left to assume that you pointed at a female character, interpreted something random your child did, and then from that point on you subconsciously and quite regressively have pushed the notion that boys can only be a certain way, and that your child was now and forever to be known as a "girl".

I have been swivelling wildly between scepticism and fascination, and I have to wonder, if this is real, was there some disappointment in having a boy child? Some homophobia in the family? A particular adherence to gender stereotypes?

If you read the two threads in full you will see we have already given plenty of anecdotal evidence from our own experiences, as well as shown why a transwoman or transgirl in a single sex space that has had detrimental results?

Are you aware that your posting style comes across in very bad faith? In case you were unaware, it does.

Now you're just showing off your birdie expertise! (Although you did remind me how much I loved lovebirds when I was little).

I'm just conscious that I'm bringing lived experience as a parent to this debate - and I'm not convinced that many people on this thread actually engage with trans people or children day to day - although there's a lot of advice to me about how to raise my child

I have lived experience of being the parent of a gender non conforming child who was asked by CAMHS if she was really a boy.

I have chosen a different path to you.

It is ridiculous to claim none of us have lived experience.

And you STILL haven't answered my questions about what commonality your child shares with mine which makes them both girls? My daughter doesn't like/do / wear 'girl gendered' things but she most definitely is a girl. So what attributes does your son share with my daughter which makes them both girls. Clearly they are both human and gender none conforming. I would really appreciate an answer to this question as my daughter shares being of the female sex with all female children (girls) regardless of their personalities and preferences, but I cannot think of a single things she shares with your son that makes them both girls.

Also can I get an answer as to how intersex people fit into a purely sex-based philosophy and divide?

In those cases, won't some people always be forced to lie or pretend that they are something that they aren't?

I have lived experience as a relative of a detransitioner.

But that's never the type of lived experience the TRA contingent are interested in.

Just to be entirely fair to Solid, I can kind of see what she may be saying in the pointing anecdote. I'm understanding it, most likely, as a kind of

• kid points at princesses when 4, and parent/s remark on it but do and think nothing more, then
• kid subsequently persists in ways parent/s interpret as identifying as female, and parents recall pointing as evidence supporting this

But even this chronology still leaves space for our very real concerns about subliminal messaging and confirmation bias etc. in trans-identifying kids, and nurture appearing to suppress natural inclination in some cases (again, see the Cass clinician whistle-blowers - and irresponsible jokers - who, we've been told, called the Tavistock a gay-conversion clinic of sorts).

Read. The. Thread

Multiple people have already answered this.

@SolidMam Are you ignoring the replies you've had to this already? People with DSD are either male or female, and it's really really rude to suggest they are otherwise

All so called intersex people are one sex or the other. Most of the time there is no ambiguity at all as to what sex they are. In some extremely rare cases, it will require investigations, but can be established by medical specialists.

And I know lots of trans children, lots of autistic girls in my area now identify as trans boys or non - binary.

That in itself is a safeguarding failure.

Why does it have to be personal experience?

Do you understand that you are asking women to disclose their trauma to justify their denial of consent to any male person above the age of about 8 years old to be in a single sex provision?

Do you really want women to do this?

In the meantime, while we wait for that answer here is just a few reasons that female people don't want male people in single sex provisions.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3348290-It-will-never-happen-resource-thread?latest=0

I can also find testimony from female prisoners, female people having horrific experiences in homeless, rape and DV shelters meant to be for female people, testimony from many female people about their encounters in toilets and changing rooms, and even hospital wards where female people have been raped by male people with transgender identities who were on the same ward (including one where the hospital denied it for a long time saying there were no 'men' on the ward - notice that destablisation of language that you declare is harmless to female people?)

I'm interested - how are they doing?

I must say that reading this thread, I had some sympathy for the mum of a transgirl, even though I fundamentally disagree with her. But upon reading her posts further and further, my goodness I'm beginning to think "This is batshit!!" Honestly, it's almost like being contrary for contrary sake.

Should we then have female-women and male-women if women cannot be women and transwomen cannot just be transwomen??

So if on the news a reporter mentions a woman was xyz, do viewers then go 'do they mean female or male?'

If at a hospital, a medical report says a 'woman', doctors have to start looking further to know if it means female or male?

Why is an assigned word (transwoman) not enough for a male who has chosen to be something else - why must they co-opt the term (woman) that is already in use?

I don't get this. It’s utter entitlement! It's bullying! It's unacceptable!

Be a transwoman and use that term so that necessary people (doctors, etc) know who they're dealing with. A woman should be and is reserved for actual women (The fact that i have to qualify it with "actual" is ridiculous too). You (general you) serioulsy don't care about girls who will grow up to be women if you insist in the opposite.

Prioritising "lived experience" over responsible parenting, safeguarding children, understanding age appropriate behaviour, ensuring child wellbeing is what has got us into this mess in the first place.
A time when the immensely powerful trans lobby has been able to serve up another tranche of children to be experimented on with dodgy drugs to stop their natural pubertal development and risk immense long term harm to them. -All in the attempt to prove the myth of the "trans child".

Agree. I really respect Solid’s willingness to engage in discussion here, but I also think it’s chilling that she seemed to have decided to validated their very young child’s feelings that they are the opposite sex rather than telling their child that boys and girls can do pretty much anything, and their only difference is their bodies that cannot be changed. And that bodies matter. So they’re a boy and that cannot be changed but they can still like things that people steeped in outdated stereotypes might think are ‘girl’ things while still being a boy. That’s the kind thing to do.

What disorders are you referring to? "Intersex" isn't really used to specify.

Your opening paragraph is exactly what I find so tragic about all this. It's posters like this one, more than gender critical posters themselves, that have solidified my concerns.

As I say above, the movement is harming not just female people, but also those it professes to protect.

Are you able to give an answer as to why your son wanted to join the girl guides and not the scouts?

That's a difficult question to answer.

Medically, unfortunately not great. Her time spent taking testosterone has resulted in long term health problems, even though she has long stopped taking it. Her doctors don't seem to be able to tell her if these will abate in time. Thankfully she never had surgery.

Emotionally/mentally things are eventually looking up. She had considerable mental health issues that transitioning did not solve. Immediately post transition, she was in a very dark place indeed. But she seems to have made a lot of progress lately, has a therapist she likes/trusts. I feel she's turned a corner.

You seem ill informed about 'intersex' people.

You don't seem to have taken on board anything that anyone has said about them.

People with differences of sex development are either male or female due to the categorisation using criteria based on the gamete production their body has been formed around producing, regardless of whether their body produces those gametes or ever has or ever will.

The term 'intersex' is actually a political term and it is not the term that is used now for the group of medical conditions that you refer to.

No human has ever produce both gametes. Many humans have never produce a gamete but still have the body formation that becomes clear with further medical investigations.

If you are genuinely interested in this discussion, please start a thread. I would encourage you to start it on the FWR board where there are plenty of people with experience and knowledge to help you clarify your thinking on this.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights

However, politically leveraging of this group of people to destabilise sex based language is not kind, tolerant or any of the things that you seem to wish to be considered.

I can imagine lots of things. What I'd really like is for SolidMam to explain in her own words exactly what happened and how she came to the conclusion that her child, who remember was unable to talk at that point was capable of the complex thought process that:

1. Saw and was looking specifically at the female character his mum was pointing at, and not something else
2. Recognised the character being pointed out as a female (How? Us adults can't be sure of anyone's sex really according to GI, and anyway that doesn't take into account that we shouldn't assume someone's gender identity aligns with their sex "assigned" at birth. The child may have been identifying as a trans man for all anyone knows!)
3. Recognised the difference between himself and this female character (adult character? Child character? Pre-verbal child character?)
4. "Identified" as the sex the character being pointed at, as opposed to his own biological sex. Identified as? What exactly does that mean?
5. Conveyed all this incredibly complex thinking without being able to speak a word to his mum (or both parents IDK)
6. Was persistent in these non-verbal assertions of their inherent knowledge of their own gender identity to the point that his mum/parents have socially transitioned him

I agree wholeheartedly with your last paragraph!

It's posters like this one, more than gender critical posters themselves, that have solidified my concerns.

Exactly. I said right at the start of the thread that my assumption is that what determines, to her, whether someone is a boy or girl is harmful gender stereotypes, but I was happy to be corrected.

On no occasion has she been willing to even tell us what she thinks the difference is. It's got to be rooted in sexism. The unwillingness to state otherwise, while trampling over people with DSDs and neurodiverse people, just shows how harmful and unwilling to face up to their own beliefs these people are.

All while telling us we have to accept it but we're not allowed to try and understand it.

I'm glad to hear it, I hope she continues to improve.