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)

doesn't it interest you that on this thread you have very little support?

Your child has a penis. He is male. He has no right to be in single sex spaces for girls. He is not 'another girl' because he is a boy.

No amount of debate will change that fact. If you persist in telling him he is a girl and should be in single sex spaces for girls you are harming him. I am sorry for him and for you that you refuse to see that.

Thank you, this is a very thoughtful post.

HE She knows HE she has a penis, that HE she is a trans IDENTIFYING BOY girl, that this makes HIM her different to other girls.

Fixed that for you.

"you're not harming my child directly just as I'm not harming yours. I'm debating on Mumsnet."

Well actually you are harming everyone's actually female children by encouraging your boy child to access female stuff including our words. You may even have been directly harming some posters female children who might have been in the same Brownies group as your boy.

You have certainly harmed your own child, and every female child at the brownies group you had him join.

I also wonder how many female children you disadvantaged because they were unable to join a mixed sex group, which that Brownies group became when you included him in it.

You just don't care about females at all, it's misogyny all the way down with you.

“just as I'm not harming yours”

Your decisions and integral lack of understanding of safeguarding is actively allowing potential harm to female children.

"Anyway he is a girl! So be kiiiiiiiind! Give him all your stuff girls! No I don't care that you need it more for valid reasons, I want him to have it instead leaving you with sweet feck all! Now hand it over you bullies!"

"Eh? This is pretty out there now."

No it's really not. This is what you are saying.

You have been saying this to everyone here, and to the female children at Brownies.

You are saying this every time you include him in things that were set up specifically to benefit females and exclude males, and every time you or he uses female language to describe him.

He is male, he is not the same as actual girls, he has no right to their language, groups, services, spaces, sports, etc etc etc.

You are showing staggering entitlement with a jet fuel booster pack of misogyny.

You are leaving your child open to huge upset. Society just isn't going to buy the lie.

Needing external acceptance from everyone else they meet is a surefire way to poor mental health because it's just not going to happen.

They need to accept themselves as they are and not fight it. Because that is what/ who they are.

No @SolidMam has also said that she thinks biology is an ideology (twice) and has said that this is an echo chamber.

Obviously she had to walk back a bit on the echo chamber stuff because... well here she is talking about women's rights and how they are exclusionary, regressive and outdated, all from the perspective of benefiting males.

Open discussion has proved that it's absolutely not an echo chamber, so IMO we can all fairly safely assume that what Solid actually meant when she said "echo chamber", was "everyone disagrees with me because I'm talking some cuckoo for cocopuffs nonsense"

@SolidMam

Is there any female single sex provisions that you will actually respect and not encourage your male child to access, now or in the future?

Sport?

Communal changing rooms?

Group mental health support groups for female people?

Programmes for female people to gain skills they are excluded from getting because of sexist discrimination?

Women’s officers or girl representatives meant to ensure female people’s needs are fully considered organisations?

Female representation roles of any kind meant to lift female people’s voices to be heard because of lack of female representation in the past?

How about an award for exceptional female performance ?

"My trans child might well have great sex when they're older, thank you very much."

Do you think that will be possible if they go down the route of blockers, hormones and finally surgery? Because evidence suggests that you'd be very very wrong about that.

She even said they will get that on a T-shirt.

I encourage this. I think it is a marvellous idea!

I think she should absolutely be out there with this opinion telling everyone that she believes that biology is an ideology.

I think the more people know this is what she believes the better.

Hello

I haven’t read the whole thread but I am very happy to answer why single sex toilets are safer. For this I am presuming you are in the UK and want to know about children particularly.

In this country the standard school toilet design for single sex toilets did have a gap above and below the doors and partitions. This was for health and safety. Ventilation and hygiene are better as you can mop and drain away any vomit/excrement. Single sex designs are scientifically proven to have less pathogens than mixed sex. Emergency evacuations are quicker as you can see at a glance if anyone is trapped in the loos. But most importantly misuse was prevented. This includes drug use, having sex and vandalism. And it gave a small amount of supervision so anyone in difficulty was helped in time.

Now around 25% of toilets in secondary school toilets are mixed sex. A lot of schools give the reason of inclusion. This means the designs change to enclosed designs (usually with the shared sinks outside) typically a 5mm gap from floor-door and door-ceiling. This enables both sexes to use a toilet without male voyeurism on girls.

The consequences are not good. At worst children have died recently in private toilet cubicles and cpr was unsuccessful (I only know that they were private designs not that the end result would be different in these tragedies). All schools have defibrillators but you need to know that someone has collapsed asap. This obviously affects the most vulnerable children most - those with invisible disabilities, those with mental health conditions who may self harm and those having a medical emergency - for example spiked vapes have led to pupils collapsing with seizures. And guess where they go to hide and vape?

The other problem is sexual assaults. Around 1 child per day reports a rape in a British school. Rape is a male crime. As an ex-teacher, this is a horrifying statistic. No one collated where these take place but it’s reasonable to assume it’s a private place. The locations I know about are private toilets and store cupboards. No perpetrator is going to want to get caught. The gaps prevent misuse in the first place.

Here’s a good article which shows the reality of mixed sex designs:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/drug-dealing-drinking-dirt-problems-28517175

And here’s why schools who have tried mixing the sexes in single sex designs, quickly make them private:
https://www.womensrights.network/school-toilets

Here’s a pupil discussing ‘gender-neutral’ toilets in their school who specifically wants gender-neutral toilets: ‘The gender-neutral bathrooms are both horrible and amazing. I am so glad we have them, but they are disgusting, mostly because of the way students treat them. The issue mainly comes from how small and how few they are, and it’s not uncommon that the four small bathrooms are filled with sex, drugs or vaping. We need to address these problems, or the gender-neutral bathrooms will continue to be the most disgusting in the school….I consider everything in the third floor bathroom a biohazard. Almost every time I make the mistake of going in, I leave trying to purge my mind of the horrors I just witnessed. Whether it is people having sex, poop smeared on the walls, or the toilet being clogged with an entire roll of toilet paper, horrible things have happened in that bathroom.’

All the above problems happen outside schools too. That’s why so much council provision has closed - misuse.

By ensuring single sex toilets are single sex and that it can be enforced means we all get safer and healthier designs that protect the most vulnerable.

Thank you @Keeptoiletssafe you are a font of important information!

Helen Joyce is completely on the nail about parents of “trans children” and how they affect everyone else.

This sums up my experience too. I was a 'tom boy' and I remember feeling I wanting to be a boy often. Not because I felt I was one, but because boys had so many more opportunities, and the expectations were totally different. I wanted to be outdoors having fun, not stuck inside playing with dolls.

I happily grew into a woman that still loves outdoorsy things and couldn't care less about hair and makeup, fashion etc. That doesn't make me any less of a women than any other. It really concerns me that if I had grown up now I would possibly have been pushed towards non binary or trans.

I am now diagnosed autisitc. The link between non binary and trans really worries me. Autistic children often feel disconnected and also often have wider or different interests from their peers. Add the two together and that can be very confusing, especially at the start of puberty.

My son is also autistic and loves lots of traditionally female clothes and interests. More than I ever did. But that doesn't make him a girl. We need to throw away all these stereotypes and let kids be kids. Ironically the push for trans and non binary acceptance seems to narrow what is accepted for both sexes.

Heartening to see the support for trans children in social media, regional groups and scouting.

I suspect scouts is about to get a whole lot popular.As a parent my daughter would be going to groups that foster inclusivity. This would have been the nail in the coffin for us as regards Brownies and guides.

The transphobics can keep Guides!

Off you go, then. Don’t let us stop you.

I suspect there will be many and girl guiding are aware of this. Scouting will benefit from this and they know.

Disheartening to see you have a daughter. Your daughter will be taught that she has no right as a girl to a space of her own. Just girls only. Girls grow in confidence when away from boys. Boys change the dynamic and dominate when in groups with girls. Not to mention 14 year old fully intact boys sharing a tent with a 14 year old girl. Not only do you not believe in safeguarding, you are going to teach your daughter that femphobia, misogyny and being a handmaiden is the order of the day. That women and girls have no right to anything to ourselves. You should be ashamed of yourself. You really should be. Deeply ashamed of yourself.

Scouts is simply unisex.

Its not saying men can become women either - thankfully

Dammit, you’ve uncovered the scout’s cunning plan! It’s all a scheme to boost their membership. And they would have got away with it if you weren’t so clever and insightful! Well done you!!!

What utterly ridiculous hysterical clap trap.I’m so proud of my daughter, her friends and her generation. She doesn’t melt when she’s near boys , is beautifully inclusive and is well aware of when female spaces are necessary. A 2 hour weekly social group is not that. Very proud of her and me for giving her values that make her stand streets above most of the hugely unpleasant posters on here. Thankfully there is a wider world than MN.

As long as the ideological refugees from guides set up extra groups and contribute leaders for the scouts I’m sure it will be fine
Hey, who knows, that could be the super trans affirming offshoot organisation people are waiting for.

"well aware of when female spaces are necessary. A 2 hour weekly social group is not that."

Well grand for your girl, but for many other girls that 2 hour weekly social group is necessary

Now those girls have been given back a single group they can use, and you're sad about it?!

Your girl can go to a mixed sex group, but they can't. You aren't very inclusive or kind to those girls are you?

"Hysterical". Yeah, must be my ovaries. You really can't even see your own misogyny can you?

Girl Guides is more than a 'social group'. It gives girls a space to grow, learn, build confidence. When boys are added into the mix, the dynamic changes. Any woman will tell you this. And you have forgotten that they camp in tents... That means teenage males in with teenage females. No comment about that?

As I said, you should be ashamed. Your hateful attitude towards the needs of girls to have a girl only space is really unpleasant. You are not 'progressive' you are regressive. This is 2025. Your attitude towards girls having girl only groups is shameful, so shameful I find it depressing.

BlackCat: