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)

Well according to her, her son "indicated that he identified with a female character" she pointed at before he was able to talk - so under 1 year old.

And as pointed out, that picture could have been someone with a male gender identity.

There is loads of safeguarding that could be undertaken, official and unofficial. A good start would be actually being respectful to and getting to know transwomen as friends, rather than lumping them into boxes marked "Danger - Male".

You are saying you can have safeguarding as long as each person involved in running the service personally knows and has friendships with everyone using your service?

Seriously? In a leisure centre? In supermarket toilets?

Do you know something - I have a vague, distant memory of this exact 'argument' being used before because it was so divorced from reality it stuck in my mind. Anyone else?

There's a lot of things familiar about what SolidMam is saying.

It's almost as if she's got the TRA talking points handbook open in front of her.

Fuckity fuck. I had a moment of bravery and now I'm feeling like a coward again.

Someone at work just shared a petition to GG to reverse the decision. And I've commented that it's not their decision, it's the law.

I've tried to be as non committal as possible on my actual opinion. I work for a stonewall diversity champion ffs!

But now I feel a bit sick and like I've stuck my head above a parapet...

On a thread elsewhere about this it was stated that girls are not allowed to set boundaries where that boundary excluded others. It was suggested that this was the same as if the girl guides announced that they would not allow black children!
So offensive.
They also continually refer to Cis Girls. Which don't exist. Girls exist, they are not a sub set.

This thread has numerous aspects under discussion about safeguarding and at times it feels like endless repetition. I hope that this post will pull together answers to questions, and I have created groupings around sub-topics. Obviously this is not covering everything at all.

I have broken it into two parts due to the length.

I believe that the foundations of safeguarding principles cover not only minimising the risk of physical harm, but many other forms of harm. Safeguarding female people also is there to ensure that female people have privacy and dignity away from male people as per their human right, based on sex not 'gender'.

Here are some of the misconceptions about safeguarding that have been mentioned on this thread.

The Blanket Ban

(this also has an impact on legitimate discrimination)

What has been posted on this thread :

“It doesn't make them all worthy of the same treatment”.

“blanket bans of males in same sex spaces does not solve the issue of abuse, as well as aggravating the many women who would stand with my trans daughter over this issue.”

“I am not talking about lowering safeguarding standards because bans of males do not automatically raise levels of safety.”

“There is loads of safeguarding that could be undertaken, official and unofficial. A good start would be actually being respectful to and getting to know transwomen as friends, rather than lumping them into boxes marked "Danger - Male". “

Safeguarding based on sex for unmonitored and publicly accessible use of single sex provisions does indeed rely fully on 'blanket bans'. The core safeguarding principle for this is that it is equally applied to every human of that sex class. No exceptions. History has taught us to not make exceptions for any person in that group. Not teachers, not priests, not princes.

This is also based on the premise that in a publicly accessible provision no person has to make a risk assessment about another person based on little knowledge except visual observation.

It is also based on the premise that female people being in female single sex provisions are assumed to have the same risk of causing harm as any other female person in that population. This is also based on a person being able to physically fight of an attack too (also just one reason parents accompany their children into single sex provisions).

Risk analysis is key here. There is not one statistical review that shows that the group of male people with transgender identities have a lower risk of committing sex offences when compared to the rest of the UK male population. Not one. And that is just for sex offences as there is no collection of data for the harms that are not crimes but include female people self excluding from provisions because they cannot feel certain that it will be female only.

Blanket bans excluding male people from female single sex provisions are put in place even though there are only a 'few' male people may cause harm.

All male people are excluded, even the harmless ones. This is key. No female person has to decide at all which male people are the ones that will or will not cause them harm. Safeguarding principles around blanket bans eliminate that risk.

Excluding all males also works to safeguard male people with transgender identities too. It also means that they are not then in a situation where they are being assessed as to whether they may or may not be someone who will harm female people. They are also not being assessed on whether they look like female people or not. It also gives them the clear boundaries of where they should not expect to be treated like a female person.

All male people who demand to be treated as female people are still male. Therefore they are excluded 'as male people' not because they have a transgender identity.

This also works with the anti-discrimination aspect of the EA. The safeguarding principle is based on segregating by sex. Therefore to allow any male in to a single sex provision (above the age of about 8 years old) while excluding all others is a very clear case of discrimination against those male people who cannot access that provision. That is how discrimination policy based on sex works.

Male people with transgender identities cannot change sex.

The effectiveness of safeguarding doesn't eliminate harm so why have it

What has been posted on this thread :

"But it doesn't automatically raise levels of safety in every case, does it? Abusers will still come into a single sex spaces with the intent to do harm."

This falsely presumes that the safeguarding principle of blanket exclusion of male people won't reduce the risk levels of safety to female people. This is clearly false.

Risk is lowered in several ways.

-male people know that they are not permitted to access that provision without a specific reason such as cleaning or maintenance, therefore any male person in that space can be immediately assumed to be there to harm others and steps taken to remove that male person or to remove the female people in that provision.

-security, premises owners etc have clear understanding that a male person should be excluded and steps can be taken to address this issue through clear policies, signage and communication of that policy and enforcement of that policy.

-female people can take steps to feel safe such as to immediately remove themselves from that provision, they can actively warn others that a male person has accessed that provision as well.

Consent is also key here, of course. Female people can assess whether a provision feels safe for them to use and can withdraw consent when they feel they might be harmed.

If there is obfuscation about the legitimacy of a male person's presence this increases the risk. A female person is having to make a decision about her consent without full knowledge.

This is also where messaging and communications designed to apply coercion to female people to accept situations where they feel unsafe is causing harm.

But 'I' consent, that should be enough:

What has been posted on this thread :

“However blanket bans of males in same sex spaces does not solve the issue of abuse, as well as aggravating the many women who would stand with my trans daughter over this issue.”

There have been other posts about 'friends' being happy to have a male child in the female single sex group as well.

For safeguarding to work, consent is involved. There are some instances where a fully controlled single sex provision can temporarily be open to male people 'with the consent, given with full knowledge of the female people present'.

What is very key here is that if ONE female person does not consent, then full consent has not be achieved and the safeguarding will revert back to exclusion.

ONE female.

It is irrelevant whether some of the group consent. Consent is not transferable and cannot be given on behalf of a person who is able to consent for themselves.

Children cannot consent.

And again, for consent to be given full knowledge must be available.

In the case where no parent knows that there is a male child accessing a single sex provision, full knowledge has not been available to that parent and their consent is meaningless.

Language demands

What has been posted on this thread :

“Obviously I'd add in referring to them in their preferred gender.” was posted in relation to safeguarding.

Obscuring the sex of a person who should not be accessing a single sex provision removes the ability for any person who needs that knowledge to have full knowledge.

If a person does not have full knowledge because language around the sex of a person obscures that key piece of information, they cannot give consent and any consent they have just given is meaningless.

This has been a key strategy for lobby groups for decades and is the reason for the destabilisation of language where now centuries established terms hold different meanings for different groups. It is dishonest for someone who is using language that obscures the sex of a person to expect another person to understand what the word means without full clarification to that other person.

Language such as referring to a male child as a girl or 'she/her' or grouped with girls using the word 'other' (such 'other girls are happy with her being there') is used by a very small group of people and it is not used by the majority of the population.

Allowing children to influence safeguarding

What has been posted on this thread :

“please try to see with the eyes of a child.”

No. No male child's distress at exclusion where legitimate discrimination has been used for safeguarding purposes to create a single sex provision should create a special category of male people to access a female single sex provision.

This is the antithesis of safeguarding principles and it is a violation too of any safeguarding policy.

But just being there is not a safety issue

What has been posted on this thread :

“It is not necessarily or always a safety issue to have a male (transwoman or not) in same-sex spaces. It is simply not true.”

“But the mere presence of a male doesn't always constitute a threat to safety.”

“I prioritise inclusion, unless actual safety is the priority - which in many day-to-day cases it isn't.”

“If children like my own pose an inherent danger to the other girls, I would genuinely like to know what the DANGER is.”

Safety is but one aspect of the safeguarding needs for female people.

There are numerous harms.

Harms include:

-Rape and sexual assault.

-Violence.

-Sexual abuse that is not rape or sexual assault.

-Sexual abuse that also includes solo sexual acts or using the experience in future sexual acts.

-Any other abuse that may include verbal abuse, intimidation in any way etc, this includes inappropriate questions and comments.

-A male person's presence where female people need privacy and dignity.

-A male person's presence where female people need to feel safe from any male person's presence (over the age of about 8 years old).

-Female people self-excluding knowing that there may be a male person accessing that provision.

-Female people not having the freedom to discuss the issues that cause them distress, concern, or that they need to talk about because a male person is present.

-Female children (and female adults) learning to have no or too low personal boundaries because they have been taught that male people are female people and that they should ignore and overcome feelings of discomfort.

Narrowing the discussion to sex and violence offences does not remove these other harms from consideration for female single sex spaces.

yes. She did indeed do this.

I really hope that she is just a TRA rather than an actual mother who decided her child was trans before he could speak.

That child had no chance really, once she decided that all the rest was confirmation bias.

I have two children, one was and still is to a lesser degree than pre- puberty gender non conforming.

My eldest, now a young adult, is a masculine and heterosexual as you can possibly be but even he, as a very young child, occasionally picked princess dresses out of the dressing up box and played with dolls and pushed them round in pushchairs. This is all normal behaviour!

What the fuck has happened to make parents look at normal childhood behaviour and decide that this means their kids are trans?

And before people say this hasn't happened, that's not true at all. The messaging from Mermaids a few years ago was exactly that. I can't seem to copy and paste that gender scale on here which is a shame but it literally had Barbie at one end and GI Joe at the other. For children this has always been about stereotypes.

I also don't think parents who have been caught up in this have joined the dots and realised that the existence of trans children is absolutely necessary as props for the sudden influx of trans women, many of whom would previously been known as cross dressers who have been enabled to practise their fetish in the open and emboldened to claim the right to be in single sex spaces because they now say they are women on the back of the 'trans women are women' mantra and anyone who disagrees is a bigot. What is shocking is the number of women who do not see the reality of this even though the evidence of it is right in front of their eyes.

Infiltrating single sex spaces like the Girl Guides was essential, that's why it was targeted by the TRAs. Getting the girls to accept males in single sex spaces at a young age and telling them they have no right to complain or they are bigots was the entire mission aim. They have treated the Guiding organisation as useful idiots for gender theory.

It's extremely disturbing to see parents embark on something as serious as transing their child, without, seemingly, giving it much thought at all.

How you could do this, without being 100% clear with your child that the rest of the world is under no obligation to play along - I don't know.

Pushing a pre-school child down this path because of clothing / toy preferences is just utterly unforgivable.

And unfortunately, the Guides have played right into their hands. 😵‍💫

It is even more disturbing when that parent is in a position of influence over other children such as teacher, a group leader.

We already know that some of those parents seek to get into positions that will smooth the way for their child to have 'safe' spaces. Some of them do so with the full knowledge that they are influencing children in 'accepting' male people to be treated as if they were female. But I think in all instances, many of them will ignore or will dismiss the harm that they are causing by doing this.

It is simply inconceivable to admit to themselves that what they are doing is contributing to societal level and group level and individual level harm. Because they are being told by others with heavy investment directly in this issue or indirectly (such as needing to be seen as the righteous, kind and tolerant person) that there is no harm. Nothing to see here. No one is being 'attacked', it is all just lovely and accepting.

Yep! Definitely why I said she reminds me of those parents (some are American celebs) who started raising their little boys as "trans" because they (the parents) wanted to 'raise them without limits' - for the child to know they can be anything they want to be...and other such things. Of course the kid grows to believe he's a girl because he's always been raised to "present" as one, and introduced into girls' spaces (like GG) as one of them.

Yes 'useful idiots'.

Until the lawyers said no, but to a degree they are still being useful idiots by saying they have made the decision with 'heavy hearts'.

Well done for speaking up.

I have a friend who has 2 children who identify as non-binary who has posted the petition to reverse the decision on face book. They have lots of 'friends' on facebook. Only one person has liked it and there are no comments.

Speaks volumes.

I just saw this on twitter, @HC1ps . Any comments? Do you see now why the rule was changed? https://x.com/fairplaywomen/status/1043739310325936129 (for some reason screenshots are not attaching at all so I have to add a link)
From as far back as 2018. It states:

"Hundreds of parents signed our open letter asking
@Girlguiding
to review their policy that allows boys who identify as girls to sleep in tents with other girls without telling patents. Two guide leaders have now been thrown out and their units closed."

"2) Girl Guiding refused to answer basic questions about safeguarding and parental informed consent. We cannot ignore the obvious that a trans child who identifies as a girl is still a male child with a body. https://fairplayforwomen.com/guide-leaders-call-for-halt/ "

and other tweets. GG were asked to enact safeguards, they REFUSED.

Having thought about this a fair bit, it seems like a great deal of the indignation about single sex provisions for girl guiding is that it has been forgotten it is not the preserve of the 6-10s, or indeed the 14-18s. The cohort that is the most screwed over are the eponymous guides, the 10-14s going through puberty, contemplating sexuality , beginning to get sexually harassed in public
the gap between glitter and dolls, and the potential for hanky panky

Having said that, the only sexualised assault I have ever had to deal with on a (scout) camp was one ten year old boy on another. Gilwell were useless

It sounds as though you were just helpfully informing them that they are directing their petition at the wrong people, and that if they want to change the law they need to campaign for that.

This is actually a situation that does get overlooked by those pushing for male inclusion. I mentioned it above in my list of harms:

“Female people not having the freedom to discuss the issues that cause them distress, concern, or that they need to talk about because a male person is present.”

Not only do they not feel they have privacy for group discussions about issues that female children only experience, why the fuck would any female child believe a fucking thing an adult says once that adult has just said that this boy is a girl?

Why does any GG leader think they have gained any female child’s trust while they model that they believe a boy can be a girl?

And after that leader has ensured that all the female children fully understand that the leader fully accepts that that male child is a girl, and has spoken about welcoming that male child as a girl, why the fuck would any adult think that a distressed or concerned female child will speak up about their distress and concern?

There is a significant disconnect in the thinking process if they don’t understand the ramifications of their actions as adults. Yet, GG seems to be ignoring all this and seems to be supporting those adults who have demonstrated their priority for the male children.

GG fucked up hugely on this. And Stonewall and Gender Intelligence just screwed over girls and GG opened the door and applauded.

FYI for all those parents trusting rhe medics...they admit in private they are 'just winging it'. Nice.

https://x.com/LeorSapir/status/1996382326859956525

This is simply mind blowing.

I do not understand why this is not getting more attention. This is going to be the medical scandal of our generation, worse than lobotomies.

I have set that aside to read this weekend.

The thing is though, it sounds like just further confirmation that the leaked files and then those leaked emails are all legit and show that all this medical treatment advise, and the standards of care, is purely driven by ideology and not evidence.

Which is what ALL the reviews of the studies have shown anyway.

I really do not see how any person advocating for medical treatment for children for a philosophical belief that is not based in reality, which they have adopted as their identity, can do so with the confidence that this is right thing to do.

It was all built on a house of cards, including the Dutch Protocol.

I believe it gets written off as conspiracy theory stuff because no mainstream media will do the investigation. It is a time bomb though. I hope in years to come it will be properly investigated by a government committee elected group and all will be exposed.

Even past WPATH presidents have been warning about some of the aspects of medicalising children.

Bowers is on record about the sexual function of male children who are medicalised and is a past WPATH president I believe . Anderson has raised some alarms too. Both of these are not only Gender clinicians (Bowers a surgeon and Anderson a psych) but are transitioned male people.

It is very strange the silence in mainstream media about the things that they say though. They are saying these things and none of it gets reported.

This looks interesting to listen to as well and it seems to be relevant to this thread.

"The BBC is facing mounting accusations that it has failed to report impartially on transgender issues. A formal complaint has been sent to Ofcom by the Bayswater Support Group, which represents hundreds of parents who believe the broadcaster has promoted one-sided coverage of sex and gender. The group accuses senior editors of failing to reflect dissenting views, glossing over safeguarding concerns, and presenting gender identity as an uncontested fact.

Camilla Tominey and Tim Stanley are joined by parents of two young people who socially transitioned as teenagers. They describe how their children’s gender identities were affirmed at school during the Covid pandemic - in some cases without parental knowledge - and the lasting impact it has had on their families as the relationship with their children broke down.

They also discusses leaked allegations that the BBC’s coverage has been subject to internal censorship, alongside examples cited by critics - from reporting on puberty blockers to children’s television and drama - and the corporation’s response to claims of bias."