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)

@SolidMam care to point out where I have* reduced "all social interactions between people to their sex organs"? *

Is my using male people and female people the thing you find 'incredibly irrational'?

The harm (I use your word) at Brownies age, is asking girls to accept the lie that your child is a girl and not a boy. I really apologise if that is blunt.

As your child gets older, in Guides and Rangers, the girls will start puberty, and then a bit later (normally girls go first) your child will also start puberty. You have now got (biological) young male and female adults in a group. A group that by policy says "that boy is actually a girl" so your child is now sharing tents, toilets, showering and changing facilities with girls, because they say they are one.

This is a massive issue. I would not and do not want my teenage daughter getting changed in front of a biological male no matter what they say they are.

Not only that, but the parents of the girls won't even be told (although I am sure they can work it out for themselves). This leaves the biological girls in a really tough place. People then argue that the biological girls should just "be kind" to the biological boys, and just get changed/washed etc in front of them. That is wrong. It has to be!

And how is this putting girls first? How is this helping the many girls who cannot access spaces with men due to cultural and religious reasons? Do they not matter?

It's being discussed on Jeremy Vine on R2 now. The first song they're playing is Sisters are doing it for themselves!😂

I'm afraid it's absolutely you who is constantly reducing the debate about social interactions to sex organs, partly in your refusal to recognise my child's gender. She is a trans girl. I find that very cruel.

No I haven't asked all the other girls in her group - I would LOVE to have more open dialogue about all of this. And not have to have the discussion anonymously.

But it is very hard to do so without putting a target on my child's back, which potentially puts her and my family in danger, such is the prejudice and animosity that some people have.

I'm so worried that as she gets older and her gender (trans girl) becomes more physically apparent, she will retreat from the world, as it doesn't feel like a safe place to be. I would much rather have open conversation about all of this. Maybe one day.

In terms of safeguarding, I don't know what you mean. Do you see my trans daughter as a threat to the other girls?

SolidMam, I've kept engaging, politely and respectfully throughout I hope, not commenting on a lack of response to my posts because it's been a fast-moving thread, and your views are in the minority, as well as feeling very personal - not an easy position to be in. But when I read claims like Helle is "reducing" things to "sex organs" and making emotional or fear-based claims, I do wonder how closely you're actually reading what she's saying, and whether you're taking on board my contributions at all. I'd be interested for example, to hear your views on the studies I posted showing how boys dominate mixed-sex spaces, as a strong argument against a mixed-sex Brownies. No sex organs involved (do you know, I feel weird even typing that phrase in this context - a deep-seated discomfort at how explicit, inappropriate and fundamentally irrelevant it feels; what the heck are trans activists - not you, Solid! - thinking in returning to it so consistently?)

They now need to make sure that no men are allowed to be unit leaders, etc.

The bottom line is that your child is male and no, he doesn't have rights to spaces and services that are for females only. There are other spaces and services available to him.

Of course plenty of parents of girls don't want boys bunking in with them on overnights and similar. Stop being so obtuse and self centred.

You are not doing your child any favours at all by affirming delusions. The world does not and will not see him as female. Because he isn't.

Refusing to pretend that humans can change sex is not cruel. I'd argue that it's cruel to lie to children they something which is impossible will be possible for them. We can all think of ourselves however we like, but we cannot force the rest of the world to see us as we want to be seen. A boy isn't a girl because he wishes he was. Sorry if that upsets you but it is factual.

I hope you will be happy to learn that neither your family nor your child are in danger, as transpeople are extremely safe in this country: https://thecritic.co.uk/neither-marginalised-abused-nor-vulnerable/
Unlike women, who are murdered at the rate of 2 a week.

I posted the link below upthread @SolidMam. It might be tough reading, but I'd urge you to have a read and consider some of the potential psychological consequences (written by a Clinical Psychologist) of allowing a young child to live an untruth that will be painfully exposed as they and their bodies mature.

An extract if you don't want to read the whole thing:

"Social transition isn’t reversible, because what we tell our children for years can’t be reversed. When we disconnect them from their biological sex, we set up patterns of denial and secrets. We set them up to hate their bodies at puberty, to beg for blockers and binders, because for years we told them they could change sex, and they believed us. They are desperate to go back to the years when no one knew any different, but that time will never come again. Time is not reversible".

https://www.transgendertrend.com/childhood-social-transition/

Absolutely - as a feminist, I have a lot of time for the study you shared.

I suppose I must be a "trans inclusionary" feminist, if you like, though I don't want to get too political about that! And though trans women's biology may be male (sorry to reduce it to that again, it is me this time!) their lived experience and social reality probably has much more in common with women and girls. And so they can and should be included as such, where appropriate.

I don't believe they are necessarily erasing women/girls by their presence. Potentially trans people are adding to and enriching the experience of what it is to be a woman.

I agree. Odd wording.

Thanks but she knows that her body is going to develop in a male way.

Right. And this is where I am afraid your accusations of me 'reducing the debate about social interactions to sex organs' is actually showing your very own irrationality.

You speak about my cruelty of not recognising your child's philosophical belief. Over two threads I have not yet seen you display any understanding that not one person on this earth has to act as if your child is a female child when they are a male person.

You can call me cruel for not using your preferred language all you want. I don't think you quite understand what you are demonstrating when you do so though. Because it is clearly you attempting to coerce me to use language that you insist that I use to describe a male person.

See, this is where language accuracy becomes very important.

"Do you see my trans daughter as a threat to the other girls?"

Obfuscates that the person you refer to as your daughter is a male person.

"Do you see my male child as a threat to female children?"

Is the accurate version of that sentence. A clearer message is communicated by referring to your child by the protected characteristic used for the legitimate discrimination of why a group of people are excluded from GG.

That protected characteristic is sex.

You know, that word you have substituted out for the manipulative 'sex organs'. A substitution that clearly makes a judgement about my discussion of 'sex organs' in relation to children.

It has been done over and over and over on threads on MN. If you don't understand safeguarding children, I have to ask what you thought you were doing being a leader in Brownies.

I honestly don’t know how Guides got themselves into such a mess on this in the first place. The numbers must also be tiny especially in the lower age groups so it does feel a bit bizarre that they have sort of ignored their own founding objectives of being a place for girls.

If you look at things in a very black and white way, safeguarding and splitting children by sex for some activities has always been an accepted and recommended practice. I would expect single sex sleeping accommodation in a residential setting whether that be a primary school or brownies camp. Logically therefore, self identification doesn’t change why you’d expect those provisions to be in place.

One of the absolute failures of public policy in this space has been the inability to recognise that there is a spectrum here from men with a fluid identity self IDing to men who have gone through surgical procedures and have a gender recognition certificate. And men who are not trans at all but would happily claim to be a woman to access those protected spaces.Treating all of these situations in the same way was never really that sensible nor was ignoring the risk that the latter could happen.

On that Jeremy Vine segment, a Brownie leader phoned in and said that she would still accept transgirls. Well she'll be breaking the law then, won't she?!

"Potentially trans people are adding to and enriching the experience of what it is to be a woman."

No male person is adding to and enriching the experience of what it is to be a woman. To suggest that any male person would even be adding their male experience to what it is to be a woman is an act of misogyny.

"I don't believe they are necessarily erasing women/girls by their presence."

Their very inclusion in any provision, that is any space, any sport, any service, any programme to address negative sex discrimination, that is there for female people does cause negative impact to those female people the provision is there to support.

"And though trans women's biology may be male (sorry to reduce it to that again, it is me this time!) their lived experience and social reality probably has much more in common with women and girls."

I see. So it is convenient for YOU to use the word 'male', but it is worthy of unfounded accusations when others do it. Do you see the hypocrisy in your position?

I find your post, particularly the final paragraph, deeply offensive and bigoted.

Perhaps you could engage in some introspection about your responsibility for setting up your male child to experience unnecessary and avoidable distress, and the harm you are causing to others, rather than trying to malign and coerce people for refusing to allow you to manipulate language and distort reality.

Your behaviour absolutely is damaging and erasing girls' and women's rights - and you are seeking to erase girls and women by claiming that a male can be not just a girl but more of a girl than a female child. That's right out of the TRA/MRA playbook and is deeply bigoted.

But I'm not lying to her - there are operations that people have all the time, whether they are accepted as women (or trans women) is the key here, I suppose. We try to have open conversations as much as we can.

And two women's deaths a week is horrendous. I found this article (from California) that does seem to suggest trans people can be subjected to high levels of harassment and violence, though of course the UK is a bit different:

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-violence-harassment-ca/

I believe that invited a group called Gendered Intelligence to formulate their policy on this issue. GG was part of the Stonewall Diversity Champion scheme which also shaped many organisations policies.

It was shown in Allison Bailey's tribunal case that Stonewall very clearly was using rewards to organisations to get their incorrect interpretation of the EA laws set in policies of those organisations in the Diversity Champion schemes. That case exposed that Stonewall knew they were not interpreting the law correctly, they admitted to interpreting it how they wanted it to be.

They then were forced to admit that any organisation who took there advise, should have taken independent legal advice. This caused many organisations to withdraw their support for Stonewall almost immediately.

However, GG have continued to double down and removed any leader who raised the issue publicly.

Sorry you find it bigoted, I'm just speaking of my experience in parenting a trans child and worried about the polarisation of the debate.

As a GG leader of several units, I am delighted. I suspect I am one of the silent majority, as all over my Facebook and social media feeds where people use their real names, people are posting how awful this is, how they are reevaluating their future in GG. But I think a great many of us are silently glad and posting only on anonymous websites where it is safe to do so. To speak out, even in the most balanced and nuanced way, is to be branded a ‘terf’. It’s an unsafe space for women (what a shock, yet another one).

If any parents express disappointment or ask, I will nod benignly and direct them to GG. But this is a victory for women and girls and hopefully some day the little girls of now will realise that and be glad people fought for them and their safety.

What I find interesting is the cognitive dissonance of some women (parents of girls, worryingly) who say that they don’t understand why girls need a space for just girls. If you don’t understand this you’ve either drunk some sort of kool aid or have led a very charmed life. It’s worrying that so many women don’t seem to understand why having boys and men in girls spaces totally changes the dynamic and safety of those places.

The Williams Institute has been caught out before in wrongly making statements that are not true of the data on reports and articles that they publish.

Always look what is included in 'harassment' and 'violence'. Because the CPS has guidance here in the UK for hate crimes that include misgendering and a spouse or ex-spouses refusal to use female language for a male person with a transgender identity.

And you declaring people who don't use the language you demand as cruel is the very definition of 'polarisation of the debate'.

For decades men have targeted Girl guiding and tried to erode its single sex status - because how dare girls and women have anything. There have been many different lines of attack over the years and sadly the TRAs for a while succeeded in taking away girls' single sex space within guiding.

Since the announcement that that mistake is being corrected, the number of people crawling out of the woodwork to openly call for guiding's single sex status to be abolished is very, very telling about the true motivations all along.

You are doing far more than that and you know it. I'm sorry you're not prepared to own or reflect on that.