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)

This is a misrepresentation of my experience and I hope I'm not bullying anyone? I'm here to debate the issues that affect my family.

But why would we see 'transwomen' as women? They aren't women, they're men. You're asking us to disbelieve the evidence of our own senses.

No. Those were your words. You said your son indicated he was really a girl because he pointed at some pictures of girls before he could speak. Are you now seeing how batshit that sounds? He had no clue about “gender”. What he’d pointed at pictures of dogs? Or sheep?
You’ve tried bullying us into calling your son a girl. It must be horrible dealing with a distressed child and knowing you caused the distress. I don’t know how you will fix that but I do wish your son a happy and healthy life.

This is an interesting one. There is no wrong way to be a boy is a great quote, thank you.

I don't think I've failed her, I've affirmed her in a world that isn't necessarily designed for people like her. She's going to run into conflict because of who she is, certainly. But her gender is not defined by her sex and she knows the difference.

Speculation on her likes and dislikes aren't anything to do with the conversation.

More solidarity of women across the division of sex-based rights would be great.

What rights do women need that aren't sex based?

Men and women could be identical, (there are different levels of dimorphism in different species) and women would still need sex specific rights to participate equally in society because of their different reproductive role.

Do you think the equality legislation and increased accessibility of contraception in the 70s happened coincidentally?

Well my trans girl needs the right to grow into a trans woman for a start...

He can grow up to be a male with a trans identity. Nothing is stopping him. That’s grand. He just can’t use female spaces whilst doing so.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Children do generally have the right to grow in to adults. This doesn't have anything to do with sex.

Thanks. It's a big simplification. I also wrote elsewhere of the gradual transition taking place over a year or so. I really don't think we give children enough credit.

And if you genuinely think I've bullied you rather than debate, I'm sorry. Please feel free to refer my comments to Mumsnet etc.

Love to you and yours too.

The question was about which rights do women need that aren't sex based.

My daughter's (trans) rights are gender based.

But gender isn’t sex so that doesn’t answer the question does it? And the question was also about women. Not males

@SolidMam Serious question, what do you understand by ‘gender’? Girls like pink and cook, boys like blue and play football? Etc

Gender based rights do not exist. Gender is just some feeling that some people think has validity. Most people don’t even think about it.
Rights are based on tangible and measurable things like sex. Society has been built around sex.
As much as you would like to dismantle society to satisfy your son, you won’t. Everyone will know he’s male, even if they say something different.

In contrast, I see the broadening of definitions as potentially empowering of all men and women. More solidarity of women across the division of sex-based rights would be great.

Thank you. Many questions arise from that, but here's just one.

How do you believe that the women and girls of Afghanistan can be "empowered" by western societies "broadening" their words to encompass their oppressors?

But that has absolutely nothing to do with being a woman.

You might as well talk about the right to a fair trial and say that its a woman's right because women have it as well as men.

Women's rights are things like depending on the ability to control fertility to access work and education and needing health care for sex specific conditions.

And why are Afghan women oppressed in the first place? What is preventing them from just fighting back?

I would say that they are "male" rather than "men", to keep the questions focused clearly on sex. Especially as I have a different understanding of "women" to you.

So "why would we see a transwoman as female?" You don't have to. But you can make a choice to accept and include her as a woman.

"They aren't women they're male." Correct. I just don't agree their sex prevents them from being a woman.

"You're asking us to disbelieve the evidence of our senses." I'm not, I'm asking you to include transwomen as women - though i know how problematic that is for many.

And who is this "us"? I raised the point about echo chambers earlier - and I really appreciate the forum here, so technically it's not an echo chamber. But the views here seem very one-sided and entrenched - though I'm sure that I seem so to many of you too! I assumed Mumsnet would have a wider umbrella and a broader spectrum of opinion.

The brownies leaders and a few parents in our local group have been sending supportive messages, so I assumed that there'd be a plurality of voices here too.

So if a woman is not an adult human female, what is the word for an adult human female? It can’t be woman, because you claim that should include males so what one word do you use to describe an adult human female?

I do think there's a very insular, culturally colonialist and naively privileged context to the "women no longer even need a word" argument.

I mean, we are SO fortunate as a society for women to have the luxury of even conceiving (pun very much relevant here) of such a thing. And it really speaks for itself that it's only in the last millisecond or so of human civilisation, and the tiniest, wealthiest corners of a troubled world even then, that a small minority have begun to foolishly dream it.

Just one example, of a plethora of nightmare possibilities:

Take away all contraception (authoritarian government, AI apocalypse, pandemic supply chains, whatever). Women's and girls' lives change beyond recognition, just like that. Life, as some of us are lucky enough to currently know it, simply crumbles. While (with the obvious survival-related riders!) men and boys carry on blithely as before.

Giving up our words is a utopian dream, borne of a privilege enjoyed only by the very fewest of the few.

”I just don't agree their sex prevents them from being a woman.”

But it does. Their sex is male, which pre-empts him from being a woman. However, their sex doesn’t prevent them from liking things traditionally attributed to women, such as wearing pink, and conversely girls can play football.

It seems there's a heavy assumption in your point about Afghan women that trans women would automatically be oppressors because they are male, rather than potential allies to their fight for injustice against the Taliban.

I expect all women (biological, trans, whatever) have more in common in opposing their government, which speaks to my point about more solidarity across the divide.

It just depends on your definition of "woman". I'm sure noone will be surprised to hear that I have issue with the Supreme Court's legal definition.

A woman. Lots of words have multiple meanings.

I think the key thing in the above example is that the women of Afghanistan are women - and that many posters here find the suggestion that we remove their descriptor in favour of a mere adjective also applicable to dogs, cats and parts of bloody plants deeply offensive.

Solid, I wasn't joking upthread when I said that I've talked to children who genuinely believe, because of the current attempts to redefine woman, that these women's biology is wholly unrelated to their oppression. I will not be complicit in muddying their plight, and women's all over the world, in that way. It appalls me that anyone could argue for this.

The good thing is that proponents of the redefinition of woman are fighting a losing battle in the long-term (cf. again human evolution, history and geography).

"Fetch" just isn't gonna happen, Gretchen!

So go on then. Without using sexist, outdated stereotypes, define woman in a way that will include all women and males with a trans identity but exclude all men and females with a trans identity. I know you can do it.