To wonder what the future of Girlguiding is.

[Skippythebeercan]

I have run a Brownie unit for many years, and have seen the decline of Girlguding, we have lost so many units and leaders to the point locally our organisation is probably less than half the size it was 10 years ago and is going to shrink again with the loss of more leaders and therefore units imminently. There is a huge disconnect between national Girlguiding leadership and grass roots guiding.

I now wonder what the future holds for the organisation, I personally value the girl only space and think it is important for girls to have this. But, I can see that being lost. A friend suggests she thinks we may start to admit boys and loose our single sex status, I personally think that we may end up merging with the Scouts - both organisations have their differences but do share a founder and many fundamentals, plus I do think each organisation could learn something from the other.

I would be interested in other views on how the organisation may evolve - it may well disappear altogether - possibly sooner rather than later.

I am hoping this thread doesn't become about the trans issue, I appreciate it is divisive but there are other threads. Law suits and this very issue have certainly contributed to Girlguiding's significant image problem on both side of the argument, but there are plenty of other threads about this issue.

I wouldn’t let my daughter do brownies and guides now with the anti trans thing. She’s past it but we were taking about this recently and she said many of her friends are outraged about it and feel the organisation is so out of touch now. I explained they have been forced to turf out trans kids but I don’t think young people want to be seen to be supporting it. Most of my friends who are mums of girls feel the same and believe in an inclusive society. I have a friend who is a leader that does too.

They should definitely merge.

Surely the whole point of GG was to show girls that they didn’t have to ‘live as girls’? That they could break out of sexist stereotypes and do things only boys got to do?

And if one such boy was placed in the group, do you lie to all the girls about his sex? Require them to lie if the find out? Keep it secret from their parents or siblings? Having demanded they keep such an important thing secret and lie to others about it, what else do you think they could be trained to keep secret and lie about?

The GG units near us seem to be thriving.

But I pulled DD out last year. Not because of the trans issue which doesn't bother me too much as Scouts was always an option for us, but largely because the group she was in was awful with a real bullying problem and little structure. I also found a lot of onus on parents to support them to do badges outside of unit sessions was too much and which, when you work full time, just isn't possible so poor DD always felt like she wasn't as good as the other girls as she didn't have oodles of badges. Yet she was knocking it out the park on other extra curriculars.

And don't get me started on the sheer number of badges for just turning up that I was supposed to sew/stick on. All in all it really devalued the whole thing. It clearly works for a lot of people, but how people find the time to keep up with it all, I don't know. Hats off to them.

Your daughter believes she is only a girl because she follows regressive sexist stereotypes? Sounds like you would fit neatly in the 1950s.

GirlGuiding hasn't turned out trans kids. They have excluded young males.
Girls, however they identify, and there are many young women who struggle with puberty and societal expectations who identify as non binary or as boys, are still welcome to attend. We are a safe space for all girls including those who are gender non confirming.
The trouble is too many people risk assess based on their lovely trans identified male friend. And this is why we have safeguarding rules as we all know that while many people are good, many unpleasant characters present as lovely and rational.

One thing I suppose I should add is how underappreciated I feel both from parents but also from girlguiding HQ. I work full time, I do at least one full day of training for girlguiding each year plus despite there being 2 of us running the unit I probably average around 3 hours a week at the meeting themselves then planning not just meeting, but trips etc. in the holidays I am planning etc. I used to get a few boxes of chocolate etc. at christmas or the end of term, but recently there has been nothing. Its quite galling when I'm putting in money for my Kids teachers gifts and they get paid!

I've just done a quick calculation of how much my hours would cost if I was charged out at my professional works hourly rate it would be almost £20,000!

News flash young males aren’t abusers by default.

Schools manage safeguarding just fine, it’s not hard.

What are you talking about?

Newsflash. You can't do appropriate safeguarding if you are pretending males are females and not giving girls or their parents the option for informed consent. GG has been trying to have it both ways, and in fact still is, and ending up pleasing no one. It is really sad.

They need to be very loud and clear that they are an fun and empowering organisation for girls and young women. Emphasis on the opportunities to be themselves and try new things without the male gaze. On building strong female friendships.

What a load of bull.

It is an organisation for female children. All female children are welcome and included.

Male children do not belong in organisations dedicated to female children.

Get your facts right.

Schools manage to accommodate trans children. It’s not hard.

Best practice your Brownie Bells, leader
numbers will drop over this and I think eventually the numbers of children and their parents will too. If my daughter was still that age I’d have moved her to Beavers or Scouts over this and I know I’m not alone.

But it’s not always fun and empowering, the all girl atmosphere can be quite unpleasant .

You clearly know nothing about safeguarding. Or Girlguiding.

Female children including those with trans identifies are welcome in GG.

Male children are not. Because it is an organisation for female children.

Stop spreading misinformation.

Absolutely this.

@Skippythebeercan I notice that you've failed to respond to all the posts on your thread which make it clear that the trans issue is what is behind all the current problems faced by GG.

You may wish that this was not so, but you cannot close your eyes and ignore the reality of the situation.

HQ have made it impossible for girls to attend safely, and parents are rightly not subjecting their daughters to possibly dangerous circumstances.

So sick of people who hate women and girls being permitted to behave abusively.

I'm not sure this is fair. Any girl who is happy to share space with children/ leaders born male can do that through scouts which are available in most areas.

If you are looking specifically for a female only space then girlguiding is your only option for that. This is important as girl guiding has done a huge amount of important research and advocacy work around issues affecting girls and young women specifically which affects their experiences in other settings like school, their communities etc and on a range of topics like puberty/ sexual harassment/b self esteem/ body image etc. This is really important and niche work so I think there's a gap here where people are only looking at girl guiding as a nice club that creates opportunities for girls but it's actually quite a lot more than that. It's also potentially one of the only clubs girls and young women who have experienced trauma from male inflicted violence can join without having to be around male peers or leaders and again, that's very, very important to provide.

The trans issue is going to make the current problems worse as there will be plenty of leaders who will leave over it and plenty of parents who will pull their children out. Dwindling numbers of leaders will be even lower.

Anyone, school or not, who calls a boy a ‘girl’ is breaching safeguarding. We know there have been many schools who have breached safeguarding in this way.

I acknowledge that many of the issues (although not all as I believe girlguiding has been in decline for a long time) have been caused by the trans issue. I wanted to discuss the future of the organisation, not have a (done to death) debate about trans members. I don't think that needs debating further to speculate on what comes next.

But if the trans issue has been having an impact and will continue to have an impact do you not think it’s part of the discussion.

Actually it absolutely is hard depending on the attitude and requests of the individual child or their family. Any time I've facilitated groups with trans children they've been happy to stay either in a room on their own (issues with isolation/exclusion, not always available at every location), have chosen to stay in a room with others of their birth sex (ie trans males that I've worked with have always felt safer staying in a female dorm as opposed to a male dorm for obvious reasons). But if a parent or child is insisting that their child stays in a dorm with children of the opposite birth sex then that's a safeguarding issue and would create a massive headache as to how to manage that. And I'm aware of groups where young women have been sexually assaulted and even raped as a result of being placed in an inadequately supervised situation with a trans female peer (born male). I will be the first to say this is rare and I personally don't believe that trans women and girls as a collective are intentionally malicious or sinister in any way, but male violence against women is a problem that doesn't go away by changing gender unfortunately. There are good reasons why we separate young people by birth sex for unsupervised periods such as sleeping arrangements.

All the schools that I have worked in have very clear safeguarding rules based on sex, not gender. Single sex schools obviously have trans pupils in them but they are in the schools that align with their sex rather than their gender identity.

That is a ridiculous thing to say. The number of trans children in guiding and brownies will be small and far less than in schools. So many parents of girls don’t agree with the anti trans rhetoric and many adults who work with children don’t either. Most people work full time and don’t have the energy to volunteer for hours outside of work. That will have had a big impact on leader numbers. Leader numbers will drop further as there will be some who won’t want to work in an organisation that excludes trans kids.

I'm curious how schools deal with trans kids for changing, overnight trips etc. Who decides whether they are in with boys or girls?

One of the issues with GG is a girl will always assume they are only with other girls. As a guide I would have been horrified to be changing in front of a boy whether with or without realising. As a brownie I wouldn't have bothered as much.