To ask you to sign our letter to Girlguiding UK?

[AgnesBadenPowell]

IMPORTANT! Deadline 9pm Thursday

We (me and the awesome team at Fair Play For Women and some others) will be publishing an open letter to Girlguiding in a national newspaper this Sunday. We set out the safeguarding concerns with their trans policy that allows a male child who identifies as a girl to share sleeping, dressing and washing facilities with girls, and that parents are not allowed to know. We also highlight that Females who identify as boys are expected to leave, disproportionately impacting lesbian girls.

We are now asking for our supporters to sign the open letter. I obviously need your name - you can PM me with your name, and indicate whether you are a parent, Leader, former member, grandparent, aunty, concerned member of the public etc. OR you can complete the online form here:

fairplayforwomen.com/add-your-name/

We can’t publish the full text of the letter but all the issues are summarised in this factsheet and can be seen in more detail this report.

https://fairplayforwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/FPFWGirlguidess_factsheet.pdf

https://fairplayforwomen.com/guide-leaders-call-for-halt/

Spread the word and the link and lets get as many signatures as possible. Girlguiding has made a big misstep with this policy. As a Leader, I don't do this lightly. It's not my intention to embarrass Girlguiding but they MUST listen to our concerns about this policy - concerns shared by legal and child protection experts as well as parents and leaders.

You can read about the Girlguiding policy question here (and click through to the specific guidance on residentials): www.girlguiding.org.uk/making-guiding-happen/policies/girlguiding-policies/equality-and-diversity-policy/transgender-gender-reassignment/

Girlguiding's most recent statement on this issue can be read here: www.girlguiding.org.uk/what-we-do/our-stories-and-news/news/coverage-of-equality-diversity-policy/

UPDATE

The paper has agreed that in the online version of the letter, we can include a link to the Fair Play For Women website, where all signatories will be included.

There's no deadline for this (the deadline was for submission to the letters editor) so if you missed Thursday's deadline it doesn't matter and we can continue to collect signatures.

Click here and about halfway down the page is a link to the form: https://fairplayforwomen.com/add-your-name/

you will need to sign your full name for it to be counted

As discussed before, I can't publish the full text here, as the paper loses its exclusive and wont print. All the concerns and issues that we have raised are on the Fair Play For Women website - there's a very long report or a summary factsheet.

Happy to take questions. Hundreds of people have seen the full letter and agreed to sign. But they are known to me or people I know and trust, and I trust them not to leak it. If you're prepared to out yourself to me then we can talk about seeing the full text.

Thanks all

Thanks, Agnes. I had signed with my first initial and full surname so unfortunately my signature won't be added to the letter in the paper.

Would I need to sign with full first name and surname then, to be added to the FPFW website?

I have a ridiculous first name, so usually use one of my other more normal names in this sort of situation. I quite like it - it is freeing - and totally my name. I think I might start to use it every day too

@BingBongSong yes, we still need full names please for the website.

There are hundreds and hundreds of signatories even when we take out the ones with initials. We also don't need any information about your location. If you have a connection to Girlguiding, it would be useful to add it.

Unless your name is unusual then I don't think you will be found or outed.

My name is common enough but my photo has appeared online in related articles - I've had no bother at all apart from a few ridiculous tweets from the more unhinged activists - and their accounts were reported and found to violate twitter rules.

I had a quick google of my name & nothing came up so I've now added my full name to the website.

Signed with full name this time

The letter is in today's Sunday Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/letters-to-the-editor-licence-payers-forced-to-fund-extortionate-bbc-salaries-rsxv8gwbk

(Sorry, I don't have a share token).

Unfortunately my name is uncommon enough to identify me so I can't sign :( I'm the parent of a guide and I would if I could.

Link with share token www.thetimes.co.uk/article/letters-to-the-editor-licence-payers-forced-to-fund-extortionate-bbc-salaries-rsxv8gwbk?shareToken=8221ff773fba71b9cd536ddc44ffafc0

You need to scroll down as all the letters are on one webpage. The GG letter is about halfway down.

Unfortunately, the Sunday Times has posted an incorrect link to the unedited letter and the list of signatures. I have added the direct link to the comments - scroll down to the bottom. The office opens at 7am so we will have this corrected then.

The link is: fairplayforwomen.com/guiding/

My name not there?
Was sure I signed fully.

I can see friends there though 👍🏼

Well done and huge thanks to everyone involved in this project.

Well done

Very brave, maybe this brave campaign together with a hopefully more 'awoke' Girl Guiding approach to trans stuff will be a turning point. I have no words to express my gratitude.

I've just signed.

Also have you seen

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mumsnet-founder-justine-roberts-transgender-activists-try-to-curb-free-speech-on-site-z3sr3nf6q?shareToken=ade388be59ac427155003eff83c5158c

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3222471-AIBU-to-be-extremely-proud-of-Justine-Roberts-Mumsnet-right-now

This is a good Sunday morning.

I'll stop posting now and get my morning but I have decided to subscribe to Times Online because of their decision to publish these two articles.

Just realised that i only have to register with my email to read all Times online content, no payment required, which I wasn't aware of before. Either way, I shall take Times Online as my go to News source replacing the BBC for now.

I’m going to sign up to the Times online. Brilliant news. Thank you everyone. The tide is turning. And I love the article by Justine very very brave but knows her business and the power of us women.

Let's see if the BBC and other news pick up on the Times article and Helen Watts' campaign. I'd be interested in the tone the BBC will report this in, if they do.

Well done and thank you to those behind this important campaign. I am sure there are many out there who would sign if they were actually aware.

That's a good letter! I was never a Guide and nor was my daughter so I've observed this from the sidelines, but I do applaud your campaign. How GirlGuiding ever thought it was a good idea to adopt this new policy beats me.

@AgnesBadenPowell This seems to be a direct link to the letter by itself: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/allowing-boys-to-be-guides-is-wrong-v0dngnvjp?shareToken=31d9b82dd47cf511f9b5bbb9671ec4f2

Agnes, is that 760 ish signatures? There's a tweet that says loads of people pulled out, only 220 signed. Is that the times's mistake?

Nobody pulled out. We have the Sunday times the list of names and then they told us that they wouldn't accept names with initials.

The 223 or so are people who gave their full name and their connection to guiding - leader, former Guide, etc.

I'm extremely annoyed that they didn't tell us that until after we collected signatures - certain groups are going to manipulate that in order to discredit us - but at least they published.

You can still sign the letter via the Fair Play For Women webpage- we will keep this open - and of course the full text is now available.

Thanks everyone

Nobody pulled out. We have the Sunday times the list of names and then they told us that they wouldn't accept names with initials.

The 223 or so are people who gave their full name and their connection to guiding - leader, former Guide, etc.

I'm extremely annoyed that they didn't tell us that until after we collected signatures - certain groups are going to manipulate that in order to discredit us - but at least they published.

You can still sign the letter via the Fair Play For Women webpage- we will keep this open - and of course the full text is now available.

Thanks everyone

Fantastic letter thank you for al the hard work

We now have our own page on the Sunday Times website and are not squashed on halfway down the letters page. Link with share token (no subscription needed):

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/allowing-boys-to-be-guides-is-wrong-v0dngnvjp?shareToken=7634b21d8b254f1c7dab430014f157e3

We are still accepting signatures - you do this here by clicking through the links: fairplayforwomen.com/add-your-name/