Girl Guides Complaint Reply

[KittyPerry77]

Sorry, I can't seem to find the girlguiding thread. As they are a voluntary organisation, I'm hesitant to reply using up more of their time but how can they talk about challenging gender stereotypes when they say transgendered children (i.e. those born boys who identify as girls because they like playing with dolls etc) will be allowed. And how am I meant to know if my daughter's uncomfortable re: accommodiation as their policy is for noone to know until she's away from me at camp!

Thank you for contacting us following the media interest in the past few days about Girlguiding’s policy on equality and diversity. We recently published a statement on the recent coverage which you can view on our website here.
To clarify, Girlguiding has always been a single gender organisation and is committed to ensuring that girls and young women are given a space to challenge gender stereotypes. The guidelines that have recently been mentioned are not new, but have been on our site since 2015 and were recently updated in January 2017.
Our guidelines comply with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 which makes clear that organisations providing single-sex services such as Girlguiding should treat people according to their acquired gender. As such, and in line with our values of inclusion, we welcome any young person who self-identifies as a girl or young woman. We are for all girls, from all walks of life and we will continue to open our doors to anyone based on that principle.
There may be occasions when girls and young women share accommodation. If any young person doesn’t feel comfortable doing that, for whatever reason, I would encourage you to speak to your daughter’s leader about alternative accommodation and facilities. More private areas for changing can also be made available to any young member who requests it. In terms of safeguarding our young members, all of our adult volunteers, of any gender, are DBS checked and our volunteers attend safeguarding training.
I hope that this answers you query and thank you again for contacting us.
Best wishes,
Anna
Anna Jönsson
Information, Enquiries & Complaints Manager

Not discriminating against people because they have a GRC is not the same thing as giving them all of the privileges of their acquired sex.

How can it not be discrimination to withold a privilege of the sex that they are legally a card-carrying member of?

I name changed as I have quoted some stuff from a closed FB group, also I must admit I am worried about the real life implications of being openly not accepting men can just "become" women because they say so.

If I posted under my normal nn, a quick advanced search would easily identify me to people who know me.

I'm a coward - taking the easy option.

And yes, there are some (at least on the guide leader FB groups) who are very pro trans. One called someone who disagreed a bigoted terf, another said terfs shouldn't be listened to and they couldn't be called feminists.

There are also a lot of very worried leaders and parents.

I have been on here ages, btw, not quite a decade I think.

Don't be daft you're not a coward. Good to know that it wasn't because Girlguiding has totally capitulated on a grassroots level then. Hopefully they might change their mind. It's such an awesome organisation.

No consultation, the guidelines were introduced in 2015, then quietly updated in Jan this year to say "single gender" not "single sex".

Most guiders are too busy running units and juggling work, meetings, paperwork "Go" guiding's dastardly online database their own DC etc to read all the guff that emanates from hq in London.
A lot of whom I am sure have never actually been in close quarters with a real live Brownie or Guide meeting.

"single-sex services such as Girlguiding should treat people according to their acquired gender."

The contradictions revealed in one sentence.

www.girlguiding.org.uk/what-we-do/our-stories-and-news/news/our-statement-on-recent-coverage-about-our-equality-and-diversity-policy/

Guiding HQ's response to the newspaper articles.

Name changed as I'm a Guider! The changes to the GG approach really worries me. At the most basic level we'll be removing girls who are identifying as male at a time when they need support. They will be removed from a group of people they know and trust at a difficult time.

Girls will lose their safe space. And the women will lose their safe space too. I left mixed groups due to the low level harassment and belittling that I encountered. I feel safe in Guiding, where I can express my opinion and be myself. The girls in my unit feel the same.

On a more sinister level, there are men who will use this as a motive to get close to young girls. We are unable to treat the female identifying leaders any different from the the others and so going away and camp licences will all be the same. A CRB check is only as good as the most recent arrest. Parents would no doubt act, but the reputation of Guiding will be in tatters.

There seems to be absolute silence about this in the Guiding world other than the party line. How do I raise this with my Division and County?