Victoria Derbyshire today and Girlguides

[AgnesBadenPowell]

Did anyone see Victoria Derbyshire on BBC2 this morning? Interesting discussion about transgender people and self ID. One of the speakers mentioned Girlguiding, which caught my attention as I am a Leader and I’ve had similar concerns but few people to discuss it with IRL.

You might have seen the press coverage (and threads here) about the changes to Girlguiding UK’s policy on inclusivity for transgender members

As a leader it’s my duty to implement the policy. I also have a duty of care to the girls in my unit. I’ve thought long and hard about this and in my view, GG has got it wrong.

GGUK recognises gender self identity, which is “a person’s inner sense of being a girl or a woman”. A male child who identifies as a girl can enroll as a rainbow, brownie, guide or ranger and a male who identifies as a woman can make the Guide promise and become a leader. Leadership roles have historically been women only (although men can volunteer for support roles that don’t need the promise and aren’t in charge of units).

The policy states that transgender children should use the accommodation of their acquired gender on camp. Parents of other children should not be informed - leaders are told it is neither required or best practice. Remember that Guiding also permits adult leaders (including men who identify as women) to share accommodation with children; it’s not the preferred option and at least 2 adults should always be present in the tent or guide hut but it does happen.

I have written to GGUK to outline my concerns:

1. the policy allows, for example, a 14 yo biological male Guide to share sleeping accommodation with a 10 year old female Guide.NSPCC advice is that children over 10 do not share a bedroom with the opposite sex. It’s not unreasonable for parents to expect GG to follow this advice. Why aren’t we?

1. The policy does not acknowledge the embarrassment a teen may feel when dealing with periods, washing and bathing in shared facilities with a person they may have known as a boy.

1. The policy is focused on the needs of the transchild and their preferences. As a Leader I have a duty to all children in my care and must balance each of their needs. Only in reference to changing clothes does the policy state that all children should be offered a more private place to change if desired, otherwise transchildren chose what facilities they use with no reference to their fellow guides.

1. If GG cannot guarantee truly single sex accommodation then some girls will miss out on residentials, eg girls from certain religious groups, those who have been subjected to abuse or who just don’t want to. This is against GG’s inclusive ethos

So far GG has responded with (template?) emails to say that GG has always been a single gender organisation, gender identity (as defined above) is recognised as separate from biological sex and Leaders should refer concerned parents to the higher ups.

Today’s TV show made me wonder how many people really understand the implications of the policy and have similar concerns. Leaders can't discuss other children with parents (rightIy so) but that means parents can't give informed consent to their child sharing mixed sex facilities. I'd like to gauge the feeling of parents but it's a sensitive issue and not something that I can just ask my girls’ parents. Perhaps you think I am over reacting. Perhaps you share my concerns. Either way, I’d like to know.

Finally, I should add that I’m not trying to have transgirls removed from GG. Neither do I think all men/boys are potential sex offenders. But I do owe it to the parents and children in my care to have assessed all the risks thoroughly. My point is that this policy poses a risk, which doesn't appear to be recognised by GG and Leaders aren't being advised how to manage it.

I do have to pop out for a bit now but will come back later, if anyone replies!

Which it will be if they haven’t updated it to deal with the trans issue

Thanks for that. namechangedasimaguider. And a brilliant job, btw.

cake

I don't really understand what you're trying to say.

The bit of safeguarding that understands the sex specific nature of certain problems is being removed.

It doesn't alter other safeguarding issues like bullying and wearing lifejackets when on water.

They are failing every leader (and of course the kids) if they don’t address this head on. They simply cannot ignore sex. It’s a protected characteristic under the Equality act and any compensation could include a separate award for injury to feelings as well as the PI claim

I strongly advise that every leader reading this thread get organised and spell out your concerns including the real risk of litigation.

SomeDyke - this is exactly my issue. My unit are teenagers (I have run every unit from brownies up, but currently teens) and a LOT of our discussions centre around the physical reality of being female. We ran the Millenium Development Goals meetings and have discussed maternal mortality rates, female rights to education, (and implications of not having access to products for menstruation in the same breath as not having shoes) and every single discussion is centred around biology. It is the mere act of biological sex that determines this shit. Alongside this, we discuss what it means to be female in our own society - we discuss to a micro level what the expectations are for girls in their own schools (I have three schools feeding my unit) and we very gently (or sometimes quite robustly) question why these social expectations are in place, whether they are reasonable, and how they can free themselves from gendered expectations to be who they want to be. We run a ‘reduce reuse recycle’ night which is a giant clothes swap - alongside lengthy discussions about ‘how women are supposed to dress’ and look at female politicians and media coverage. We discuss peer pressure and independent thought and being true to your own beliefs. I have girls who wear giant teenage mutant ninja turtle hoodies, long stripy socks, and have strong feelings about the health implications of deodorant (they don’t use any). I have girls who have different coloured hair on a monthly basis. I have invisible kids in grey, and loud mouthy kids in a rainbow who need to tell everyone everything all the time. Last week they made personal flags to represent themselves and one girl announced she was bisexual and literally waved her flag. No fanfare, no gushing, just ‘thank you for sharing, this is a safe space’.
I am trying to support these girls to negotiate their lived experience as females, in their own lives, with international context.
I have LITERALLY no intention of telling them that some girls have penises, budge up, and I can’t talk about how to handle periods at camp or in the backcountry in case it’s transphobic. I want these kids to question everything and figure out where they stand. It’s the very opposite of spoon feeding them ideology and telling them that must ignore basic reality. (Don’t get me wrong - we also talk a lot about ethics and being kind - but we also question the context and consider gendered expectations of kindness and how they affect behaviour). Moral responsibility shouldn’t be gendered.
I’m a Guider because I passionately believe that there has to be a space that allows girls to just be, and later, to negotiate their own context as women in a gendered society. To be able to critically consider their own place.
How the actual bejesus do I do that with a biological male in my group? I’d be splashed all over fecking Twitter for attempting conversion therapy on a vulnerable trans girl. For encouraging him to question gender in and of itself.

Terry - you sound amazing. I wish my dd could come to your unit! Sadly I've just seen on twitter that gig are proud to accept 'all girls' including young people who self ID as girls. I could cry.

terfyowl, what a beautiful post.

That’s exactly my concern with it. Bad men and teenage hormones are on my list, but way below just letting girls be girls in a girl-only environment.

TerfyOwl - you sound like such a great Guider. Your post made me quite teary but then it made me rage stroke that all this wonderfulness for girls is being thrown away. For the penis.

Dd has just started brownies and loves it.
I was browsing through the booklets and saw it described as a space for girls and then read the trans policy and rolled my eyes.

How the actual bejesus do I do that with a biological male in my group? I’d be splashed all over fecking Twitter for attempting conversion therapy on a vulnerable trans girl. For encouraging him to question gender in and of itself.

You keep doing it, you amazing woman. If he wants to be called a girl/woman, then he’s going to be happy knowing what ‘other’ girls/women go through. He doesn’t get to dictate the parameters of the discussion. You have been such a good friend to those girls, I’d say they will have the courage to shut him down, just like many men like to do to women.

Actually I think that’s what the leaders need to start doing. They need to do what TerfyOwl is doing and gives the girls the strength to stand up to the TRA bullying. The more leaders that do thus, the more gender critical and brave the youngest girls will become.

You sound like a bloody brilliant Guider, TerfyOwl.

Ditto, standing ovation for Terfy Owl, girls need role models like you.

I’m a completely ordinary guider but thank you
Guides gave me the freedom to figure this out as a kid - I don’t want that opportunity lost for the next generation of girls and young women.

I’ve cracked it

GG is allowed to sex segregate under the Equality Act 2010. So only girls.

However they say boys who id as girls can join too. Letting self id boys in but not biological boys discriminated against biological boys.

Direct sex discrimination. No defence

On top of that they are directly discriminating against transgender girls by saying they are not allowed in.

Both sexist and transsexist

I think we might have a nailed on case for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Any legal critics who can spot a hole in this?

Not sure about this bit:
Letting self id boys in but not biological boys

I assume you mean 'letting self-id-as-girls-boys in but not other boys'?

So it discriminates against those who do not ID as transgender.

Not sure about this bit:
Letting self id boys in but not biological boys*

That's the legal argument in the AWS case, so yes. It's discrimination against boys (men). I know that is counter-intuitive, but that's what it is!

Yup Dodo

Same logic as the AWS argument. Did JJ publish the letter before action?

Wow terfyowl I want my daughter to go to your guides!!! I don't think our unit is as deep thinking /in depth but still looks fun.

Yes they say they are invoking exemption to be single sex for leaders and members but they are in fact now mixed sex (trans girls (TiMs) cannot be legal females as you have to be 18 to have a GRC, also self ID'd transwomen without a GRC are legal males, GGA say they need no evidence of transition). Therefore they are mixed sex but boys can only join if they say they are girls, which is discriminatory to boys who are just boys (for a mixed sex org). So they EITHER need to be female only again OR mixed sex, but not this half assed in the middle thing, that also discriminates against TiFs (girls who think they are boys, their website says they are female only, TiFs under 18 are legal females)

However the legal challenge really is they are discriminatory against actual girls - they've done no impact or risk assessments and for all the reasons you articulate women have outlined, GGA have been single sex for over a hundred years because it's valuable to girls. They wafted in these policies that harm girls. They have to show that they are not harming girls, and also that what they have done is a proprortionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, I think if they went to court they couldn't do that.

Direct discrimination
This means treating one person worse than another person because of a protected characteristic.

Indirect discrimination
This can happen when an organisation puts a rule or a policy or a way of doing things in place which has a worse impact on someone with a protected characteristic than someone without one.

Harassment
This means people cannot treat you in a way that violates your dignity, or creates a hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.

Victimisation
This means people cannot treat you unfairly if you are taking action under the Equality Act (like making a complaint of discrimination), or if you are supporting someone else who is doing so.

The bigger picture of men declaring they actually are women so protected under equality laws as women is terrifying isn't it.

I'm so grateful there's bigger minds than me on it and grateful to you all here. Thank-you x

I was a guide as a child and I don't think I'd have had an issue with a trans-person. However, I'm now a grown-up and I'm aware that when I was a child I had no understanding of personal safety (like many kids I did some silly things because I didn't understand it was dangerous). My point being that we cannot rely on children to make decisions about their own safety because they're children! That's the whole point of safeguarding - to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

Parents and leaders need to protect the children in their care, and as a parent I would permit my daughter to attend a group session with a trans-person but not a residential event. I'd be extremely upset to discover that I hadn't been informed about risks to my child because of someone else's "rights". The world has gone mad

"The bigger picture of men declaring they actually are women so protected under equality laws as women is terrifying isn't it."

Yes it is, however it's not going to happen because we said NO. I'll even throw myself under the King's carriage if necessary but No Pasaran, fellas, jog on.

Per The Equality and Human Rights Commission:

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/gender-reassignment-discrimination

" Gender reassignment discrimination
...

Circumstances when being treated differently due to gender reassignment is lawful

A difference in treatment may be lawful if:

...A service provider provides single-sex services. If you are accessing a service provided for men-only or women-only, the organisation providing it should treat you according to your acquired gender. In very restricted circumstances it is lawful for an organisation to provide a different service or to refuse the service to someone who is undergoing or has undergone gender reassignment."

Hi Haru

Do you know which section of the Equality Act they are referring to? Save me time scanning the whole thing!

Nearly all the comments on twitter I can see seem to be supportive of gg's policy - I don't know how to link them on here though. None of them mention being guides or parents of guides though!