Remember the Girlguides thread? We have our first success!

[AgnesBadenPowell]

A few weeks ago I posted here and in AIBU about Girlguiding UK and their transgender policy - I'm a leader. I'm also using the App so can't link to the threads but will come back later when I'm on a laptop.

I did not expect such a large response - over 800 posts in all. The support has been amazing. Via those threads, some people made contact with me and another leader and bravely agreed to speak out about their concerns.

We now have a story published in today's Sunday Times! This couldn't have happened without your support, input and encouragement. I'm grateful to everyone.

The only downside is the original article was heavily edited at the 11th hour to make way for other stories. Lots of other points and quotes were cut out. I made it clear to the reporter that I love Guiding and it was a tough decision to be publicly critical. I was also clear that GG's policy, however misguided, was written with good intentions. This was all lost in the editing.

The important thing is the message is out there now and GG will have to do something.

Do also check out the comments - lots of common sense and reasonableness. If we can demonstrate that there's lots of interest then we have more chance of a follow up so please leave comments if you can; I plan to stay in touch with the ST.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gender-swap-boys-spark-guides-revolt-wtcv7xjk5?shareToken=772e2cb2a2f2c493cf7fdcdbc245ab9b

I'm off to name change and then go to lunch but I'll be back later. Thanks again

Surely guides can be both inclusive of all girls and remain sex segrated by encouraging trans indentifying girls and gender non confirming girls to join guides.

Then the guides can truly breakdown the nonsense which is 'gender' and enjoy meeting in an all girl environment...and learn it does not matter who wears 'girls or boys clothes or likes 'girls or boys hobbies', that they all share womanhood.

Surely guides can be both inclusive of all girls and remain sex segrated by encouraging trans indentifying girls and gender non confirming girls to join guides.

Of course it can. It appears though to have unilaterally decided that 'feeling' girly is the more important criteria.

This is where the misogyny of the whole tra argument is shown up. Being inclusive in areas which require sex segregation should absolutely mean including trans identified girls /women too.

@AgnesBadenPowell

This has been brilliant. You are an absolute star and so brave, and all those parents and leaders who have backed you. I thought the printed article was splendid so I wouldn't worry too much about the bits that were edited out.
Thank you.

Angry what this recent article? I think ABC news is a legitimate broadcaster.
mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-03/working-with-children-check-vcat-appeals/9544190

And this- from 2015- which criticises a state-wide (not national ) approach in australia, creating dangers with the wrong people to being cleared for working with children. Article above describes a state wide process...

This is the response I got back from GG after I emailed them about this policy and the email I have just sent back to them:

Thank you for contacting about Girlguiding’s policy on equality and diversity. We have released a statement on the recent coverage which you can see here.

In answer to the points you have raised, please be advised that legally, Girlguiding cannot disclose to other girls or parents if another child in their unit is transgender without the permission of that girl and his/her parents.

A girl attending a residential event would be able to share accommodation with the other girls. However the girl will not be a new individual to the unit group. They will be a known friend and unit member, and in many instances may also attend the same school and extra-curricular groups.

In practice, when leaders have been arranging residential events including a trans girl or young woman, they have received bespoke support. The leaders have spoken to the girl and her parents, as in the majority of instances; the young trans child is concerned about privacy, and where appropriate separate facilities have been arranged.

We want all girls to enjoy the guiding experience and indeed all girls, for a variety of reasons, can request to have separate facilities should they want them.

As you will be aware, all of our adult volunteers, of any gender, must undergo a criminal records check and our volunteers attend safeguarding training for their role and responsibilities.

All activities we undertake including residential’s are planned and managed through effective and compliant checking processes and are monitored throughout, by local management (commissioners). All accommodation and showering arrangements are clearly planned and supported to ensure we offer accessibility for all.

The wellbeing of all our young members is and will always be at the heart of everything we do. The reality on the ground is that in the small number of cases we’ve had where a trans girl is part of a unit, we’ve offered appropriate support to help create a suitable environment for all girls to enjoy the guiding experience [and indeed all girls, for a variety of reasons, can make a request to have separate facilities should they want them].

I hope that this answers you queries and thank you again for contacting us.

Hello,

Thank you for your response. I appreciate you must be receiving a lot of emails regarding this topic.
I do still have some questions regarding your response however which I hope you will have time to clarify. I do not wish to misrepresent girl guiding policy to the public so to confirm:

a) yes, girls will be sharing tents etc with boys and parents will not be informed
b) if girls have a problem with a) then they will have to be the ones to request the separate accommodation.

I also found this part of your email confusing:
However the girl will not be a new individual to the unit group. They will be a known friend and unit member, and in many instances may also attend the same school and extra-curricular groups.

There is of course no guarantee of that? I have been a leader at a unit (in a large city) where some girls only ever knew each other through the unit. You also seem to imply that because they have been part of the unit that this eliminates any safe guarding or privacy concerns the girls in the unit may have? Also-why would they not be a new individual to the group? Are you saying that if a boy joined just before a trip was to take place then they would not be attending?

Thank you for clarifying these matters further. I look forward to your response.

Lol at the phrase 'his/her'

Your questions are spot on. They seem to be relying on ‘this situation won’t happen often’ and ‘the kids all know each other’. Which are neither of them safeguarding measures.

Direct from the GG website

Sharing accommodation - young trans members should be able to share accommodation with other young members if they wish. Some trans people may not feel comfortable sharing accommodation so in this case an alternative option should be provided. This should be done discreetly, in conversation with the young person and, if appropriate, their parent or carer. The option of having an alternative accommodation arrangement is open to any young person if it is requested.

Gah, so infuriating. How can a girl / her parents request separate facilities if they don't know that a be-penised person is part of the group until their daughter is face to face with said penis (and may then be too scared to object)? This does not answer the questions of consent or GG lying by omission.

And why is it that natal girls have to be the ones to accommodate again. Why can't the transgirl just be housed separately from the outset?

Banging head on keyboard.

Sorry all, I've rather abandoned my own thread this week as work and other stuff took over.

Sharing accommodation - young trans members should be able to share accommodation with other young members if they wish. Some trans people may not feel comfortable sharing accommodation so in this case an alternative option should be provided. This should be done discreetly, in conversation with the young person and, if appropriate, their parent or carer. The option of having an alternative accommodation arrangement is open to any young person if it is requested

@madvixen you might be interested to know that the section of the policy in bold was only added around 12th March - when GG issued a statement about its trans policy following some threads here and other media discussion.

Until then, there was no option of providing an alternative to any young person. Only the trans girls needs were considered. This is a step in the right direction but will any girl feel comfortable asking for alternative accommodation, given the current climate? We should not expect girls as young as 5 to manage their own safeguarding or conduct their own risk assessments.

What happens if all the natal girls ask for separate accommodation (or even sex-segregated accommodation), but the transgirl wants to share? Since it says "young trans members should be able to share accommodation with other young members if they wish" - does this override the girls consent or not?

Can't the guides have an initial consent question on joining which asks all members' parents if they consent to their daughter sharing showers/sleeping area whatever with a member of the opposite biological sex. Then respect that but also not disclose a trans status if not wanted. ?

I was a Guide until I was 14 when I left and joined Scouts. We frequently went camping as a unit. The girls had their own tent (there were only 4 of us) on one side of the camp and the boys tents were on the other with the leaders tents in between. The leaders took shifts all night and walked the camp to ensure that none of us decided to meet up with the opposite sex during the night. When it came to using the loo, we had to go in same sex pairs. One would use the loo while the other stood guard a wee way away to tell anyone approaching that the loo was occupied (tent toilets do not offer a lot of privacy). Mum and Dad were more than happy to send me away as they knew that steps were in place to keep us safe. The whole attitude of GG seems underhanded and sneaky. How can parents make an informed decision if they do not know the whole facts??

I seem to recall that GG was under massive pressure to become like the Scouts and admit boys but didn't because they wanted to preserve a safe space for girls. The current leadership team seems to have decided that this should no longer be the case. Ut really worries me.

@invisibleoldwoman thanks very much! It wasn't an easy decision to go public - and I've taken some flack on social media (as I expected) but this is too important.

Girlguiding have responded to me since the Sunday Times article and while they still seem to believe that being transgender also changes ones physiological sex - but they haven't kicked me out either. And I can now post again on the GG Facebook pages, so it appears my suspension has been lifted.

We have more things planned. Watch this space!

In the meantime, feel free to join us here for an open (and public) discussion on the GG issue https://m.facebook.com/groups/902343833223644?id=902343833223644&ref=contentfilterr__

Fair Play For Women have written more short articles that will hopefully give greater insight into why leaders like me are publicly calling out the organisation we love so much:
_
https://fairplayforwomen.com/sisters-to-all-guides-read-this-passionate-response-to-our-campaign-by-this-ex-rainbows-leaderr__/_

https://fairplayforwomen.com/factss_not_fairytales/

@Winewinewinegin that's what I have suggested (and indeed what I shall do for all my girls if the policy doesn't change and we go on residentials - I'm a Rainbows leader only at the moment so it's not quite the same).

Every trip requires an information and consent form. The form should make just such a statement. The statement should be on the standard template so it can't be removed or changed and GGHQ should draft it - it's not fair on individual leaders for each to decide how they should phrase it (given how polarised trans issues are) and we must ensure consistency.

We could even include the statement on the initial consent form when a girl signs up to a unit. I wonder why GGHQ don't want to do this?

madvixen you might be interested to know that the section of the policy in bold was only added around 12th March - when GG issued a statement about its trans policy following some threads here and other media discussion.

That's brilliant. Well done

@Ereshkigal the emails and complaints have got GG very nervous. They know there's a problem with the policy.

The changes were sneaked out with no announcement. I know the trans policy by heart and noticed that it had changed. This was confirmed when I checked the cached pages.

So there may be leaders out there who do not know the policy has been updated and are not offering alternative accommodation to any girl who asks.

Anyone who knows anything about safeguarding knows that policy wasn't fit for purpose.

I wonder why GGHQ don't want to do this? - yes it seems very strange as this would get around the concerns about outing individuals. However, if they were to go down this path (standard question on consent forms) I wouldn't find it surprising if all the parents of girls in a unit refused to consent to sharing with biological males. At this point, how can they implement their 'letting transgirls share if they want to' policy? Presumably they can't, legally?

@AgnesBadenPowell I am interested to see you are allowed to post again, I and at least one other guider I know, are still banned from posting on all but one of the groups. The one thread allowed this morning had comments allowed for just over a hour before commenting was turned off by admin, before I had chance to comment.
Yes some valuable points were made, but many links to mermaids and the like. Guiders who have concerns were described as being like "a 3 year old who had never seen a black person and cried in fear" or someone's elderly mum who didn't understand about trans people. I found that very patronising.
One poster is a trans woman from another country, another says she works with transgender children.

The thread also confirmed what I suspected, that anyone who is gender critical, who has posted on here, in the Sisters to all Guides fb group or a couple of other groups of a similar nature, has been tracked on social media. One poster on the thread mentioned "screen shots" which (due to the content) I am sure must have come from a particular secret fb group.

I find this very worrying and not at all in the spirit of Guiding.

I saw the thread on the facebook page and noticed how quickly it was closed to comments.
I can see that in reality particularly with the younger groups there is little to worry about. We are talking about quite a small number so it will be quite rare to get a transgender child in rainbows or brownies. Plus, i've no problems with children of rainbow age sharing with transgender children. The safeguarding issues are more a concern in guides and senior section and obviously adult helpers.

However, for me, it was the fact that policy stated that we were not allowed to tell the parents and the policy only seemed to take the transgender child's rights into account rather than all the girls.
I think it is pandering to the current trend rather than implementing a policy that protects all. The very fact that they seem to be stifling discussion on this issue is a big red flag for me. I always thought the girl guides were quite confident in being outspoken about the rights of girls.

I am concerned that if we don't get the policies correct (not just in girl guides) there will be a backlash against the transgender community and the only way to get it right is through discussion.

AgnesBadenPowell I am interested to see you are allowed to post again, I and at least one other guider I know, are still banned from posting on all but one of the groups. The one thread allowed this morning had comments allowed for just over a hour before commenting was turned off by admin, before I had chance to comment

My suspension was due to expire on 10th April. No one communicated with me to say it being lifted early so I don't know why they did it. I just noticed that I had the option of commenting again when a post came up in my feed.

Yes some valuable points were made, but many links to mermaids and the like. Guiders who have concerns were described as being like "a 3 year old who had never seen a black person and cried in fear" or someone's elderly mum who didn't understand about trans people. I found that very patronising. One poster is a trans woman from another country, another says she works with transgender children

I also found the tone incredibly patronising. I am also startled at how quickly any dissent from the current orthodoxy on trans issues is stamped on as ignorance or transphobia. GG is not a dictatorship and no organisation is above scrutiny. Open and honest dialogue about concerns is a very effective way of keeping policies up to date and fit for purpose. Of course I understand the anger at my publicly criticising GG - an organisation they love as much as I do. But there seems to be a wilful desire to misrepresent me - which is fine except that there are real children who could be harmed by this policy. I don't mean the extreme example of sexual abuse - I'm thinking more about the endorsement of sexist gender norms. One poster said that you can tell the kids who are most serious about their transition because they look more like a girl. The comments were turned off before some could answer my question about what a girl looks like.

The thread also confirmed what I suspected, that anyone who is gender critical, who has posted on here, in the Sisters to all Guides fb group or a couple of other groups of a similar nature, has been tracked on social media. One poster on the thread mentioned "screen shots" which (due to the content) I am sure must have come from a particular secret fb group.

I know for a fact and have evidence that the We Love Girlguiding UK admins (who also have the monopoly on most of the other GG FB groups) were actively looking for members of the sisters to all guides group and another group and suspending them from the GG groups. They also used Mumsnet and other social media to identify people for their "blacklist"

It was only me and possibly one other person that actually attempted to post about the trans issue on the GG FB groups (they weren't approved by admins so didn't get published). Just being a member of a group that GG doesn't like is enough to get a suspension.

Interestingly, when suspended members complained to admin that they'd done nothing to warrant it, they all received similar messages from multiple admins, stating they were too busy trying to have a family Easter to get involved. But not too busy to put together a blacklist.

GGUK are trying to distance themselves from the Facebook groups, which are technically unofficial. But the brief post today seemed to have been approved by GG.

I find this very worrying and not at all in the spirit of Guiding

So do I. On the one hand it's petty and childish behaviour. On the other, it's bullying and victimisation. If girls in my unit did this to fellow unit members, I'd be having words with them and their parents.

Agnes I find the second part of your 01:01 comment quite disturbing - wtaf?

Blacklisting GC guiders is like somthing from the McCarthy/Hollywood years. What possible (reasonable?) grounds do GG have for assembling and storing this data? I really hope their servers are secure and that they are acting in compliance with the DPA.

Is there any update on how these issues are getting resolved?