Girlguiding's trans policy - join our group to lobby GG for change

[AgnesBadenPowell]

Some of you will have seen my previous threads here and in AIBU about Girlguiding's transgender policy. I, and many other Leaders (and parents), feel that they've got this one wrong. I've got a thread on AIBU about this but also wanted to post here too as there was so much interest and support.

Since we highlighted the issue of mixed accommodation without parental consent, and the suggestion that gender nonconforming girls get 'managed out', Girlguiding has been quietly updating the policy on the website, to try and accommodate parental concern that they didn't anticipate. This still doesn't address the underlying issues and there was no announcement of the changes; I only discovered them by comparing cached pages with the live webpage.

Fair Play For Women has put together an article comprehensively setting out the issues in black and white, asking for them to be addressed. They worked on this not just with me, but a number of other concerned Leaders and parents.

You can read a one page fact sheet that summarises our concerns here:

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

If you'd like to see the full article, which discusses our concerns in detail and is fully referenced, you can do that here:

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

If you share our concerns and would like to support this initiative, there is a (public) Facebook group where parents and Leaders can talk about it and add their voice. If we don't speak, no one will hear us:

https://m.facebook.com/groups/902343833223644

Policies which refuse to address the safeguarding of children need to be urgently questioned and clarified. At the moment, many organisations are being given bad advice, getting ahead of the law and misinterpreting the current legislation. Because, yet again, they are only getting one side of the story.

We want all children to benefit from Girlguiding, transgender or otherwise.

The policies need to reflect that everyone should be taken into account, without one group being prioritised to the detriment of another.

Feel free to tweet and otherwise share the links above so as many people as possible hear about this.

And finally, thank you to Fair Play For Women and the leaders and parents who contacted me after reading the other threads. I would never have been able to do this alone

@ReappearingWoman this is what motivates me to speak out in the first place. At 12 I would not have been able to express my embarrassment of discomfort, partly for fear of what other people might say or think. We need to stand up for those girls and be their voices when they can't speak up.

The shocking way that GG has treated me and others has only spurred me on.

I've been suspended from the biggest unofficial (but very much toeing the official line) UK leaders support Facebook page for even attempting to post the fair play for women factsheet. I will not be censored!

Morning all

I was just having a scoot on the facebook group set up by FPFW and Helen www.facebook.com/groups/sisterstoallguides/

It appears that GGA have used the membership list of that group to pre emptively block and ban parents and leaders from all GGA forums and facebook groups! Several of them have never posted anything gender critical in any groups.

I just read in the Sunday Times that Swim England have pulled their guidelines pending review, this is all anyone is asking GGA to do, review it, and yet at every turn they seem to double down. It's very bizarre and appears very heavy handed.

Anyway, it's Easter Sunday so people have commitments today, but I'm hoping Helen might come here and give us an update.

Hi @GirlScout72 yes it's true. Members of our public "sisters to all guides" Facebook page have been suspended from posting on unofficial girlguiding Facebook pages (eg support groups for Brownie leaders).

The suspended members haven't posted on these sites - I tried to but my post wasn't approved by admins and I was suspended immediately.

Our group is public because we have nothing to hide. The unofficial girlguiding groups are actually closed so no non-member can read the posts if GG and it's supporters are wary of having a debate in public.

We are being censored.

Hi

This has been posted up on the one of the girl guiding Facebook pages

Admin post:
Dear all, we are aware of discussions regarding the equality policies of Girlguiding currently circulating on social media. As an admin team, we have taken the decision not to host this discussion on this group currently, not to silence those who wish to discuss, but to allow Girlguiding chance to respond following the bank holiday weekend. We are keeping this decision under review, until such time we feel it may be appropriate to host this discussion.
Regards,
Your admin team.

They could have just said that without sneaking about and blocking people, they could even have gone to the Facebook group set up by concerned parents and leaders and said the same thing, we don't bite!

It's really not a good look shutting down discussion of GG's safeguarding policies. Utter fools to think this is in any way acceptable.

@whathaveiforgottentoday

Thanks for that. Do you know when that was posted? Is there a time stamp on the post? I wonder if was issued after we started tweeting and posting about it on Facebook and here.

And there ARE silencing people - they have removed people's ability to post by virtue of being on the sisters to all guides Facebook page, not because they've posted anything (they haven't - I think I'm the only one who tried and the admin wouldn't post it).

I've found the admin post - it was made an hour ago. So after we started talking about it publicly.

I don't disagree with the sentiment of the admin post at all - but I very much have an issue with admins of one group checking who belongs to groups they don't agree with, then suspending them preemptively.

@AgnesBadenPowell - I'm really infuriated about all of this on your behalf. They are an organisation who are responsible for the care & wellbeing of girls & women involved & think it's somehow acceptable to shut down those situated 'at the coalface' of this, and parents questioning their actions. I'm sick of the whole 'PR' management angle they've adopted, instead of listening, learning, self reflection & understanding where they've spectacularly failed in their duty of care for their members i.e. young women & girls.

I hope you stay the course OP, you are sticking up for all the girls & women that GGHQ are throwing under a bus. As a parent I've felt powerless to do or say anything that GG would listen to (and given their recorded stock copy/paste response to other parents, im not far off the mark) but it's heartening to see guide leaders stand up for our daughters.

Thank you (again).

@agnes have you thought about a complaint to the Equality and Human Rights Commission about indirect sex discrimination under the Equality Act 2010? See www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/19

I think there is a very arguable case for the right claimant.

The argument would presumably be that,

1. in relation to the protected characteristic of sex (defined in s11) a policy, criteria or practice of requiring girls/young women to unknowingly share a room with self ID-ing transgender young people would put the girl/young woman at a particular disadvantage compared to non-girls (privacy, risk of sexual activity etc) ; and

1. the GirlGuiding Association arguably cannot show it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim (in that the Equality Act still allows for self sex accommodation and services under schedule 3 part 7 if you can show a person of one sex might reasonably object to the presence of a person of the opposite sex.).

It is this statutory exception which prevents it from being discrimination on the grounds of transgender.

Currently, as I understand it, only adults can get a GRC so no under 18 transgender girl can argue that they have the sex of women under the Equality Act.

The only difficulty is to bring a claim one would need to be a girl, in guides or being deterred from doing guiding or arguably their parent. So you as a leader would not have a claim.

There is still legal aid for discrimination claims. This is through the Legal Aid Gateway on 03453454345.

Well done for standing up for girls rights in this, and thank you.

I also appreciate GG sentiments in trying to be appropriate in discussions about equality.

However, I think the approach of shutting down concerns and questions from parents and on the ground leaders is not the way to have a respectful, inclusive discussion.

If complaints are ignored and discussions are blocked how else are people to get their voices heard than to bring it to public and media attention?

Common sense can tell you that an environment where it is seen as 'transphobic' to discuss safeguarding practices and/or issues related to when and whether biologically opposite sex bodies can share the same showering or sleeping spaces, without potentially even informing parents, is ridiculous. Denying that is not going to help acceptance or support of trans people and is going to contribute to a polarised and inflammatory debate.

More widely in society, taking advice on an issue that could affect all members from lobbying groups with a specific agenda seems to be causing some rather odd one sided guidance in a lot of different organisations.

(I don't however agree with a PP who said that trans people are a danger to women, and generalisations like this can play into the hands of TRAs. I think self-Id and policy proposals along with the culture of anything and everything being labelled 'transphobic', threatening behaviour by some etc are what creates the danger. Plenty of trans people are either getting on with their lives, standing up for women, or getting genuine abuse across the world for being trans).

I hope this issue with GG ends in a sensible policy for all.

@AgnesBadenPowell

It was posted up at just before 11 this morning. I agree with its sentiments and hope this means they will think sensibly about the policy. We can live in hope ....

So, no 'Right to be heard' on a bank holiday weekend? Pre-emptively blocking across pages and forums is very low. I assumed that the unofficial sites weren't moderated by GG, but by unofficial volunteers (ie random guiders). Does this mean GG are going round checking membership of the #sistertoallguides page and then getting the volunteers of the other sites to block? Or is the other way round? The volunteers running the other sites are blocking and then reporting to GG?

I am heartened that they are at least planning on holding a discussion. It only works if it is unmoderated though. You can't hold a discussion when anyone who dissents from the party line is unable to take part.

Just to be clear - that's statement came from an the admins of an unofficial Facebook support page for leaders, not GGUK itself.

I have no way of verifying whether GGUK is planning to make a statement after the holiday, but given the social media activity, they probably will!

Sorry, that last post was almost illegible with the spelling and auto correct errors! I'll try again.

Just to be clear - that statement came from the admins of an unofficial Facebook support page for leaders, not GGUK itself.

I have no way of verifying whether GGUK is planning to make a statement after the holiday, but given the social media activity, they probably will!

This is not about transgenderism as such. This is about acknowledging that biological sex matters, especially when people are sleeping/washing/dressing. It's about GG changing a single sex organisation to single gender with no consultation. It's about expecting leaders to lie by omission when parents quite reasonably expect our residentials to be single sex.

I have no axe to grind with trans people. But I will NOT lie by omission. I will protect trans children in my care but I expect GG to support me on balancing the needs of all Rainbows.

GG has had over a year to listen to Leaders, parents and girls and it's still choosing not to. I can't see how any policy can be safe and rigorous if no one is allowed to talk about it!

Ahhhhh. Got it. I do have a small amount of sympathy (teeny bit) with the unofficial volunteers in that case - it's GGUK that has an absolute responsibility to be hosting this discussion. Hopefully they will do so! And in the meantime, discussion can continue on the #sisterstoallguides fb page. Hopefully the block-happy moderators are reading and learning as well. Blocking discussion isn't a tenet of guiding! It's completely the opposite of the guiding ethos!

I'm glad you're taking a stand on this.
I have no issue with trans people being who they are - but I do have issue with their right to be who they are eroding rights for girls and women to have penis-free zones.
I especially find it concerning that self-IDing leaders can be allowed access to girl-only zones.
While I believe that genuine trans individuals are not, in general, a risk to women/girls, I also believe that giving predatory males the right to self-ID as women with absolutely no back-up or proof of this creates a very dangerous potential.

For heaven's sake, it's far from unheard of that paedophiles take jobs and roles that bring them into contact with their "victims" - why is it so hard for some to believe that they will continue to do so in other arenas, just because they will be able to do so unchallenged? (Not on this thread, but on many TRA and ally threads)

Protect Trans rights - yes. But not at the expense of girls and women.

My issue here is that you would not typically allow teens of the opposite sex to share accommodation because half of them (talking about your typical teenager, NOT specifically the trans ones) don't have the common sense they were born with. There is therefore a strong risk that a couple of them will decide to take the opportunity to do some sexual experimentation. I think most people don't realise that a boy identifying as a girl may still be attracted to girls and that intercourse is therefore a possibility.

I would just like to add my support to the work you are doing here Agnes. My DD is a member of GG and I am horrified that this change has taken place.

My DD is in Brownies so I am really keen to understand how this will turn out.
However, my DS is in Beavers - which is mixed sexes.
He has only been going for a few weeks and has yet to have any over night stays. Does anyone have any experience of how this mix is handled in Beavers/Scouts ?

I was considering moving my DD from Brownies to Scouts as, in all honesty, the activities seem to be more her thing, and so far Brownies (her group at least) seems to be based on arts and crafts mainly so she's getting bored.
I don't want her exposed to trans ideaology, but also don't want her put at risk sharing with boys if i move her to Scouts hence I don't mean to de-rail the thread but any explanation would help re how the beavers/scouts manage the different sexes please.

Hi Happy Camper

As far as I know Scouts also segregates for safeguarding based on gender identity. So whilst they are not invoking the single sex exemption for membership, because they are mixed sex, they are CHOOSING not to invoke the lawful exemptions for single sex sanitary and sleeping facilities, therefore boys who feel like girls, can still wash, change and sleep in with the girls.

The same organisation that advised GGA also advised NSPCC, so shockingly the NSPCC attitude on this (and I know this because a mum on mumsnet wrote to them about Guides) was told 'if they say they are female, then they are female and there is no safeguarding risk'.

Beavers and scouts do the same thing. It has been sex based to date, but I believe they are now also choosing to follow self-ID and therefore gender. I saw Mermaids on twitter the other day celebrating running a successful advice day for the integration of trans children for Merseyside Scouts. This is becoming the norm for schools and all youth activities, which is why we are trying to ensure parents are aware. The gender lobbying groups advise that parents should not be told, and the trans child should be given the choice of where they feel the most comfortable. Lots of schools have already moved to this policy.

They are all sleepwalking into believing they are doing the right thing for the trans child. Sadly, no one, including the NSPCC, are concerned about doing the right thing for the other children, particularly girls.

So how do we get this information out to parents?
I.e. to tell them that they will not be made aware of mixed sex camps etc.?

I’ll bet you a million pounds the first girl to get pregnant because of this will be dragged through the press as a wanton hussy.