Urgent! Sign our open 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/

I have added my name on the Facebook page. Does that count?

Agnes - tis done.

I've said it before, but thank you so much for running with this. You are sane and kind and balanced and right, and also quite magnificent.

If you've signed the Facebook page, then you don't need to do anything else. You've been noted!

I've never been called magnificent before! I am also very much not on my own with this. There's a little team. There are also magnificent.

Would signing with first name and initial count? I am too scared to use my real surname as it is very unusual and I am scared of the backlash.

Agnes

Signed ,name and previous role in Guiding listed

Signed - and I've posted the link on my Facebook page, together with an explanation, for others to sign too.

Signed and will share.

Thank you. Did al the links below work for you? They look fine to me on the app but are all over the place on the web version.

I would encourage anyone who wants to sign to use the Fair Play For Women contact page - makes admin much easier and no need to out yourself to me either!

Signed

More conflation of lesbian with transgender. Is there any evidence of lesbian girls being asked to leave. Its not as if even transgender can start testosterone, grow beard and muscle etc.

WTGLWGH

@mummybear701 there is evidence that lesbian girls display higher rates of gender non conforming behaviours. Studies are cited here www.transgendertrend.com/child-transgender-gay-neither/

The GG policy states that leaders should commence discussions with girls who do not identify as girls as when they will leave and sign post them to other organisations.

The fact remains that these young women are still female - the very group GG was set up to support and empower. I understand that a girl who transitions may not want to stay in GG - but we shouldn't assume and we shouldn't base guidance on the basis of exclusion, at a time when a girl needs support more than ever.

@ReluctantCamper eh?

when they go low we go high.

Sorry, new FWR code for 'try not to rise to the bait'

mummybear701 seems to be spoiling for a fight. I would hate for her to get one and it to be used against what you're doing.

Agnes if its true I do sympathise on the potential to mistake lesbian girls for transgender, problem is they are distinct but both involve gender non-conformity.

I see a debate to be had on reducing it to gender stereotypes we are working to remove, but are physical and biological differences enough in themselves to need a separate girls group? This may be how GG come back at this, remembering it was founded when there was a much bigger social and cultural difference between boys and girls than today.

I don't criticise you for speaking out as its a debate that needs to be had.

Signed.

Also, I saw in another group where FPFW posted that you can you use your initial and surname e.g. J Bloggs, mum, parent of Brownie, former Guide if you want. I suspect there'll be hundreds of names, what they gonna do, doxx us all? I very much doubt it. I had quick mooch around twitter, apart from one or two clearly not very mentally well people, there has been surprisingly little negativity about this, as I suspect the original long report, which painstakingly pulled apart the legal blunders, shut them all up.

Agnes, it just shines out of everything you write that you love this organisation, I don't think anyone thinks you are trying to harm or embarrass GG. However, they are either extremely naive and trusting the say so of a dodgy trans lobby group, or have had an outbreak of arrogance. I'd like to think it's not the latter, that's they've just got into a pickle and each move they make makes it worse, it needs to come to this as they need a wake up call.

As the knock on effects of pushing them to review has implications for all youth groups (many of whom are already acting as if the protected characteristic of gender reassignments confers rights to a boy as a female - it doesn't - and this is what they are being told by lobbyists) then something needs to be done to make people sit up and take notice.

Oh btw my mum, dad, and sis in law signed it too.

Mummybear

95% of girls who come out as transgender are same sex attracted. 80% of all kids identifying as transgender desist. Polly Carmichael, lead clinician at the Tavistock gender clinic says herself that the most likely outcome for a kid they see is to end up LBG and not T.

Most kids being referred to gender clinics are girls. If you drill down into the suicide stats, most of the kids trying to harm themselves are girls.

We have an urgent need to address what is happening to girls. This is GG's raison d'etre.

And irony is they were ALREADY transgender inclusive. Transwomen with a GRC have always been able to join, and as a single sex organisation they were already obliged to include girls who identify as boys (cos they are still female). They didn't need to change a thing. They could have been at the forefront of fighting for girls to be themselves, rather than saying 'who I am does not fit sexist stereotypes, therefore I am a boy'.

I'm hoping the next big story is WHO are the snake oil salesman that advised them, and how much money did GG pay them for the privilege of being made a mockery of on a national scale.

Signed.

I have sons, not daughters, but loved my time in the Brownies and Guides. Brownie camp was my first time away from home, and there is no way my mother would have let me go if she had thought that I would be sharing a tent with a boy. It beggars belief that GG think that parents should not be informed!

Done.
Great work

Thanks all for signing. Do feel free to share the link.

I've got another thread running in AIBU for traffic and, as expected, not everyone agrees with my position. I made this comment in response and I thought I'd share it here as it sets out why I'm doing this - and it's not because I have a grudge with GGUK!

I understand. It's tricky because the editor doesn't want the content published before Sunday so I can't put it here. If you've read the Fair Play For Women articles then they explain our concerns although the letter is briefer.

I would add that we are asking for the policy to be suspended pending a review. No one was consulted on the change to policy - no girls, leaders, or parents.

GG was already inclusive in that girls of any gender identity could be members and trans women with a gender recognition certificate could make the Promise and become leaders (men did and still can be volunteers but only in non-Promise making support roles - leadership is female only)

This policy a is a massive step backwards in that it excludes a whole group of girls, who should be free to join us / stay with us if that's what they want.

GG, an organisation that has fought gender stereotypes for over a century, is now basing its membership criteria on those very stereotypes.

GG was a single sex organisation. By extending membership to boys who identify as girls, they now discriminate against boys who don't identify as girls.

The policy needs to be reviewed by independent experts in equality law, data protection and child protection. The membership needs to be consulted.

If the outcome of the process is that the policy stays as it is, then that's fine. This isn't about "winning" or scoring points. I have no grudge to bear against GG. I just want to be sure that the policy is the best it can be.

Signed.

Signed.

SIgned. They can't come after me, I'm a housewife/mother.

Signed I hope this has an impact Excellent work