Girlguiding - an update

[AgnesBadenPowell]

Firstly, apologies for being offline for a while. It's been a busy few weeks, I went on holiday and started a new job. But back on it now!

You'll know that an article was published in the Sunday Times in March and a couple of weeks later the open letter went in: the final tally was 927 signatures (some of these collected after publication).

Since then I met the CEO, deputy CEO and chief guide. Prior to that, I was warned in emails to use the internal procedures for complaints and to not make things public (I did, and was ignored). I was also "reminded" of the social media policy and told that the campaign would not change the trans policy.

It's probably not appropriate to share my full notes from that meeting here. But I will say that Girlguiding was defensive and prickly. The fact that I have publicly discussed the trans policy on social media in particular irritated Julie Bentley (CEO). I don't know why; the policy is a public document available on the website.

Girlguiding stressed to me that the legal advice they received confirmed that they HAVE to treat trans members (including those who self identify, not just with a GRC) as the opposite sex) as the gender they identify as.

We did agree that in the absence of a test case, there is no legal precedent. It was left that we would await the updated EHRC guidance expected next month before any review is conducted (if they chose to review it).

We did discuss the inconsistencies that the trans policy brings about, eg GG has strict rules that accompanying male children on leaders must have separate sleeping and washing facilities. Even boys as young as 4. But if that boy identified as a girl, then no such rules apply, despite there being no physical, material difference between the two groups of males. Girlguiding referred back to their legal advice that have to treat trans members as the gender they identify as. This includes males who identify as females providing personal care to girls on residentials, a role which is strictly for female leaders only according to GG's safeguarding policy.

We also discussed gender non confirming girls. There was an agreement that the language in the policy was rather clinical, and it could be interpreted as a strict instruction for a GNC girl to be removed from their unit. It was agreed that the policy language would be reviewed. This is particularly important as most trans issues within GG are, as you might expect, around girls who are transitioning.

One of the key issues for me is that girlguiding now offers single gender but mixed sex accommodation. I accept that the number of trans girls joining guides will be small compared to our overall membership - but it would only take one incident to cause huge harm to the children involved, their families and girlguiding. I suggested that GG might want to make the single gender / mixed sex aspect clearer, perhaps by adapting the standard consent form to advise parents that we don't guarantee single sex accommodation. Yet again, I was accused of wanting "out" individuals. That is not my intention at all.

I've heard nothing from girlguiding since. I will be following up on the action points. We will have a new CEO in June and updated EHRC guidance which will hopefully give all children equal rights to bodily privacy and autonomy, not just the trans kids.

It sounds to me like adolescent trans boys are exactly the girls that need Guiding and they are the group that will be asked to leave. Heart breaking.

Yes.

No, the Scouts manage things differently. They dont have mixed sex sleeping

This isn't true. If you look at the scouts policy on its website, it actually states that there has never been a rule that prohibits mixed sex sleeping. Although in practice most of the time I expect leaders do separate sexes.

Scouts also accepts gender self ID so you could have a situation where a trans girl (or Male) is in with the girls tent and using their facilities, while all the other boys are separated.

The only thing that scouts do better, IMO, is that their policy talks about a range of options including private accommodation and also discussing the options well in advance with the trans child and other involved.

If you've removed your daughter from guiding and out her in scouts, there is still no guarantee that she will have single sex accommodation, or that you will be given the chance to consent.

members.scouts.org.uk/supportresources/4228/gender-identity-supporting-young-people?cat=377,378&moduleID=10

I suspect Scouting has not been any more forthcoming with parents or leaders about this issue and parents will still be unaware that they have the right to ask or state a preference.

Juells
From what I saw online, the girls who protested were 'shown up' as bigots and terfs and transphobes, and the trans girl came out of the debacle as a hero.

That is the usual spin, whether true or not. I get the feeling it was a fairly conservative region, and the parents also on board.

Also IIRC, in a previous thread a post was deleted for mentioning bulges in connection with a video of the incident.

I was incredibly cagey about not mentioning names (a shit ton of edits before posting). To adhere to the guidelines. I had the name, revised it, no name mentioned, due to the policy. A fucked up policy, given the girls were creeped out by 'them'. More important to silence women/girls' objections eh?

Personality clash (or bloke saying he's a woman), then I politely suggest my unit is not the one for them. Not because they're trans, but because we don't click, and to do this, as a leader, you have to click with your leadership team.

Inflag, sorry, but this coy approach does not work. In theory it should, but it won't, most TRAs being a rather litigious lot. Go look at an example of how to attempt to handle things 'diplomatically'

You make the wrong assumption that they have female socialisation, and won't make a fuss. No, you are dealing with males (and male socialisation) here.

cf the accusations voiced at women in Canada who raised concerns about sharing space with trans woman:
www.them.us/story/domestic-violence-shelters-fighting-transphobia-ben-carson

globalnews.ca/news/3300518/concerns-over-transgender-client-at-okanagan-shelter/

& the experience of a woman being treated by mental health services:

"A Lancaster mum whose bi-polar disorder left her believing men were conspiring to kill her said she was left terrified when she was locked on a women’s psychiatric ward with an “extremely male-bodied” transgender patient...
...When she raised her concerns with hospital staff, however, she said she was not taken seriously and her medical notes implied that she was a “transphobic bigot”.

www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/lancaster-mum-with-fear-of-men-locked-on-hospital-ward-with-transgender-patient-1-8963648

and her medical notes implied that she was a “transphobic bigot”.
Just WTAF

"would it be possible for Guiders to launch a "100 years" (of women getting the vote) campaign? Or some other hook? What I am getting at is: start a Guiding grassroots celebration of single sex brilliance, which will force the leadership to state that they don't support it?"

They won't say they don't support it.
They will say they do support it.
They are currently holding two opposing ideas to be true, simultaneously.

Gosh surely psych units should be an exception :( my mum is often sectioned and wpuld be terrified :( psychotic male bodied person on the ward would be ... horrid.

@SardineReturns @TheMostBeautifulDogInTheWorld
Guiding already has this, we did "Parliament Week" in the autumn term, held debates, covered the history of women's suffrage and rights, (they were amazed by the facts and shocked by how different things were) we even got a very nice badge all Guides love badges.

There is lots of stuff about inspirational women and how girls can do anything, don't run away with the idea it's all gone pink and fluffy with added unicorns.

It's just we have to include boys who identify as girls and manage out girls who don't, and we can't tell the parents!

Gosh surely psych units should be an exception sad my mum is often sectioned and wpuld be terrified sad psychotic male bodied person on the ward would be ... horrid.

Psychiatric units, prison, places for girls, places for vulnerable women, all can and should be exempt. The people making the decisions choose not to use that exemption.

Indeed namechanged and there is no way to mobilise grassroots Guiders except through either social media (heavily sat on, if you dare to differ you are banned - including saying something in group A that isn't officially sanctioned, being removed from group B that is) or current channels (you may get something past District but even sympathetic commissioners higher up are afraid for their volunteer roles).

My friend's DD is now a transman, who is attracted to both men and women. When a younger teenager, she was gender non-conforming and didn't go to single sex clubs such as guides as she felt more comfortable in a mixed sex environment.

However, gender non-conforming boys possibly do feel more comfortable in a girls-only environment. However, we need to understand that most transgirls of the age 10-14 may not be trans, and may just be gender non-conforming. Also they may or may not be attracted to opposite sex. How can it be the official policy that these children are pushed into sharing rooms/tents with the opposite sex? I would be worried if my teenage DS shared a room on a school trip with a transman for these reasons.

I’m going to be very blunt and say it’s not the sexual attraction I have a problem with, I would never wish to exclude lesbians.
The problem is a penis and the ownership of said penis. A penis attached to a human should not be sharing a space with vagina owners.
Simple as that.
Identify how you want, dress how you like, just keep your dick away from young women and girls.

Absolutely Simon. This isn't about sexual orientation. It's about the oppression of one sex class by another. And also dignity.

Should I ever need personal care, I would far rather have another woman wash me, help me with toileting or dealing with periods. I couldn't care less if that woman was a lesbian or not. I want someone who understands female biology, who has no inherent power over me.

Moreover I would like to be given the choice and for my autonomy to be respected. GG doesn't seem to get that.

As an ex guide I find this debate quite disturbing. Perhaps they didn't mean to say lesbians will be kicked out and seem to have acknowledged the wording is misleading. It would also run counter to their whole ethos of encouraging girls to challenge gender stereotypes. I was a tomboy as a kid/teen, even mistaken for a boy sometimes. Guides showed me I could be who I wanted without constraints of gender.

As for accepting trans girls, I'm quite new to this concept (only knowingly met trans adults and very few at that) but children can't legally change gender afaik and certainly can't have medical treatment to that effect. How do they distinguish? Would they ask for a doctors note stating gender dysphoria?

I see nothing unreasonable about expecting adult leaders to have legal certification of reassigned gender. That sounds like the case already.

Scouts are mixed sex anyway so no arguments over gender on joining the group, though I assumed sleeping was organised by sex and trans kids would pose awkward questions.

My friend's DD is now a transman, who is attracted to both men and women. When a younger teenager, she was gender non-conforming and didn't go to single sex clubs such as guides as she felt more comfortable in a mixed sex environment

It seems odd to me that the GG are falling over themselves to make space for m - f trans children. When I read the court report that people posted about the small boy who went to live with his father, after his mother had brought him up as a transgirl, it seemed very clear that the orthodoxy was that children who are gender non-conforming should be given 'space and choice'. This cannot be given in a single sex (or single gender) organisation. It makes far more sense that a mixed organisation would give more opportunity for under 18s to work out their own needs.

There have been lesbians in guiding forever. Sexuality is irrelevant. The issues are penises, and gender stereotypes.
Penises are a safeguarding issue.
Gender stereotypes are coercive, damaging, and have no place in a single sex organization that claims to want to free girls and young women from the chains of their biology.
There are transboys in our community that used to be in my Brownie pack. I would take them back into guiding without any reservations whatsoever, as they are exactly the girls that need it.
Screening a transwoman for leadership will be the point at which my volunteership ends, and I will not go quietly.
I h

I agree. Trans boys could benefit hugely from guiding. So much support, activity, positive focus and close relationships.

However if GG is forced to accept that trans girls are girls then the other side of the coin is that trans boys are boys and therefore can’t be in the GG.

And once again vulnerable girls get thrown under the bus.

Referring back to a pp about scouting. It's true that there's never been the rule that boys and girls must sleep separately, but our guidance says the secession must have separate changing facilities.

However we separate the sexes sleeping accommodation and I don't know of any leader who doesn't. We have big tents with separate zipped pods and we have girls one side and boys the other. We also have kids that need to sleep alone and we give them their own pod within the tent.

All our sleeping arrangements are fully discussed with parents as we have some boyfriend/girlfriend relationships where the parents are very keen to ensure they are are not together.

I think it's more likely that consensual acts will be a problem; either way, no patents wants their guide to come back pregnant! Whether it was consensual or not.

I agree. I think consensual, penetrative sex is a huge issue. Teenagers (of either sex) are renowned for having more sex drive than common sense. I remember that at my all-girls boarding school, we had "socials" with nearby boys' schools. The entire purpose was to find someone to snog as soon as possible and the whole thing was heavily supervised to make sure that smooching and slow dancing didn't go any further. Believe me, some "couples" would have gone further if they could. Why does all this fly out of the window if one of the girls is in fact a lesbian with a penis?

On a teenage school trip 15 years ago the teachers separated us by sex and on different floors. I still got into my boyfriends room. Teenagers are really not to be trusted! I’m sure that if it had been an option for us to “identify as” the opposite sex to facilitate a bit of smooching and probably more. We would have done. Thankfully I was also a teenager that was on the pill, the only thing I did manage to be sensible about.

Well done on making it all the way through that meeting without completely losing your shit.

"Single gender, mixed sex facilities."

"We have to discriminate against someone, it's ok if it's minority girls but w can never discriminate against boys, in the GIRL guides."

"Our legal advice is that we have to let men who say they are women perform intimate care on young girls without question, and without notifying the parents."

I honestly don't know how you managed to keep from grabbing them and shaking them until all the stupidity fell out.

I'm so disappointed in the Scouts. I didn't realise the 'no mixed sex sleeping' was a local policy, not a national one. I dont get how they can have a rule about no mixed sex changing and not sleeping.