Twitter thread: no impact assessments carried out for school guidance in Scotland

[SunsetBeetch]

Well this is concerning, although probably not surprising:

Government funded school guidance has been issued across Scotland, endorsed by Children's Commissioner, charities, LA's etc which discards the need for single sex spaces/sports t.co/ye3ekBGSEi

No Equality Impact Assessments were carried out, neither by the organisations who compiled the guidance nor the Local Authorities who have distributed it amongst their schools.

Allowing confidential disclosure is an abusers charter. How on earth can that go unchallenged?

I wonder if they’ll change their minds once they first get sued?

Some relevent threads:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3156036-Please-email-ScotGov-re-school-guidelines

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3201080-URGENTLY-calling-all-Scottish-gender-critical-Mumsnetters

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3174483-Examples-of-women-and-girls-self-excluding-in-Scotland-being-excluded-post-re-the-GRA

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3235429-Meeting-with-Scottish-women-s-equality-orgs-re-changes-to-GRA

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3187665-The-Faculty-of-Advocates-Response-to-the-Scottish-Governments-Consultation-on-GRA-Reform

Allowing confidential disclosure is an abusers charter. How on earth can that go unchallenged?

It blows my mind too Bowl but there it is.

I can't work out if those in charge truly do not give a shit about fucking over women and girls in order to push a so called progessive agenda or if they are just lazy and incompetent.

Both options scare the bejesus out of me tbh...

Just how remiss is this? Are Impact assessments the norm when taking up any new guidance or changing/adapting rules/protocols? I don’t work in the public sector or know much about policy implementation. Have they broken any laws by not carrying them out? Excuse my ignorance - of course I know in principle it’s ‘wrong’ and shows a complete disregard for young girls and boy’s rights to segregated spaces and sex-based protections.

Lemonjello, exactly there is no longer a need for an Equality Impact Assessment which creates a document. It is perfectly sufficient, I think, for an LA decide that a national body has more resources to consider matters and just to adopt guidance passed down the chain.

BTW its unusual here to see someone promoting a document that says that the assessment has to be made against a protected characteristic of gender, rather than sex. Interesting that is now official policy.

@dragongirlx thank you for explaining, I get ever so confused with all the information around trans issues.

That is really concerning, I’ll definitely have a chat with my local MSP (who is a feminist so I should be able to at least have a decent conversation with her) and raise awareness of this locally. It makes me very, very uncomfortable that my DD (I also have 2 sons but I honestly can’t see this affecting boys in the same way as girls) would be put in this position, even potentially, or any girls at all.

exactly there is no longer a need for an Equality Impact Assessment which creates a document. It is perfectly sufficient, I think, for an LA decide that a national body has more resources to consider matters and just to adopt guidance passed down the chain.

You would think, providing that the national body had done an impact assessment themselves. Which they haven’t. The problem is that to scotgov and even the LA’s, these guidelines aren’t policy, just recommendations that they endorse. Therefore there is no incentive to do a EQIA. The guidelines don’t become policy until they are actually written into individual schools policies, But I imagine schools think, as you have, that equality duty has been considered further up the chain.

the assessment has to be made against a protected characteristic of gender, rather than sex. Interesting that is now official policy.

I wouldn’t say interesting.
I would say negligent.

Allowing confidential disclosure is an abusers charter. How on earth can that go unchallenged?

It's beyond unconscionable. The Allsorts guidance recommends schools socially transitioning SEN children without informing parents. SEN children! FFS.

Yes this is what I thought on the train after reading thread on way home.

There is no longer a protected charcteristic of sex in scotland, only gender.

The term gender - is that defined? There are multiple definitions as far as I am aware.

IF the term gender is defined / meant in the sense of gender ID then there is no need to do an equality assessment as to how any of this affects girls as they are of the female sex. If gender can include male or female then then it is already mixed and so there is no need to do any equality impact assessment.

The changing in the wording of the equality act to REMOVE the protected characteristic of sex is a massive move meaning that logically there is no possibility or prospect of doing anything around equalities based on sex - so no more need to consider girls / women as a group in anything.

Is that others reading of it?

I know we talked about this on the guiding thread but I think anyone providing insurance for schools needs to be made aware of this - it’s a direct route to the school or body having their arses sued off.
Maybe being unable to get insurance would focus some minds on just how risky impartial third parties think this is.

The current wording is still up here:

"The Equality Act 2010 and The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 require public authorities, in the exercise of their functions, to have due regard to the need to:

eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other prohibited conduct
advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not
foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not
The Equality Act defines the following as protected characteristics:

age
disability
gender reassignment
marriage and civil partnership
pregnancy and maternity
race
religion or belief
sex
sexual orientation"

which I thnink is the same as in england and wales

Is that others reading of it?

Yes it is. And under a previous name I think I have raised this point a while back - the change in the law will make all sex based protections invalid. Because it will be indefineable.

That's a link about public authorities duties on a scot gov webisite, the quote of equality act 2010 will be accurate though generally.

From Fairplay for Women:
(extract)
"Last year while we were all looking the other way and distracted by the UK government’s proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act the word woman was stolen from us. It was sneakily done by the Scottish parliament and hidden behind a smoke screen. That smoke screen was The Gender Representation on Public Boards Bill.

The Bill introduced the ‘gender representation objective’ – a target that women should make up 50% of non-executive board membership.

The purpose of this bill was admirable. It was to help women overcome the institutional sexism we suffer due to our sex. Positive action to redress the imbalances that have arisen from centuries of historical disadvantage. It was to acknowledge the reality that institutionalised inequality and sexist attitudes stop most women from reaching their full potential in public life. Financial barriers, income inequality, the gender pay gap, sexist attitudes, gender stereotyping, women’s disproportionate share of caring responsibilities, the undervaluing of women’s paid work, and media portrayals of women, to name but a few influences, all play a role in the sexism that prevents a fair number of women being involved in public life.

But in a cruel twist of irony it was also to be the perfect trojan horse to steal the very meaning of the words woman and female from us."
fairplayforwomen.com/scottish_stole_woman/

For those who enjoy Lisa Muggeridge, here are her posts on Kids Company:

idgeofreason.wordpress.com/2015/10/16/why-patrick-butler-didnt-see-a-problem-with-kids-company-and-why-it-matters/

idgeofreason.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/mumsnet-kids-company-and-online-politics/

So many similarities - blind liberal support for bad organisations using harmful practice, completely ignorant of safeguarding.

Well gender representation clearly is not related to under-representation of women. If you're worried about that then you talk about sex discrimination.

There are scores of genders aren't there, you could have 20 different genders on a board, and they've all got dicks.

Hoorah.

Makes recent trends easier though we've seen men heading up quite a few orgs that were started by and have been run by and for women.

Cos penis = better obv.

GibbertyFlibbert This is incorrect. The Scottish Government has stated unequivocally that it is the duty of LEAs to carry out EIAs and that that is the reason they have not carried out their own.

And just think about it - if an LEA that had decided to only have unisex facilities in new built schools decided to change them to strictly single-sex ones you would expect them to carry out an EIA in regards to transgender pupils which would have to provide for a solution for those pupils. If they did what you're saying here, they could just shrug any concerns off and throw transkids under the bus.

This is what legislation in some US states has led to - they changed the rules in school which then excluded previously included transkids from the opposite sex facilities. If the current trend of pushing these things through without consulting the public continues in the same vein of throwing women and girls under the bus I am confident in predicting the same thing will happen here.

Why am I confident? Because I've just seen another poll asking if people in England support self-ID and the majority does not (there's not even a majority amongst LGBT people). And yes, it's a professional poll from a professional pollster asking over a 1000 people - the gold standard for such polls. It closely mirrors the one done in Scotland a few years ago which showed the same result.

It may take five or ten years, but it will happen and the backlash will do more harm to transgender people (as observed in those aforementioned US states where suspicion of trans people is now running rampant and leading to an increase in incidents).

You don't get acceptance by coercing people and dissent doesn't go away if you forbid its expression. You need to persuade people. You do that by taking people's fears and concerns on board, by listening to what they want and then finding a solution that takes all of those things into account.

You don't get acceptance by coercing people and dissent doesn't go away if you forbid its expression.

^This.

may take five or ten years, but it will happen and the backlash will do more harm to transgender people (as observed in those aforementioned US states where suspicion of trans people is now running rampant and leading to an increase in incidents).

Oh no doubt that's all our fault.

Y we are already getting the blame. Never mind. We must fight on.

An equality impact assessment (if one were done) would likely raise issues under the categories or sex and religion and belief.

"GibbertyFlibbertThis is incorrect. The Scottish Government has stated unequivocally that it is the duty of LEAs to carry out EIAs and that that is the reason they have not carried out their own."

Surely gender and gender id are both protected characteristics so it would need to be done. I think nothing has been done here as sex is no longer a protected characteristic, so no requirement.

Or maybe no one has bothered to think about it, is that likely? I mean the thought of equality assessment hasn't crossed their minds.

Also swim England and other orgs have said anyone is whatever they say they are, so maybe that is the route they are taking to mean no need for assessments or any safeguarding considerations.

"Surely gender and gender id are both protected characteristics so it would need to be done" missed a bit, it would need to be done to consider impact on trans kids who are doubly protected. As opposed to femsle, where protection has been removed.

I was at our new purpose built cycle park in Scotland last night. Arrived at the changing room and went to get changed from work to cycle gear. Was baffled to see unisex changing room/ shower rooms but the guy in charge showed me where stickers had been put over one half of the unisex symbol on the 2 rooms as no-one wanted to get naked in front of the opposite sex and everyone thought unisex changing rooms (you don't wear knickers under cycle shorts) were mad.