What is happening with the Girl Guides?????

[loveyouradvice]

Fascinating long threads a while ago... I'm hoping they are gathering legal resources to take forward a group action....

But love to know what else - if anything - is happening .... or has happened

Oh, I'm not sure if the CEO and deputy CEO are volunteers or paid employees, I meant the group leaders (Rainbow/Brownie/Guide/Senior Section leaders, district/county/regional commissioners etc). The GG website says the Chief Guide is the most senior volunteer, so I guess that means the Cheif Executive are paid...

www.girlguiding.org.uk/about-us/our-organisation/structure-of-guiding/

So you all do the work for free, they reap the rewards, you have EA and safeguarding concerns and as a group you allow them to control you all? You hold the power here not them.

For those who haven't read the policies yet, they are on the GGUK website.

"If a child or young person self-identifies as a girl or young woman then they are able to join any of our youth sections appropriate to their age."

"Sharing accommodation - young trans members should be able to share accommodation with other young members if they wish." On the same page: "It is not a requirement - or best practice - to tell parents that a trans person will be attending a residential event."

"Consent - We make sure girls, young women, adults and parents have all the information they need to make an informed decision before choosing whether to take part in activities, events, trips and overseas visits" apart from, it would seem, the information that your beuterused and impregnatable daughter will be sharing a room or tent, and toileting and shower accommodation with a bepenised trans girl.

The CEO and her deputy are paid employees, as are the staff that run HQ (policy staff, fundraising, usual head office stuff). There are also paid staff that work in GG properties like Foxlease and Waddow - be it as instructors, cooks, housekeeping, admin etc.

Leaders like me are volunteers. Commissioners, who are essentially managers of the all the leaders (rainbows/brownies/guides/rangers) on their patch, whether at district, division or county level, are also all volunteers. It's a lot of work and responsibility.

GG also has "lead volunteers" which get involved on a part time basis with HQ projects around strategy, safeguarding etc.

There's over 500,000 women and girls in GG so there needs to be a lot of management and oversight to ensure correct procedures are followed especially regarding safeguarding, consistency of delivery of the programme, managing waiting lists and resources etc.

But even so, GGHQ is rather top down. There's no AGM or conference for membership. Policies are imposed on volunteers, consultation is supposed to happen but feels very opaque. Gg does not deal well with any challenge to its authority. For things like changes to uniform, badge syllabuses, it probably doesn't matter if a few leaders aren't happy. But the trans policy is completely different.

So you all do the work for free, they reap the rewards, you have EA and safeguarding concerns and as a group you allow them to control you all? You hold the power here not them.

If the gender critical guiders all went on strike, GGHQ would have to sit up and take notice.

@VariousDisabilities it's not that simple. Breaching rules could result in leadership being revoked. If all the critical leaders are removed, then what? I'm not prepared to walk away from the organisation because I also gain a lot from it.

However, I am challenging GG on this and will continue to do so. Other leaders do not agree that there is an issue with the policy - I dare say some leaders would have me removed ASAP. Others are wary of challenging GG's authority for a variety of reasons, including the possible consequences for their jobs if they are public about it.

GG is a very hierarchical organisation and old habits die hard. Any discussion on this issue is also shut down. In one county GG is actively sending memos to its leaders asking them not to discuss trans issues in public and to report any leaders who do. It's not an environment conducive to speaking out, sadly.

As leaders we volunteer because we care deeply about Guiding and about "our" girls.
If all the GC leaders went "on strike" then GGHQ would waste no time in getting rid, and the only people who would suffer would be the girls. There are not queues of women lining up to volunteer!

With things as they are at the moment re trans issues, there are very many women (I know from personal experience) who cannot speak out as they would risk loosing their job, not just their position in Guiding.

There are not queues of women lining up to volunteer!

Apart from my daughters' Rainbow pack where there are more leaders than kids some weeks - they have a ridiculous amount of volunteers (for those wondering where the fuck they all are... we seem to be hoarding them!)

I'm having to keep quiet about my view about the Guide bullshit - MIL's a county commissioner and very much likely to swallow the "awww but they say they're girls and they're a misunderstood minority" line of fluffiness and another in law used to work at GGHQ.

I now have my kids on the waiting list for Beavers instead and am planning to jump across to scouting that seems a bit less willing to throw children born and assigned female anatomy at conception under the bus. Sad because I went all the way up through Guiding as a child and I just assumed my kids would do the same.

How dare they not want this to be discussed? Don't get it. Are they not proud of their actions? If not, why not?

How dare they not want this to be discussed? Don't get it. Are they not proud of their actions? If not, why not?

That's true.

If it's 'right', what's the problem?

@BingTheButterflySlayer
Don't assume it's not the same in the Scouts- members.scouts.org.uk/supportresources/4227/gender-identity-introduction?cat=377,378&moduleID=10

My experience with scouting as a (volunteer) leader is that at the first hint they get that you may feel they aren't doing quite the right thing wrt safeguarding & gender stereotypes they double down and seek to get rid of you & bad mouth you within your community to discredit you. Doesn't matter how few leaders they are.

Am fully expecting another major safeguarding scandal in scouting as there is no will to listen just protect the organisation.

I am so fucking angry that organisations trusted with children are treating a clear safeguarding issue in this way.

The absolute worst of it is the silencing and hiding it from parents. They need to be 100% transparent on this and could easily ask for parents consent to the policy without mentioning any individuals at all.

How DARE they suggest the people pointing this out are in the wrong. How DARE they silence them.

If there's nothing wrong with what they are doing why are they trying to hide it from parents.

It's interesting how at the meeting with the CEO, she was so visibly irritated.

One of the points I made was that parents and girls don't know this policy and may not find out until thy unwittingly find themselves sharing facilities with a male bodied person.

Her response? "Well everyone knows about it now it's all over social media".

I will never forget that.

This woman is now going to be CEO at Action for Children (formerly national children's homes although I don't think they run homes anymore). She will be responsible for supporting some of the most vulnerable children in society. And ACH have already embraced gender self identity.

Ugh. That seems like such a self serving response.

I read the girl guiding organisation’s policies yesterday and they are troubling. I was hoping my own daughter would join but reading their website makes me think they are so busy trying to be politically correct that they don’t give a rats ass about anything else.

Daughter please share your concerns with Girlguiding HQ. They seem to be saying at the moment that nobody is complaining so there is no problem.
I don't know any guiders in our area who actually support this policy, most seem unaware, it is definitely coming from the top down.
Before you stop your daughter joining, have a chat with the leaders, they may well have no idea.

@avery, I will be doing this later on today. It’s so important that we raise our concerns. Will post later on the baby’s just woken up.

Thank you Agnes. My DD is training to be a young leader but my concern is that at 17 she is very 'politically correct' about all this kind of stuff and I don't think she really understands the implications.

I mentioned in my email that if this was official policy I may consider removing my daughter. I hope it doesn't come to this and it is not a major issue in my daughters pack, but what worries me is when they have trips which involve other packs. For example later in the year they are going for a sleepover with a number of different groups.

Even if the leaders reassure me that this is not a problem in our local group, how will I know about the others?

Agnes: 'One of the points I made was that parents and girls don't know this policy and may not find out until thy unwittingly find themselves sharing facilities with a male bodied person.

Her response? "Well everyone knows about it now it's all over social media".'

So the problem is not the policy, but that people know about the policy?

I sometimes wonder at the limitless stupidity of these people. If there's one issue that churches, schools, youth groups, football clubs etc are all acutely aware of now, it's safeguarding. There have been so many high-profile cases in the past few years of organisations not taking care to protect children from sexual predators, how on earth can an organisation just decide to adopt a policy that knowingly flies in the face of good safeguarding practice? That knowingly puts children at risk? That risks putting the organisation in a situation where they could end up with enormous reputational damage and facing criminal charges? What is wrong with them?

People don't know in the main. Guides need to tell them.