'Caring for Gender Non-conforming Young People'

[froomeonthebroom]

I'm undertaking some mandatory training with this title and have just read the following question:

Maisie currently goes to an all girls school. Maisie asks 'when I start living as a boy will I have to leave this school?' How would you respond?

I answered a) yes, Maisie will have to leave the school

And this is the response: That's not the right answer. Some single sex schools believe, wrongly, that they are not allowed to have any children of the opposite sex. Young people should not be encouraged to leave.

I don't even know where to start with this.

And, do I gather that it is wholly untenable that there should be an answer the involves discussion with Maisie's parents/guardian or some sort of timescale?

^^ Is amongst the reasons that DH and I are considering no longer coaching children in sports nor consenting to coach adults in places where we'd need safeguarding training just to be permitted onto the site.

How old is the child? Its a different answer at 3 or 16.

Who is carrying out the training, who has trained the trainers?

Is this the same 'training' that says if Maisie confides in a teacher that she thinks she's a boy, the teacher must keep what she says confidential?

According to the Girl Guiding Association, Maisie would have to leave.

According to the law as it currently stands, she would not have to leave.

It's online training.

So in the absence of a male child toilet, this child would have to use an adult/male loo.

Isn't that some kind of safeguarding issue right there?

Ask Maisie if she thinks that a male dog actually becomes a female cat if they really really want to, and change their name from Rover to Miss Kitty La Rue?

If only I'd have got a sand box when DS used to pretend to be a cat.

I think JellySlice sums it up neatly.

And I wonder if the on-line training is based on the same woolly guidelines provided to the Girl Guides?

This is utterly bizarre!

Actually, as Maisie will still be a biological female when "living as a boy", I'd say she could still be in a girls' single sex school. But that's not what the genderists tend to believe.

Also she's NOT of the "opposite sex" because she hasn't magically changed into a boy.

But I'd be severely put out if a 17 year old boy was demanding access to my daughter's single sex school, winning all the sport prizes and showing in the sport's pavilion with teenage girls.

No age is given for Maisie.

The module also talks about being gender queer and I keep shouting 'gender is a social construct' at my laptop!

*showering - although showing would worry me too!

It's NHS endorsed. Will try and post a link.

www.gires.org.uk/e-learning/caring-for-gender-nonconforming-young-people/

Well, why should Masie have to leave? Masie is still female. Certainly an all boys school would not be a safe environment for Masie.

I'm cautiously pleased that they haven't adopted to newer, more batshit rules that say the GG have.

I had the growing sense of doom that it would be GIRES...

She remains female. She should stay at the school. It would be very difficult for her to change her mind if she was forced through the upheaval of changing schools.

Maisie cannot change sex.
Maisie remains a girl, and female, and stays at the school. Because she can’t change sex, and she’s a girl, and it’s a girls school.

I was looking at it from the point of view that boys can't go to a girls school, but of course, you're right, she wouldn't be a boy.

It's going to be such a mess. A lot of these guidelines have cherry-picked outcomes from before the GRA (the current legal situation) and after the GRA becomes law (if it does).

It's quite the mess.

But that particular piece of guidance does seem to be in line with law as it currently stands.

I think that is a good point - is a move to an all boys' school appropriate? (who on earth would think that is a good idea?).

That's the thing though, isn't it? The safety issue is inherently one-sided, and pretending otherwise puts girls at risk.

Hmm well, if Maisie should stay at the girls school (which incidentally, I agree with) then if a boy transitions to living as a girl, he should stay at the boys school?

Logic works both ways after all.

The video on that link to GIRES website, features Helen Webberley (I believe).
Have they written anywhere what the qualifications of the developers of the guidance are? Or provided references to external sources from where they are getting their information? I was unable to find it.