Girl guiding email to parents.

[Wildboar]

Has anyone seen the mass email sent out this evening? They haven’t acknowledged any concerns put to them. All they have stated that there is no risk and they won’t inform parents of transgender members due to data protection laws.

@Lemonsole regarding your scenarios, I don't have any answers. However, as someone who is a leader in girl guiding, they worry me greatly. As any comeback, anger and vitriol from parents / carers will be targeted at people like me. As we're the people the parents interact with. Whether head office or those higher up say it's ok is irrelevant, as they won't be the ones dealing with the parents / girls when these situations arise.

It's the sheer unworkability of it. I deliberately took all emotions out of the scenarios, simply repeating my own experiences, only assuming trans members.

The Movement will lose its leaders, not because they are bigots (although that is how they are being presented) but because they can see that, on the ground, the word salad of that email will be unworkable and that the inclusion policy and safeguarding principles have become mutually contradictory.

@Icerebel. I completely agree: you're the one on the ground taking vitriol from whichever side you have to disappoint, whether you go with what Jess's or Mary's parents would want you to do; whether you create a bad atmosphere that makes your leader feel awkward and have to drive home each night to sleep, or create a bad atmosphere by addressing the elephant in the corner that nobody is supposed to mention.

It's not transphobic if you treat them identically to how you would treat lesbian children or straight children in a relationship. In Scouts we wouldn't put a boyfriend and girlfriend in a two person tent or any combination of boyfriends or girlfriends regardless of what equipment they have.

@wittyname4.

That's Scouting. Where there is a much longer history of mixed-sex groups, and a culture of careful tent management to avoid couples being together. I've done it - both as a youth member and a leader!

Guiding has a completely different culture that doesn't acknowledge that its members might be involved with each other. Probably due to old-style lesbophobia or invisibility - but either way, that Leader has an awfully tricky situation to try and unpick, which as a volunteer she simply should not have to do.

So it will involve a lot of lying. Lying to girls that trans girls are “the same”, lying to girls that there is something wrong with them if they feel at all uncomfortable, encouraging girls to lie to their parents that a male with a penis was in their tent or intimate space, lying or withholding from parents that a man in women’s clothes will be around the girls. An organization that was created to celebrate and empower girls is now a cover-up for the biological males in their midst. The message they must learn is “you have no right to male-free space, we (men) will not allow it and you need to learn to have your privacy invaded and put men first.”

Guiding has a completely different culture that doesn't acknowledge that its members might be involved with each other. Probably due to old-style lesbophobia or invisibility

And because there’s statistically likely to be less risk if no one with a male body is present.

Trans teens may be ‘living as’ the other gender but are not likely to be having treatment so essentially underneath clothes they’re the same hormone-fuelled young people experimenting with identity, sexual feelings and emotions.

But 2 of those with female bodies are at less risk of harm than 2 with differentlay sexed bodies.

@lemonsole my point is she has to unpick the situation anyway because it is two underage children in a relationship wanting to share a tent. If one or more has a penis I don't see how it changes the issue unless Guiding is cool with underage kids having lesbian sex as long as they are both born female which I assume isn't the case.

If I were a leader, even one sitting carefully on the fence of inclusivity and tolerance... I'd be getting the fuck out of Guiding before I was put in any of the scenarios mentioned above. GGUK have shown in their cheerful throwing under the bus of the "bad evil transphobe social media monsters" (AKA the totally not bad and evil and possibly even slightly fluffy and nice Agnes) that they would be very very unlikely to back a leader who acted in any way possibly describable as "transphobic" - so the lover couple don't get what they want and cry "transphobia"... I think GGUK would just throw you to the wolves in a heartbeat with how bloody stupid they are right now.

I don't think for a moment the TRAs all suddenly want to stand around a campfire singing songs and getting their Baden-Powell on... they just simply do not want an organisation that has a history of developing strong, empowered women to be able to continue as such. I got such a lot out of being in female-only environments as a child - Guiding was my hideout during years and years of being bullied... and my all-girl school (although I loathed it at the time) meant I didn't spend my teenage years being told to shut up by the boys in the class... I was utterly horrified when I got to 6th form college and one girl ever-so-concernedly told me that the boys had a tally chart for how much each girl spoke out in class and they'd announce who'd won the betting on which girl dared to speak up at the end of every lesson. She thought I should know so I didn't earn marks on their tally chart - and was horrified by my reply that I'd just make sure I won every single lesson so they had nothing to take bets on. I wouldn't have had that attitude to stand up to their idiocy without those spaces growing up where I wasn't expected to stand back and meekly tolerate male crap because I had ovaries.

Wittyname

Girls cannot impregnate each other. That’s the difference.

In Scouts boys and girls share tents

Only with full consent and parental permission.

It’s the lying the having to pretend.

The girls have to pretend that the person they see is a girl

Then they have to get undressed and share a tent
How did we get to where lies are now the truth

And girls don’t matter anymore

Girls matter, but their place is to stay small and silent, make no complaints and be thankful for the new wave of 'actual real women' who are coming in and taking over charge.

You missed off ..."and look pretty" Gotta look good for all those selfies you take.

@BettyDuMonde so underage lesbian sex on camp is fine in your book?

My opinion, and call me old fashioned, is kids shouldn't be going on camp to have sex and with proper safeguarding procedures this can easily be accomplished with lesbian girls, gay boys, girls and boys, trans girls and boys, trans boys and girls and any other combination without singling anybody out or discriminating against them. I honestly don't see what the issue is.

Would you put boyfriend and boyfriend in a tent together witty?

Girls matter, but their place is to stay small and silent, make no complaints and be thankful for the new wave of 'actual real women' who are coming in and taking over charge.

Ah yes there's nothing I love more than being told / shown how to be a woman by someone with an upbringing of a boy and the privilege that brings. So i'm sure our young girls will be delighted to have these new 'girls' show them where they're going wrong.

You missed off ..."and look pretty" Gotta look good for all those selfies you take.

Yes, in skirts and dresses, after all they make the woman.

I've yet to speak to any Guider who has ever considered that two of her members might be a couple when planning sleeping accommodation Maybe this is homophobia; the old, "Gosh - gals wouldn't do that!", and because teenage lesbians are almost very more discreet than teenage straight couples, but maybe it's just because there is no pregnancy risk - even though it's arguably as harmful for young teens to be having under-age same-sex as it is for a straight couple.

It's the traditional culture of the organisation that makes this dangerous.

Good on the GG. I know a lot of people in support of their stance.

I’m only sticking my neck out because it’s important that anyone reading these threads knows that not all people are viewing all trans people as potential criminals in deciding how they should be treated.

I’m off to email GG my support again so that they get some positive feedback in among all the negative.

Good for you Hideandgo. Presumably you'll be offering to support them financially when they are sued because someone's daughter somehow arrived home from a same sex guide camp pregnant.

It's not (just) about criminality, it's about whether there should be sex segregation, it's about whether women and girls are allowed to have any spaces just for them.

Thanks for sharing the video Noqont, I didn't realise those people were advising Girl Guides too.

How can they be so negligent in not checking their backgrounds?!

I don’t need you to explain it. I understand just fine.