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.

I don't see what the issue is to be honest. In Scouts boys and girls share tents and they have male and female leaders. There are plenty of safe guarding rules to make sure that everyone is protected. The only difference is Girl Guides still discriminates against people who identify as male where Scouts doesn't care about sex or gender so it's a non-issue if someone is trans.

The huge sadness here is that we are all so cross with GG when actually what has happened is GG has been infiltrated and bamboozled by TRAs intent on destroying a key girls only space. There is unlikely to be any way back from this for GG and yet the core institution and its many volunteers are all still fabulous and caring about the rights of girls and helping them grow. I hate that TRAs are making me hate once-beloved institutions.

Do girls and boys really share tents in scouts?

You don't see an issue with people choosing a single sex organisation and them finding it includes members of the opposite sex? Would it bother you to go to female spa session and find males there? I wonder how old yoir daughter/s are WittyName4?

If there were none then why are there so many now

This is rather an interesting question, isn't it? On the rare occasions TRAs deign to answer it the answer seems to be "there were tons but they didn't feel able to be their true authentic selves". Those same people also claim that kids not allowed to transition will kill themselves. So, if in the past there were tons of kids who were trans and they weren't able to transition, how did they mostly survive?

My theory is that in additional to social contagion the narrower gender roles get the more people there will be who feel they don't fit. The solution is to make it OK for girls to be smart and strong and physical and assertive and interested in whatever they happen to be interested in, and for boys to be soft and gentle and shy and interested in whatever they happen to be interested in. Fix the society, not the individuals.

it means my daughter will grow within her girl guiding journey, in a tolerant and nurturing space where ALL girls are welcome

What utter rubbish. GIRLS who don't want penises in the dorm or showers will definitely not be welcome and neither will those whose religious backgrounds preclude them from mixing with the opposite sex in these circumstances. This policy EXCLUDES some girls and women. In favour of males. Well done GG.

The huge sadness here is that we are all so cross with GG when actually what has happened is GG has been infiltrated and bamboozled by TRAs intent on destroying a key girls only space. There is unlikely to be any way back from this for GG and yet the core institution and its many volunteers are all still fabulous and caring about the rights of girls and helping them grow. I hate that TRAs are making me hate once-beloved institutions.

All of this. As angry as I am with them for letting it happen, and as much as I wish they'd develop some backbone and course correct now, the reality is that it's precisely because the Guides provide an environment that's valuable to girls that they've been targeted. Because the people driving this train hate women and girls, and want to take away every space in which we can thrive. It's not even necessarily that they want those spaces themselves - they just don't want us to have them, out of both spite and awareness that it's easier to control women if you start grooming them as girls.

Anyone who's been getting splinters in their arse from sitting on the fence because they wanted to be nice and kind and can't we just find a compromise, I hope you're paying attention. There is no compromise to be found with people who would set out to take something like Guides away from girls just because they can.

OK, so here are a couple of scenarios in which realistically a Guider might have to balance safeguarding with the new rights of her trans members. I have based them on set-ups that I have known, as a Guide, as a Venture Scout, and as a Cub Leader and Scout Leader. I want to take the emotion out of the scenarios, and focus on the dull, hormone-fuelled realities of youth work.

1. Jess and Mary are both 13, in Yr 9, and Guides in your unit. Jess is a transgirl, Mary is a girl. They are clearly in a relationship: there is lots of giggling, hand-holding and the other Guides all know. This is not at all uncommon in youth groups, but it's not something that has been common in Guiding. However, your unit will be going on a weekend camp, using two-person hike tents (or larger, family tents containing two-person pods - old-style patrol tents are infrequently used now). The usual scenario in Guides would be for the girls simply to choose who shares with whom, and Mary and Jess are assuming that they will be sharing with each other. You as a leader do not know whether Jess is receiving any hormone treatment or puberty blockers; your inclusion policy tells you that you do not have a right even to ask, although her interest in Mary suggests that puberty is probably in full swing. Jess and Mary are excited that they will be sharing a tent. You do not know whether Mary's parents know that she is in a relationship with Jess.

How do you balance your duty to safeguard Mary with Jess's rights to be treated the same as every other girl?

1. You are a Brownie unit leader, taking your girls to a district Pack Holiday event. The girls will be sharing a dormitory in a local Scout holiday centre; the leaders will be sharing a smaller bunk room and shower facilities. However, when you arrive, you realise that one of the women with whom you will sharing a room is in fact a transwoman. Under Guiding's rules, any male volunteers would sleep separately from the leaders. But under the inclusion policy, Julietta is woman, and has already unpacked her kit in the shared room. You take a deep breath, and gulp - but one of your leaders is a Muslim woman.

How do you balance Julietta's rights with those of your long-serving leader to sleep in a single-sex environment?

Lemonsole, I assume from guidance, you consider the needs of the transwoman/girl on an individual basis!

'And the fully intact adult human male guide leader who will be allowed into your daughter's bedrooms, changing rooms, showers and loos without you being told? Or asked your permission? It'll be FIIIIIINE...'

By their logic, though, Jess poses no safeguarding risk to Mary, because they're a girl.

It's simply impossible. The safeguarding obligation and risk assessment are impossible to fulfil unless it is acknowledged that Jess has a penis and should not therefore be sharing a tent with Mary.

Agree AAK: it's about destruction. Michfest - destroyed. Lesbian groups - destroyed. Anarchist Book Fair - a place for free speech - destroyed. Female-specific language - destroyed. Single sex services - destroyed. This is not about inclusiveness, it's about destruction and moving on. Everything must be for men or must be destroyed.

As for Julietta, I would very much like to know why Julietta decided that the Guides were the ideal volunteer opportunity from them.

It's one of those "if you want to then you shouldn't be allowed to" scenarios.

'And if the transgirl changes his mind and reverts to boydom after he's exposed himself to your daughters in the showers and slept in their bedrooms and tents ... Your daughters will have no problem at all with the fact we've lied to them with the brainwashing mantra that transgirls are girls ... It'll be FIIIIIINE .......'

www.transgendertrend.com/children-change-minds/

When everything TRAs touch turns to dust, after a while even the kindest woman has to notice that that may not be an accident.

(Not that I'm claiming I was ever "nice" - totes failed the "never upset a man" part of female socialization, I did.)

lemonsole
Exactly-it's safeguarding at its most basic. When I worked as a teacher if I had organised the school trip and thought, "Dam, we've got odd numbers of boys and girls. I know, I'll put Sally and Bob in a room together-then I won't have to get an extra room! No need to tell Sally or Bob's parents though. Problem solved" I wouldn't have lasted very long!!

Lemonsole, for 1 I imagine you would use exactly the same guidelines as if they were both non-trans and in a relationship so being trans is irrelevant. For 2 you this issue is only caused by the organisation's insistence on sex segregation. In Scouts, leaders can share a tent regardless of whether they stand or sit down to wee.

What if you don't have enough tents for a transgirl to have their own, and none of the actual girls want to share with them? Do they get a lecture about kindness and inclusivity?

Organizations for girls undermining the confidence those girls have in their right to assert boundaries. See what I mean about TRAs turning everything they touch to dust?

Witty but you are not allowed to use the same rules! Jess is a girl and must be put where she chooses to go - a leader must not tell the parents.
So what can you do? Guide units don't have unlimited stocks of tents, you can't magic single tents if you haven't got them!

@wittyname4.
No. It's based on the reality that most Scout and Guide centres have shared leader accommodation and communal washing facilities.
In Scouting leaders only share tents by mutual agreement, and it is allowed. Leaders usually sleep alone, in their own tent, unless an established couple.

Witty that’s SUCH a deflecting, disingenuous answer!

Lemonsole, for 1 I imagine you would use exactly the same guidelines as if they were both non-trans and in a relationship so being trans is irrelevant.

But two 13-year-old females in a relationship CANNOT come back from a youth camp pregnant. It is in NO WAY the same.

For 2 you this issue is only caused by the organisation's insistence on sex segregation. In Scouts, leaders can share a tent regardless of whether they stand or sit down to wee.

And in Scouts that’s part of what you sign up for- so you don’t get many Muslim female leaders and they certainly wouldn’t be offering to go on overnights with unrelated Male people.

IT’S NOT THE SAME WITHOUT INFORMED CONSENT.

@Witty4. In 1, you tell them that they won't be sharing. Jess and Mary both then accuse you of transphobia.

Leaders will be caught between a rock and a hard place here, as so much has been made of any non-validating move described as transphobic.

it takes a special kind of person to insist on their entry to a single sex environment when there are mixed sex ones available

This is the crux. It is not as if single sex organisations are the only option. I am really pleased that there are mixed sex organisations for children and young people. These will be much more suited to a range of children, including those that have GD or are GNC.

All the stuff about inclusion is hyperbolic. I would like someone to bring a claim of discrimination against the organisation following a refusal to admit a natal boy. How would they justify including one natal boy and not another?

Trans kids need to learn boundaries, just like any other. 'No darling, you can't join the Guides because that is for natal girls; you can join x,y and z which are open to everyone' is all that is needed.

Brownies and Guides are not

Lemonsole's scenarios are exactly what I would dread, both as a leader and a parent of guides. There's no way my daughters would have the confidence to speak out, and they need their leaders to keep them safe. How the bloody hell can we against these policies?

Evan more concerning - the email states leaders make their own risk assessments for each event. However we are explicitly forbidden to risk assess the - - male-bodied-- trans girl. So when the inevitable happens, some poor leader will be hung out to dry. Leaders will stop doing residentials, which will be a massive shame. Many of my best guiding memories are from camp.

Precisely. "You can have anything you want, and if the other kids don't like it then they're evil bigots" is not a good message to be giving a child.

There are two guide indoor venues our group uses, one a converted school and the other a large house.
Both have large dorms with bunk beds for the girls, and one leaders bedroom with several beds.

Both have one set of toilets and showers for the girls, and one single toilet with shower for the leaders.
The girls shower cubicles have curtains- I obviously haven't been in to check, but from what I can gather, they get dried and in undies before getting completely dressed outside the cubicles to cut down on queues.

There are no separate facilities for males, and nowhere separate for a leader to sleep unless she goes on the floor in the main hall.