I need some help

[Atalune]

My LA has just produced their LGBTQ toolkit and guess what- it’s wrotten by stonewall and mermaids.

I need to figure out a way to challenge this- but I don’t know how? Do I speak to my head teacher? How can I make an articulate argument for them to respond to?

I’m going to bed now, but will come back to this in the morning.

Thank you.

The bits in the toolkit that have my blood pressure raised-

A young persons trans identity is not a safeguarding issue.....

And then it just goes on and on to say that a trans persons right trumps those of everyone else.

Sport- you’re fucked
Residentials- move over-you’re sharing with boy/girl and you don’t get to know
Toilets- free for all
Gender is a spectrum and it’s periodical. Say what now?

I haven't used these personally as I don't work in education, but have heard positive things about these resources.

www.transgendertrend.com/schools-resources/

You could maybe use some info from it to help make the letter factual and reasonable as possible.

Also I don't know if it would work - they may not listen or have time but have a think about also sending some links to well thought out, reasonable YouTube videos on the subject to expose them to some different opinions around the subject.

Rose of Dawn or Kinesis are transwomen who speak eloquently on YouTube and Twitter.

I find Kinesis’s blog deeply thoughtful and while I have some issues with the Transrational project, I can see that it is a real effort and one which is costing participants in real ways.

transrational.co.uk

They are both people who provide an alternative narrative to the Stonewall one, from a trans perspective.

If its been produced by the LA its probably worth trying to tackle them rather than an individual school.

The transgender trend toolkit is really good. You can order hard copies to give to your head teacher and the Head of the council.

Find out if they have done a "Equality Impact Assessment" on the policy (you can ring the relevant bit of the Council and ask or put in an Freedom of Information request by email - search your councils name & FOI)

The Equality Impact Assessment is a table where they list all the protected characteristics in the Equality Act (sex, age, disability etc..) and are supposed to assess whether the new policy negatively impacts people with these characteristics (and if so what are they going to do to mitigate) - - chances are they probably have already confused sex & gender and won't have thought of any bad impacts on girls and young women, but it gives you a framework to say "have you consulted?"

Also the Scottish Women and Girls children's rights assessment of their transgender policy is excellent wgscotland.org.uk/ and your LA's policy is probably similar to the Scottish one, so you can copy!

Its worth saying who your LA is.... You might find some others on here to work with!

Thank you all so much for this information I have a lot to do.

I live in Somerset.

I will speak to the LA directly.