Calling Oxfordshire women? I have shit show of a response from OCC and need some parent power to challenge

[GColdtimer]

This was my email to them challenging their Trans Toolkit (like the Brighton one basically). My friend did a thorough critique of it which they have totally ignored. I will post their response in my next post.

We are going to write again asking that they address our actual questions but we need a critical mass of parents to make it worth our while.

Please comment here or PM me.

I am writing to you following a FOI request submitted (14449) last year regarding the Trans Toolkit for School you issued to schools in Oxfordshire. Whilst we received a satisfactory response from a FOI point of view, I am afraid to say we are not happy with the guidelines issued, or the process in which they were developed and would like to formally report our concerns.

I have attached a thorough review of the guidelines and attach a summary of our concerns below:

The guidelines continually conflate sex and gender - sex is biological and fixed, whereas gender is purely social and highly subjective
The guidelines are socially regressive and promotes the stereotyping of girls and boys.
They are contrary to what you are trying to do
They overstep boundaries and undermine parents
They are potentially homophobic
Any school adopting these guidelines is likely to be in breach of their safeguarding guidelines as there are numerous safeguarding issues which put girls in danger
The guidelines show no concern whatsoever for the privacy, safety or dignity of other children in a setting, specifically girls
The statistics quoted are wildly inaccurate and are based on flawed research which holds no statistical significance
The law is misrepresented throughout the guidelines and specific laws are omitted which deal with the protection of the protected characteristic of sex
The guidance directly conflicts with previous, well researched NUT guidance
Notes in the appendix shut down discussion with parents.
The lesson plans ask teachers to put aside biological reality

We discovered via our FOI the guidelines were written by representatives from children’s services across Oxfordshire and other authorities as well as with the assistance of All Sorts and Gendered Intelligence. The FOI stated that no checks had been carried out on these organisations or on the people who are providing this advice and guidance to schools. We understand it was created by Children’s Services and signed off by the OSCB. We would like to see the minutes from the meeting where you discussed the safeguarding aspects of this Toolkit (eg. allowing teenage boys to be allowed to share toilets, changing rooms and dorm rooms with teenage girls) and the impact on other children in schools, specifically girls. We would like to know which parent and teacher groups you consulted with. We would also like to be assured that you informed the schools that they would need to carry out their own equality impact assessment if they adopted the guidelines. Didcot Girls School was not aware of this and have subsequently taken down their policy.

We would like to ask that you take down the Tool kit until you have had change to thoroughly review it and carry out a Children’s Rights Impact Assessment in order to make it legally compliant, non-sexist and inclusive of ALL pupils. We would like to refer you to www.transgendertrend.com who have published a balanced and scientifically researched and robust alternative policy. I would also like to refer you to this Children’s Rights Impact Assessment produced by Women and Girls in Scotland Group which states that similar guidelines issued in Scotland “could breach as many as 15 articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child” - wgscotland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Childrens-Rights-Impact-Assessment-by-Women-and-Girls-in-Scotland.pdf and news article here: www.heraldscotland.com/news/17393697.trans-guidance-for-scottish-schools-breaches-11-childrens-rights-campaigners-warn/?ref=fbshr&fbclid=IwAR210Le60d71r3OpeQ35cZZYSYRqYPyMFfyeqF403L-d_WMG4Diz8iS8T94

Myself alongside a number of other parents (at least 50 so far and growing) would be happy to put their name to a complaint but I would like to think in the interests of all children in your care you will be happy to address our concerns.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Further to that, it must be noted that no person under 18 can apply for a GRC so all children must be treated as their biological sex and the comparator is others of their same biological sex.

What continues to astonish me - as a former school leader of many years - is how (apparently) heads and governing bodies are throwing aside all they've been drilled in about safeguarding and embracing this dangerous nonsense.

People really do seem to believe that the moment any boy/man proclaims themselves 'trans' they automatically become no risk and their impact upon girls/women's privacy and well-being is entirely benign.

Indeed, Vicky, it is the absence of any questioning that is truly astonishing. And it doesn't take too much effort to discover what the law in terms of the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act actually say.

People don't really believe it, they go along with the lie the way the majority of people do, for various reasons.

People who stick to the truth, even if it means going against the flow, are in the minority.

Another one experienced in education and safeguarding who is aghast at the institutional / regulatory capture evident in schools at the moment.
Schools breaching the law, undermining safeguarding guidelines, failing to work with parents and actively placing girls at risk - while apparently not noticing!

Schools breaching the law, undermining safeguarding guidelines, failing to work with parents and actively placing girls at risk - while apparently not noticing!

While at the same time maintaining policies and practice on safeguarding that is sometimes nonsense - I visit schools, am never alone with children, am required to have advanced DBS clearance.

Recently, whilst sitting in a primary school reception waiting for the headteacher (because "you aren't allowed, under our safeguarding policy, to go into school unaccompanied"), a male parent (NOT DBS cleared) came to pick up a child and was waved through the door into the main building by the receptionist who said "You know how to find your way to the classroom, don't you?"

Just to add - as I said to the head, "If I'd had my Ofsted hat on, you'd have been placed in special measures purely on safeguarding."

Story in today's Times about this.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/parents-in-revolt-as-councils-issue-schools-with-transgender-toolkits-j2tzk3kq0?shareToken=5bf9af182bce022a545f9a29f3dee1d1

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3553139-Times-story-about-schools-guidance

I was reflecting on what I would do if I were a parent with children in a school now. And I think I would ask this of the HT (in a parents' meeting or in private):

Am I right in inferring from your policy that my daughter could find herself changing and showering with a boy who now identifies as a girl?

What is the difference between this boy who now identifies as a girl and all the other boys, who you do not allow into the girls' changing rooms and showers?

How do you reach the conclusion that this boy who now identifies as a girl is no threat to the girls' privacy or safety now, but the day before he started identifying as a girl, he was?

Very well said, Vicky.

Vickie I take it from your previous post you're an OFSTED inspector?

Is there any mileage in getting OFSTED and the equivalents in rUK onside, so that any school whose policy includes allowing pupils to use toilet and changing facilities of the gender they identify as, immediately marked as having failed on safeguarding?

Or has OFSTED drunk the koolaid?

I have done inspections, but no longer do so; what I do know, however, is that Ofsted are very concerned with safeguarding and will examine policies closely if they have been alerted (say, by parents) to potential (or actual) breaches.

I would definitely advise parents concerned by their child's school policies - if they can see potential breaches of safeguarding which might put children at risk - to contact Ofsted before they know an insp.ection is to take place (and obviously, these days is very little notice).

I think the Safeguarding teams are scared for their jobs.

Our council has repeatedly cut back on staff, making them reapply for fewer jobs at lower rates. The last clear-out was draconian.

Under these circumstances, staff are too afraid to question what they are told. They will do exactly as the Council tells them.

@jeaux90 they are meeting this week to review. I will PM you. If you are in Oxon and on FB you are welcome to join our group.

Being a transgender girl is not an easy thing. It leads to intense bullying.

Why would someone put herself through this simply to be in a girls' changing room?

Why would they want to disrespect and disregard the feelings of girls that much though either?

To be that oblivious and that immune to why girls might feel legitimately and understandably uncomfortable and to dismiss it as pure bigotry takes a lack of empathy to a level which I find concerning.

Whilst they might have a genuine problem and suffer from bullying, that still does not give a free pass to discount the feelings of others.

Schools failing to point out and explain why girls might not be happy about sharing changing rooms are failing to ensure the trans child learns empathy and appreciation for others who are different (and yes they are, whether anyone likes it or not) and it's failing the girls.

Rights are about balancing the needs of all, not imposing the rights of one without thoughts of the impact on others.

“Why would someone put herself through this simply to be in a girls' changing room?”

Put themselves through what exactly? All it takes is saying you identify as a girl, no need to change clothes, name, behaviour, have a medical diagnosis, or anything.
They can switch between genders at will, and schools appear to be bending over backwards to accommodate and to avoid offending the one child, whilst ignoring the safety of the majority of their pupils.

Show me an example of a case of a UK school aged boy saying he identifies as a girl, with no change of clothes, name, behaviour, a medical diagnosis, or anything, which he has sustained long enough for a school to have sent him into the girls' changing room.

I also have a problem with the idea that to prove she's genuinely trans, a trans girl would have to wear special girl clothes or do special girl behaviour. What about (maybe even heterosexual!) tomboys and the young lesbians so many here purport to support?

The logic isn't feminist.

Oxford parent here. Thank you for doing this. Please keep us updated.

Skyzalimit Being a girl is not an easy thing. It leads to oppression and discrimination.

That is if they are allowed to be born at all. The UK government is currently considering banning prenatal testing for sex (outside of medical indications) because even here in the UK sex-selected abortions of female fetuses are rising at horrifying levels.

And in many places, being a girl can lead to being left at the roadside to die, denied food, medical care, education and jobs. Basic human rights: denied. Child marriage, rape, kidnap, slavery, murder. Forced pregnancy, forced abortion. Death in childbirth, in menstruation huts. And on and on.

Girls in the UK thankfully have many more legal rights, including the right to privacy, dignity and safety in single-sex provisions. But even here being female is not an easy thing. Our oppression under the patriarchy continues.

Tell me, Skyzalimit why should the fact that being a male child who identifies as trans is not an easy thing lead to the loss of the rights that female children have?

I would really like this explained to me. Just once.

I also have a problem with the idea that to prove she's genuinely trans, a trans girl would have to wear special girl clothes or do special girl behaviour

It’s almost like biological sex is the only sensible way to categorise people (rather than whether they feel male or female) in the small number of situations where segregation by sex is necessary for privacy, dignity or safety.

Any transgirls motivations don't matter, and we don't need to provide examples. This is about policy, principles and the right of girls.

What matters is the right of girls to have space free of a male body. And, although not the focus of FWR of course, equally the right of boys to have a space free of a female body.

Girls when menstruating don't want to do it around male bodied people. That is only one of many reasons why mixed sex toilets/ changing is not acceptable or legal in schools.

They need to accommodate trans girls and boys elsewhere, which should be easily done I'd have thought, without compromising the privacy, dignity and safety of the rest of the pupils. The vast, vast majority should not be thrown under the bus for the few.

Males who identify as trans are not female. No matter how they dress or behave or what they call themselves or what medical condition they are diagnosed with, they do not belong in female spaces.

Such males have three legal rights specific to single-sex provisions:

1. The right to privacy and dignity in single-sex spaces and

2. The right not to be excluded from male spaces because they identify as trans and

3. The right not to be forced to use male spaces if they identify as trans.

As set out in UK law, specifically the EqA, right 3) entitles them to separate provision but not to access female spaces. Their right 3) does not supersede the right 1) of females to single-sex provisions.

One child's feelings and emotional/mental health issues should not take precedent over the safety and rights of other children.

Schools need to deal with this in a better way so that no one suffers or is at risk.

Schools should not be held hostage by ideology, politics or political correctness.

Safeguarding must come first.

Correction, this should of course read

3. The right not to be forced to use male spaces if they identify as trans.