Expelled from Girlguiding for putting safeguarding first

[KatieAlcock]

Many of you will remember that Helen Watts and another Guider were expelled from Girlguiding last year. This was me - in Sept 2018 I had my membership of Guiding withdrawn for social media breaches (one FB post in a small private group) and refusing to follow Girlguiding policies on transgender members (saying I'd put safeguarding first, ahead of any policies).
I'm a longstanding Guider and Mumsnetter (naice ham, cancel the cheque, show us the diagram) but I'm anonymous for obvious reasons, generally. I'm coming out now to tell you this story.

I appealed and the former Chief Guide who held the appeal concluded that I had not breached social media guidelines (I should jolly well hope not given that 9 people saw my post!) but that I was still refusing to follow GG policy (I gave the same statement - safeguarding comes first).

My story is in the Mail on Sunday today (if this link doesn't work I'll put a clicky link in the next post).

Mail on Sunday link

I am taking GG to court on the grounds that they have discriminated against me because of my gender critical beliefs by investigating my actions when other Guiders who complain about things are not investigated.
I am asking them for a small amount in damages because though I have not lost any income, I have lost reputation and the investigation was stressful, as you can understand.
And I've asked to be reinstated, and for a full apology and statement that I did nothing wrong.

PS... I spent an hour with their professional photographer telling me "don't smile" and they go with the photo from camp with a big grin on my face, taken by my Guide??!

[Post edited by MNHQ]

Thank you @sashh for the link.

Will have a look now.

Afternoon all, just checking in.
I wanted to say how heartwarming it is to have so many messages of support and so much interest in my case. The original article has now had two and half THOUSAND shares. And the Telegraph articles are great for showing people who won't set foot on the MoS page.

It's going to be a long, long road to court for a variety of reasons... it's been over a year now since this first started and if I have to say one more time "no, nothing, I'm waiting to hear from Girlguiding" I will probably scream!

I know a few of you have linked to our group Lancs Resisters on Twitter, I have had such a lot of lovely help from my lovely women friends on there and elsewhere and... OK this isn't an Oscar acceptance speech but I feel very supported!

If you want to follow us anyway, it's @Lresisters on Twitter.

Will be doing that thing we can't mention monthly until you don't need it any more, Katie.

I'm assuming this is good news for you, Katie - the arguments used by Harry and Fair Cop to succeed in obtaining permission for judicial review should be useful, as will any successful arguments put forward by them in November. (So timing not all bad.)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3658278-Fair-Cop-update-High-Court-grants-judicial-review-into-trans-hate-crimes-guidance

Thankfully nobody has suggested I've said anything hateful, well, at least nobody that could be bothered to do more than grump about it, or point and call names (the latter mainly from young Guiders).

Girl Guiding will stretch this out for as long as they can, I imagine. Good luck Katie - and hang in there. It's a really important case. Will be following and supporting

Katie, Harry has said this about the wider relevance of the judicial review:

Someone mentioned if a victory against the police would have implications within other organisations. It will. Our stated aim is to use the momentum from this to go after the CIPD, who direct and set policy for HR departments. The ambiguity around law and policy/guidance needs clarifying. Once we have established policy is not law and that treating it as such is illegal, we will have the basis for a massive series of fights on behalf of people who have fallen victim to ridiculously Woke and stupid HR departments.

Good luck

Lancashire ReSister here - you're doing brilliantly Katie, you're just the person to take this battle on. We're all full square behind you, & the success of the thing we can't mention shows that there are many people quietly willing you on too. We're all in it for the long haul 👍🏻

DD1 is a young leader at Guides. She's aware of what's going on and is furious.

Katie, We're behind you every step of the way.

Lancashire ReSisters are the best kind

Good to have the chance to support you Katie, thank you for putting girls' safeguarding first.

Just popping on to say thank you for all your support, and it's been really interesting the last few days with non-aware friends, some are not of the same beliefs as me but are totally on board with the safeguarding issue - nothing should come ahead of that.

Donated. Right behind you Katie!

7,683 is a nice number :)

Bumping to say 7,818 is an even better number.

Thanks all, it's been quite a week!
I can't update at all about the case which is of course really frustrating but my solicitor says it's likely to be a really loooong wait.
Really great also to see RL friends coming out of the woodwork or waking up.

Hi all, this has reached £8,000 to help with the case but I'm just giving it a little bump up as these cases are important to bring awareness of how institutions are implementing rules and guidelines without thinking of implications and how the voices of women are ignored. These are the case which give light to the problems of self-id and which we need to keep thinking about. So bump

Wow! 8,058 is brilliant number.

I see the partucular sum was 7,858 + 200!

Never knew maths could make me feel so good about other human beings!

Katie it's great to hear real life friends are being supportive. Are lots of them surprised about what's been happening?

Such good news. I've been watching this and another important case steadily increase. We may not have access to all the government gravy train funding but people really are committing their hard earned cash in significant amounts.

@purplewhitegreen yes - both in the sense of happening at all, and in the sense of happening to me - as I have kept very quiet.

After all, if someone says "you are too unsafe to have at a meeting with your daughter" then it's pretty hard to make that look good for me.

You're doing an amazing thing.

Ooh I've had my first "you're a danger to children". That took a while! Do I get a sticker?

Brilliant! Did they specify what danger you pose?

I have asked but no response. Disappointed.