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 This was me - in Sept 2018 I had my membership of Guiding withdrawn for social media breaches (one FB post in a small private group) and refusing to follow Girlguiding policies on transgender members (saying I'd put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]

It isn't only males that abuse.

Just that 98% of abusers are male. Mustn't forget that 2%, eh?

It isn't only males that abuse.
So why do Girlguiding allow women to share sleeping accommodation with girls, and do intimate care, but not men?

Maids, class analysis is a really good thing to engage with in relation to safeguarding. We can't know who is a predator by looking. We have to assess risk, and we do that by assessing the groups that are most likely to be a risk. Men are statistically much more likely to be a risk so safeguarding takes that into account. It doesn't mean that all males are a risk, in means we have no way of telling which ones are, so we employ a blanket strategy when dealing with them. It's not a personal slur on any male - it is simply a mechanism to protect.

This is so sad. So wrong. A disgrace. I have utter respect for you.
How no one, with an ounce of common sense, has allowed this to get to this stage, beggars belief!

You would like to think / hope that someone would have already stepped in, to resolve. Hopefully they will now.

Just that 98% of abusers are male. Mustn't forget that 2%, eh?

It is so tiring sometimes....

It isn't only males that abuse.

No, but males do commit 98% of sexual crime. So limiting something to female-only does rather significantly decrease the risk, doesn't it, maidsamilking?

I agree with SarahTancredi

This policy change possibly came into being out of ignorance, but it is being maintained with full knowledge.

And it is not just safeguarding, though that is obviously the most important issue, but girls from quite a few religious faiths will no longer have access to this activity, no matter how well intentioned any MtF leader or "trans girl" is.

Chiming in to add support and to say how important it is for girls to have female role models outside their families.

Shall we maybe not led this thread become de-railed responding to a single poster, as there are countless threads already pointing out why safeguarding policies are there?

I'm interested in hearing more about Girl Guides and this case. For me, the fact parents weren't told that single-sex had become mixed-sex - and this was a feature, not a bug - is what suggests that they knew they would get pushback. If it was genuinely intended with the experience of ALL Guides in mind surely there would have been open discussion?

Pope

The recent consultation, that is very biased/rigged shows that GG are fully aware and that woke points are more important. Consultation may still be open not sure.

Thank you Katie. I'm a cub leader who is very grateful to you for fighting this.

I will be doing the thing that must not be named later on.

@KatieAlcock Forgive me if I sound stupid, but why does a child being trans mean you can’t tell anyone that they’ve disclosed that they’re meeting strangers from online or taking drugs?

So glad you are doing this Katie- I have shared your FB post on my fb and in another group.

As a long standing leader myself I am furious about this policy from Girlguiding. We have always, right from the start, been single sex. Girls (and women) have gained so much from this "safe space " away from males- I have seen this myself. For example, at camps as girls relax and realise they can just be themselves- that they can do it and it doesn't matter if their bum looks big or their hair is a mess. For girls from difficult backgrounds (we have had a number of cared for girls who have suffered abuse) guiding has really helped them.

There are really strict safeguarding policies in GG- males have to sleep separately, have separate showers and loos when away for example. They can't be alone with girls- and so in. Not because "all men" are like that, but because some are.
At a large scale camp last year, my DD (another leader) took my dgs - if he had been a year older he wouldn't have been able to share a tent with his mum on the Guides section- he would have had to sleep in the males sub camp - away from the girls.
We joked that it would have been easier for him to be "trans" for the week - then he would have been in with the girls no problem.

As a leader sometimes on trips you share with other leaders- I would not be able to refuse to share with a bepenised trans woman.....

We are still not allowed to discuss this, obviously leaders talk amongst themselves, but any public discussion is still shut down. GG HQ ignore letters, they don't respond to tweets either. Questions on FBook are deleted.

I am hoping the new Chief Guide and ceo will be different- but I'm not holding my breath.

@helpmeiamatoad we were told never to disclose that someone is trans; so if a child says "I just bought puberty blockers online" you couldn't tell anyone.
They have tempered the advice though (but there are still issues).

Why do we think that the Scouts (which used to be boys only) had such a historical problem with child sexual abuse?

And Girl Guiding did not?

Because of the biological sex of the leaders of those organisations, that's why.

Here's a map of the Scout Leader abuse in the UK.

www.boltburdonkemp.co.uk/child-abuse/scouts-abuse-map/

Around 180 people convicted of child sexual abuse. Note to everyone, they were all male.

The Boy Scouts of America are now admitting that there are more than 12, 000 victims of child abuse at the hands of their leaders. That's according to their own records.

www.npr.org/2019/04/25/717246012/boy-scouts-of-america-estimates-more-than-12-000-victims-of-sexual-abuse?t=1564937803654

All of the Scout leaders were male.

Girl Guiding has dodged these issues precisely because they have not allowed men as leaders. But now they allow male people who identify as female to become leaders.

Yaniv could become a Guide Leader in this country.

And you can bet that if Yaniv's application is refused, Yaniv would sue. So Girl Guiding would probably just accept Yaniv as a leader in order to avoid the bad publicity. Yaniv would be in the girls' showers with a pack of 10 year old girls very swiftly no doubt.

That is where this harmful ideology leads.

Girl Guides' contradicts itself with their safeguarding & trans disclosure advice. See below. Both on their website.

I had to ask several times for access to their peer educator session on gender stereotypes that was planned at my daughter's guide group - the peer educator was a teenager. The screenshots below were from girl guides website that I was directed to, instead of getting access to the training materials the peer educator was using. Other topics on GG website were fully accessible, but not this, presumably because it touched on gender ID.

The guide leader had no clue what the peer educator was going to do, & had no idea that the peer educator guidance breached their own safeguarding guidelines.

Both the guide leader were way out of their depth & unfairly left to deal with this. The leader said she'd take it up with the regional bosses, but I've yet to hear back.

So, Katie, I'm fully supportive of your case and I hope you get the desired result.

So what if they have a penis? As long as safeguarding is upheld

Safeguarding is not being upheld, that's the whole point.

If you have different safeguarding rules for people with male bodies and people with female bodies based on data and many years' experience - but then you decide that one group of people with male bodies can step outside of that safeguarding, based on belief, not evidence, then safeguarding has just been thrown out of the window.

The point here, is not - are transwomen / transgirls "really" male or female, we could argue about that with TRAs till the cows come home (if only they'd engage).

The pertinent points are:

1. Do transwomen as a group have the criminal behaviour of men or women, as a class?

1. Is there anything about transgirl's male bodies that means we should treat them differently to girls for the purposes of safeguarding?

The answers:

1. Yes, transwomen act like men, as far as sex crime goes. Here, FOI request showed that there are 60 transwomen accused of sex crimes in prison. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42221629

This compares to (from memory) I think 130 women and 4,000 men. If you do the maths, by comparing to the population of men, women and transwomen (estimated), you'll find the risk of a transwomen being a sex criminal is similar to men, and nothing like women. Therefore the difference does seem to be biological and not to do with identity. I can't see any reasonable justification for putting women and girls at risk on that basis.

1. Even consensual sex is a much greater risk to teenage girls, as it is the girls who may end up pregnant. But also, it's not ideal for the boys and transgirls either to have fathered a child as a teen. This is one of the very good reasons we keep those with bodies that can impregnant apart from those with bodies that can be impregnanted. This isn't a comment on identity. This is recognising biological reality. Letting those children sleep in the same rooms is bonkers, and is putting girls' heath at risk.

If my 10-year-old daughter was sharing a tent, showering and toilet facilities with a 14 old boy, without my knowledge, damn fucking right I would view it as a safeguarding breach.

Not to mention the hopelessly misogynistic attitude that a boy is a girl if he displays feminine stereotypes.

In the bloody girl guides !!

Our poor girls.

Thanks, PP, for the signpost, as I was looking for a way to contribute:

mobile.twitter.com/LResisters/with_replies

I feel really very strongly about GG being and remaining single sex - which surprised me, as if you'd asked me before I was a parent I would have said they were old-fashioned and needed to be more like Scouts and become mixed sex.

Now they have effectively become mixed sex by stealth I think they need to be more like Scouts in a different way - up front about it. And that instead of being role models for girls in standing up for what you believe they have been pressured into keeping secrets and towing the line.

Safeguarding should be paramount in any child-focused organisation.

Thanks for doing this, Katie. I don’t have daughters, but if I did I’d be really concerned about letting them have anything to do with GG with the current policy.

Popchyk

That abuse map is utterly shocking. I know I shouldn't be surprised. But I bloody well am.

I'm sick to the back teeth of people saying oh come on what is this boy who wants to be a girl going to do to your daughter, bigot.

This is a fucking policy that allows men access to girls. And yes, the assault of girls at school it's at epic proportions. By their peers. It's not about individuals. I couldn't give a fuck about individual risk. How do you legislate for that?

Don't disregard the primary, massive criteria that reduces risk. Idiots.

Not to mention the misogyny. The bloody misogyny that says this boy should have access to your girls, because what? He thinks like a fucking girl? Where are all the bloody grown-ups?

The girls are also being conditioned to accept that the boys are girls. Whether they feel comfortable with their privacy being invaded as a result of that or not.