Safeguarding re transgenderism discussion thread

[janeskettle]

In honor of LangCleg.

And because male non users of the site may be able to collaborate with Mumsnet to get individual users banned, but they can't stop women talking about our concerns re safeguarding and transgenderism.
~
My interest in safeguarding minors and vulnerable persons from transgender activists and transgender claims comes from personal experience of having a minor child with ROGD, and some years earlier, a mentally unwell young adult child with ROGD.

In both cases, safeguarding was compromised by others claiming to support the individuals involved.

A (non-exhaustive) indication of the kind of concerns faced:

minor child encouraged by youth mental health service to view opposite sex hormones as trivial - no discussion of side effects, either short or long term, written information on side effects was not supplied to minor upon request from parent and was viewed as an issue of concern ie transphobia in parent, minor requiring offers of housing support.

minor child expressed interest in attending a group for T kids. Minor child was under 16, and so was required to have parental permission (good, right ?) Group facilitators refused to answer my questions prior to parental permission (around adult supervision of group, and how this was handled, who was supervising, what were supervision ratios, were supervisors acting as facilitators of discussion between teens or leading discussion etc). In effect, the only way an under-16 can attend if if parents ask no safeguarding questions.

mentall unwell female adult encouraged to spend time with the men on her ward to 'develop his masculine social skills'. Parental questioning of this approach and disregard for female's safety dismissed as transphobia. My daughter was lucky to have a parent willing to be a thorn in the side of the unit and insist that transphobic or not, as a biological female she was vulnerable to male predation and was not to be encouraged to enter the men's ward, under threat of legal action in the case of any resulting assault.

~

That's about all I can handle writing about today.

Please share your thoughts, experiences, suggestions on upholding safeguarding norms in relations to transgender activism and transgender advocates.

I think one needs to start early with talking to children. Not conforming to gender stereotypes is just part of your individual personality and likes and dislikes. Dd is lucky in having a parent who models that in person, I do not do stereotype female. Being autistic, she is vulnerable to believing stuff. Thankfully she has found her crowd at secondary.

I think we need to go back to reminding our children about keeping secrets, which ones are good and which ones not so good. She is crap a it anyway.

Wrote that before your post. But yes. There is some strict enforcement of stereotypes in day to day life.

I'm sorry to say that talking early to your children doesn't always innoculate them from genderism :(

I agree that secret keeping is an enormous red flag, and we need to talk about it in detail with our kids.

It's all about safeguarding.

Men can be a danger to women and children. Certain interest groups want this danger to be ignored and any protection for children, women and vulnerable people removed.

How can this be justified? Why are parent's concerns being ignored?

Not going to keep every child safe, no. But it is something we can do. If it helps some children it will help. Maybe a bit like vaccination...the fewer children who are susceptible the less fast it may spread.

I suppose critical thinking skills may be useful for others. Why do you think they want you to do that? What do they want from you?

Why are parent's concerns being ignored

Key question.

It is an easy sell to teens... Parents are often the enemy anyway as we try to protect them, having been there done that.

Parents can be a pain in the arse to a teen, but the ones who love the child most and mostly the ones who want the best for their child and want to protect them.

Who would gain from not protecting teens, who would lose?

@rodgmum

Sorry if this has been mentioned in other threads but I'm pretty sure that schools applying Stonewall Law in relation to shutting out parents when dealing with a child with GID (or believed to have GID), viz:

Parental Responsibility is defined ins 3(1) Children Act 1989as being:

“all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child and their property”.

In practical terms Parental Responsibility means the power to make important decisions in relation to a child. This can include:

. determining the child’s education and where the child goes to school;

. choosing, registering or changing the child’s name;

. appointing a child’sGuardian (a Guardian can be appointed in court proceedings to act on behalf of the child who is the subject of the proceedings. A Guardian is usually a Cafcass officer who is appointed to ascertain the child's views and to conduct proceedings on the child's behalf. The court will only appoint a Guardian in particular circumstances, for example, when parents cannot represent the child's wishes, a report is insufficient or a child opposes a proposed course of action. A Guardian may also be appointed if there are serious allegations of harm.)

. consenting to a child’s operation or certain medical treatment;

. accessing a child’s medical records;

. consenting to taking the child abroad for holidays or extended stays;

. representing the child in legal proceedings;

. determining the religion the child should be brought up with. Where there is a mixed cultural background this should include exposure to the religions of all those with Parental Responsibility, until the child can reach an age where he/she can make their own decision on this.

Parental Responsibility is inalienable - it can only removed by court order. Schools do not acquire parental responsibility when the child is in school, even though they are said to be in loco parentis (which is actually meaningless in law).

Therefore, any decision taken in school to, for example, refer a child for counselling, call a child by a different name or discuss medical options with a child would, in my opinion, be actionable.

Who would gain from not protecting teens

An unanswerable question (I've been deleted for answering it elswhere twice in the last few hours)

Very important thread, janes.

I’m going to throw in the concept of the drag kid, in addition to the excellent points already raised. Desmond is Amazing and Lactatia (a swift google will supply all the details) are the most troubling examples of utter failures of any kind of safeguarding, the most basic of which is protecting children from adult and sexual environments and activities which are utterly unsuitable for children.

In case you haven't seen it, latest blog by Transgender Trend.

Both Diversity Role Models and Stonewall have access to my son's school and education now. Deeply disturbing.

www.transgendertrend.com/diversity-role-models-conformity-new-ideology/

What person in their right mind would group a 26-year-old man with a 14-year-old girl?

I think that is pretty common actually - see for example Prism in Coventry.

prismlgbtq.org/

Prism is Coventry’s LGBTQ+ Youth Group, offering a free weekly social group for LGBTQ+ young people aged between 13 to 21, from Coventry and the surrounding areas.

If you are over 21 then they say you would be welcome as a volunteer. Although at least they have a safeguarding policy on their website now, and all mentors / volunteers need to have DBS checks. Though of course these aren't infallible
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/charity-criticised-handing-senior-role-20731388

Also LGBT Youth Scotland
www.lgbtyouth.org.uk/groups-and-support/

13-25 it is very common if not the norm.

Thankyou for this Janeskettle, I am so sorry that you and others have been put in this position.

I teach my kid not to lie so I'm not having a teacher teach my kid to lie

I think this is probably the safest thing to say right now.

Becoming yet another adult that lies to the child and tries to tell them what they see isnt really what they see leaves that child with no one. A child with no one is in even more danger.

I will not be complicit.

Thanks for all you are doing.

We used to have Children's art classes, and 16 year olds used to be able to sign up for Adult Education classes.
This sounds irrelevant? The reason these activities stopped was because of the new Safeguarding measures and concern over the need for DBS checks.

If 16 year olds can't be taught Spanish with those over 18. Then why are 13 year olds in the same support group for issues around sexuality as 25 year olds?
Why are LGBT support groups operating unlike every other group dealing with under 18s?

Yes, justcly that’s a good point, and thanks for highlighting it. I’m in Scotland and I’ve tried to find the equivalent parental responsibilities definition (the Children’s Act is devolved), bu it seems more woolly up here - am possibly not looking in the right places.

Once of my big concerns with my daughter’s school is that they formally changed her name on all the systems despite us specifically saying that we did not give permission. She was 13 at the time. At the beginning of November, I was assured by the Deputy Head that her name would be changed back, but 2.5 months later, nothing has happened. I chased it up at the beginning of last week, but not heard anything back.

Just on the LGBT Youth Scotland guidance for schools... (www.lgbtyouth.org.uk/media/1344/supporting-transgender-young-people.pdf) it is endorsed by 16 Scottish Councils. LGBTY Scotland originally claimed it was also endorsed by the Scottish Government and it took the threat of a court case before they removed the endorsement from the guide

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/lgbt-campaign-group-u-turn-12876161

The guidelines are currently being written following what have been described as “valid concerns” by Shirley-Anne Somerville: news.gov.scot/speeches-and-briefings/statement-on-gender-recognition

However, the concerns seem to be focused around single sex spaces, which I agree are of great concern, but they neglect to cover the issue of positive affirmation in schools.

Not that you would know that any concerns were raised, as the guidelines are still promoted on the LGBTY Scotland website and a press release has a quote from the Scottish Govt saying:

“The guidance produced by LGBT Youth Scotland, in conjunction with the Scottish Trans Alliance, has not been withdrawn and remains available... The guidance is already being used in schools and education authorities across Scotland as it provides practical advice to support them to respond positively to meet the needs of their pupils. It is one of a number of tools which help education authorities and schools to prevent discrimination of pupils.”

www.lgbtyouth.org.uk/news/2019/an-update-on-our-guidance-for-schools/

A bit of a mixed message from the Scottish Govt.

LGBT Youth Scotland also want children under the age of 16 to be able to obtain a GRC with parental permission:

“Further, transgender young people are aware of their gender identity and begin living in their acquired gender far earlier than the age of 16. We recommend implementing provision which would enable parents and carers to give consent for a child or young person to receive a GRC under the age of 16.”

Link: data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/women-and-equalities-committee/transgender-equality/written/19582.pdf

Their former CEO, James Rennie, is currently serving time for his role as one of the ringleaders of Scotland’s largest peodephilia networks. He was CEO of LGBT Youth Scotland at the time and the Scottish Govt never carried out any sort of safeguarding investigation following his conviction to ascertain whether his activities had any influence on policy developed over the period of his tenure.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-15790605

My personal view is that child safeguarding comes very low on the list of their priorities and schools should not get anywhere near them.

@rodgmum

But the inalienability of your parental rights is not devolved. Parental rights can still only be removed by court order (an adoption order is classed as a court order for transference of parental rights).

I'll dig around and try to find an official document you can throw at them.

Oh, if you do find something, yes, please do fling it at me!

simultaneously we hear underage girls are being raped at school something like one a week in the UK

Sadly, it is 1 per school DAY: notfineinschool.org.uk/sexual-assault

I'm so sorry to hear that your child has ROGD. The treatment of this by schools is counter to every other school safeguarding protocol.

Including services that were single sex that now include transpeople without completing proper impact assessments or taking into account the affect this will have on their service users.

With safeguarding, schools are usually advised to inform parents when they make a referral to Social Services for physical abuse (note, not every type of abuse). Many teachers find it challenging to tell parents they've reported them, but they do it because they work in partnership with parents. Solutions to protect children and make their lives better rest with parents and professionals working together
All the evidence shows that children removed from their parents do very poorly which is why the standard for removing children / parental responsibility is so high and requires the courts. It defies belief that these groups tell schools to remove parental responsibility / rights with no questions. Tell teachers that they can keep confidentiality in relation to gender non conformity when teachers are told always to share information.
At first I thought these groups inappropriately imposed adult views of confidentiality / parental alienation on children. But as this has continued I am now of the belief that this is a planned and deliberate attempt to remove very vulnerable children from the influence and support of parents / families. These groups operate openly in defiance of "Keeping Children Safe in Education" and safeguarding guidance and to date, it is only women's groups and the LGB Alliance that are challenging this.