Girl guiding

[nevernotstruggling]

I've just had an email about the new inclusivity and diversify and blah plan. Is it different?

[averylongtimeago]

@Artichokeleaves

Our guides and Rangers do a huge variety of stuff- back meeting f2f outside this term: back woods cooking, treasure hunt, den building, canoeing- some of what they are doing.

Which was what Guides was when I was a kid. But how do you tie this into the appalling, sexist, stereotyped word 'femme'?

How do we tie it into "femme"?
We don't.
Simple.
We use the program- and like I and the vast majority of guiders have always done, adapt where needed.

There are some "woke" leaders, who are pretty vocal on line. It was interesting to see a post (on a leaders group) from one of them asking with help planning an "inclusive" activity had I think 12 replies from about 4 other leaders.

For comparison, posts asking for help with say, a Harry Potter wide game will have pages of replies.

HQ might be pushing this stuff, but don't run away with the idea that we are all just going along with it.

[EyesOpening]

@KatieAlcock

Hmm.
Apparently those two tweets are "hateful".

So GG are hateful then?

[Artichokeleaves]

Our guides and Rangers do a huge variety of stuff- back meeting f2f outside this term: back woods cooking, treasure hunt, den building, canoeing- some of what they are doing.

Which was what Guides was when I was a kid. But how do you tie this into the appalling, sexist, stereotyped word 'femme'?

[KatieAlcock]

Hmm.
Apparently those two tweets are "hateful".

[averylongtimeago]

"Is it back to frilly aprons and plaits and making tea for the boys? Cos fuck that."

No it isn't! Our guides and Rangers do a huge variety of stuff- back meeting f2f outside this term: back woods cooking, treasure hunt, den building, canoeing- some of what they are doing.

And it would be a brave Scouter who suggested that our leadership team "made the tea" at a joint event....

[Artichokeleaves]

I hear you Reacher I was idly wondering how the 'femme' bit will be policed and who will make the decisions on who is and isn't sufficiently - whatever the fuck 'femme' is supposed to mean. The whole point of guides was supposed to be to help girls escape limiting stereotypes and have the idea that girls can look, do and be anything they want to. Empowerment. Is it back to frilly aprons and plaits and making tea for the boys? Cos fuck that.

Though today I have been invited to a "Menopause Cafe" discussing medically induced menopause, open to "all genders and none". Yep.

Thought 1: That's going to be a wokarama I'd run a mile from

Thought 2: I have no idea who that is for, but it's definitely not for me

Thought 3: how long I wonder will it be before people running these excitingly woke events realise that 99% of their target group have no idea what they're on about and don't relate to this advertising, and aren't turning up.

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

Julie Bentley is now chief executive of the Samaritans


Looking at the board of trustees, a good % of them seem to work for or have worked for organisations that are also stonewall champions.

[carolinesbaby]

Performing femininity?

How does one do that?

I suspect I am not feminine enough to be a Girl Guide. I don't look very feminine. Maybe they'll ask me to leave.

Sometimes I am tempted to declare myself as Reacher (they/them) femme-presenting AFAB non-binary gender-fluid at work and see how my colleagues react. Though today I have been invited to a "Menopause Cafe" discussing medically induced menopause, open to "all genders and none". Yep.

[EyesOpening]

@KatieAlcock

The plot thickens.
GG have again changed their policies and assuming this person is actually female and non binary she CAN now be a leader (I need to do a trawl of the Wayback machine to find the specifics.
So she missed a "you're wrong" and doesn't know her own organisation's policies either...

If you’re female NB you can but male NB you can’t? That’s really going to screw with their heads!

[TedImgoingmad]

@Howzaboutye

GG board has been brainwashed, captured. They need a strong leader to bring it back to girls, just girls. With safeguarding a priority for all. Or else it will fold. Very sad if it did, but their own bloody fault for not standing up for their girls.

The trans inclusion policy happened when Julie Bentley was Chief Guide. That's Julie Bentley, Former head of the Family Planning Association. That's Julie Bentley, campaigner for abortion rights, who presumably knows how unwanted pregnancies happen.

This is what Julie Bentley said upon her appointment to the job in 2015:

‘I have worked in a wide range of settings and I have a broad insight into what affects girls,’ she said. ‘I don’t think any of [her former work] is at odds with the Girl Guides. In fact I believe the Guides is the ultimate feminist organisation.’

And she allowed Guides to be captured. How this happened beggars belief.

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

By the look of that person's tweets, they are a grade A idiot.

Such a shame. GG is the ONLY worldwide organisation run for women, by women. It is a hugely powerful movement for improving the lives of girls worldwide.

Or, at least, it was.

[averylongtimeago]

Oh dear, I appear to have been blocked by her/them ...so can't read her replies.

• I assume as she is in GIRL guiding and female at birth, she is she/her. I can't look to check ....

[TheElementsSong]

@Artichokeleaves

That 'femme only space' thing can fuck right off.

No, we're not pretending that 'performing femininity' means female. Fuck That. Just fuck that to the far side of fuck and then fuck off some more.

This.

How in the fuck did Girl Guides become a space for performing femininity?

[Artichokeleaves]

Yet important policy seems to have drawn up without any obvious consultation, other than with some quite unlikely people.

If this is AC, then it included an advisor who an inquiry found not capable of understanding safeguarding.

The mind just plain boggles.

[KatieAlcock]

I have appealed my suspension and am waiting to hear.

[Artichokeleaves]

That 'femme only space' thing can fuck right off.

No, we're not pretending that 'performing femininity' means female. Fuck That. Just fuck that to the far side of fuck and then fuck off some more.

[KatieAlcock]

The plot thickens.
GG have again changed their policies and assuming this person is actually female and non binary she CAN now be a leader (I need to do a trawl of the Wayback machine to find the specifics.
So she missed a "you're wrong" and doesn't know her own organisation's policies either...

[IntoAir]

GG's new Digital Editor needs to learn that the exclamation mark is not a substitute for thinking.

[Needmoresleep]

Embarrassingadmissions
Is that AC (black-trousered leg, spectacles) at the lefthand side, near to the table?

Not sure, however it is very possible. Aimee Challenor was a member, then for a brief while, something like deputy chair, of the Stonewall Trans Advisory Committee.

For those who are new to all this and are willing to enter one of the many rabbit holes,

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/ashton-challenor-the-boy-who-disappeared

this is as good a starting point as any.

GG is a membership organisation dependent on volunteers. Yet important policy seems to have drawn up without any obvious consultation, other than with some quite unlikely people.

[KatieAlcock]

[KatieAlcock]

She's reported me to Twitter for quoting her own organisation's policies to her.
12 hour suspension if I don't want to delete the offending tweets.

[YellowFish12]

Wake up GG!
^This

I am so so so saddened by the route GG has gone down. They should be pro-girls by their very definition. How can parents of girls have trust in GG as an organisation now? GG should be rallying AGAINST female/male stryontypes and be showing girls how much they can do with a 'this girl can' attitude.

[Howzaboutye]

Aaaand every parent runs a mile.

It's almost as if the activists have gone, we are excluded from GG, we can't have that. Let's do a takeover. Ideology takeover commences. Successful. GG volunteer base falls away. GG crumbles. Activists say oh well who cares. And then there's no GG left for the girls. And no more female only spaces. This is NOT OK.
Wake up GG!

[Tibtom]

Is your five year old child femme? If so come along to Rainbows! We welcome all femme presenting five to seven year olds! The pack is lead by femme presenting leaders...

[Howzaboutye]

Nope