A boy in dd’s Guides Unit

[Hoosi]

DD went for her first session at a Guides unit yesterday. She has been asking to go for weeks, she never went to Brownies but four of her school friends are in this group.

She was telling me about it afterwards and said ‘this other dude…’. I didn’t know what she meant (a man walking his dog in the park? Another child nearby? Gender neutral way of referring to one of the girls in the group? A male volunteer expert helping out for the session?) but it turns out she was referring to one of the other children in the group who she thought was a boy. I said guides was supposed to be girls only and she got confused and thought maybe it was a girl 🙄🙄🙄

So, do I assume this is a trans male child? Do I ask the leader to clarify? I don’t particularly care about the boy being there, I wasn’t after a female only activity for her, it was just because her friends were members. But I don’t like the confusion, and I can see concerns arising in the future if residential trips become possible again.

What would you do?

I agree Gasp ultimately when we come down to it, I think most of the suspicion, aggression and violence to both boys and girls is linked with males.
The idea of a biological male identifying as female in a female space is frightening because of the danger of what that male might do.
If one group is the main perpetrator of physical and sexual violence their freedom to move freely in what was a previously female only environment will always cause uncertainty and fear.
Females are being constantly shouted down for being salient of that fact. If you were going to let a outside threat into your house then a puppy is much less of a risk than a tiger but apparently women are not allowed to acknowledge that either for ourselves or for our daughters.
Women’s rights are moving backwards at a terrifying rate and it is a change that is being organised by and a rhetoric voiced in the main by men. The obscene things that are said about women who even try and mention that fact terrifys me.
That is all without the new currency of naked pictures expected from teenage girls by young boys today, the choking and violence sexual culture and hate language among teenage boys. The access and prevalence of hardcore porn that young boys are growing up watching.
The world for young women has become a much darker place.

I am not sure that they have the established systems and controls in place to safeguard (natal) girls like scouts do.

I am a Guide leader. They absolutely have not.

I am not sure that they have the established systems and controls in place to safeguard (natal) girls like scouts do.

In fact the ideology they're following requires that they do NOT install any such systems and controls, as to do so would be suggesting that males are not females. They have to pretend the males pose no threat to females.

(And woe betide any girl who dares complain about the behaviour of a male in such a climate.)

Cubs and Scouts acknowledge to themselves that they are a mixed-sex organisation and have developed policies around that.

GG have more of a "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" approach and their policies (originally developed with the help of Aimee Challenor, child of David Challenor ), centre trans inclusion, not safeguarding.

An inquiry at the Green Party would later describe Aimee C as incapable of understanding safeguarding.

You are allowed to have women only groups. But including men who identify as women in that.

So what is the definition of "woman" in relation to these women only groups of which you speak?

@tempester28

I wouldn't worry about it. Cubs and scouts are boys and girls and there were no issues even for residential trips.

@tempester28

I think you should read up on this stuff a bit more.

@NecessaryScene

I am not sure that they have the established systems and controls in place to safeguard (natal) girls like scouts do.

In fact the ideology they're following requires that they do NOT install any such systems and controls, as to do so would be suggesting that males are not females. They have to pretend the males pose no threat to females.

(And woe betide any girl who dares complain about the behaviour of a male in such a climate.)

Yes, absolutely this. Not to mention that this leaves Leaders in the shit. Unable to protect natal girls, feeling guilty if a safeguarding incident occurs, stuck having to implement a policy that is against the law and disregards normal safeguarding rules, potentially personally legally liable if something bad happens.

@TedImgoingmad

Are you still a Guide Leader? Does it not make you want to leave?

@Morred

The leader won’t be allowed to clarify - Girlguiding rules say leaders shouldn’t disclose this information.

I find this 'rule' absolutely contra to any edict of having to make adjustments and exceptions to permit males into female only spaces. The girls in the group should be informed if a male child has been permitted entry to a group they believe is made up of females only - especially when overnight residential trips are involved.

Also, from working in many secondary schools, it's my experience that if you want to know which kids are trans, you don't have to wait very long before they tell you themselves.

This is the American organisation, not the UK. Point being organisations like Scouts/Guides attract predators. They cannot afford to slip up with safeguarding.
www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57692428

[quote GromblesofGrimbledon]@TedImgoingmad

Are you still a Guide Leader? Does it not make you want to leave? [/quote]
Yes. I very much want to stop, but feel very guilty about it, as I have a lovely group of guides and feel they would be being punished (guide places are like hen's teeth where I live). I am very clear that I will be out the door the minute I am asked to break the law. It's not happened yet, but ROGD has become a problem here, so I don't think it will be long before it does.

Just to clarify, when I say punished, not because they will lose my scintillating company, but because the unit will close down - volunteers also being like hen's teeth.

@Willowowisp

To be fair Hilary Benn is an exception

If you mean he has a female name, @Willowowisp, no, Hilary was a unisex name at the time, much like Evelyn. I think it needs to get to about 50:50 female:male for parents to stop using it as a male name.

Whatever the reasons, it's so wrong that girls can join Cubs and Scouts but boys can't join the traditionally female equivalent. What happened to boy only spaces? They are as entitled as girls to have a boys only club but no, girls are welcomed at Cubs and Scouts and not the reverse. That is clearly discrimination against boys.

The scouts and cubs weren't forced to take girls, they chose to. GG is for girls only as allowed under the EA.

@Bbq1

Whatever the reasons, it's so wrong that girls can join Cubs and Scouts but boys can't join the traditionally female equivalent. What happened to boy only spaces? They are as entitled as girls to have a boys only club but no, girls are welcomed at Cubs and Scouts and not the reverse. That is clearly discrimination against boys.

You need to read the thread as this has been addressed several times.

Apart from anything else, there weren't enough boys who wanted a boys only organisation to keep it going. Membership declined to the point of financial inviability.

They either invited girls or closed down.

When you say 'wrong', Bbq1, what do you mean? The Scouts was a boys' only organisation with all-male leadership, membership and volunteers. In modern times, they couldn't make it financially viable on that model, so opened up to girls and presumably are now solvent.

Should they have carried on as they were until they went bust? What did you personally do to help them carry on as a boys' only group?

In days of yore when I did a lot of voluntary work it really ground my gears when armchair commentators explained what we 'should' be doing, while doing not a hand's turn towards keeping our activities going.

If you think boys need single sex groups, off you go and start one.

@Bbq1

Whatever the reasons, it's so wrong that girls can join Cubs and Scouts but boys can't join the traditionally female equivalent. What happened to boy only spaces? They are as entitled as girls to have a boys only club but no, girls are welcomed at Cubs and Scouts and not the reverse. That is clearly discrimination against boys.

That's nothing to do with the Guides though is it? They're not stopping there being boy only spaces. It's not their problem.

@Bbq1

Whatever the reasons, it's so wrong that girls can join Cubs and Scouts but boys can't join the traditionally female equivalent. What happened to boy only spaces? They are as entitled as girls to have a boys only club but no, girls are welcomed at Cubs and Scouts and not the reverse. That is clearly discrimination against boys.

Did you bother reading the thread? Scouts would have stayed single sex, had boys wished to join and men pulled their fingers out and volunteered. They didn't, so to avoid folding as an organisation, they admitted girls and women, and, lo and behold, they flourished. Girlguiding does not need boys to survive.

They are as entitled as girls to have a boys only club but no, girls are welcomed at Cubs and Scouts and not the reverse. That is clearly discrimination against boys

They probably could have kept going single sex if more boys wanted to do it and the dads had stepped up to run it. Here, the beavers, cubs and scouts are run entirely by women. Ive never seen a dad step up to do it, even when vacancies have become available. Without the women, i doubt there would be scouts etc any more.

Of course it's not. Same issue as happens with single sex schools. Lots of parents are keen for their girls to go to girls' schools, far fewer for their boys to go to boys' schools. As we are a species with 50:50 females/males, something has to give. Decades ago when my children were younger that resulted in so called mixed secondary schools with 2 boys for every girl because the girls' schools were full to bursting and there were more of them than boys' schools.

Can I share the story of how my wee granny thinks Mrs Brown is really a woman?

My dad was very very confused when watching an episode of RuPauls drag race a few weeks ago…

I suspect the number of men willing to act as Scout Leaders dropped markedly when criminal record checks and safeguarding policies arrived.

That may have been a contributory factor Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I thought Scouts mostly had to offer girls membership in order to attract more Mums into volunteering.
It's frustrating how many people keep plopping this 'it's not fair on the boys' narrative without reading the thread! Where this is repeatedly explained.
Scouts chose to go mixed sex.
Guides is entitled by LAW to be single sex.
These are the facts.