In Scotland, ScotGov (in a letter to me) are using the EHRC Technical Guidance to schools as justification for telling schools to immediately affirm once a child says they identify as the opposite sex. The guidance has two sections underlying this:
3.35 A previously female pupil has started to live as a boy and has adopted a male name. Does the school have to use this name and refer to the pupil as a boy?
Not using the pupil’s chosen name merely because the pupil has changed gender would be direct gender reassignment discrimination. Not referring to this pupil as a boy would also result in direct gender reassignment discrimination.
And
5.112 Gender reassignment is a personal process (rather than a medical process) that involves a person moving away from his or her birth sex to his or her preferred gender and thus expressing that gender in a way that differs from, or is inconsistent with, the physical sex with which he or she was born.
5.113 This personal process may include undergoing medical procedures or, as is more likely for school pupils, it may simply include choosing to dress in a different way as part of the personal process of change.
5.114 A person will be protected because of gender reassignment once:
• he or she makes his or her intention known to someone, regardless of who this is (whether it is someone at school or at home, or someone such as a doctor);
• he or she has proposed to undergo gender reassignment, even if he or she takes no further steps or decides to stop later on;
• there is manifestation of an intention to undergo gender reassignment, even if he or she has not reached an irrevocable decision;
• he or she starts or continues to dress, behave or live (full- time or part-time) according to the gender with which he or she identifies as a person;
• he or she undergoes treatment related to gender reassignment, such as surgery or hormone therapy; or
• he or she has received gender recognition under the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
It does not matter which of these applies to a person for him or her to be protected because of the characteristic of gender reassignment.
Link to English guidance here:
www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/technical-guidance-schools-england
Link to Scottish Guidance here (same text just slightly different bullet number)
www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/technical-guidance-schools-scotland
If you are writing to schools, LAs, politicians etc, please write to the EHRC as well because until the technical guidance is clarified, this will be the fallback position.