(Scottish) Teachers fear legal action over transgender pupil advice

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

In the Herald

www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19604640.teachers-fear-legal-action-transgender-pupil-advice/

Excerpts:

Leaders at the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) said their upcoming Congress would see members debate an emergency motion that claims ministers are seeking to make changes without establishing a clear legislative basis. It calls for the guidance to be withdrawn until such an “underpinning” is enacted.

The guidance states: “A transgender young person may not have told their family about their gender identity. Inadvertent disclosure could cause needless stress for the young person or could put them at risk and breach legal requirements. Therefore, it is best to not share information with parents or carers without considering and respecting the young person’s views and rights.”

SSTA concerns focus largely on what happens to details disclosed by a pupil and whether these can be passed on without their consent. Its leaders said there were deepening fears over the professional and legal risks for teachers who are recipients of such information.

The SSTA motion states: “In view of the recently published document ‘Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools - Guidance for Scottish Schools’ (August 2021), this Congress is greatly concerned over safeguarding and other issues, including: the potential excluding of parents/carers from the process of children under 16 transitioning to another gender; implying that teachers may not pass on information that may be revealed to them by a child without the child’s consent; the potential for professional harm to staff involved in withholding information from parents/carers, including future legal action; that the identified ‘best practice’ has not been rigorously examined for its legal implications nor risk assessed for potential harm it may cause others in the school community, including those with protected characteristics.”

It concludes: “Congress believes it is unacceptable for the government to seek to make such consequential changes without legal underpinning. Congress therefore calls on the guidance to be withdrawn until appropriate legislation has been enacted which can then inform the guidance to be disseminated to schools.”

I have no idea how significant this is?

Surely this contradicts the usual safeguarding guidance that we must never promise to keep something secret when a kid wants to confide something.

If school did this with any of my children then I absolutely would take them to court.

Good - more sunlight

The safeguarding & right to a family life failure of this guidance is horrifying. OTOH as I remember it teachers raised objections to Named Person & the bloody SNP forced it through anyway.

“The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get to the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ view of the world .” (UK Supreme Court judgment, 2015.)

@Wellthatsit

Surely this contradicts the usual safeguarding guidance that we must never promise to keep something secret when a kid wants to confide something.

The whole point of this ideology is to get rid of safeguarding.

Good. I really feel for teachers, stuck in an impossible position, and, as noted above, leaving themselves open to litigation.

SNP continues to ignore the people it proclaims to serve, though - still trying to push through shit legislation 'for our own good', no matter what all the experts tell them.

Good comments. Lots of voices speaking up now.

This is Law vs Policy, and there's only one winner in that fight.

....and we have far too many people at the moment who don't appear to understand the distinction between Law and Policy.

I just had safeguarding refresher training at the start of the new term and it's the first thing they tell you "never promise a young person that you can keep what they tell you a secret"

Why should this be a special case? Does it not put a hole into safeguarding? Is that a bug, or a feature?

So when speaking to the parents misgendering is suddenly ok?

@EndoplasmicReticulum

I just had safeguarding refresher training at the start of the new term and it's the first thing they tell you "never promise a young person that you can keep what they tell you a secret"

Why should this be a special case? Does it not put a hole into safeguarding? Is that a bug, or a feature?

It seems to be a feature Endoplasmic. Isolating children from those who love them care for them and have legal responsibility for them is such a massive safeguarding 🚩 🚩.

I am always in shock (despite seeing this repeatedly in recent years) that anyone can promote this. It is the essence of predatory behaviour to isolate a child from those who care for them.

Teachers are right to be worried. There will be a court case eventually. I know of several families who have considered challenging schools in the courts for trying to remove their parental rights in this way by transitioning their child in secret. But (quite rightly) they centred their vulnerable child's needs and decided against it.

So teachers are being asked to implement a policy.

They know it is wrong.

They are turning round and taking action through their unions.

Furthermore, they know the law is on their side.

That is hugely significant.

I spoke to the HT at my DD's school. He was clearly very nervous and worried about saying the wrong thing. He did assure me however that this is just guidance and that the school has their own measures in place. He guaranteed me that my DD would not be sharing changing facilities or accommodation with a child of the opposite sex. He also said that I would be involved in all decisions around my child's wellbeing. I felt re-assured after that.

What has it come to though that I even have to ask these questions and that schools are being given this crazy guidance that they know to be just wrong!

I also really feel for teachers (and Brownie/Guide leaders) who are responsible for taking kids/teens on a residential trip. What are they supposed to do about a trans child/teen in terms of sleeping accommodation and washing facilities?

I'm not suggesting for a second that the trans child is particularly likely to be predatory - just there are good reasons for giving kids/teens single-sex accomodation.

Another example where the teacher/adult in charge could find themselves in trouble if things go wrong.

SNP continues to ignore the people it proclaims to serve, though - still trying to push through shit legislation 'for our own good', no matter what all the experts tell them.

This is what Stephen Daisley called coercive progressivism, which I think hits the nail on the head - the bien pensant inflicting whatever they like on the lessers cause they know better.

They can get tae fuck.

It's a consequence of employing specialists who have been labelled as good on a particular issue without really engaging properly as well.

So many organisations who are buried in work anyway are told 'you must have a policy on this' and then a 'specialist' pops up with a template policy and it gets tabled at a meeting and maybe not absolutely everybody at the meeting has actually read all the papers, and the only person who has is the one who always makes a fuss and the meeting will overrun if someone doesn't shut her up and everyone is knackered and the safeguarding lead has to leave at 845 because she needs to pick up her daughter and the SENCO is self-isolating that week...

It is a hard slow process to actually effect change and get people to agree or to thrash out objections and problems. And God knows change may well be needed in sll sorts of ways, homophobic bullying and sexism and sexual assault have hardly disappeared. But it takes really systemic discussion to tackle those things. Not a policy taped over a gaping hole.

It is the idolising of 'lived experience' over all else: expertise, alternative opinion, critical thought, study, reflection...

In other words teaching staff with transphobic views are now worried they won't be able to get away with expressing them anymore?

Scotland's curriculum will be LGBT friendly and Scotland's political parties in charge (SNP+Green) are both LGBT friendly. A Scottish woman as we all know is currently awaiting trial for charges which include posting content online with homophobic+transphobic aggravators.

I'm sure we all have our own views but to me this would seem society is moving forward and more people are saying "no" to homophobia and transphobia?

In other words teaching staff with transphobic views are now worried they won't be able to get away with expressing them anymore?

That's not what it says at all

@MargaritaPie

In other words teaching staff with transphobic views are now worried they won't be able to get away with expressing them anymore?

Scotland's curriculum will be LGBT friendly and Scotland's political parties in charge (SNP+Green) are both LGBT friendly. A Scottish woman as we all know is currently awaiting trial for charges which include posting content online with homophobic+transphobic aggravators.

I'm sure we all have our own views but to me this would seem society is moving forward and more people are saying "no" to homophobia and transphobia?

It's not transphobic to safeguard children It's not transphobic to respect the law that says parental rights cannot be removed by anyone without the permission of the courts It's not transphobic to be aware and concerned of the impact of social contagion It's not transphobic in the face of all the evidence of how badly children removed from their parents care do in terms of academic and life chances, to ensure that no children are deliberately alienated from their families. It's not transphobic to insist that this very vulnerable group of children are included in all our well evidenced safeguarding structures.

None of this is transphobic - it's all basic child welfare and safeguarding practice currently being dismantled by some exceptionally dubious people.

Safeguarding. It's entirely about safeguarding, and teachers not keeping ANY secrets shared only with children, which is unprofessional and fucking creepy.

So a. Don't tell the people a child lives with that that child might be identifying as trans. And b. Identifying as trans has the biggest correlation with suicidality of anything ever.

Can someone explain that? I am struggling to see how it's evidence of logical thought but I am sure I just need education so I can 'do better'. Can someone educate me?

Scotland is in the process of incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) into Scot's Law. This will mean that any public authority (including schools) could be subject to legal challenge if they breach CRC rights. Keeping important information from parents could well be considered a breach, as the role of parent's/guardians in children's lives is central to the CRC rights. Teachers are quite right to be worried. At least the Children's Commissioner seems to be recognising that there is an issue here.

I mean it's not like safeguarding doesn't generally consider...um...safeguarding is it? You wouldn't say, 'well thanks for telling us your mum beat you with a belt last night Samantha, I'll just give her a call now and sort it out.' Good safeguarding practice assesses which parents are a risk to their child and which (the vast vast majority) aren't. It doesn't assume all/many/most parents are dangerous. Except for where trans is concerned. I wonder why that is?