GDST schools announce trans policy

[AgathaMystery]

Hopefully this share token will work. If not I will screen shot.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/01/group-girls-schools-says-will-not-accept-transgender-pupils/

I respect that you believe that people change sex, but it is not a belief I share or agree that others should be compelled to affirm, and it is not a legal right to deprive others of their legal rights.

There are many mixed sex schools in which transgender students can identify as best suits them without impact on anyone else. To insist on a right to attend a school that has been specifically intended for children of the opposite sex, with the aim of providing something specific for that single sex, is to set out to break that boundary for personal political reasons and to attempt to remove that facility for all those other children. I don't condone an act of selfishness like that.

Finally a common sense. So pleased with this as I have listened on the radio some time ago that a girl school in London took a decision to change their name and removed the 'girls' bit due to a student filed a complaint that he/she was feeling uncomfortable- ridiculous for school to go that far to change their name

@motherartichoke

I understand the point that is being made in this case, but I completely disagree with it.

Sex is biological, but gender is a social construct, so to allow people who are biologically female but identify as male (ftm) to attend the school, but not the other way around, doesn’t make sense. I think this because the school is for girls only for the social side of their lives, as in who they interact and work with.

Ftm people are male. That’s it. They probably won’t want to attend an all-girls school because they are not girls, and just like most boys, probably wouldn't want to be surrounded by them. I do think it is unfair to kick trans pupils out if they have been at the school before their transition, but overall this decision is backward.

And as for all the people worrying about how the ‘TRAs’ will react, they are only campaigning for what is, or should be, their legal right. A transgender woman is a woman, and a transgender man is a man. Don’t try and take away their education just because you disagree with their identity.

FTM people are not male. The only way you can make this statement work is by unilaterally changing the meaning of the word male from its agreed dictionary meaning to one you've decided you prefer. That's not how language works. We need agreed meanings of words or we can't communicate. We need the words female and male to indicate which biological sex a human or other animal or lifeform is, and we need to know about biological sex because that's how our species and most other species reproduce. A female person who identifies as a man may make cosmetic changes to the body but will still be female in every chromosome and this has important health consequences. It isn't possible to change sex, and it's absolutely crucial that children and teenagers aren't lied to about this.

And as for all the people worrying about how the ‘TRAs’ will react, they are only campaigning for what is, or should be, their legal right. A transgender woman is a woman, and a transgender man is a man.

But children attending school are just that: children. They are not transgender women or transgender men because they are not adults. And their legal right is to be safeguarded, to be protected from damaging ideologies, to be protected from bodily harm, to be protected from bullying and emotional abuse, and to receive an education that will teach them to assess evidence so that they make informed choices.

@JellySaurus

And as for all the people worrying about how the ‘TRAs’ will react, they are only campaigning for what is, or should be, their legal right. A transgender woman is a woman, and a transgender man is a man.

But children attending school are just that: children. They are not transgender women or transgender men because they are not adults. And their legal right is to be safeguarded, to be protected from damaging ideologies, to be protected from bodily harm, to be protected from bullying and emotional abuse, and to receive an education that will teach them to assess evidence so that they make informed choices.

Indeed, how more undermining of safeguarding can it be to actually teach children that they are not allowed to identify the male sex??

A transgender woman is a woman, and a transgender man is a man.

The mistake you seem to be making is confusing your belief system with material reality.

I appreciate that these are your sincerely held beliefs, and of course you are perfectly entitled to hold them, but they are no different to my mind than the sincerely held beliefs of those who maintain the earth is flat, or that it was created 6,000 years ago.

If you want to believe something yourself it’s entirely up to you. But if you want to persuade people of the truth and validity of your beliefs, then you need to be prepared to back them up with a solid evidence base and reasoned arguments.

Just repeating mantras is not going to advance your case in any way. Neither will making blatantly untrue, easily disprovable statements such as Ftm people are male. Male is not a term that refers to social constructs, and biologically female trans people are most definitely not of the class that produces small, motile gametes.

The issue here is one of single sex education, and sex, as you rightly say, is a distinct category from that of the social construct of gender. For a great many people the category of sex is vastly more important than what we see as the spurious category of “gender” and should rightfully take precedence. And it’s very good to see an organisation agreeing with us.

@motherartichoke this is a reading I recommend to understand how dangerous it is to put adults’ desires and needs onto children.

cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-3638-8

This is excellent news. I’m hoping the Association of state girls schools will now announce something similar. www.asgs.org.uk/

There are many mixed sex schools in which transgender students can identify as best suits them without impact on anyone else.

I worry about this. GDST rightly say they will allow female pupils who identify as boys to stay if they want. I also assume single sex boys schools will do the same for boys identifying as girls. However I suspect both sets of schools would not mind if such pupils transferred to mixed sex schools. Indeed I hear that this is already happening.

What about the girls there? Will their right to single sex spaces, privacy and dignity be respected. I don’t know exact figures but given the provision by GDST and others I assume that there in London private schools there are more single sex places than co-ed places. Which means that girls in coed schools are likely to be disproportionately affected by loss of their spaces and sports.

And if the obvious message is that girls in these schools don’t count, it becomes still harder for them to have their voices heard in the classroom and elsewhere.

One of the obvious coed alternatives to WHS, PHS, NHEHS and SHHS and a number of other non-GDST girls schools (SPGS, G&L, FH, and more) has already had to face up to issues caused by inappropriate male behaviour.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9357225/Top-20-000-year-London-private-school-rape-culture-say-pupils.html

I really hope that the Department of Education can issue clear guidance that will allow girls in mixed schools, who are not protected by the Equalities Act, to enjoy single sex changing rooms and sports.

@HerewardTheWoke

As an ex-GDST girl this was fantastic to see. GDST goes where Fawcett, Women's Aid and all the rest fear to tread! I'll be writing to them in support.

It was inevitable that they (and other single sex schools) would have to take an explicit position on this.

Firstly, their business model relies on parents who want single sex education for their daughters. If they deviate from that they are toast. So it is excellent that by this policy statement they have been really, really clear that the consequence of admitting any boys, even ones who identify as girls, is that your single sex school is not single sex anymore. Once you admit one boy you have to admit all the ones who pass the entrance exam.

Secondly, if they became mixed sex, it would almost certainly put them and their member schools in breach of charities law as they would no longer be centering their founding charitable objectives. And it would be totally impractical as the schools do not have the facilities or space for mixed sex safeguarding (separate locker rooms etc).

So in the face of prospective parents (and quite possibly some staff) who are committed gender ideologues and would seek to erode single sex provision, they had to have a clear policy on this, otherwise you would get people continually testing and weakening the boundaries.

It's a bit disappointing that it's not come out in the form of a full throated I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR defence of girls' single sex education, but, actually, we don't need that. All we need is that organisations be grown-ups, calmly defend their boundaries, and centre girls. That is what GDST have done, and that is a radical act (I'm sorry to say) in itself.

This. Eloquently put.

Ultimately, no parent who values single sex schooling for girls will be prepared to pay for their daughters to be educated with boys.

Covered by the Times

Trans pupils are turned down by girls’ schools as threat to status

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a945d8a8-6c08-11ec-87c8-7ab22098d3fb?shareToken=8f06bb14b73303ba054204eb9976056f

DH teaches at an all-boys state school and any boys that id as girls still stay at the boys' school rather than transferring to the associated girls' school.

I have an interest in this as we're planning on our daughters going to our local girls' independent if they're bright enough. I did badly in my maths A level as I was so distracted by the boys in my class. Not in a fancying way, I had a boyfriend at a different school, but as the only girl in the small class I had way too much attention on me and didn't have the maturity to stay focused.

Another pleased gdst old girl here! I hope girl guides read these articles!

That comment at the end of The Times' article from the lawyers Stone King (not Stone Wall, then?) implies that schools using the exceptions under the EQA 2010 to keep their school single sex could be in breach of the law. IANAL but would like to know how they work that out. A boy under 18, so no GRC, has his legal sex as recorded at birth but Stone King think he'd have a legal case against a girls' school.

@Rightsraptor

That comment at the end of The Times' article from the lawyers Stone King (not Stone Wall, then?) implies that schools using the exceptions under the EQA 2010 to keep their school single sex could be in breach of the law. IANAL but would like to know how they work that out. A boy under 18, so no GRC, has his legal sex as recorded at birth but Stone King think he'd have a legal case against a girls' school.

I wondered that too

I can't quite remember exactly how the Equality Act works, but it is something like that when someone has a protected characteristic under the Equality Act you have to positively do things to accommodate their needs because of that protected characteristic. This can be interpreted in the case of the protected characteristic of gender reassignment as a requirement to treat them as the opposite sex. I think this is a poor legal interpretation of the Act for a host of reasons, but not least because it would cut across single exemptions which require - broadly - that all members of the opposite sex are excluded for the exemption to be available (in the absence of the exemption single sex spaces/services would be discriminatory and not allowed under the Act), but it may be the argument that Stone King is thinking of. There has been be little case law on how these provisions should be interpreted, but one of the major reasons why the stonewalling of the judiciary and the aggressive attempt to redefine social norms is potentially so damaging is that Judges take into account current societal norms when interpreting legislation.

@Rightsraptor

That comment at the end of The Times' article from the lawyers Stone King (not Stone Wall, then?) implies that schools using the exceptions under the EQA 2010 to keep their school single sex could be in breach of the law. IANAL but would like to know how they work that out. A boy under 18, so no GRC, has his legal sex as recorded at birth but Stone King think he'd have a legal case against a girls' school.

IANAL either but my impression is that the law in this area is a mess. Sex and gender used interchangeably, and the GRA 2004 was not as well scrutinised as it should have been (Hansard shows this - some MPs and Lords did try to raise concerns but were largely pooh poohed and ignored).

Nobody can have a GRC until they're at least 18, but the Equality Act says gender reassignment is a protected characteristic, this seems to apply to under 18s, and there is no requirement to have a GRC or be eligible for one to have the PC of gender reassignment.

There is a tension in the Equality Act between the single sex exemptions and the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, which I don't believe has been properly resolved either in statute or case law. The Equality Act was a portmanteau act replacing a lot of other laws on equalities issues and merging them all into one piece of legislation. They didn't tie up all the loose ends and left the GRA in place separately.

From what I've read the GRA was introduced in a hurry to solve a problem the UK government had after a UK citizen went to the European Court of Human Rights to complain about being unable to get married. The person in question was female by birth but identified as a man. Living with a woman, both keen to marry, no same-sex marriage possible in the UK at the time. Registrar would have checked birth certificates and said no, you are both female. Complainant said everyone has a right to a family life, including marriage, and the court said yes, UK government must enable this.

Obvious solution was for the government (Labour, Blair PM, huge majority) to introduce same-sex marriage, but they bottled out of that one. Decided to go instead for a measure which their expert advisers said would only affect a tiny group of transsexuals - estimated 5000 people max across the whole of the UK. GRA aimed at those who have professionally diagnosed gender dysphoria and 'live as' the opposite to their birth sex. No requirement to have hormone therapy or surgery of any kind to change appearance, given that not everybody can have it, I suppose. They can apply for a gender recognition certificate to present to the Registrar who then has to issue a new birth certificate applying the 'legal fiction' that the holder is the opposite to their birth sex, as shown on the original birth certificate.

I can only assume that when the EA was passed in 2010 Parliament was still working on the assumption that the numbers of people who could claim the PC of gender reassignment would be absolutely tiny so it didn't warrant a lot of thought.

And here we are, with schools having to navigate this minefield.

The EHRC Technical Guidance to schools makes it clear children are protected under the EA re gender reassignment from the moment they express their intention to transition to anyone and that in schoolchildren, this intention is likely to be expressed via a change in clothes etc.

Sections 3.35 and 5.112-5,114 are the relevant ones:

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/technical-guidance-schools-england

It’s effectively self ID for children and a very murky way of interpreting the EA, IMO, but the EA lacks clarity - e.g. the examples in the accompanying notes are of a female who has made a permanent decision to transition to being a man and a man who has made a permanent decision to transition to a woman, so does that indicate a requirement of a permanent decision and if so, how does that apply to children and related questions of competency? It’s not clear.

The whole thing is a mess and until the Govt or EHRC or the courts clarify, we’re in a place where no one can say for certain how the EA re gender reassignment definitively applies in schools.

@PaleBlueMoonlight

I can't quite remember exactly how the Equality Act works, but it is something like that when someone has a protected characteristic under the Equality Act you have to positively do things to accommodate their needs because of that protected characteristic. This can be interpreted in the case of the protected characteristic of gender reassignment as a requirement to treat them as the opposite sex. I think this is a poor legal interpretation of the Act for a host of reasons, but not least because it would cut across single exemptions which require - broadly - that all members of the opposite sex are excluded for the exemption to be available (in the absence of the exemption single sex spaces/services would be discriminatory and not allowed under the Act), but it may be the argument that Stone King is thinking of. There has been be little case law on how these provisions should be interpreted, but one of the major reasons why the stonewalling of the judiciary and the aggressive attempt to redefine social norms is potentially so damaging is that Judges take into account current societal norms when interpreting legislation.

IANAL but I have read a lot. Here's the Act:

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/part/11/chapter/1

Various case law decisions say that the duty is not one of achieving results but of giving due regard to the need to do the things set out in that link. There is no duty to treat one group more favourably than another. There is no duty to do anything, having considered the needs. If nothing is done and that action (of doing nothing) is unreasonable then that is not only a different matter but it's notoriously hard ground to win on, in JRs.

Particular considerations do apply to those with disabilities. And what is and what is not a disability is also specified. Ironically when the government specified what was and what was not a disability, that was done in part to stop anyone claiming anything in order to be protected under that characteristic.

So, will they be ok with trans boy pupils? Biological female but transitioned or transitioning to male.

I wonder sometimes if we should have less segregation by sex? Other than spaces where safety is an issue I wonder if less segregation would help demystify the opposite sex?

I am glad to hear this, and hope it means the debate is opening up.

Yes, you have to think about it rather than necessarily do anything.

I wonder sometimes if we should have less segregation by sex? Other than spaces where safety is an issue I wonder if less segregation would help demystify the opposite sex?

Are you arguing that men and boys behave as they do because they don't get used to the company of girls and women when young? I don't see it. The vast majority of children in the UK go to co-ed schools, for one thing.

Girls who attend girls' schools often have brothers, cousins, neighbours etc so will be familiar with what boys are like. I have no experience personally or through my children of co-ed secondary schools but have been shocked by accounts I've seen many times from women who went to co-ed schools and describe routine sexual harassment. That was something I was safe from at my girls' school, in school time anyway.

Plenty of research about how boys get more attention in class in a co-ed classroom, and of course the stigma against girls doing STEM subjects and boys doing supposedly girly subjects like languages.

Long live girls' schools, in my view.

@jewel1968

So, will they be ok with trans boy pupils? Biological female but transitioned or transitioning to male.

I wonder sometimes if we should have less segregation by sex? Other than spaces where safety is an issue I wonder if less segregation would help demystify the opposite sex?

The reports of the policy state that where FtM pupils are in a school, those cases will be looked at on a case by case policy. They are keeping the overall policy re MtF under review.