Miriam Cates and Caroline Johnson ask Nadhim Zahawi about presenting adult ideas to children, and how girls can be supported to continue with sport in their teen years

[ResisterRex]

In today's Education Committee Committee session:

Parliamentlive.tv - Education Committee

MC = Miriam Cates
NZ = Nadhim Zahawi

11:20:41
Miriam Cates
I welcome the political impartiality guidance but I think - also there are wider safeguarding implications about introducing adult ideas at an age before children can cope with them. There are safeguarding implications about talking about these ideas even in a politically neutral way
Pre-pubescent or pubescent children - being told by adults that if they don't confirm then they may be trans or non-binary. Then they go away and then meet adults on Reddit to TikTok who tell them how to access medical interventions
They go back to school, say they are trans, and they are then excluded from normal safeguarding procedures. The parents are cut out. Autism is a factor. The Cass Review said that social transitioning a child is not a neutral act.

Do you think there are safeguarding implications for introducing these ideas to children by trusted adults and what can we do about it? Should it be taught at all?

NZ: political impartiality is anchored in legislation. The guidance is clear that the range of issues is not limited. Want to teachers to how, not what, to think.

You mention safeguarding and parents. Parents have to be front and centre of this. That is my message to the frontline. You have a duty to involve them.

Incumbent upon us as a department - we have the people - we can go to the EHRC for help. Only right that we are able to be clear on some of these issues around gender and sex so that the frontline have the ability to always put safeguarding front and centre.

11:26:10 (or so)
MC: do we need to look at whether there are ideas that are not appropriate? There are all sorts of ideas that we wouldn't dream of.
NZ: that is why parental engagement is important. You raise online safety - Reddit, Discord - the Online Safety Bill was debated last night and is really important

11:39:02 Dr Caroline Johnson spoke about the importance of sport and in particular to girls and it tapering off in teenage years. But how this is important for bone density and heart health.

CJ reiterated her previous question to Quince and the question went into matters of showering and changing, and the importance of these for girls in continuing with sport.
NZ: important that the frontline feel supported and informed about how to deal with these situations, and there are ways of doing that eg trans pupils can go in and use the changing room before the girls do. Incumbent on us to help the frontline with guidance.

Here is the link which I couldn't get to post above

www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/2ab4f353-814c-4bac-ab12-4c63a1430224

Having a look now. Zahawi is pretty good, very measured and I think he means to do the best he can for kids (he used to be Children’s Minister as well).

However, I think he needs to give a stronger steer than this and do more, more quickly. He is a bit too measured. Cates would be good in his job. She has the right level of urgency and genuine horror at what is going on.

But let’s see what he and the EHRC come up with. He means well and has good principles.

The real issue is though that all this impartiality stuff is built in to law and policy.

And under the guidance of a powerful political lobby, much of which guidance has been novel to actively deceptive, the law and policy is being ignored .

There is no point saying it's all there if this is being actively ignored by a political lobby who have taught 'do what you want and eventually they'll give up and change the law to what you're doing'. Where is the accountability? Where are the consequences? Where are the boundaries? A few sharp prosecutions would drag the others back in line fast, but the government has to grow the backbone to enforce existing law. Not mention it and hope.

Did you spot the “trans pupils can use the changing room before the girls do”?
So the whole class of girls have to stand and wait to use their own changing room” until the boy has finished with it.
Privileged, much?

All hail the mighty penis.

It's getting plainer and plainer this is all it is.

Yes Babdoc. I wasn't sure why the MtF pupil can't use the male sex rooms alone, then the rest of the male sex uses them. Hopefully the kind of technical accuracy that might be in the final versions of these policies.

I wouldn’t care if a child who thought he was female when he wasn’t was sent to use the girls’ changing ten minutes early. That seems to me to be a reasonable adjustment for his needs in light of the fact that we (as a society - not ‘we’ on this board) appear to have allowed a situation to arise where children believe they can change sex.

I also wouldn’t mind if he was sent to use the boys’ changing without the other students ten minutes early.

No-one should have to wait for him, obviously. It might be better to send him to the accessible toilet.

But we need to address the bigger picture so there are fewer cases of this occurring.

Exactly, make the boys wait while the MTF pupil uses the correct changing room for their sex, or alternatively make the MTF pupil wait until last stop fucking inconveniencing girls and making them bear the brunt of the boy's choice and decision. For once in your lives politicians put girls and women FIRST.

There is no reason for a male child to be in the female changing rooms at all, and to send them separately from the girls just reinforces the idea that the child is female, which helps no one. The reality is otherwise.

However if the child does not feel safe or comfortable to change with other members of their sex, then that should be accommodated for, and a safe and private space provided.

This is all important. But changing rooms are not the only issue for girls and sport, sexism and harassment is a huge part of why they give up.

I look at research into this for my job, and so often the reasons given are 'girls are too self-conscious'. But when you dig down, what this really means is that girls know that if they do any kind of sport, or even break into a light jog, this is open season for boys and men to shout comments.

And then we wonder why they give up...

Schools, and everyone else need to stop going along with the nonsense that these pupils with an identity are in any way a special, fragile group that need to be pandered to.

Stop teaching kids that they must all have a 'gender identity'

As someone who understands this "front line" it's unbelievable that there's not one adult at a senior level who understands how PE in schools work. You don't send a random child - or groups - off wandering to find a space to change for supervision and safeguarding reasons. Nor do you let one child change for 10 minutes in a changing room by themselves with all the other children's clothes and equipment there - unless you have a "hand in all your valuables" procedure at the beginning of a PE lesson. Changing rooms are normally kept locked (security, health and safety) during a lesson.
When teachers are judged by their promptness in getting learning started in a lesson, the idea that one or more children will wander in (unsupervised) 10 minutes late and leave 10 minutes early is completely unacceptable.
Nobody trying to wedge boys into spaces where girls undress ever takes into account basic health and safety issues, let alone the rights of girls. They're all so desperate never to say to this sacred caste - NO
Sorry for the rant

‘You don't send a random child - or groups - off wandering to find a space to change for supervision and safeguarding reasons. Nor do you let one child change for 10 minutes in a changing room by themselves with all the other children's clothes and equipment there - unless you have a "hand in all your valuables" procedure at the beginning of a PE lesson.’

No, but it could be managed and it depends on the age of the child and the set-up. There might be a classroom assistant who could supervise from outside. You might send a single child to the toilets rather than the changing rooms.

The Telegraph has picked this up:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/20/teachers-must-tell-parents-child-comes-transgender-says-nadhim/

"A DfE source told The Telegraph: “We are aware that there is a vacuum at the moment and we need to address it. We want schools and parents to have the framework to support students while also allowing the frontline to feel they have the support of the department to be able to make decisions confidently when situations occur.
“The safety of students will always be the priority. Parents will be at the front and centre of this guidance, which we are working on at present.""

And:

"The Telegraph understands that the DfE is aware of teachers being scared of being labelled bigots or otherwise drawn into controversy when dealing with issues around trans pupils.
There is a sense in the department that there is currently a vacuum around an issue that has grown enormously in prominence in recent years. This is felt to have left teachers and support staff exposed and uncertain about what to do."

My daughters get about 3 minutes to get changed at the beginning and end of PE no chance to hang about waiting. I think guidance is very clear. The gender questioning child cannot be discriminated against i.e they can't be told they can't do sport because there is no suitable changing facilities. If they will not use the same sex facility then an alternative provision like an accessible toilet should be the choice. Again there is so much bad advice out there from the NSPCC, Stonewall et al.
learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/schools/safeguarding-considerations-changing-rooms

You can imagine a teacher having a googling and coming across guidance. This is from NSPCC 2022 but there is still guidance out there that states let the child use the changing room of their choice.

See here, still NSPCC July 2020 thecpsu.org.uk/resource-library/best-practice/safe-use-of-changing-facilities/

The last guidance is shared on a local schools network and I recently write to them to get the link removed (need to chase that up!).