School allowing boy to change in girls changing room secondary school

[Saffy6]

Hi my teenage daughter has told me there is a boy who identifies as a girl changing with the girls in their communal changing room. I have emailed the school who have confirmed this and stated that cases are dealt with individually but in most cases “trans students would have access to the changing room or toilet that corresponds to their gender identity. This approach is supported by the equality act 2010” None of the parents have been informed. Some of the girls are uncomfortable but do not feel they can say anything as they are afraid of being accused of transphobia.

My other daughter in year 9 has 3 girls in her class now identifying as boys (changed name and pronouns). Surely if they want to change in the boys changing rooms they will be allowed to too?

I’ve contacted safe schools alliance and I intend to challenge this policy. My question is, is this the norm? What is your schools policy on transgender kids and changing rooms and has anyone been in a similar position where you challenged this policy and what was the outcome?

I don’t blame the boy , it is the schools fault for allowing this to happen.

It sounds like he is a nasty bully though. You said your daughter is afraid of you talking to the school in case he finds out. Effectively, a teenage boy is bullying your daughter and other girls to get undressed in front of him.

Would it be worth talking to your daughter about it from the perspective of standing up to bullying? It’s possible that he’s subtle enough about it, by playing the victim and running to authorities, that she hasn’t registered it as a form of bullying. But if she can’t set personal boundaries because she’s afraid of him, bullying is exactly what it is.

This is a massive safeguarding issue. Someone with male genitalia should NOT be in a girl’s changing room. Completely beyond the pale.

I feel sorry for our youngsters these days, they so want to be inclusive and open, but sometimes that opposes their own feelings. Think you have to be your DD's advocate here. School need to provide a safe place for this transgender student, but not at the expense of other students' comfort. There's no reason the transgender girl can't change in an accessible toilet, for example, while her peers are in the female changing area.

Dear HT,

You seem to have taken Stonewall's guidance as law, it is not. Your school is breaking the law, please rectify this ASAP.

I expect the girls who are forced to share what should be a safe space to receive an apology.

Please could you give me the details of the member of staff responsible for safeguarding so I may contact them directly?

I look forward to hearing from you after you have read the actual legislation, if it is unclear to you the Equality and Human rights commission can clarify the law for you.

In the meantime my DD will not be attending PE lessons, I realise PE is a compulsory subject so we will be investigating other ways for her to exercise and will issue you an invoice for this in due course.

Yours

Op, here is the EHRC's guidance. The EHRC is the body responsible for upholding the equality act. Not stonewall.

Under these provisions, your approach must be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This will depend upon the nature of the service and may link to the reason the separate or single-sex service is needed. For example, a legitimate aim could be the privacy and dignity of others. You must then show that your action is a proportionate way to achieve that aim. This requires that you balance the impact upon all service users.

**They even use changing rooms for sport as an example of legitimate exclusion.

Example: A gym has separate-sex communal changing rooms. There is concern about the safety and dignity of trans men changing in an open plan environment. The gym therefore decides to introduce an additional gender-neutral changing room with self-contained units.

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/gender-reassignment-provisions-equality-act

I’d also be emailing Ofsted, surely they need to be getting involved in such safeguarding issues? What about the county education authority? Do they actually have any involvement in schools these days or are they all academies?

I'm usually against going to the press about things but in this case I see a good purpose: how many parents actually know that their daughters are being coerced into getting undressed in front of a boy? And how many know that if that's not currently their daughter's experience, at any moment it could be.

Kids learn normal from what they experience on a regular basis. It sounds like the normality in this school has taken an abrupt turn for fiction and that needs to be highlighted quickly.

OP I really feel for you.
It's plainly not realistic to expect the girls to make any waves themselves, and it shouldn't be down to them. I agree with pp that there's something bullying-ish about how the child is behaving. We all (parents, schools, society) need to give girls the belief that their boundaries are legit.

One option at this stage is just to try and get them to justify the decision. You could just ask a series of questions.

Is there a written policy on this & if so what?

If it's not a written policy who took the decision that pupils will be allowed to use changing rooms based on self identity not sex?

As pp' have said - did they do an equality impact assessment or a risk assessment?

How exactly is it justified by the EA. It might be legal, but it has to be proportionate & legitimate. How have they evidenced that? Why didn't they choose alternative, also legal options? You can use the EHRC guidence to show it's legal to provide separately for this child.

How do they know that their decision/policy is not discriminating against the girls on the grounds of sex, (or religion/belief?)

Copy in the governors or write to them separately. Do they know?

I really feel that if they have to sit down and work out the justification, it will crumble.

Do you know if the child plays sport with the girls when they separate by sex?

Separately, you could write to your mp and ask them to raise it with the minister for education, or get them to forward your concerns to the minister. You could ask what the new guidence they are working on will say on this, & state what you think it should say! They need to hear from real people in these real circumstances.

Our school has done away with changing for PE, they wear kit to school on those days. However, if this happened out our school, I would make a complaint to Ofsted, and as I have a sympathetic Police Crime Commissioner, I'd probably ask her for advice on how to get this policy changed. The more people you could make aware of this, the better and it takes the onus off you for being the only one protesting this illegal & misguided practice. Good luck.

@Saffy6 absolutely continue to challenge this issue, but please follow the schools complaints policy on their website first. If their response isn't satisfactory, it should state how you can escalate the complaint effectively.

I would also complain to the head and cc in the safeguarding lead - but make sure that I put in something along the lines of hoping that ouare pleased that they believe it important to follow the law so you trust that now they know that they had interpreted it incorrectly, they will be as quick to ensure they follow it correctly and apologize to all the affected girls who have had to share a changing room with boy. And that you hope they I'll be following up with a lesson for all children on the rights of women (and by extension girls) to help prepare everyone to the misogyny they encounter going forward.

I am gearing myself up to put together a long email tonight/tomorrow. I will use lots of your well thought out suggestions. Thank you all for taking the time to respond. I believe that other parents would have complained but as the response I received indicates this is the law and not really a choice by the school I can see how some may have wrung their hands and thought what more can I do. Just reread the email they sent and it states refusing a child a changing room based on their gender identity would amount to “an act of discrimination “ according to equality act. My sister has just started a job and a trans women works there. He uses the ladies and she says although she is uncomfortable with this everyone accepts it and she doesn’t know if she has a right to question it and how can she really ask him if he has had surgery to remove his penis? I think parents might quite honestly buy the schools response and maybe hope it is a one off without really looking at the bigger picture and what it means for women and girls in the future.

I also think parents have so much stress with working full time, cost of living crisis etc they might be put off by the effort to challenge this. I know this is going to take hours of my time and send my blood pressure through the roof! I have checked with friends who have children at other local schools and their policy is trans kids either change in separate changing room or their biological sex changing room so this is not a local authority policy, although school is an academy so not sure if it counts.

In all honesty my dd mentioned this weeks ago. Child is not in her form and she doesn’t know them well so I actually dismissed it and said the kids are mistaken he can’t be a boy, thinking maybe the kids had started this rumour and some had bought it. It was only when other dd started talking about all the girls in her class identifying as boys i went back to dd and questioned it. Even when I spoke to other parent Who confirmed it was true I still believed she must have got it wrong. When I got the email back from school my jaw literally dropped to the floor!

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Just reread the email they sent and it states refusing a child a changing room based on their gender identity would amount to “an act of discrimination “ according to equality act.

No. That is not the case.

That is the law according to Stonewall, who have been told several times that they are
interpreting the law as they would like it to be, not as it is.

The problem is, the law is not definitive. Which is why the EHRC have recently issued guidance.

Their guidance is that excluding males, however they identify, from female changing rooms is not just completely legal and non-discriminatory, it's actually an example of how you would balance the rights of all people under the equality act.

Women, and their rights, due to their sex, have to be taken into equal account, along with those of trans people.

The EHRC have solved this problem by saying you can find an alternative that is a proportionate means to a legitimate aim. They are fully upfront that the legitimate aim can be the privacy and dignity of women, and the proportionate means is providing an alternative changing area for trans people, if they don't want to use the one for their sex.

I would copy and paste what the EHRC actually say. They are the last word on the issue.

I don't understand how any school can think this is in any way acceptable.

The whole thing is now completely out of hand. I agree with the girls not changing for PE under the circumstances. Contact your MP.

3 girls in one class?

Is this now becoming a large scale problem?

@Badlifeday I'm interested in your last question Putin as my experience at school is the opposite of this - the trans girls would be, in old money, gay boys rather than heterosexual boys. the terminology does my head in, but I meant a male identifying as a lesbian girl. Basically a straight boy in a dress!

Your email doesn't need to be long, just factual. It is a safe guarding issue so do include the designated safe guard lead. They are misrepresenting the law. It would be discrimination if the trans identified child was denied a changing room, but it is fine to exclude a trans identified make from the single sex facilities. Copy Safe Schools Alliance in to your email they were really helpful to me with subsequent emails. It would be very unprofessional of them to let on it was you who asked reasonable questions.
Please do write we have to stand up to this nonsense.

How the actual fuck did we ever get to this madness?
15 years ago you would have been laughed at if you suggested schools would be rolling over to accomodate boys who "felt" like girls and "felt" like changing in their spaces.
Now we have school believing this "right" is enshrined in LAW, screw the 99% of the rest of the school who wants privacy and dignity, and don't you DARE say you think it's wrong or you will be labelled a bigot.
It's utter utter madness.
Stonewall is a toxic brainwashing pile of shit and it has a lot to answer for.

It should change in the staff room. I say 'it' because he/she has clearly not decided
My God the world is mad this gender thing is beyond stupid and fostered by not wishing to offend anyone.
If it was my daughter I would insist she is allowed to change privately and if not, leave.
The 'one who cannot decide' is running a scam - who would not as a rampant teenager.

Let's hope Stonewall does have to answer for everything in Allison Bailey's Tribunal hearing.

Looked at your thread thank u for that. So do I take it your dd was mistaken and there wasn’t actually a boy using the girls changing room?

Agree. Sex and “gender reassignment” are protected characteristics under the 2010 EA, NOT “gender identity”.

And agree with all the PPs: it’s fucking outrageous that the girls are just expected to put up with this, as if validating this boy’s “identity” is more important than their need/desire for, and right to, privacy and dignity.