Braverman says some schools are encouraging gender dysphoria by an “unquestioning approach”.

[ResisterRex]

In The Times:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/91e2714e-dde6-11ec-bcbd-e35b52e0266c?shareToken=7a60b3c35eb7e0a95572ab4933fc84b1

"Suella Braverman said that schools are under no legal obligation to address children by a new pronoun or allow them to wear the school uniform of a different gender. She reiterated that girls’ lavatories and changing rooms have special legal protections as safe spaces."

Meanwhile, Stella Creasy says something about shoes.

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/stella-creasy-jk-rowling-wrong-woman-can-have-penis/

"Describing as “bonkers” the need for two doctors to decide whether someone is a woman or not, as the law currently requires, she adds: “That brings up all sorts of questions about what is a woman in terms of gender – what does it mean to live as a woman? I wear flat shoes, I’ve got terrible bunions, is someone going to tell me that living as a woman means you have to wear high heels for two years?"

Makes GC people look like heartless unhinged reactionaries if we are aligning with Braverman.

Braverman is only following what has been said in the interim Cass review. Any government not doing so will be complicit in child abuse.

What is Welby saying?

That a women is anyone who identifies as one? But we can't get away from the science?

Make that work?

Another who doesn't entirely disagree with her on uniforms for a similar reason. At first I wasn't sure when I read that, but I'll go with it, on balance

I want to live in a world where men and boys can wear skirts (just as women and girls can wear trousers) because they want to, for whatever reason, without anyone pretending it makes them a woman. But it is a minor point.

If men want to do so in their own home then that's fine, but teachers shouldn't be encouraging it in schools.

Makes GC people look like heartless unhinged reactionaries if we are aligning with Braverman.

Our words were literal violence long before anyone was bold enough to publicly say transwomen were men. The misogynists driving the trans movement hate us, there is no way to soften the blow of truth about biological reality or appease them so we need to stop caring about what they say. She has clearly and unambiguously set out the rights and protections afforded women and girls in the EA she has not made a case for discriminating against trans people. The law was written to protect our interests, we should not be concerned about seeming nasty by asking for it to be used to do just that.

I can only imagine the abuse Suella Braverman receives, her heritage, politics and sex will all be used by vile trolls and yet here she is speaking up anyway, perhaps we could worry less about what others think and admire her courage.

I agree with others about the remarks on uniforms, I don't think it's helpful or relevant.

The problem is that crossing the boundaries of what girls and boys usually wear when it's boys wearing skirts, has become something rather far removed from just "wearing what we like and doing away with gender roles". And we know what that is. But that's as far as we can go without strikes and monitor visits.

Exactly, I would have "been kind" in the past, but now I think children should be wearing the appropriate clothing for their sex - you give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

So refreshing and almost novel for a politician to talk common sense. Braverman is absolutely correct that under 18's can't have change of sex certificate so therefore should not be allowed to violate single sex spaces. Schools should be charged as acting illegally if they do allow/encourage this to happen. Classmates should not get into trouble for refusing to call a boy/girl by any name not on his birth certificate. Schools should be telling students what happens to a child who transitions with full surgery and how many who do so later regret their decisions and have become infertile as a result. The NHS should never find these surgeries and certainly not the reversal of them as they are purely cosmetic.

I hadn't thought about that aspect of the uniform issue. Interesting point. I've always been of the view that clothing should be de-gendered in order to limit pigeon-holing people (ie, to extend the liberation that came with women being able to wear trousers instead of skirts, and no longer being bound in corsets). Because who gets to decide which sex is allowed to wear which clothes? And on what basis do they decide that?

I absolutely take your points about the other considerations that have crept in over the past few years, that make the specific question of uniforms rather more complicated.

(My preference is to do away with sex-based uniforms entirely, so that all students can select from the same pool of uniform options at any given school, with the goal of ultimately removing any stigma or fetishisation that would otherwise be associated with dressing in 'opposite sex' clothing. But that would certainly seem to be unlikely to happen anytime soon.)

its Depressing to see so many commentators who I agree with on so many other things leap in to say how she’s completely wrong & encouraging schools to break the law 🤦🏻‍♀️

I am pleased to see that Braverman has come out in support of J K Rowling.

Unfortunately Suella Braverman stands out as an embarrassing halfwit among the most incompetent set of government ministers I can ever remember!

Unfortunately Suella Braverman stands out as an embarrassing halfwit among the most incompetent set of government ministers I can ever remember!

Yes that is perfectly true, but in this case she appears to have had some decent advice.

But of course it takes the emphasis away from Partygate and Johnson ripping up the ministerial code.

it takes the emphasis away from Partygate and Johnson ripping up the ministerial code

I think Creasy is doing this! Her interview is much more of a WTF moment for the public.

I am saddened about how it's become a Left Right issue politically.

This is so useful if you having problems with your child's school - clear from the attorney general - brilliantly done Suella Braverman:

"The legal position, she says, is simple. “Under-18s cannot get a gender recognition certificate, under-18s cannot legally change sex. So again in the context of schools I think it’s even clearer actually. A male child who says in a school that they are a trans girl, that they want to be female, is legally still a boy or a male. And they can be treated as such under the law. And schools have a right to treat them as such under the law. They don’t have to say ‘OK, we’re going to let you change your pronoun or let you wear a skirt or call yourself a girl’s name’.

“Equally if they say they’re non-binary they still remain legally, and physically, the sex they were born to. The school doesn’t have to say ‘Actually OK, we’ll take what this child says and we’ll change our systems and service to accommodate this child’. It doesn’t have to do that.”

The Equality Act, she said, contained “very important single-sex exemptions”. Asked whether pupils who are born male should be able to use girls’ lavatories or changing facilities, she said: “I would say to the school that they don’t have to and that they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t allow that child to go into girls’ toilets.
“I think protecting single-sex spaces for biological females and biological males is really important, particularly in schools. There’s no duty on schools to compromise on single-sex spaces. From a safeguarding point of view you can argue that there is a duty on schools to preserve single-sex spaces, and ensure spaces are for biological females. I would extend that to school uniforms personally, I think the law allows schools to do that.”"

I like that she also brings in safe-guarding as well as equality.

What needs to happen now is that schools stop ignoring the government line on sex and gender. There needs to be enforcement. Inspections considering the safe-guarding, even of the 'outstanding' schools that don't get inspected and are frankly more likely to be riddled with gender ideology because of the dippy middle class parents and teachers.

This makes like Labour and the Creasey idiot look like - well, words fail me.

She's wrong. Letting students wear uniform of their choice and be known by preferred names/pronouns isn't an issue.

This is a hugely important intervention. Don't forget that for several years, schools have been relying for their advice about trans-identifying pupils on organisations like the Proud Trust, Stonewall, Allsorts, Educate and Celebrate etc. Numerous local authorities have adopted the Allsorts trans toolkit, which significantly misrepresents the law, telling schools that they must allow boys who identify as female to play sports with girls, use girls' changing rooms etc. These people claim, wrongly, that gender identity is protected under the law.

Braverman has clarified that gender identity is NOT protected under the law and that the protected assignment of gender reassignment does not apply to under-18s. She has said that girls' safety should be protected and that male students should not be allowed to use girls' facilities, regardless of how they identify.

There is no waffling here, no "on the hand this..." or "of course everyone respects the rights of trans pupils..." She has made the legal position absolutely clear.

I don't think you can overstate how important Braverman's statement is.

Describing as “bonkers” the need for two doctors to decide whether someone is a woman or no

Well, it certainly is if they're deciding he's a "woman" because he has gender dysphoria.

So let's scrap the GRA and stop that happening.

But if someone has had their sex incorrectly recorded, and we need the recorded sex corrected, then obviously it would be appropriate for doctors to confirm that.

'heartless unhinged reactionaries' - does it, aye?

What do you mean it isn't an issue @GrammarTeacher ? That it does not happen (because it does, my daughter's school is riddled with it) or that it does happen but you don't care?

And adding to the long list of idiots in the Labour Party. Here's Ben Bradshaw on Suella Braverman's comments :

twitter.com/BenPBradshaw/status/1530429392136044544

I said in another thread that women's rights will disappear if Labour ever get near power. I say this as someone who has voted for Labour often in the past. Never again till there is a complete change of personnel.

Yes. This is massive. Thank you, Suella Braverman.