Observer article: Pronouns, loos and uniforms: how schools became the gender wars frontline

[RoyalCorgi]

Reasonably balanced take:

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/aug/20/pronouns-loos-and-uniforms-how-schools-became-the-gender-wars-frontline

Amazing quote from the headteacher though.

"The reality is our unisex loos feel safe.” Followed immediately by 'The pupils have come up with their own solution to aid privacy. The boys come in and turn right, and the girls turn left. Girls were worried about boys putting cameraphones under the door, so the doors don’t have gaps that make that possible'.

So the pupils are self-segregating into single-sex toilet areas. And the school has put extra security measures in place to protect girls from sexual predation.

I agree, Wildish. It is a remarkable quote. He's essentially contradicting himself.

they feel safe (to the headteacher?) I mean are we supposed to believe that the younger girls would tell him (tell anyone) if they didn't feel safe...

Dear god. The pupils are telling you with their actions that they want more privacy. They’re telling you they are afraid of being filmed while they are UNDRESSED (and that film could presumably be shared and put online for evermore) which is quite serious. They’re presumably worried about the next step which is fully unisex changing rooms and showers. They’ve clearly felt unhappy enough to speak up against authority which is quite hard for a child. And the best you can offer is it ‘feels’ safe. Probably be fine. What a dick.

Esther Maxwell, legal director at Shakespeare Martineau law firm, who advises schools on issues around transgender, says the law in this area is complex and Braverman hasn’t really clarified the situation for schools.

“There are some question marks over some of the comments she made and the interpretation of the Equality Act,” she said. “It is hard to think what the legitimate aim of a mixed school having a blanket policy of not agreeing to allow trans pupils to be referred to by a different pronoun or name could be,” she added.

[...]

Some months later the school started to send communications home referring to [a parent's] son with a boy’s name she had no idea they were using in school. “They didn’t ask us about this. We have to sign a form for a kid to go on a theatre trip or to be given a paracetamol, but this happened with no discussion with me,” she said.

The whole name and pronoun aspect of Braverman's intervention was in the context of there being a need for input from medical practitioners and parents before schools started down the route of unilaterally affirming a pupil's new "gender identity". In light of the Cass interim report, that makes total sense - affirmation is not a neutral or low-risk position. If there is any lack of clarity about any of this it needs urgently sorting out.

And yes, the pupils' approach to the gender-neutral facilities shows a much more mature and sensible approach to the issue than that of the adults supposedly responsible for safeguarding them!

On reflection, I was over-generous in saying it was a balanced piece. She does have a couple of comments later in the piece from a concerned parent and a gc pressure group (though not Safe Schools Alliance, unfortunately).

She hasn't really understood the issue. She hasn't understood that this is about schools acting as a pipeline for GIDS and later medical intervention by uncritically accepting social transition and peddling untruths about everyone having an inner gender identity. She also fails to challenge Passmore on his claims that unisex toilets were working better than single-sex ones - clearly if the boys are turning right and the girls left, the pupils are creating their own single-sex spaces. All you need is for a boy to turn left to sabotage the whole thing.

If I was a head I'd also be worried that my female pupils were so distrusting of the boys that they thought the boys would be putting cameras under the door. You can address that problem by making the doors floor-to-ceiling - but what about the bigger problem, which is that girls feel sexually intimidated by the boys in the school?

I think this is going to be typical from Heads/Education leaders going forward - they’ve going to take the “nothing to se here” position and deny there’s any sort of problem at all. Some will be coming from an ideological position, some from a political (ie it’s coming from the Tories so must be wrong) and others from a trapped in their professional bubble position.

I would have hated, hated, hated to have to share a toilet with boys as a teenager. Poor kids. Are the staff toilets also unisex?

Bet they're bloody not. Someone should ask.

Incidentally, I've no time for Braverman on most issues, but I thought she was pretty clear on this unless you didn't like what she was saying.