Trans guidance for schools - "that British fudge that so often works"

[ResisterRex]

In The Times. Looks like a Cabinet split may open up. It's not clear where the extra space will come from for the gender neutral toilets. And it won't be statutory guidance either:

Ministers seek compromise on transgender advice for schools

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/006ef0b0-4818-11ed-8558-9a2089c4aed0?shareToken=6b7644896a593dcb3760a4516b1200ec

"A senior government source said: “This never used to be such a divisive issue: people just accepted trans people and got on with it. It only became an issue once the activists got involved and polarised people. We need to get back to that British fudge that so often works.” They added: “In schools we need to find a compromise that works for all pupils, whether that’s having gender-neutral toilets as well or something else.”"

Maybe if there's a problem with bullying that's hard to police in changing rooms this might sometimes be a pragmatic approach- but it should be in the correct sex changing room. I'd take a guess it wouldn't often be a problem for the girls.

There speaks a lobby group captured politician / DfE person “This never used to be such a divisive issue: people just accepted trans people and got on with it".

We're talking about children who we safeguard and restrict from doing so many age inappropriate things. It never stops does it? And these fools have stood by while countless unsuitable adults and groups gaslight children into all this. What a mess.

And yes - we need to write to our MPs today!

We are incensed. This whole approach is being framed as the need to avoid a "culture war" and a"political football" when the approach should be based on safeguarding. And that means safeguarding of ALL children. Frankly anything that talks about "trans children" rather than children with dysphoria or distress is already problematic. There can be no compromise where safeguarding is concerned. And some of the suggestions are frankly unworkable from a practical point of view. How on earth does it make any sense for a boy to use the girls changing rooms before the girls get to use them. Whose lesson time is that going to eat into?

Schools need clear guidance and the DfE needs to ensure their own rules about teaching about gender ideology are adhered to. The problem of course is the extent of the capture runs through the whole civil service.

And after the week's revelations about Mermaids you would think they would be treading a safeguarding line.

People need to write to their MPs - article from SSA here, before this article was published: safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2022/09/25/dfe-trans-guidance/

I'm hoping Mole at the door makes a meme with a finger of fudge telling them to fuck off.

If you have a Labour MP, what do you do? Write to Kit Malthouse directly? Is there any point writing to Labour MPs on this issue?

This doesn’t sound too bad? The quote is stupid, but isn’t this one of those cases where people who don’t understand this issue propose a “compromise” that GC people have been advocating for all along?

How on earth does it make any sense for a boy to use the girls changing rooms before the girls get to use them. Whose lesson time is that going to eat into?

Yes, that's going to be a massive issue. School timetables are so tight now, there's enormous pressure. I can also foresee issues with refusals to do so etc.

Girls deserve a full lesson of pe given how hard it is to encourage them to continue sports.

Suggested compromises are eating into disability rights and the rights of girls' access to a full education.

It's going backwards.

I also don't understand why the boy changes in the girl's changing rooms to then go and play pe with the boys.

It's also sets the prescient for that male to access all female spaces outside school.

A senior government source said: “This never used to be such a divisive issue: people just accepted trans people and got on with it. It only became an issue once the activists got involved and polarised people. The Tory government themselves have been pretty polarising on this issue, they have tried to pretend they care about women's rights by winding things up on gender without actually doing anything to resolve the clear issues.

Maybe this perpetually useless Tory government should set out a sensible position and actually govern rather than just spouting placatory soundbites?

We looked at a high school last Thursday. Newly built, very flashy, naice middle class area of otherwise less fancy city.
My daughter took one look at the ground floor loos (mixed sex, fully glass window wall, like a shop front, from corridor to cubicles) and asked if we could just leave.

We were there ten mins tops.

must remember to email them and explain why.

How on earth does it make any sense for a boy to use the girls changing rooms before the girls get to use them. Whose lesson time is that going to eat into?

and where are the girls supposed to wait? In the corridor outside the changing room? Schools don’t tend to like big groups of students in the corridors during lesson time.

Write to both. It is always worth writing to your local MP but if they are an opposition member then also write to either your local party association for the governing party or the relevant cabinet member.

You can write to local councillors too. For Labour and Lib Dems party policy is (to some extent, more in LDs) set by members. Tories don't vote on policy directly (because their members are basically ) but the local party does have input so worth bending their ears.

I usually just write to everyone! Then see what comes back.

This never used to be such a divisive issue: people just accepted trans people and got on with it. It only became an issue once the activists got involved and polarised people. We need to get back to that British fudge that so often works.

As always, there's the elision here where people just accepted* trans(sexual) people, but now we're expected to accept trans(gender) people, which isn't the same thing as we know.

*I don't think it's that simple.

Perhaps a cost-free solution would be to turn staff toilets into gender neutral??

Just flagging up that one thing that hasn't been mentioned is sleeping accommodation on school trips.

Our local council has guidance which tells schools that they must facilitate children, on request, to access opposite sex changing facilities, toilets and sports and sleeping accommodation, implying that it would fall foul of equality law not to do so. (This of course isn't true.)

Remember we're not just talking about dormitories here - school trips for older children often stay in hotel rooms in twos and threes. And schools are being told they must facilitate mixed sex sleeping accommodation.

So I really welcome the fact that actual possible solutions like 'change first' or 'additional toilets' are being discussed (along with the practical challenges of such 'fudges' which of course will be different in different schools, according to layout, population etc). They're a step forward from a baseline of 'You must behave as if children have actually changed sex from the moment they speak the special words.'

And yes, do write to your MP and your local council about this.

I recently finally got a meeting with my representative on this issue after over a year of emailing. Seems like all my emails had somehow got 'lost in the system', and had finally been found... So, feels like a tiny chink of receptiveness might be opening up and a good time to contact representatives. (Especially if, like me, you've already been emailing into the void for some time.)

Why can't the gender confused boy change in the boy's changing room while the boys wait for him to finish? Eat into the boys' PE time, not the girls". That will give boys a lesson in tolerance of other boys who may not share their hyper masculine traits, and help males to accept that the bandwidth of "male" is a wide one, and all should be welcome within it.

Bayswater Support Group thread:

twitter.com/bayswatersg/status/1579388117538439169?s=46&t=X8e9T6RPgEUZa6l1Ce_PFQ

I had a look to see what Stonewall said (nothing), Gendered Intelligence (nothing), GIRES (nothing), LGBT Foundation (nothing).

I get very irritated with the constant references to culture wars, when this is first and foremost a safeguarding issue.

I think it's fine for children to wear whatever uniform they want. When you think about it, it's pretty odd in 2022 to be having different uniforms for boys and girls.

Sports should remain segregated by sex, as should changing rooms and toilets. If schools have enough space to create a single-cubicle unisex toilet, on top of a disabled toilet, then so be it, but creating a multiple-cubicle unisex toilet has obvious problems.

As for changing rooms, they need to remain segregated by sex too. If a trans-identifying child can't face sharing changing space with other pupils of the same sex, then perhaps letting them get change after everyone else has finished would work, though I foresee problems if you have a lot of pupils identifying as trans or non-binary in the school. I think some schools have allowed trans-identifying pupils to use the staff changing rooms, which is another possible solution, though less than ideal.

EXCELLENT thread from bayswater.
Posting their iceberg image as it is so concise. Visuals are so helpful and we all understand the iceberg analogy.

Sorry. Better version

perhaps letting them get change after everyone else has finished would work,

I don’t think potentially autogynephilic boys should be allowed in the girls’ changing room while either girls are in there or while girls’ clothes are in there. (Anyone who thinks this is too harsh should spend a while reading the MTF subreddit to observe the general attitude to women’s and girls’ possessions.) It’s distasteful to talk about, because it’s taboo to acknowledge the fetish driving many cases of MTF transition, but if no third space is available, trans pupils should be in the correct sex changing room before/after the others.

We need to get back to that British fudge that so often works

Name a British fudge that has WORKED in the last 5 years.

We've had plenty of attempts but crucially none have worked.

Fudges only work if you really really understand the nature of a problem and what the nature of dispute is.

The fudge solution is of course mixed sex facilities in addition to, not instead of single sex ones. They must be well sign posted.

It also doesn't mean access to single sex services.

The fudge is exactly what the trans lobby won't compromise on and call transphobic and dehumanising too. Because it doesn't validate.

Won't work.