Asking school about gender policies

[CornflakesOnTheSolesOfHerShoes]

DD is due to start secondary school next year. We live semi-rurally and have effectively no choice of school. We’ve visited the default option and it looks great, we’re all very happy with it, but I am nervous about the gender identity aspect. I know one family who chose the school for their daughter, who began identifying as male in primary school, over local private options because they felt it was more supportive of the situation, and I spotted at least one boy presenting as a girl on the visit. Obviously I don’t want the school to make these students’ lives any more difficult than they are already, but I do want to ask for reassurance that they take the safeguarding of female students safely, and provide fully single sex toilets/accommodation on trips etc. My nervousness is whether, if I ask this now, I risk branding DD as the daughter of a troublemaking bigot before she’s even started. What would you do?

Well done for being concerned OP - parents really are having to step up now to ensure safeguarding is prioritised.
First go online to the school's website - can you see Stonewall, Mermaids (shudder) GIRES, Gendered Intelligence affiliations? If so, then you may have a problem.
Look at the following policies:
Equalities,
Safeguarding,
Pastoral care,
Anti Bullying
Sex Relationship sEducation

Is the language correct - sex rather than gender, accurate protected characteristics. Then check that all these policies are relevant to all children, eg race, SEN, disability etc being prioritised as much as "gender reassignment" .

Look to see whether there's lots of mention of "trans" / non binary etc. If there's loads of it then the school may be involved in spreading social contagion and gaslighting children. If it's proportionate to other issues and there's no sign up to the dodgy lobby groups, likely it will be fine.
When you visit the school look at the displays and check they're learning / behaviour / wellbeing focused and that social justice issues are in proportion to the school's purpose.

All this is off the top of my head before coffee but doing your own research first is really useful .

Visit Safe Schools Alliance. They have some great resources including Factsheets and letters to help you write to them. At this stage if I was you I would look at their policies Equality, Bullying. Check they are not misrepresenting the protected characteristics of the a Equality Act 2010. It is common for them to remove sex and replace with gender which is incorrect. See Factsheet 13
safeschoolsallianceuk.net/resources-2/factsheets/

Next what is the toilet and changing room situation. They should be single sex which means biological females or males. Ask if males (boys) who identify as girls can use the female (girls) facilities.

Then you need a deep dive into their RSE and PHSE resources. What outside agencies do they use? Transgender Trend have some great resources on this.
www.transgendertrend.com/
You can search their blog for providers such as Jigsaw and Bish.

Your email can be business like and unemotive and if they don't respond in 2 weeks (check the school complaints procedure) then put the same letter in as a complaint. I always copy in Safe Schools Alliance and Transgender Trend emails.

This is a fairly new site that by teachers for teachers
teachersguidetosexandgender.org/
May be helpful too.

Brilliant, thanks both. No Stonewall or Mermaids, thank god, but they do have a “Rainbow Flag Award”. And a flyer I picked up for the Feminist society made a point of saying it was open to “all gender identities”. All the loos I could see at the open day were single sex. I hate that I’m having to overthink this to such an extent but I find the whole thing so worrying.