Please help! Gender not sex on a school 'protected characteristics' poster, just spoken to the Head!

[Vebrithien]

Good morning,

I started this thread before Christmas

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4684558-today-i-found-my-bravery?page=1

The overview is that my DD's primary school is displaying posters by No Outsiders, which are supposed to show the 9 protected characteristics, but shows gender, not sex.

The (male) deputy head I mentioned it to, before Christmas, has not got back to me. The posters are still there.

I summoned up my courage this morning, and spoke to the Headteacher. She seemed surprised, as I said I'd already mentioned it to one deputy head, and that I'd picked up on it due to my school expecting Ofsted, and reissuing our equality training.

The Head said that it was surprising, as No Outsiders were an organisation whose specialism was equalities.

I replied that the EA2010 says sex, not gender. I also mentioned that there were some concerning resources produced by them, including an assembly where a dad wants to offer violence to children who do not accept his trans child. (I know no more than this)

The Head is going to talk to her other deputy head, whose responsibility this is, and to try to put us in contact.

Where do I do from here?

Can any one help me with evidence? What particularly is dodgy about No Outsiders?

Is there anything that states that schools mustn't misrepresent the EA?

Is there any DofE (or whatever it's called now) guidance for schools on the resources they used or how they represent the EA?

And, how should I go about finding out if the school uses other No Outsiders resources?

Please help, I want as much evidence as I can.

Still shaking with adrenaline from speaking to the Head!

Thank you!

Didn't notice that typo, glad to have corrected it now.

Well done Vebrithian and please keep going. Women and girls are important. The law is important. The work you are doing is important. I hope you are feeling better soon 💐

@Vebrithien Good letter, and honestly if you still get no joy you just know you are going to be sending @SinnerBoy version from up thread.

Hope you get some response from them. Failing that I'd go armed with a black marker and actually correct any posters you see as you walk the corridor to correct your child.

Draft 2 looks good to me (with that typo fixed).

@Vebrithien I think your 2nd draft looks very good. Sending you support.

Thank you, all.

I'm struggling to find an email address.

We usually use Class Dojo, to communicate with staff. I can message the DepHead via this, however the messages disappear at the end of the academic year.

The only email address I can currently find, is for the school office. I'm not keen on sending the full email to the general school office email address.

I can make an educated guess at the DepHead's email, but again, this is a risk.

Email the office, asking for her email address? They are almost certainly going to say that I should message her on Class Dojo.

(as an aside, this is the photo I posted on my other thread. I marked the sign put up on the ladies toilet, in the school I teach in)

What a good sign.

Ask the office in case, explain the other one won’t do,
otherwise,
Send a letter by recorded delivery?

Great letter, Verbrithien, I hope you get a favourable response.

Just had a thought. Many people are coy about saying the word "sex", and so "gender" became a polite, but inaccurate, substitute. Do your likely readers know this? Might be confusing otherwise.

I recently had a similar situation. I emailed as follows:

Your policy headline "You should not exclude anyone on the grounds of race, colour, ethnic or national origin, religious belief, gender, marital status, sexual
orientation, age or disability" appears not to include Sex, which is an important protected characteristic.

"Gender" is not in fact a protected characteristic, but "Gender reassignment" is.

So your policy statement should say
" You should not exclude anyone on the grounds of sex, race, colour, ethnic or national origin, religious belief, gender reassignment, marital status, sexual
orientation, age or disability."

If in doubt, can I suggest you consult a suitably qualified lawyer?

It did the trick. Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic in law, so you cannot argue against its inclusion unfortunately.

The problem is that in this case the deputy head infuriatingly tried to argue that the No Outsiders poster is not the Equality Act per se, just a poster to foster inclusivity. (n.b. It does say “No one is the same, but everyone is equal.”

I know.
That's why I put "equal" in my draft.

Surely it's disingenuous to say "no, no, not the Equality Act 9 protected characteristics", where the poster has 9 categories, 8 of which are directly lifted from the Equality Act, and the poster states these people are all equal?

Arrrrrrgggghh!

I'm in work today, it's going to be a busy one.

I've still had no joy in getting an email address. Did wonder about asking the school office to pass on my email address.

Otherwise, I could send the message on Class Dojo and send a physical letter as well.

How frustrating!

Would it be possible to either check your hunch about the email address verbally with the office if you haven't tried this already, or hand deliver a letter marked private and confidential to the office and follow up with an email to the office email address FAO DepH to check receipt?

NancyDrawed · Today 07:18

Would it be possible to either check your hunch about the email address verbally with the office if you haven't tried this already, or hand deliver a letter marked private and confidential to the office and follow up with an email to the office email address FAO DepH to check receipt?

A registered letter would probably be better, as there's a secure paper trail to follow and they can't deny that it's been delivered.

Registered letter would be the best in terms of a paper trail, I agree, but is probably more hassle than handing something in to the office.

It seems mad to have to go to such lengths just to have the conversation!

Although to be fair, the schools my children attend don't/didn't make staff emails widely available to parents, I assume to avoid staff being bombarded. Other local schools welcome emails direct to staff

Surely it's disingenuous to say "no, no, not the Equality Act 9 protected characteristics", where the poster has 9 categories, 8 of which are directly lifted from the Equality Act, and the poster states these people are all equal?

It is disingenuous. Especially as the deputy head also told you gender meant sex, thereby implying the poster does show the 9 characteristics of the EA.

She was contradicting herself.

The DoE says the EA should be taught.
Therefore anyone would think this poster is up for that purpose, seeing as it mimics it in all but one characteristic.

If she is right and it isn’t really the EA, then it should be taken down for being misleading to children about the EA.

This is all thinking out loud though. Your letter is better than trying to tell her all this.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

The DepHead has emailed me.

She can contacted No Outsiders, and has forwarded the email to me.

I will copy below, in the next few messages.

It's entrenched. But at least I have her email address.

DepHead email to me

Dear Veb,

Apologies for the delay in getting this to you.

I have contacted the company that has supplied us with the No Outsiders poster.

I have copied parts of our communication for your information - I hope that answers your queries.

We have discussed this further with SLT and they are all now aware of the reasons for the changes in language that you queried.

Any further questions or if you'd like to discuss this further please do not hesitate to contact me again.

Many thanks for your time and support,

DepHead

DepHead message to No Outsiders

Hello,

We proudly have the No Outsiders plaques and the posters around our federation of two schools.

A parent has commented that one of the pictures says 'gender' rather than 'sex' and all of the other 8 words are identical to the protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010.

Can you help me to explain this to them?

I have said that the poster doesn't actually say these are protected characteristics or mention the law but is more of a 'all are welcome here' showing our inclusive and diversity ethos and culture.

The parent is actually a secondary teacher and is expecting Ofsted any moment and was being helpful rather than critical that 'gender' might be political and all the latest guidance and statutory information is that it should be 'sex' rather than 'gender'.

We also had a discussion as SLT around the 'gender reassignment' characteristic and that it was our understanding that this had increased with more recent legal cases to include gender expression and gender identity. We also wondered whether the word 'sex' has other connotations and the main audience in schools for the posters is children.

I would be very grateful for any response so I can communicate this with the parent and any other visitors!

Many thanks for your support and help with this.

No Outsiders message to the DepHead

Hi,

I do use the term gender rather than sex in primary schools. This is for two reasons:

I think the term sex muddies the issue. It means something else and young children can read it and think it’s funny. I also don’t want Y2 children going home saying “We learned about sex today” when they actually really talked about gender.
I think gender as a term is useful when you later talk about gender reassignment. You have your gender but then you can also reassign your gender. They fit together – it makes for uncomplicated explanations and conversations further up the school.

For this reason I am clear that the poster is not an Equality Act poster and it doesn’t mention the equality act on there. If we’re talking specifically about the Equality Act with older children and they use the term sex, I will correct them, but I think it is the concept behind the language for younger children that is more important – all different, all equal. The aim of the poster is to make clear and accessible for children all the ways we are different and all the ways we are accepted.

We sell hundreds of these posters and I am often re-ordering them from the printers. Every time I re-order I do consider changing the gender bubble to a sex bubble. But the more I think about it, I always conclude that when I teach children, and they list the ways we are all different, what words do they use? I have never heard a child use the term “sex” to describe boys and girls. Children in my school tend to say “you can be a different religion, different race, boys and girls, LGBT” In the end I don’t think it matters. Some people are definitely trying to make it a political issue, I just want children to know that there are boys and girls and everyone is equal.

I hope that helps. I’m interested if you think we should change the gender bubble in the future. Let me know your thoughts, eager to discuss.

Great to hear that no outsiders is going so well in your school.

Hi OP,

Today I was doing online mandatory training on the equality act for the Local Authority that I work for. It listed gender and not sex as a protected characteristic .

Inspired by you ( and the many others on this forum) I emailed the appropriate people pointing out this error . Wonderfully within 10 minutes I had a reply acknowledging their mistake and reassuring me that they would correct it. This will ensure that thousands of La workers are now correctly informed.

Together we can do it!!!

This and all the talking in the news today about men not being allowed in women's prisons makes it feels like a good day!

That is a shame. They are saying they change the law in a sense - that they don't like the word in the law when used for primary pupils.
If they just used a few of the characteristics then fair enough if they leave sex out but instead they use all of them except that one.

I agree with the letter that we are trying to show there are boys and girls and everyone is equal but that probably means using "sex" is better anyway than gender as there seem to be hundreds of supposed genders which is far too confusing for small children.

I could have understood a comment back that the word sex makes children snigger and parents get cross to they avoid it on those grounds but even then I feel it is wrong to list characteristics in other categories correctly but not this one

If we’re talking specifically about the Equality Act with older children and they use the term sex, I will correct them

Er, what?

Also the idea that primary school children would use a phrase like gender reassignment is laughable. If they need to have sex “simplified” to gender, then surely gender reassignment would be something more like “change gender.”

Blatant fob off.