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!

Working on my reply. Feel sick, every time ai think about it.
Can't discuss with DH, he isn't interested.

It is so difficult. All my sympathy goes out to you.

OP, this is recent from the Sex Matters website. It is related to their Equality Act petition to make clear that the characteristic sex is biological sex you will have seen.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/623243

I thought this new list from Dec Matters might be useful:
10 Reasons why sex means sex in
The Equality Act
1
Everyone is entitled to protection
from sex discrimination
2
Words in legislation should have a
consistent, coherent meaning
3
Groups that "share a protected
characteristic" should be
meaningful
A
Single-sex associations must be
permitted
5
Single-sex schools should be
allowed
6
Single-sex higher education
institutions should be allowed
Single-sex charities should be
allowed
8
The single-sex services exceptions
concern the reality of bodies
9
When a job requires a woman or a
man it is because of their sex
10
Public bodies should consider how
policies impact on women and men
sign the petition
seXmatters

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/23/schools-block-parents-seeing-harmful-sex-education-materials/

Thank you for the link, @Xenia

I don't know whether this has made it onto the boards yet, but the gov recently responded to the petition about making it clear sex is the characteristic regarding single sex spaces. Sex and then room for them to include transgender people if they wish to, but they absolutely do not have to. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/623243?reveal_response=yes#response-threshold

I can see the logic in this but you could get the best of both worlds if you preferred - brief recap/ introduction, then all the bullet points together to act as a sort of executive summary, then a fuller explanation of each bullet point to spell them out in detail and make them harder to wave away through deliberate misinterpretation.

Right, well, here is my third draft, and reply to the DepHead email. I'll post it in the next message, and put the references in a third message. I'm not going to send it immediately, as I suspect it would get "lost" in the chaos of the strikes.

Please let me know what you think, any possible alterations and any typos!

Dear DepHead,

Thank you for your email, dated 26/01/2023.

On the 11th of January, we discussed the No Outsiders posters displayed in school, which show nine attributes or categories of people that are welcome in the school, and who are "equal". Eight of these attributes/categories are the EA 2010 protected characteristics, with their exact wording in law.
The ninth category, which in law is "sex" has been replaced with "gender", which has no current definition in law.

My first concern is that this is at odds with the 2020 Department of Education RSE guidance, which states that outside agencies and resources must be checked by yourselves, to ensure that they comply with the Equality Act 2010. (A)

Please see below for excerpts, references and source links.

My second concern is with the use of No Outsides resources, as this organisation, whilst the subject of an investigation, has been shown to have a political agenda. I would suggest reading the research, hosted by Transgender Trend (B). This investigation highlights the deliberate conflation of sex and gender, as well as Andrew Moffat's involvement as a co-presenter of a paper entitled "Queering the Body: Queering Primary Education". I would suggest that by asking "if we should change the gender bubble in future" (back to sex) the external provider is acknowledging that they are aware the current poster is incorrect.

Schools have a legal duty to remain politically impartial, and must not promote partisan political views, but should offer a balanced presentation of opposing views (C). Are there any resources used in school which highlight the importance, and protected status, of biological sex? I would argue that, as a minimum, there should be posters on display that correctly show the 9 protected characteristics of the Equality Act. Safe School Alliance have produced a free, downloadable copy, as an example of best practice (D). I am aware of schools who have removed the No Outsiders posters, due to parental complaints about their inaccuracy.

It is important that young children are taught to use clear, defined language, to describe themselves and the world around them. Gender is defined by Stonewall as "Often expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity, gender is largely culturally determined and is assumed from the sex assigned at birth." (E). The UK Government states gender is "a social construction relating to behaviours and attributes based on labels of masculinity and femininity" (F) The World Health Organisation definition is that gender is based on socially constructed features. (G)

If children cannot clearly describe their world and body, it places cracks in their safeguarding, especially with the most vunerable children. From your own safeguarding policy, you state that "We give special consideration to children who:

have special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) or health conditions
are young carers
may experience discrimination due to their race, ethnicity, religion, gender identification or sexuality
have English as an additional language (EAL)
are known to be living in difficult situations
are at risk of FGM, sexual exploitation, forced marriage, or radicalisation

By conflating sex and gender, this discriminates against students with SEND and EAL, who have an exceptional requirement for clear and defined language. Likewise, as gender is defined as having a social and cultural determination, the use of gender rather than sex discriminates against students of a different race, culture or ethnicity. It also does not allow for the clear safeguarding of female children at risk of FGM.

Yours,
Veb

References
Dear DepHead,

Thank you for your email, dated 26/01/2023.

On the 11th of January, we discussed the No Outsiders posters displayed in school, which show nine attributes or categories of people that are welcome in the school, and who are "equal". Eight of these attributes/categories are the EA 2010 protected characteristics, with their exact wording in law. The ninth category, which in law is "sex" has been replaced with "gender", which has no current definition in law.

My first concern is that this is at odds with the 2020 Department of Education RSE guidance, which states that outside agencies and resources must be checked by yourselves, to ensure that they comply with the Equality Act 2010. (A)

Please see below for excerpts, references and source links.

My second concern is with the use of No Outsides resources, as this organisation, whilst the subject of an investigation, has been shown to have a political agenda. I would suggest reading the research, hosted by Transgender Trend (B). This investigation highlights the deliberate conflation of sex and gender, as well as Andrew Moffat's involvement as a co-presenter of a paper entitled "Queering the Body: Queering Primary Education". I would suggest that by asking "if we should change the gender bubble in future" (back to sex) the external provider is acknowledging that they are aware the current poster is incorrect.

Schools have a legal duty to remain politically impartial, and must not promote partisan political views, but should offer a balanced presentation of opposing views (C). Are there any resources used in school which highlight the importance, and protected status, of biological sex? I would argue that, as a minimum, there should be posters on display that correctly show the 9 protected characteristics of the Equality Act. Safe School Alliance have produced a free, downloadable copy, as an example of best practice (D). I am aware of schools who have removed the No Outsiders posters, due to parental complaints about their inaccuracy.

It is important that young children are taught to use clear, defined language, to describe themselves and the world around them. Gender is defined by Stonewall as "Often expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity, gender is largely culturally determined and is assumed from the sex assigned at birth." (E). The UK Government states gender is "a social construction relating to behaviours and attributes based on labels of masculinity and femininity" (F) The World Health Organisation definition is that gender is based on socially constructed features. (G)

If children cannot clearly describe their world and body, it places cracks in their safeguarding, especially with the most vunerable children. From your own safeguarding policy, you state that "We give special consideration to children who:

have special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) or health conditions
are young carers
may experience discrimination due to their race, ethnicity, religion, gender identification or sexuality
have English as an additional language (EAL)
are known to be living in difficult situations
are at risk of FGM, sexual exploitation, forced marriage, or radicalisation

By conflating sex and gender, this discriminates against students with SEND and EAL, who have an exceptional requirement for clear and defined language. Likewise, as gender is defined as having a social and cultural determination, the use of gender rather than sex discriminates against students of a different race, culture or ethnicity. It also does not allow for the clear safeguarding of female children at risk of FGM.

Yours,
Veb

References

A.

"When deciding on the external agencies and resources to use, you should make appropriate checks to ensure that the agencies’ approach to teaching relationships education, relationships and sex education and health education and the resources that they plan to use comply with:

the Equality Act 2010"

Source: Department for Education, Guidance; planning your relationship, sex and health education curriculum, September 2020

Link: www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum#using-external-agencies

Last accessed on: 24/01/2023

B.

Source: No Outsiders: Queering the Primary Classroom , Transgender Trend, April 2019

Link: www.transgendertrend.co/no-outsiders-queering-primary-classroom

Last accesed on: 28/01/2023

C.

Source: Department for Education, Guidance; Political impartiality in schools, Februrary 2022

Link: www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools

Last accessed on: 28/01/2023

D.

Source: Safe Schools Alliance, Equality Act Protected Characteristics Poster

Link: safeschoolallianceuk.net/resources-2/factsheets/

Last acessed on: 28/01/2023

E.
Source: List of TGBTQ terms, Stonewall

Link: www.stonewall.org.uk/list-lgbtq-terms

Last accessed on: 30.01.2023

F.
Source: What is the difference between sex and gender? Office for National Statistics, UK Government, Feb 2019

Link: www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/whatisthedifferencebetweensexandgender/2019-02-21

Last accessed on: 30/01/2023

G.
Source: Gender, Health Topics, World Health Organisation

Link: www.who.int/europe/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1

Last accessed on: 30/01/2023

Oh poop, posted the whole message again, rather than just the references!

@Vebrithien I'm of no use in this subject but you may want to use you're bigly scream now!

ARRRRRRGH

Ahem.

Big cake and wine for you, and accidental chocolate it won't delete.

🍫🍰🍷

Sounds like a perfect night in!

I realise the message is a big read, and I will send it after this week's strikes, but what do you think? Is there anything extraneous I can take out? Anything that MUST be in?

I've tried to write fairly dispassionately, and backed up everything I have said with references. Apart from the extraordinary need for SEN and EAL students to have clear and definite language used. But that is evident in normal teaching practice.

It's good. Send it,

That is a calm and well referenced letter and I think you are right to wait until after the current strike action to send it.

I wonder what the Dep H will respond with? And I wonder how much she will be cursing the No Outsiders lot after reading it! I actually feel a teeny bit sorry for her - she probably thought that by talking to the 'experts' she was doing a great thing regarding making the school an inclusive environment (that 'i' word puts my teeth on edge these days, we all know which group they prioritise) but seems to have gone about doing so at the expense of safeguarding and outside of DfE guidelines.

FYI, typo - it is Safe Schools Alliance

Having a good read back through and catch up, OP.

'I think the term sex muddies the issue. '

I think it does the opposite, It's very clear.

'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.'

If they want to teach children about 'gender' then they are going to have to define that, and if he wants to be clear that it's differentiated from sex, then he needs to define both terms and describe the differences.

I personally don't think we should be teaching young kids about such contested, complex terms. People pursue academic careers talking obfuscatory bullshit exploring the term 'gender'.

'Sex' is very simple, though. It seems to me that he is being deliberately coy about something. If he doesn't want children to be giggling or getting confused, then perhaps they are not ready to be learning about these concepts at all? Vague concepts of 'inclusion' don't need to name these terms at all.

'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.'

Ah. And what the everloving fuck does 'reassigning' gender actually mean? He needs to spell this out. It means to try to pursue a different set of stereotypes.

'They fit together – it makes for uncomplicated explanations and conversations further up the school.'

What, when he's going to correct children using 'gender' when they should be using 'sex'? No, that's inconsistent.

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.'

What a lot of self justifying waffle. He knows how to bullshit, that's clear.

No Outsiders is clearly pushing a political agenda. He's accusing 'other people' of doing that, because that's exactly what he's doing.

Your letter is great. I would send it!

As a fellow biology teacher I've read through the thread and I just wanted to say I LOVE this letter it is perfect. Hopefully you can get them to back down but that Deputy Head sounds utterly captured.

Also not to derail but NO's response basically shows they are very aware of their linguistic "sales funnel" from replacing sex with gender, at an earlier age, then making it easier to explain their gender identity woo at a later stage, then at the bottom of the funnel there's "you don't love pink or have big tits so you must be a boy." Which is where they close the deal and the hormones and surgery are sold.

Great letter Veb, you’re right it is long, but no waffle, all clear, well argued and referenced (you could reference the SEND & EAL stuff to the school’s own policies perhaps - I think I remember clarity of language for these groups was in there?)

Not to derail, but (!) I wondered whether AM’s response asking what DepHead thought about the bubble firmly puts the responsibility on the school - if this were to be challenged in court, AM could just say that he’d asked the school to highlight if it was felt to be inappropriate. Maybe not relevant as it’s obviously it’s the school’s responsibility anyway

Okay add in the "s" and look up their SEND and EAL policies

@Vebrithien it's a great letter. Well done.

You need to state clearly what you want to happen and what you will do if it does not happen.

So you want them to remove the poster, correctly display the PCs of tbe EA and severe ties with Moffat on safeguarding grounds. If this does not happen you will escalate to a formal complaint.

Thank you @2fallsfromSSA .

I feel so wobbly about threatening to make a formal complaint. I suppose it feels so final, and, well, threatening!

Can you suggest a way I could phrase this? Should I remove the section about "as a minimum, display a poster that is correct as well".

Should I put the threat at the end of the email?

I understand. It feels like a big move and you don't have to do that at this stage if it makes you uncomfortable. But I would state what you want to happen and do. It give them an easy way out by just removing the poster. You can still go to formal complaint if you do not have a satisfactory response.