Single sex schools will be able to refuse trans pupils - Daily Telegraph

[flyingbuttress43]

This was the front page lead in this morning's print edition. Apologies if this is a thread already but I can't see it.

[[//www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/17/single-sex-schools-can-reject-transgender-pupils/]]

Government guidelines to be issued "within weeks" according to the DT will allow head teachers of girls and boys schools to reject applications from pupils who identify as the opposite gender. School leaders will also be told they can refuse to use different pronouns if they are demanded by a pupil.

Apparently the guidance will come after school leaders and governors met lawyers to discuss fears that they could be at risk of discrimination claims from the parents of trans-identified pupils if they refused to accommodate them. Schools will be reassured they would not be breaching the Equality Act
2010 if they did so.

The DT says the guidance is being drawn up by Edication Secretary Gillian Keegan and the equalities minister Kemi Badenoch and is intended to provide clarity amid the dramatic increase in the number of pupils saying they are trans.

Thank goodness! Finally some sense. Single sex schools should be exactly that - single sex.

This is great news!

Co-eds like the majority of pupils in the UK?

Or are trans kids so special they must have single sex schools only?

How ridiculous
Nice try with the implication of a camp being a necessary alternative. Good effort.

Well if trans kids went to single sex schools, those toilets would be mixed sex too so there's no difference there with the mixed sex toilets in the co-ed schools.

Same place as all the vegan cats, I'm guessing?

In all seriousness, schools do need guidance on how to accommodate trans kids, without the risk of indoctrination of any other gay/ autistic/ traumatised/ vaguely non-conforming or just desperate-to-fit-in kid.

They've not got it right so far because the lobbyists have massively complicated matters with the false suicide statistics, language obfuscation and forced teaming with LGBT(ransexual) issues.

But any school which can successfully educate Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses and atheists under the same roof can also accommodate boys and boys whose families believe in gender ideology/ girls and girls whose families believe in gender ideology.

Also, AS IF a lone boy in a girls secondary (or vice versa) by stealth without the parents' consent is gonna go smoothly. Only an utter fantasist could support this. And how cruel, to close off all potential avenues for the child to come to accept their own body.

Adults who have reassignment surgery often come from abusive, homophobic, sexist childhoods. This is never hidden in biographies. How about we make society less abusive, homophobic and sexist? How about when we meet a trans child we look at their environment and see what's actually going on before indoctrinating them into a belief system which teaches them to hate their one body and believe that reality is offensive and people who believe in reality want them dead?

Agreed.

Think how vulnerable a lone female would be in a boys' school with only boys' facilities. The risk assessment would be a nightmare.

I guess they will be forced to mixed co-ed schools, and take their chances in the toilets

i assume that even you are embarrassed at this try at an argument

theres only something like 6% of single sex schools in the uk…..where do you think the majority of trans children go to school

Good to see respect for other protected characteristics being enshrined in guidance and hopefully the muting of all the dodgy adults arguing that girls have no rights to privacy and must be coerced to undress in front of random males. No place for these anti safeguarding views in schools - shameful they've ever been given a voice.

@flyingbuttress43 existing thread here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4787403-single-sex-schools-can-reject-transgender-pupils

In the grand scheme of things, I'm not sure that this is actually a win.

At the moment, a girls school can refuse to admit a MTF trans child, if they want to. Alternatively, they can also choose to admit that child (the Equality Act specifically provides for this). The action that the school could possible face if refusing to admit the MTF trans child is one of indirect discrimination (ie, their policy of not admitting a MTF trans child, even though they could, puts trans children at a particular disadvantage, and can't be reasonably justified).

The Good Law Project got some legal advice on school admissions a while back, and this was highlighted as a potential claim that the MTC trans child could bring.

BUT

The principle of a school choosing not to take advantage of its legal ability to admit that child, is exactly the same as a service provider choosing not to take advantage of its legal ability to provide single sex spaces. In either case there is an indirect discrimination case to be made.

And the potential for indirect discrimination claims there is a really important weapon for women fighting for single sex spaces. It's the basis of Sarah Summer's claim against the rape crisis centre that refused to provide a single sex space, even though they legally could. It's the only tool that women may currently have to force service providers to actually provide single sex spaces.

So anything that interferes with the potential for indirect discrimination claims for non-utiliziation of a legal power should be approached very cautiously.

How would a MTF child be disadvantaged by not being allowed to go to one particular school? Surely the school could argue making the school mixed sex would disadvantage the girls already there, especially if they were Muslim or Jewish?

Here's a marvellous response to the leaked proposals from Transgender Trend making clear the demands from political activists versus the needs, rights and safety of ALL children::
https://www.transgendertrend.com/gender-affirmative-model-social-transition-schools/

And a reminder to all those people repeatedly seeing children as mini adults and ignoring the massive harm all this is doing to children's psychological development and in some cases their physical wellbeing:

"The groups of children most likely to be on this pathway are adolescent girls, autistic children, gay and lesbian adolescents, children in the care system and those with mental health problems. Unquestioning affirmation of these most vulnerable groups is negligence"

What a heartrending picture you paint, Mishy.

Because the school does have the legal power to admit occasional pupils of the opposite sex and remain, officially, a single sex school. This is specifically set out in the Equality Act. If a girls school is not using that power, MTF children as a group will be disadvantaged because they cannot attend their choice of school.

Yes, the argument about the disadvantage the girls would face would be the school's response to the claim, as part of the "is the policy objectively justifiable" stage. At this stage it's all theoretical, as a claim has never been made. I do wonder if the Good Law Project spent some time looking for a trans child who had been rejected from a single sex school, but then decided that actually they were running the risk of supporting claims like Sarah Summer's, and let it lie.

Because the school does have the legal power to admit occasional pupils of the opposite sex and remain, officially, a single sex school. This is specifically set out in the Equality Act.

Would you mind posting a link to the section of the EA that sets this out?

Many thanks

If a girls school is not using that power, MTF children as a group will be disadvantaged because they cannot attend their choice of school

I am not aware anyone has the legal right to their choice of school.

How can it admit pupils of the opposite sex and still remain single sex? That makes no sense. @

Schedule 11 paragraph 3.

I work in a single sex girls school. We have a number of trans students (f identifying as m) and there are no problems / bullying - students are just very accepting and supportive of each other.

I can’t read the telegraph article due to the pay wall but I hope that what it is being proposed will allow this situation to continue.

Also as a child cannot have a GRC, gender reassignment protected characteristics would not apply, whereas the school could lawfully argue for staying single sex due to the protected characteristics of sex. The MTF child could not claim discrimination on basis of sex, as no males are allowed into the school.

Because that's what the law allows for. A girls school can admit the odd boy (eg, the child of a teacher, if they are normally given priority under the admissions criteria), but can still have an admissions policy that, in non-exceptional circumstances, does not allow boys.

Ah...so you DON'T want mixed sex loos after all then? Interesting.

Outside of the chalet school and other fictional schools, that would not happen. Teachers don’t usually bring their children to work. That’s not how life works.

The gender reassignment protected characteristic does not require a GRC. It's a very low threshold.

The claim wouldn't be for sex discrimination, it would be for indirect discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment.