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.

Schedule 11 states "exceptional". MTF "as a group" would certainly not be exceptional. It would make a school mixed sex. It's not there to facilitate "choices" en masse and ruin single sex provision.

How so? That would only work If the protected characteristic of gender reassignment was seen to trump that of sex? If a school excludes all males, citing the PC of sex, that includes males of all gender presentations.

The latest census said that trans people were 0.5% of the population. And I'd be very surprised if any single sex schools currently have a trans population of more that a couple of people, max. Sounds pretty exceptional to me.

So you believe the right of a male to access a place designated as for the other sex would trump that of females to keep that place single sex? Why?

So an indirect discrimination claim needs to show a few different things - there needs to be a policy, that policy must disadvantage people with a particular protected characteristic, and the policy must not be objectively justifiable. The balancing of the girls' needs against the trans pupil's needs would be part of assessing if it is objectively justifiable. Up to the court to decide.

But circling back to my original point - if we get to a place where the government removes the trans child's ability to bring an indirect discrimination claim, then there is a related risk that women like Sarah Summer will not be able to bring a claim, as the basis of the action is the same. The government would have to carefully consider the best course of action, which it isn't really known for doing.

That's quite an extrapolation from "0.5% is small".

but the school is already protected by a PC, that of sex. For the child to bring a claim, he would have to,argue that his desire for access to that school would be of more import that that of the girls desire for single sex education. Your argument only stands if you ignore the PC of sex. He would also have to prove that the school discriminated against him by dint of his gender identity and not his sex….

I'm a teeny-weeny disappointed at this decision because I harboured a hope that one day a girl would claim to identify as a boy and apply for Eton, Harrow, Winchester or other top public school. It was always unlikely, but I'd have enjoyed seeing that play out in the courts. Now it never will.

In practice, of course, most parents of girls, even those identifying as trans boys, would be horrified at the thought of sending them to an all-boys school and using the boys' facilities - toilets, dorms and changing rooms. The risk to the girl (sorry, trans boy) would be huge.

If there is any demand from trans-identifying children to be admitted to single-sex schools, I imagine it's all coming from the other direction - male children wanting to be admitted to girls' schools.

The latest census said that trans people were 0.5% of the population. And I'd be very surprised if any single sex schools currently have a trans population of more that a couple of people, max. Sounds pretty exceptional to me.

You'd need to look at the percentage of SCHOOL age population. And prepare to be surprised - loads of trans identifying kids in single sex schools - loads!

One penis in a biologically female changing room is one too many. @RoyalCorgi Wouldn't you you rather your daughter was the Governor of the Bank of England? Surely that's the way to put old Etonian noses out.

I'm pretty sure pulling at the clusterfuck that was the gender woo census question census thread won't end well, but crack on! 😆

It is. I just really really want to expose the hypocrisy of all this. The positions of power in this country are largely occupied by men who attended the great public schools. Those schools are allowed to discriminate against girls with impunity. And yet girls and women are constantly being told to budge up and make room for men identifying as women - in sport, in changing rooms, in refuges, in women-only shortlists etc. Just once it would have been satisfying to see the people who sanctimoniously argue that TWAW explain why, actually, girls who identify as boys shouldn't be allowed in boys' schools. Because this entire fucking movement is about men hanging on to male power and privilege and excluding women.

I agree. It makes no sense at all.

I'm struggling to understand the argument about indirect discrimination re gender reassignment in single sex schools.

I thought the Equality Act allows for discrimination on protected characteristics where its a proportionate means to a legitimate aim- that's how we can have single sex spaces at all, isn't it?The usual argument tends to be around who counts as a woman for the purposes of the Act, not whether the Act allows this at all - I thought that was clearly established? (Hence the petition to clarify that sex means natal sex not self identified / GRC 'sex').

Surely keeping an established single sex school as single sex is a legitimate aim? If not, then there is no basis in law for single sex spaces ?

The example of 'indirect discrimination' of a MtoF child not being admitted to a girls school doesn't hold up, because a natal girl who has undergone gender reassignment would be allowed to attend, therefore it's not discrimination due to gender assignment but to sex?

Wouldn't it be the same if a, for example, Jewish boy was excluded then tried to claim it was discrimination on the PC of belief/ religion, because of being Jewish? Clearly, that is not the reason, because Jewish girls would be admitted.

The Equality Act exceptions for the PC of Sex, should never have been ‘exceptions’ that had to be justified (potentially in a court of law).

They should have been clear legal rights in the first place.

Surely keeping an established single sex school as single sex is a legitimate aim? If not, then there is no basis in law for single sex spaces ?

I'd have thought the same reasoning applies to faith based schools. But I don't see the TQ+ lobby pushing and pushing at the law to try and undermine those. I don't wonder why.

I'm struggling to understand the argument about indirect discrimination re gender reassignment in single sex schools.

I thought the Equality Act allows for discrimination on protected characteristics where its aproportionate means to a legitimate aim- that's how we can have single sex spaces at all, isn't it?The usual argument tends to be around who counts as a woman for the purposes of the Act, not whether the Act allows this at all - I thought that was clearly established? (Hence the petition to clarify that sex means natal sex not self identified / GRC 'sex').

Yes, that's right. That's what allows a school to apply a single sex policy. In addition, there is a separate section of the EA that allows a single sex school to admit a small number of boys in exceptional circumstances and still be able to operate a single sex admissions policy. If this ability wasn't there, the only options for a school would be wholly co-ed, or never allowed to admit an occasional boy for exceptional reasons. The EA has been specifically drafted to give schools that flexibility.

The example of 'indirect discrimination' of a MtoF child not being admitted to a girls school doesn't hold up, because a natal girl who has undergone gender reassignment would be allowed to attend, therefore it's not discrimination due to gender assignment but to sex?

It does hold up, you're just mixing up direct discrimination and indirect discrimination. They are very different claims. The indirect discrimination claim here requires: (a) a school to have a policy of not admitting boys in exceptional circumstances; (b) that policy to put boys with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment to be put at a particular disadvantage by this policy (as they are more likely to want to take advantage of the school being legally allowed to admit the occasional boy but choosing not to); (c) the policy is not objectively justified (which will require the court the balance the conflicting rights and make a decision).

Wouldn't it be the same if a, for example, Jewish boy was excluded then tried to claim it was discrimination on the PC of belief/ religion, because of being Jewish? Clearly, that is not the reason, because Jewish girls would be admitted.

That's an entirely different scenario, envisaging an erroneous claim for direct sex discrimination.

Yes it is the actual biology which matters.

.SundaeClub · Today 23:27

Re your post:
I do find it very difficult to understand. In a nutshell -
if a girls’ school refuses admittance to a transgirl could the school be sued?

If so, the Equality Act exceptions do not work as intended, or as Suella Braverman said they did last year. No one can function on the basis that they might be sued.

The vast majority of schools in the UK are mixed sex. They can attend one of them with the rest of us plebs.

Most kids aren’t eligible to get into private schools due to not having enough money and/or not being able to pass selective entrance exams.

Bonkers.

It's an issue really only for private schools - "in the state sector of the U.K. education system very few single-sex schools remain" (wikipedia), and a decreasingly small number even in the private sector. But some people prefer (for whatever reason) to pay to send their child to a single-sex school, and it seems perfect;y reasonable that such schools should be able to base their admission on biological sex. The vast majority attend co-educational schools and "trans kids" (a term that begs a lot of questions) might be thought to be much better off in one of them!

Wikipedia is not a reliable source.
In areas that still have the 11+ most grammar schools are still single sex, at least up to 16. Which raises an interesting point. It's well known that girls outperform boys academically. In my area roughly 20% of year six children take the test of which 10% get places. The girls grammars require at least ten points more for admission than the boys schools do. In these cases the issue is not going to be trans girls accessing girls single sex spaces (unless someone has evidence that they learn like a natal girl?) The problem will be that boys schools will become "trans boys schools" natal boys will be driven out because girls are more academic.

@SundaeClub
I understand that the religion example is different but why is it not analogous?

Are you saying the exception in the Act only applies to sex and not other protected characteristics?

It seems like shaky grounds for a legal challenge.

Errr! At the single sex school my child attends has many ‘trans kids’ already. In my teen’s friend group there was 5 out of the 7 of them with trans identities.

No bullying for ‘being trans’. These are children who understand they are one sex at a single sex school.

This is a classic case of hyperbole and as usual your post is not based on reality at all.

That EO exemption reads to me as if this would be an exceptional thing to happen. As others have said, trans identifying students are not exceptional at all. So I think the original meaning of the clause (teachers kids at a boarding school for example) would be the only one which would succeed.

Admitting trans pupils is not an exceptional circumstance these days.