BBC on gov guidance for schools - points that need to be considered

[Hagosaurus]

BBC article on gov guidelines for how to treat transgender pupils in school

Generally balanced article including input from Tanya Carter, highlighting the difficulties teachers are facing and including the issues around informing parents, changing rooms and toilets, although not pronouns.

One thing mentioned by the school used to illustrate the article was that trans(umbrella term!) children are allowed to change for PE in a private area - not clear whether that’s a third communal space or, more likely, individual changing cubicles. I know my dd would jump at the chance to have a private changing space, and would be perfectly happy to declare herself trans/NB/a dragon to access it. There was also a question at the end about whether schools would get extra funding to support trans children.

It is really important imo that the guidance ensures that, whatever support is offered, it does not (inadvertently?) offer inducements to children to transition or to schools to encourage transition

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-65473198

Well done that mum

It was obviously the bio that KM had given to the programme, and it was said at the beginning and end of KM's piece. "Feminist and transactivist".

'Alexa - give me an example of oxymoron... Also of being a goady troll.'

Long overdue that adults who are not parents and have no qualifications in child development, psychology or safeguarding were removed from being able to influence children into handing over their future fertility, physical and mental health in order to satisfy the desires / demands of these adults.

Not been able to listen to it. What did she say?

Need to add not all teachers! NATALT

Off to listen to vine....

Arse, not on yet. It's doing a woman's hour

Monty is such a slippery snake

pics of this speaker in their 20s needed to accompany this programme 😂

I still can’t get my head around the way this is being reported… as if a trans child actually exists, and I sincerely hope that any guidance in the future will state that the child does not have another more special identity which has to be affirmed over and above any other concerns. But it is not so long ago that there was no discussion allowed so I really hope this is the beginning of the end .

That’s brilliant that you got such a good result with the end of the rainbow clubs! Well done. These teachers need to know they can’t do this to other peoples children!

In any other situation, if the school was so concerned about violence / abuse at home that they felt they couldn't involve the parents, it would be an immediate, urgent referral to social services and looking at having the child removed.

You cannot have it both ways - you cannot say these parents are so abusive we need to keep secrets and still keep sending the child home into that environment at the end of the day. It exposes the lie that is gender ideology.

Keeping secrets puts the child in a psychologically abusive situation and is a safeguarding risk.

Adults telling kids to keep secrets from their parents is one of the points in the prevent training indicating radicalisation. Somehow prevent doesn't seem to apply to gender groups though.

@EmiliaMeadowcroft I'm not going to lie and say it was easy it took almost a year to get them to see sense id tried all the usual methods (stats, evidence etc) and none worked until I pointed out the disclaimer at the bottom of the scot gov trans advise for schools about personal liability and told them that I would sue them and invite all the other parents of targeted asd students to join me that they clearly got proper legal advice and did the right thing I guess they didn't like the idea of having to explain themselves and try to justify their actions in a court. Funny how finding out that there are severe personal consequences for your actions changes people's opinions in a way that reasoned arguments don't 🤔

It's a very clever manipulation. Bill transgenderism as an innate misunderstood but profound part of someone's inner soul, etc, and persuade children 'coming out' they are brave, progressive heroes battling prejudice.

Deliberately ensuring the alienation of the very people who are there to protect children.

Because what parent wouldnt be concerned about a vulnerable child being suddenly determined on a course which could easily result in life changing and desperately limiting 'treatment'? It's a completely normal attitude, which should be encouraged!

It's infuriating and frightening that a parent's normal protection of their child has been weaponised to damage that same child.

If 75% of teachers will happily socially transition a pupil and 39% would do it secretly then something has gone terribly wrong.

And as with so much of this, the government are playing catch up. TRAs are constantly trying to get ahead of the curve. And 'guidelines' won't be sufficient.

Consequences need to be spelled out.

Teachers being held personally liable is one way. Is that the legal position, does anyone know?

Because its a very effective counter position to take.

Safe schools alliance are right. The real story is the safeguarding.

The toilets is an issue, but it's easily resolvable, and it's getting there, what with the government intervention.

The same way that the Tavistock case lay the responsibility for administering puberty blockers squarely at the feet of the doctors prescribing them, the consequences for social transition should unequivocally be attributed to those doing it.

And as for Katie Montgomery on Jeremy Vine. Any shred of credibility that Vine may have had in my head, just disappeared. Montgomery is a joke.

In any other situation, if the school was so concerned about violence / abuse at home that they felt they couldn't involve the parents, it would be an immediate, urgent referral to social services and looking at having the child removed.

Exactly. That's how you know they're unsure of their ground, whilst not realising why. It's the cognitive dissonance at play.

That's a really good point.

These people have been manipulated. And are operating on that basis. It's only when they need to really analyse their own actions, that perhaps that manipulation becomes evident to them.

The reason that no school has yet been dragged through the courts is because furious parents put their child's welfare first rather than drag a school through the courts for actively harming their child and removing parental rights.

That's why the government should have intervened years ago - and why the political capture of the DfE, Ofsted, teacher's unions etc by the adult fetish organisations has been so catastrophic.

And well done @Hoardasurass for being so clear with your child's school. That was so effective.

I have to disagree with you here if you had any idea what this teacher put my vulnerable autistic son through you would not say that taking the school and teacher in question to court was not putting my child's welfare first because it absolutely was. He is not trans nor does he believe in a gendered soul yet this teacher insisted that he was both asexual and trans and would not stop trying to force these identities on him just because he is a gender non conforming asd child (with other co-morbidities) who due to his cognitive problems and mental age hadn't yet developed any sexual feelings oh yes he was also 11/12 at the time.
I can assure you that his welfare has and always will be my number 1 priority

Sorry should say threatening to take the school to court (in my case).
I would have taken it all the way if necessary but thankfully I didn't need to

Personally I'm enjoying the sight of schools that have stepped way beyond their appropriate sphere realising how vulnerable they are.
Yes, the government should have dealt with this earlier, but it doesn't mean that schools shouldn't have said 'hang on, we'll wait for government advice before we adopt policies that don't involve parents'

Excellent points Datun

I was concerned on the BBC news yesterday to see a teacher explain it merely as a conflict between the wishes and feelings of a parent and the wishes and feelings of a child, with the child obviously being the one they are primarily interested in.

This misses the point by miles.

Teachers have absolutely no business actively enabling alienation from parents. The first thing an abuser does is switch the victim's trust and allegiance to them and break down the child's links with other protective relationships. The parental relationship is the primary one for this! The parents live with the child, it is their child, they have invested years in that relationship and protection and care of the child - no employed person who sees the child for a few hours a week has the right to put themselves in the middle of that through some misguided sense of do gooding.

Boundaries need to be urgently re established.

Sexed provision for sexed bodies, sex is a fixed, unchanging fact through life whatever gender choices are made, and it is not kind to children to enable a pretense that things can be otherwise. And if a child presents an additional need or distress requiring something different, then additional to and different from provision should be there. There is no justification for forcing girls to tolerate males in a forced pretense of their being female and making those males an exception from normal safeguarding other than a quasi religious ideology. And it is not the place of schools to be training any one belief in children particularly against the culture, values, faiths and beliefs of children and their families, in the belief that they are superior and their personal beliefs are superior.

Some children will identify as trans. This is fine. But the boundaries are reality and other people's needs, and those cannot be set aside in finding ways to meet those children's wishes and feelings.

@Hoardasurass - it was brilliant what you did, no question however a lot of parents are very scared to push back, with good reason. Safeguarding and the best interests of the child and family surrounding it will look different in each circumstance.

I know a parent whose child who has a disability that leads to severe periods of illness who was left alone in a room when ill so that the school didn't have to mark an absence (due to attendance targets presumably). When the parent challenged this as unsafe and insisted on her child being off school when unwell, the school threatened involving social services. I told her that as a brilliant parent, she had nothing to fear, but she didn't want the stress on her and on her child - stress exacerbated the child's illness; instead she homeschooled for a period and then moved schools. Yes, she could have taken them to court and won but she felt she couldn't cope with that and I think that's why so many parents stay silent. They look at the impact of legal action on the whole family (and its finances often too) and decide that legal action itself may do more harm than good. If access to justice was easier maybe this wouldn't be the case but unfortunately it is.

There are lots of stories on here of parents facing veiled and not so veiled threats - in one case including threat they were committing defamation for pointing out the school had got the Equality Act protected characteristics wrong - when they raise concerns. It is very anti- safeguarding that in so many schools parents are seen as the enemy but this seems to be where we are and it is very concerning.

What do you mean...Monty is a HUGGGGEEEEE feminist.

Huge I tell you.

Yes.

The conditioning has been intense. I can easily see, in my mind's eye, how parents are painted as outdated, bigoted, authoritarian. It's a piece of piss to persuade a teenager. For God sake, it's practically de rigueur for them anyway. What self respecting teenager wouldn't think their parents are old fashioned fuddy-duddies.

It's very clever to weaponise normal adolescent rebellion to alienate children from the very people who are supposed to protect them.

And if this is the case, then the government need to bloody well catch up.

They need to make it crystal clear that transitioning children at school, or any hint of it, is a dereliction of their duties (or whatever the official term would be. I'm struggling with the wording, because I actually want to call it a crime against humanity), and anyone doing will be held 100% legally responsible for any ensuing court case.

Ffs.