Tougher transgender guidance for schools is unlawful, Sunak told

[Igneococcus]

Sorry can't do sharetoken on this device, I'll do one later if nobody else posts one.
Tougher transgender guidance for schools is unlawful, Sunak told (thetimes.co.uk)

What an utter mess this all is.

"Prentis said that a blanket ban would be unlawful because the Equalities Act states that gender reassignment is a “protected characteristic”, regardless of age. She gave the same advice when ministers asked whether there could be a ban on social transitioning for primary school children."

The Equality Act says that you must not be directly discriminated against because:

• you have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. A wide range of people identify as trans. However, you are not protected under the Equality Act unless you have proposed, started or completed a process to change your sex.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/gender-reassignment-discrimination

Sunak is a coward. Sunak is no ally of women.
Sunak is no ally of girls or boys.

The Tories are now a clear and present danger.

It's the job of leaders to lead. Sunak is not a leader.

As a conservative since 1983, it pains me to declare I don't recognise this lot.

f) by subjecting the pupil to any other detriment.

I think not allowing pronouns and general acceptance of a pupil’s claimed identity as being one of the opposite sex, or making them use the lavatory or changing room of their sex, might be said to be subjecting them to detriment.

There could be an argument that it does, anyway.

Sorry hit post too soon.

Most of what is going on in schools is self identification.

It has nothing to do with the characteristic as outline in the EA etc..

This is the big difference.

So even if schools have a policy of letting children "identify" as the other sex, or a cat, or a cartoon character, self identification is not part of the protected characteristic.

And this may sound a bit harsh but if the schools are implying to children that this is a legal route to getting a GRC, and parents dont need to be involved, how would that work as you have to have "lived as the opposite gender for 2 years" and that doesn't mean only during school hours. ie if the child isn't living as the opposite "gender" at home.

They become impossible to differentiate.

Secular humanism is internally unstable. The problem, as you identified in an earlier post, is this idea that human beings ultimately will come through, are good, even have meaningful lives. But this is a statement of faith.

Humanism did not develop as a secular philosophy. It developed a a particular Christian philosophy. In that school of thought, the confidence in humanity, in some kind of objectively good values, and meaningful lives, is based in the fundamental goodness of God and creation (which is a metaphysical statement mainly,), and the redemption of fallen creation through Christ (which is arguably a faith statement but one supported by a larger theological structure.)

Once you remove that part of the system, all that confidence in humanity, the assertion of a good, and sense of meaning, is very easily displaced. There is no foundation. And what it collapses into is nihilism. Humans are just collections of atoms, or animals. There is no meaning beyond the mathematical equations that govern the physical universe, and the only thing that we could describe as a good is nature red in tooth and claw. Progress is a meaningless concept, an illusion for people foolish enough to believe evolution is progress.

There is another article in the times and from that it makes it clear that the legal advice given is about social transitioning - but as I understand it social transitioning is not a recognised process.

So why are schools or the government even talking about "social transitioning" in schools let alone how it is covered by the EA?

This is the only reference (apart fro Stonewall gobbledigook) to "social transitioning" and it is NOT recommended by the NHS!

" ... The new NHS guidance recognizes social transition as a form of psychosocial intervention and not a neutral act, as it may have significant effects on psychological functioning. The NHS strongly discourages social transition in children, and clarifies that social transition in adolescents should only be pursued in order to alleviate or prevent clinically-significant distress or significant impairment in social functioning, and following an explicit informed consent process. ... "
https://segm.org/England-ends-gender-affirming-care

I was talking earlier about holding the line on language, and not letting the trans narrative distort our understanding of words. And now it seems the Government and legal advisors are also getting sucked in:

" ... The government then commissioned legal advice from Prentis about whether a ban on social transitioning in schools was possible. Last week she concluded that such a move would be unlawful and said that the government would need to pass new legislation if it wanted to go further. ... "
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kemi-badenoch-trans-school-guidance-gender-transition-uk-2023-q0g2bgmlk (also on archive.ph)

Are any of us having the same conversation.

Recent guidance from NHS says that social transitioning should be discouraged and yet people are blandly talking about schools (not health professionals) allowing social transitioning!

At this rate an conversation in the future with anybody will have to be halted after every second word while you check that you have a shared understanding of what words mean.

For all we know Victoria Prentis, the attorney-general, thinks she is advising on one understanding of "social transitioning" while the Cabinet thinks something else, and clearly schools must be thinking something else again as presumably they wouldn't be party to social transitioning when the NHS has said "it is a form of psychosocial intervention and not a neutral act"

What a complete morass of mutual misunderstanding.

Most of which has been generated by Stonewall and Mermaids etc., so that emotion and potential public backlasn are taking precedent over rational thinking and facts.

Has just made me realise that this whole process by the Government may in fact legitimise schools enabling "social transitoning" whereas technically it doesn't exist as a process.

More unintended consequences of not being clear what language means to everyone involved.

Oh blimey you have adopted the ally language! How sad!

For all we know Victoria Prentis, the attorney-general, thinks she is advising on one understanding of "social transitioning" while the Cabinet thinks something else, and clearly schools must be thinking something else again as presumably they wouldn't be party to social transitioning when the NHS has said "it is a form of psychosocial intervention and not a neutral act"

Yeah as you said, you don't know any of that is all different interpretations, you are just guessing. It's equally as likely that they are all using the NHS version.

What’s the issue with children socially transitioning? My understanding is that social transition is changing your name (unofficially), pronouns, and presentation. I don’t know what the problem is with that. Isn’t it the same as just being gender nonconforming, and asking people to call you a nickname? Banning, social transition for children seems like it could be misapplied to very effeminate boys and very masculine girls. It seems like a step in the direction of making girls wear dresses and boys wear pants.

Or is the fear that social transition early on will lead to more serious medical interventions? I understand that that is a problem.

Why would the social transition of kids by schools (regardless of parental consent and child consent) win out against the actual legal duty of teaching professionals to act in best interests of child while that child is under the care of the teachers?

Isn’t the job of government in the immediate term to make it clear to the teaching profession (and parents by extension) that Cass has already advised some time ago, social transitioning kids is not neutral act, it is psychologically impactful on a child etc.

Then to headline that the government expects teachers to follow evidence as it emerges about what is in kids best interests. That there is no evidence to show social transitioning at school IS in children’s best interests. That there is a strong lead from Cass that social transitioning probably ISNT in the best interests because it encourages a social, official hardening and formalising of an identity which may just be a experimental phase for a child, placing psychological burdens on that child. Which is a principle that would also apply to kids identifying as anything they are not- cats or pensioners etc.

If government go in first from professional duty angle then they can also recommend Equality Act and GRA review as aspirations, for medium term timescale after the 2024 general election, if this government wants to hold something back for appealing to voters.

What a mess!

This thread highlights how difficult any meaningful discussion is without first establishing the constructs being discussed.

If society as a whole wasn't so wedded to gender conformity, it difficult to imagine 95% of what 'social transitioning' would involve. All you'd be left with is pronouns.

What’s the issue with children socially transitioning? Isn’t it the same as just being gender nonconforming, and asking people to call you a nickname?

No, social transition involves everyone pretending that a girl is a boy, or vice versa, ie pretending that the child has changed sex. That's where the harm is.

It seems to me that Sex Matters is absolutely right. Sunak should take note.

According to Wkipedia half of the Tory MPs in Parliament didn’t bother to vote on GRA Bill at all- so much for embattled Tories holding out bravely with their long held principles against the Blairite tide. No political party comes off well in this era.

This period in history reflects incredibly badly on the misogyny and lack of interest in women’s rights of all political parties and the absolute normality of smoothing the way for male sexual entitlement common to all mainstream political parties.

The phallocentric thinking at the time by majority male lawmakers would I imagine have been that for a transsexual man to want to cut off his penis and live (with the shame of) ‘being a woman’ , that this man must have terriblly poor mental health therefore be an object of much pity and need of special concern by the state. Also that this would only ever be something that a tiny number of men would ever want to do.

It also reflects the back room nature of the GRA build up I think and the way, a bit like Brexit, that definitions are so unclear that at the time MPs might have thought they were supporting a tiny number of cross dressing men who wanted to have ‘sex change’ surgery and be married to a man, (and remember the European Court of Human Rights has told the UK they have to come up with something on this issue) in a country that didn’t allow gay marriage for another decade, but later a much wider group can be brought under the umbrella.

And looking back the level of debate publicly and in Parliament seems unobtrusive and if covered at all, as a bit of a joke. You get the idea that MPs might have seen Ally McBeal’s mixed sex office toilets in the hit US TV show in late 90s and maybe felt excitingly ‘modem’ in supporting that kind of thing. The BBC covers all this jokily in the era of the Equality Bill in this y2K article ‘Sex and the Single Can’. Well worth a read. and

They even offer a handy etiquette guide:
*Unisex etiquette
Men should remember:
not to expect a urinal - cubicles only
to put down the loo seat
to always wash their hands
Women should remember:
not to hog the mirrors
to leave some loo paper for the men
not to take too long

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/727005.stm

The actual producer of the Ally McBeal show was even more jokey- he said in 1999 to the New Orleans’ National Association of TV Program Associates, “The idea of the unisex bathroom came out of how to economize sets.” That, he said, and the fact “Richard Fish (one of the founders of the show’s fictional law firm) … probably likes to go into the girl’s room.”

https://people.com/celebrity/why-ally-shares-her-bathroom/

And none of these MPs debated considering women’s needs properly including those who wanted to change sex legally, hence no legislation around pregnancy and birth. As we saw from the failed Freddy McConnell legal challenges 20 years later.

Wikipedia says of the GRA voting: ^Support for the bill in the House of Commons was split broadly down party lines. At both the second and third readings (i.e. before and after amendments), all Labour Party, Liberal Democrat, Plaid Cymru and Scottish National Party votes were in favour of the bill; all Ulster Unionist and Democratic Unionist Party votes were against.[7][8]Conservative Party MPs were split on the issue, and the party leadership did not issue a whip mandating MPs to take a particular stance on the bill, instead allowing its MPs a free vote.[9] 25 Conservative MPs voted in favour and 22 against the bill at its second reading, and 20 voted in favour and 39 voted against the bill at its third reading. Less than half of the Conservative Party's 166 MPs participated in either vote.[9]
Among those who voted against the bill were Ann Widdecombe (who opposed it on religious grounds), Dominic Grieve, Peter Lilley and Andrew Robathan. Among Conservative MPs who supported the bill were Kenneth Clarke, Constitutional Affairs spokesman Tim Boswell, and future speaker John Bercow.[10]^

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Recognition_Act_2004

*There is another article in the times and from that it makes it clear that the legal advice given is about social transitioning - but as I understand it social transitioning is not a recognised process.

So why are schools or the government even talking about "social transitioning" in schools let alone how it is covered by the EA?

This is the only reference (apart fro Stonewall gobbledigook) to "social transitioning" and it is NOT recommended by the NHS!*

IwantToRetire

This is untrue. Social transitioning is a recognised process and has been for years, going all the way back to the Dutch Protocol, if not before. GIDS have long defined it, and most recently, it has been outlined in the new NHSE service specs:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Interim-service-specification-for-Specialist-Gender-Incongruence-Services-for-Children-and-Young-People.pdf

And this may sound a bit harsh but if the schools are implying to children that this is a legal route to getting a GRC, and parents dont need to be involved, how would that work as you have to have "lived as the opposite gender for 2 years" and that doesn't mean only during school hours. ie if the child isn't living as the opposite "gender" at home.

I’ve yet to come across a school giving the message to children that this is a legal route to getting a GRC, but the child is living as the opposite gender at home even where the parents are not affirming. The child will be affirmed by their friends, they will likely be online where they present themselves as the opposite sex, they will likely have changed their name where they can without making a deed roll change (eg at their GP, school email address/other email address etc). The fact that the parents do not support their social transition is irrelevant - it’s not about how many people (or who) supports their social transition,its about how they can demonstrate their doing so,

If society as a whole wasn't so wedded to gender conformity, it difficult to imagine 95% of what 'social transitioning' would involve. All you'd be left with is pronouns.

That's exactly what social transitioning is. It's about pretending to be the opposite sex.

This may or may not include a change of appearance.

No it’s not the same as a nick name

Dc should be able to wear whatever with no impact on pronoun or spaces used and sports participated in

There are a few happy dc who do this, the dc know their sex hasn’t changed. Tg the school hasn’t pushed indoctrination to say it has.

I thought that too

He should ban it. Then there'll be a judicial review (quite quickly after the ban because that's how they work). And then we'll find out if the law is fit for safeguarding purposes.

Okay, I understand now. I would have a problem with mixed sex toilets in primary school, less so sports, and I see how social transition could lead there.

What a ridiculous statement by the EHRC.

There is no 'process to change your sex' because it's not possible to change sex.

But even if we assume they mean 'process to change your gender', proposing to do this could simply mean telling a single other person that they intend to do this.

I don't understand what the distinction is between someone who has disclosed to at least one other person that they intend to change their gender (covered by the PC of Gender Reassignment) and someone who just identifies as trans (not be covered by the PC of Gender Reassignment).

I agree. He should just go ahead.