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."

Yes. I would like a full public inquiry into all of it.

Absolutely

Exactly this

As much as the legal insight is useful I’m a bit wary of anyone who doesn’t recognise this

Can those who think social transition is valid talk about what the person is doing in practise

Isn't it more about what other people are doing? Social transition happens when other people start to pretend someone is the opposite sex, usually by using "preferred pronouns" or referring to a boy as a girl. Until that point a boy in a skirt is just a boy in a skirt.

That’s what I don’t get.

I know dc who don’t conform and other children still call the boy a he etc because no adults have intervened to say they shouldn’t

The dc is happy. They feel accepted as they are

Why do we need social transition if stereotypes aren’t fixed?

More to pp who believes in social transition

There is no such thing a social transitioning.

It is incredible that poster's on a FWR thread would use the deliberately weasel words of TRAs as though they were fact. Its like saying sex and gender are the same thing because Stonewall does.

The reference to "social transitioning" in an NHS papers and specifically says what was the "affirmative" action of "social transitiong" as part of places like the Tavistock should NO LONGER HAPPEN.

And even if they did, schools are NOT a medical establishment.

Why dont you read what are said and respond to that. Instead of just chanting the matra of TRAs.

So for the 3rd of 4th time there is no such thing as social transitioning outside of medical treatment, so why is the AG even referencing it.

If what was (but is no loger) an agreement as part of medical treatment that someone starts to live "as the other gender" this would not be a decision a teacher could take.

Stop being brainwashed by the TRA weasel words.

We know they are everywhere.

We know they infiltrated the EHRC.

Or if you dont like the way I have written it, read what sex matters says.

It amounts to the say but doesn't bother to get side tracked by TRA thought processes and mantras.

Trouble is, a public enquiry will not happen until the avalanche of detransitioners and young people suing for all the damage being done to them becomes overwhelming and that's going to take some years.
The Tories have a powerful group of mainly childless gay men in the party who don't give a damn about safeguarding children, with the rest of the party being "kind" so they're not seen as the nasty party and just following their lead. We all know about the deeply unpleasant misogynists at the heart of labour & the lib dems, all of who are content to look away when the safeguarding is raised as an issue.
The only hope is that enough tories are so horrified at what's been unleashed while they stood by, that they manage to put in place clear boundaries for schools, stop funding the queer theory activist groups and force Ofsted to check that schools are not breaching their legal duty to be politically impartial. Oh and continuing to remove the highly dodgy individuals in the DfE who are literally using children to promote their own queer theory agenda.

We must push the government to stop schools to transitioning children. It's wrong on almost every level - safeguarding, developmentally, ethically and politically.
There are some small signs of progress. Ofsted stopped being a Stonewall Diversity champion after Stonewall were outed complaining that inspectors weren't talking enough to primary children about gender identity!
The Head's unions have all hidden their grim trans guidelines from public view - no doubt starting an embarrassed reverse ferret.
Cass has signposted education as an issue to be considered re social contagion / social transitioning.
And at last the government have found the courage to mention safeguarding, oppose parental alienation and raise concerns about the activities of the queer theory activists, thanks to the actions of those brave women parliamentarians.
We must pressurise them to follow up on this and stop schools transitioning children.

So for the 3rd of 4th time there is no such thing as social transitioning outside of medical treatment

I don't know why you are so adamant about this.

Most of us think it's a bad idea and should not be happening but it is indeed a thing that IS happening. What would you call it?

Ofsted just investigated the Sussex school where the teacher harangued the pupils saying that intersex was a gender...and gave it a clean bill of health incl "sensitive gender issues".

They'll be one of the last bodies to change their tune on this.

IwantToRetire · Today 18:42

So for the 3rd of 4th time there is no such thing as social transitioning outside of medical treatment, so why is the AG even referencing it.

I am not sure what you mean here. This statement is from the Cass Review and speaks of social transition and specifically mentions it happens outside of health services (I separated some paragraphs in the quote to make italics work):

5.19 There are three types of intervention or treatment for children and young people with gender-related distress, which may be introduced individually or in combination with one another:

•Social transition - this may not be thought of as an intervention or treatment,because it is not somethingthat happens within health services.

However it is important to view it as anactive intervention because it may havesignificant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning.

There are different views on the benefits versus the harms of early social transition.

Whatever position one takes, it is important to acknowledge that it is not a neutral act, and better information is needed about outcomes.

She also adds that doing nothing cannot be considered neutral.
5.20. It should also be recognised that 'doing nothing' cannot be considered a neutral act^.

This thread has taken a very strange turn.

Of course social transitioning is a thing. Posters might not like that fact, but accusing us of using TRA weasel words is just bonkers.

The NHS still supports social transition under certain conditions. This is in the new service specs- saying that the NHS say it should now not happen is simply not correct.

There is a growing sense from many orgs that they know something is not right here. It might take a while to get there but I think this is approaching enough to start a public inquiry, we don't need to wait for an avalanche of lawsuits. One or two more scandals should do it.

And protecting the rights of children (and parents and teachers) who hold gender critical views.

Obviously, they shouldn't be going round telling anyone they're not really trans any more than they should be telling a Christian that their god isn't real, but they also shouldn't be shamed or punished for the views they hold, and shouldn't be forced to participate in someone else's social transition or forced to lie.

Why dont you read what are said and respond to that. Instead of just chanting the matra of TRAs.

So for the 3rd of 4th time there is no such thing as social transitioning outside of medical treatment, so why is the AG even referencing it.

Because the AG was reviewing the proposed guidance and it was obviously referenced.

Of course some children are being allowed to go to school dressed in the uniform designated for the opposite sex and are being referred to by different names and pronouns of the opposite sex - if this weren't happening, then how would teachers be getting disciplined for misgendering pupils and why would pupils be getting sanctioned (I think one in Scotland was excluded?) for misgendering their peers?

Are you saying that you don't believe that children are changing their names and pronouns and uniforms and that schools aren't going along with it?

Yes, of course it shouldn't be happening, but pretending that it's not happening isn't going to help now that it is happening.

Personally I don't think any reasonable person should accept that wearing different clothing or choosing a different name has got anything to do with sex. It's just people breaking down gender stereotypes like they've always done and good! it should be done. It's not social transitioning though. It's actually really normal. I do lots of things which break gender stereotypes so do my kids. It's not a big deal and everyone should stop jumping up and down and pretending that the concept of social transitioning is anything other than regressive offensive drivel.

It isn't social transitioning for e.g. a girl to wear trousers to school; it is social transitioning to call that girl 'he'and no longer referto her as a girl. Its not complicated.

This is getting surreal.

Wearing what are stereotypically opposite sex clothes is not part of social transitioning if you are doing so because that’s the style you like. Social transitioning is where the child feels themselves to be the opposite sex and want everyone around them to affirm them as the opposite sex - typically by wanting them to use preferred pronouns and often a new opposite sex name and so on. They will also typically wear clothes/hairstyle etc associated with the opposite sex both to make them feel they are “performing” as the opposite sex but also to try to “pass” so other people think they are the opposite sex and validate them as such.

Absolutely, all of this!

The immediate priority is to produce the best guidance for schools so they can understand the current law and apply it effectively and confidently.

The current law is not perfect so the guidance will not contain everything we need and hope for but it can still achieve a lot, right now, to safeguard all children. And they can't wait for perfect law because childhood is short and they only get one shot at it.

Changing the law takes longer but we* *know that it's achievable if we keep pushing. Women have pushed for legal change for centuries and we always eventually get there. By producing accurate, comprehensive guidance on the current law we can work out exactly where it needs to be changed.

I think @PlanetJanette underestimates the persistence of women.

everyone should stop jumping up and down and pretending that the concept of social transitioning is anything other than regressive offensive drivel.

But the teachers who do stop pretending get disciplined and/or lose their jobs, and pupils get sanctioned and/or excluded.

The interim Cass report refers to it as a concept, it is something that schools are referring to as a concept and yes, obviously I don't believe that social transitioning has anything to do with someone's biological sex, but I also think it's no use pretending that it isn't happening.

It doesn't mean I believe in gender ideology to say that someone wants to socially transition any more than my talking about someone wanting to get baptised makes me a Christian. It's possible to discuss the concepts that are meaningful to others without having to subscribe to the same belief system as them.

Yes, obviously as this whole issue gets unpicked, thread-by-thread, it will likely become clearer what social transitioning really means and how it impacts the person at its centre and the many children and adults drawn into that child's orbit, and perhaps then the term might become obsolete. But we need words to be able to discuss it and manage it in the meantime, including to be able to perform clinical research on the impact of it.

You can't ban murder without some sort of common agreement as to what "murder" means - it's no good saying 'well, I don't agree that anyone should be murdering anyone so there doesn't need to be a word for it' if you're trying to stop people doing it. Yes, in the future of course it might look like a strange concept, but for the schools who have already been sucked into it by the Tavistock or random therapists or families who've done their own research online, etc, there needs to be a common agreement of what is not allowed to happen so that schools can have clarity on what they should and shouldn't be allowing.

I don't think it would be helpful at this point for headteachers to advise their staff to feign complete ignorance of the existence of gender identity ideology and to pretend that they simply don't understand the concept of social transition when faced with a child requesting social transition.

Teachers need to be prepared for the types of situations they will be faced with in classrooms (in terms of their own interaction with pupils and in terms of managing disputes between pupils in accordance with a clear behaviour policy as to what's acceptable and what's not, what to do when girls object to a male using the girls' loos but the school has said it's fine for this particular male, etc) and the last thing they need is to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend everything is just as it was ten years ago.

Yes, exactly, PencilsInSpace.

It's simply not good enough to say "oh fiddlesticks - gender identity ideology is actually a lot more complicated than we initially thought, so sorry girls and gender critical pupils and teachers, but we'll have to postpone protecting your rights in schools until we fully understand gender identity ideology".

There's plenty that could be covered now if they had any appetite to actually formalise their position. I don't buy Keegan's whole "we need to get this perfect" spiel one bit.

These arguments are so unconvincing. It's nothing like the baptism analogy. You can get baptised without necessarily pissing on the rights of others. You can't talk about 'social transitioning' without entrenching dangerous gender stereotypes.

If you think we need common words - ways to actually discuss this damaging movement - then clearly 'social transitioning' is not the right term. Because it means nothing. There are people, myself included, who think that men's clothes are any clothes worn by a man and men's behaviours are anything a man does. So there is no meaning to the concept of social transition. My best guess is that it's when a man does something that would have been assumed to be something only women did pre the second world war. Is that what we mean? We mean women wearing trousers or men having long hair? Or are we talking about men joining the WI and women driving a tractor? I honestly don't know what gender stereotypes you are referring to - or anyone else - when they say social transition so they just need to be more clear about what they actually mean cos the words social transitioning don't mean anything.

In terms of teachers, of course they are working with children who find themselves at odds with their individualised concept of the 'right' stereotypes for themselves. We need teachers, as other adults, to use language which helps kids see the stereotypes for the meaningless nonsense that they are.

Yes we need guidance. Of course. Teacher need to know they have the backing of a civilised society when they stop males going into female toilets. They need to know that men's toilets always were mixed gender and you can wear a school skirt in one if a teen boy wants that. Using the language of social transition does nothing to advance those conversations and everything to hide the reality of the men's right movement which currently has the ear of many of the political elite.

It's not feigning ignorance btw to say I don't know what social transitioning is. I literally do not know. I think perhaps you need to think about just how engaged with gender stereotypes you need to be to understand that concept. For those people who aren't so engaged, the term is meaningless and offensive.

Ah so you mean it's just about forcing less powerful people to pretend something which they know not to be true at great personal and societal expense especially to women? Now I get it!

I honestly don't know what gender stereotypes you are referring to - or anyone else - when they say social transition so they just need to be more clear about what they actually mean cos the words social transitioning don't mean anything.

I didn't refer to gender stereotypes at all.

I just think it's odd to object to a term being used and to want people to stop using it while simultaneously claiming not to know what it means. Either you know what it means and you find it harmful to use it, or you don't know what it means and should probably try to find out before suggesting that people stop saying it. I don't see how your position can be both of these things and I'm really at a loss as to what you're trying to achieve here.

Obviously the term would be defined in any guidance that seeks to curtail the practice so that it would be clear to schools as to what the practice entails.

How i see the definition personally would be something along the lines of compelling others to collude in someone else's gender incongruence or gender distress by attempting to help them maintain the fiction they have created that they are a different sex from the one they really are. But obviously the definition in the guidance would be more along the lines of changing a child's sex marker on official documentation, allowing them to use the facilities reserved for the opposite sex, referring to them as "he" despite their being female, and so on.

It just feels so odd to be debating whether schools are actually facilitating these practices when teachers are losing their jobs and children are being disciplined for not colluding in it - i don't understand how pretending that's not happening is helping anyone.

I have a daughter who has socially transitioned and I explained it just above. It’s really really not difficult to understand. 🤷‍♀️