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."

That's promising. I don't believe that children can be transsexual. But if children are distressed by gender stereotypes, that is something that schools can work on.

Sunny, you can count on fingers of one hand the number of Lab MPs who'd vote for the needed safeguarding changes. Even fewer LDs and zero Greens. Not sure if Jo Cherry MSP counts, lol.

I'm really unsure how many Tories would, beyond Badenoch, Cates. No way is May, Mordaunt etc going to pull this way.

Tories have pretty much lost their 80 seat majority from 2019, Parliament acts as a series of cliques. I could really see a massive schism on the Badenoch/Cates v May/Mordaunt wings. And I suspect the risk uber averse Sunak not wanting to go there.

I think we don't realise the breath of unanimity btwn Tory and Labour parties on social issues. Those proud enough to stand up on gender issues are few and far between.

Not sure if Jo Cherry MSP counts, lol.

Joanna Cherry is an MP.

Oh I forgot. Scots can vote here, we just can't vote up there.

I agree that would be positive...if this guidance ever sees the light of day.

But sensible drafting is doing no good to anyone stuck in someone's drawer waiting for someone to tackle the difficult bits. They really do need to issue this guidance piecemeal.

I suspect that dimorphism's right that the necessary pressure will have to come from parents of children who are being harmed or at risk of harm (who obviously have enough to deal with already) because until there's a sufficient sense of urgency involving real cases, everyone is just going to play chicken with this guidance and wait out the clock until the next election.

You know what I find really sad and could do weepy emoticons about?

Vulnerable kids being sucked into an adult political/religious movement that will use them without care for what happens to them in the process. If they grow up to regret being infertile, ill, harmed, with a damaged body, that movement will have no compassion at all.

Just like it has no compassion for children's rights to not undress in front of the opposite sex, to have safe changing and toilets, to learn to cope with bodily changes like periods with privacy and dignity, and for female children not to be taught that male children's wants and feelings must always come before theirs. And the right for children not to be fundamentally confused by adult manipulation and agenda before they are old enough or wise enough to realise they've been played with because it enables the freedoms of middle aged men.

'Compassion'. Ffs this movement has none. None at all. No compassion, no empathy, no conscience. Endless bloody manipulation though.

The supposed medical basis of the trans child is the real issue, and the idea that people have that transgenderism is some kind of medical phenomena people are born with like being diabetic.

This really should be the starting point when devising these guidelines for schools. We need some definitions. What, exactly, is a 'trans child'? What are the symptoms of transgenderism/transexualism in children? In the ICD 11, 'gender incongruence' is classified under 'sexual health'. How can health issues related to sexual activity relate to children?

They are kids. Under 18

She is being ridiculous.

Language is important and we should be using the language which is in the legislation when talking about these issues.

(3)In relation to the protected characteristic of gender reassignment—

(a)a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a transsexual person;

(b)a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to transsexual persons

The law is about transsexual people. Not 'trans', not 'transgender', but 'transsexual'. The effect of using the words 'trans' and 'transgender' and then declaring that children can be 'trans' has been (in the words of one TRA) to 'desexualise the trans experience'. Can we go back to using 'transsexual', and then challenge those in favour of applying the term of 'trans' to children to explain exactly what makes a child 'transsexual'.

Excellent points OldCrone

I've wondered a bit about this, where people seem to put worries about discrimination above everything else, even when it makes no sense. This isn't the only issue where I've seen that happen.

I wonder if it isn't a sort of psychological reaction, rather than anything from a rational process. People have been so completely immersed in the belief that discrimination is the sin from which all others derive, and inclusion and diversity the epitome of right, that they actually have a visceral reaction to anything that seems to them to violate these principles. They can't even think through the problem because they recoil at the possibility that they are violating those principles in some way.

Which to me has to come from the way people have been taught to think about those things.

There is zero chance we're going back to "transsexual" as a label or definition. This makes it too easy to seperate children and adults.

The whole idea is for maximum vagueness on boundaries, maximum flexibility of definitions, maximum ambiguity on children/adults.

The mindfuck is not that ultra misogynists, bad actors, lobbyists and activist allies etc, pushed this far.

It's that the adults in the room, the policy makers, the politicians, the elites, allowed this to go as far as it did, happy to, or at least complicit with the movements policy push.

And now we have the ignominy of a CONSERVEative govt after 13 years of inertia and lack of engagement, sitting on its collective thumbs as Stonewallification of British institutions happened on its watch, even when the hot potato of child safeguarding is fully visibly in danger, just cannot pull it's finger out to get an equitable result here.

The phenomena on the ground for girls and women is bad enough, but watching the institutional capture of our politics and public bodies is nearly as painful to experience.

We are truly ruled by the least impressive public servants ever.

Yup.

But this isn't mainly a legislation thing, it's a scientific and medical question.

I think to make real progress on this, that is where the vital ground is. Everything else flows from that, and as long as there is a scientific set of myths being promulgated,policy changes are just about mitigation and tinkering.

I don't understand why you think Teresa May and most Tories would be against this, RealityFan. She's pretty much backed away from GI, as have most Tory MPs.

I'm a really jaded Tory voter. Pretty much consider myself Blue Labour, not so much jaded re Starmer, but speechless.
I suspect Sunak would get a law change thru, but it would be very tight, and demonstrate the cross party alliance in the TRA camp.
The May/Mordaunt mindset attracts wider support in the Tory party than you might imagine.

Sunak has 12-18 months to sort this. Someone hold my beer.

I’m a really jaded Labour voter. But the answer for me to that definitely isn’t to vote Tory or to pretend that the Tories have not presided over this entire shit show and set the wheels in motion for self ID in the UK, then realised that was an electoral stink bomb and made noises popularly held to be about ‘knowing what a woman is’ but in terms of introducing concrete legal protections, have just sat on their hands

The gains for women in last 13 years have been made in the courts by judicial reviews and other legal actions crowdfunded by all of us.
Because when a government doesn’t listen that’s the only route. And because government doesn’t like judges to be able to critique policy, the Tories have even been trying to roll back on judicial reviews, sorry to ‘reform’ them. It’s really concerning.

Labour and Lib Dems in next concern me most.

They’re both fully subsidised to gender ideology

Agree with @Rudderneck on questioning the numbers.

The "we" that you refer to here also includes a large number of people too afraid to speak up including public servants. It's not simply inertia.

We see this here daily. I'm not critical of those people individually but collectively as a society this isn't impressive either. Overcoming fear is going to obliterate inertia. As you frequently say we are at a tipping point on this.

You only have to read Roisin Michaux substack and Twitter feeds to see the extent of embedded activism. It's painful to read.

Oh we have plenty of options there... non binary, gender fluid, agender...take your pick!

Confusing children? Why, surely no adults would want to do that?

https://open.substack.com/pub/peaked/p/the-trans-lobby-rolls-into-rural?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7vbcm

It is painful to read. We are reading it though. It's there in the public domain to read. The protagonists have an internet trail of commentary following them around now a mile wide.

Everything is documented and reported in in great detail. Activists can't fart without a substack going live before the air clears.

This level of scrutiny is making a difference which is why it's so hated and called a culture war.

There is zero chance we're going back to "transsexual" as a label or definition. This makes it too easy to seperate children and adults.

The law which used the term 'transsexual' was passed only 13 years ago. 'Trans' and 'transgender' are very recent and only came into use because of campaigning by groups like Press for Change who wanted to broaden the 'trans' umbrella to include transvestites in the same group as transsexuals.

This is from their submission to Parliament in 2007:

Transgender is an umbrella term, coined in America, used to include people whose lifestyles appear to conflict with the gender norms of society. It includes many types of people and lifestyles. In the broadest use of the term, a transgender person crosses the conventional boundaries of gender; in clothing; in presenting themselves; even as far as having multiple surgical procedures to be fully bodily reassigned in their preferred gender role.

In this report we will normally use the term 'trans people' to describe those people who might be described as falling broadly within this context, as it has become the term of normal use since the coining of it by Press for Change for their 1996 mission statement: "Seeking respect and equality for ALL trans people"[2]. People who identify as transsexual are a small part of this spectrum and may or may not have had medical treatment to alter their physical appearance.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmpublic/criminal/memos/ucm39102.htm

This is a new term. It came into use due to this campaign to change the language. We can try to change it back. Use the appropriate term 'transsexual' and when people 'correct' it to 'trans' or 'transgender', ask them what the difference is.

@FrancescaContini

If “gender reassignment” requires a GRC and if this can only be obtained by those aged 18+, this area of the EA isn’t applicable to schoolchildren apart from those who have turned 18.

No, “Gender Reassignment” does not require a GRC. And almost anything counts as Gender Reassignment.

So if I have understood correctly, “gender reassignment” isn’t a category of the EA that schools have to comply with by virtue of the vast majority of school children being under 18, BUT they DO need to allow for freedom of belief in biological reality especially since the Forstater ruling.

Unfortunately, I think you have misunderstood.

See below, “other characteristics of sex”

Changing ”other attributes of sex” could mean a six year old boy wearing pink sparkly shoes, or having long hair, or wearing an Elsa dress.

1)A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.

(2)A reference to a transsexual person is a reference to a person who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

(3)In relation to the protected characteristic of gender reassignment—

(a)a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a transsexual person;

(b)a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to transsexual persons.

The law is appalling.

I get what you're saying here but anyone who has been taught to think critically even a tiny bit would change course when the full batshittery and (in the case of children) safeguarding red flags of gender ideology start to be considered.

Most women on here started from a point of wanting to be inclusive. Kellie Jay was a Labour voter. It was only when she considered the logical consequence of the idea that men can be (indeed are) women on their say so - that there would be adult 'lady' penises beside her daughter in changing rooms, and that her daughter would not be able to speak up against this that she became active.

Most mothers, indeed I suspect most women, would put child safety and safeguarding above inclusivity. Either the professional classes are dimmer than the working classes or just more scared of rocking the boat and more willing to throw vulnerable adults and children under the bus for their own gain.

I mean if we're all about 'inclusivity' there are those who are lobbying hard for MAP (aka paedophiles) to be part of the + in the LGBTQ+ . Are we going to start saying that MAPs have to be included in school events? Whenever I get some waffly painfully simplistic pride presentation from the school about 'everyone is welcome' then I think 'really, everyone? Paedophiles really want to be included in schools, but one of the whole bloody points of safer recruitment, DBS checks and the whole expensive, laborious safeguarding framework in schools is to keep them away from kids. What about the county lines recruiters - are we including them? Are they welcome?

This was all passed in 2003, yes?
I've always followed politics, and I have no recollection at the time of any debate, public engagement. Nothing.