New sports club at DC’s high school only open to LGBTQ+ pupils and their allies

[SirChenjins]

Are they legally allowed to exclude GC pupils? Or pupils who are not one of the special alphabet children?

This is a really great club - nothing like the school has offered before. Seems a shame to limit attendance based on sexuality/gender ideology rather than interest/ability.

We’re in Scotland if that makes a difference.

Sorry my bad, I misread your post

Since when did the entire LGBTQ become ‘trans’?

Showing your arse there, mate!

No no nothing

its more than likely me, i quite often use the wrong word or don’t explain myself properly

What if you're GC but an ally of the LGB communities?

So much this. Encouraging gender non-conforming kids to believe that only 'branded' LGBTQ+ spaces are safe for them, only serves to instill a victim narrative and further isolate them from their peers. Encouraging and supporting them to join peer activities would be healthier surely?

Why would anyone want to isolate gender non-conforming kids from their peers and encourage them to believe that only LGBTQ+ spaces and people are safe for them? What purpose would that serve (no answers on a postcard, I already know).

Is it a sport where the wider culture has been very enmeshed with alternative culture and then QT+ people - like roller derby, quidditch, tag rugby, maybe ultimate frisbee...

In which case your son can go and it's just part of the general announcing these clubs do, a way of showing they are not like other sports.

If it's a normal sport where the wider sporting culture is politics free and there are lots of traditional clubs, then your DS should leave it alone and go elsewhere, let the kids who feel they don't fit in elsewhere (even if it's their own doing) have this club.

I think this is a very good example of what is meant by it. It's become clear that children who identify as LGBT are being prioritised and given preferential treatment in certain instances.
In this example, the school is offering a specific sport that only LGBT children can access.
If it were the case (for e.g) that there was 'Cricket Club' and then 'LGBT Cricket Club', then that would make sense and be fair, but in this case, there is no general Cricket Club and only LGBT children can do cricket.
As orientation or gender identity is not directly related to whether children like cricket or not, this is special treatment.
We are seeing this a lot - especially for teens - if you give yourself a label, you get opportunities that aren't available to children who don't label themselves. This isn't about creating a level playing field. It's giving opportunities to only one type of child while refusing them to others.

To be clear, I have absolutely no problem with there being LGBT groups in a school. I'm sure they are invaluable to young gay kids, but it is becoming clear that this is becoming less about helping children in a difficult time and more about creating privileged cliches within a school.

I'm not sure lesbians are underrepresented in sport.

Lesbians are actually over represented in quite a
number of sports (eg football) so lumping the entire LGBTQ in together undermines the legal argument that a LGBTQ specific sports club is a proportionate means to legitimate aim (unlike for example, a female only swim club in a leisure centre located in an area with a lot of Muslim residents).

A T only sports club would likely be a proportionate means to a legitimate aim (ie getting an under served and often unhealthy (!) population to be more active)

The fact that people who run schools and sports clubs don’t know that they are undermining their own legal position is a good illustration for why EQ10 needs clarification.

Jinx!

I'd respectfully suggest that schools should not be running LGBT clubs - or clubs for children based on heterosexuality.
The role of schools is not to promote any form of sexuality / sexual identity to children and those who go down this route are entering a potential safeguarding nightmare.

Christ this is such a load of warped shit.

From schools being involved in kids sexuality, to there being clubs in school for
it, from the LGB being teamed with the T and queer, to the special sports
groups, from the term ally even being used in this context, to it being used to
exclude kids from sports based on sexual orientation.

It's all a crock of shite. Warped twisted out of control shit.

Time to make schools places where sex is just not discussed. They are places of
learning not social experiments. It's very inclusive: we don't talk about anybody’s
sexual orientation in school, so do that in your own time and form groups outside school.

The rule in school should be no bullying or discrimination on any grounds is
tolerated. But that doesn't mean we have to turn ourselves in twisted knots of
idiocy trying to meet every need every identity claims to have. There is a difference between protection and accommodation.

Reproduction should be taught in biology, everything else is left to families and the communities they choose to engage with. Or for young people gaining independence the communities the choose to join.

They could have a club for kids who don't engage with sport to encourage them presumably that would be a diverse group? But if an LGBTQIA+ club then why not a Hindu sports club, or a Travellers sports club or a club for ELA students? Or a club for feminist girls and their allies, but non feminist girls are excluded.

Set up a club for the issue: not engaged with sport. Not based on ever bifurcating identities.

It's a really bad stupid idea on so many levels.

I'd be telling kid not to attend that club, that I view the premise of a club on that basis as wrong, and looking for a way for them to do that sport outside school if it's that important.

I predict that society is going to get so fed up with this obsession with children's sexualities that the pendulum may end up swinging back towards the "don't have sex, you will get chlamydia and die" approach.

'Obsession with children's sexuality.'

You'd think that statement would make everyone go: WTF?? But no, children's sexuality is the new progressive area for schools.

Where could this go wrong.... FOR FUCKS SAKE WAKE UP PEOPLE.

Just in general, it would be fine to set up a gay male rugby club. In that situation, people in the local community would probably have other options if they don't meet the criteria.

However, at a state school, I don't think you should set up a gay rugby club for pupils, when no alternative exists at the school for everyone else.

Problems I see:
This group is arbitrarily constituted and does not share a protected characteristic. Sexual orientation and gender reassignment are different. Q means nothing in law. Allies ditto.
IANAL, so maybe
Lesbians are not underrepresented in sport generally, the opposite is true if anything. We don't know what the sport is, but if other sports are a guide, there will be no shortage of lesbians.
Since a bare 0.5% of the English and Welsh population claim some sort of identity, I think it's unlikely that the T demographic actually is underrepresented. But before we can assess whether T are under-represented we would have to know what "trans" means. Nobody seems to.

Never mind not wanting to out themselves as gender-questioning, some kids may not want to out themselves as homosexual.

There is no provision for straight or gc kids of any sexual orientation to participate. Agree with pp that we shouldn't be focusing on sexual orientation and identity anyway, at least not until they are 16.

Since it is a mixed sex sport, the T demographic don't have to take part in a team labelled one sex or the other, so there would be no reason to exclude the other kids.

The L, G or B children are as likely to experience homophobic bullying in an LGBTQ group as they are anywhere else.

Agree with the points raised by the OP at 12:50.
On the face of it, this looks like a special club set up to exclude pupils as young as 11 on the grounds of their beliefs and sexual orientation. This is unfair and also ridiculous for a school. They're just kids, fgs. It would be more honest to call it a sport club for gender zealots. It's a very bad example to set as it excludes for illegitimate reasons.

Separate point:
Speaking generally to those saying that an open category in addition to the male and female categories are the way forward, please think again. All you are doing is creating another category for men to excel in. And it would not keep the male
people out of the female category, either - the only thing that keeps the female category female is a prohibition on all males. The existence of another, mixed-sex option is as attractive to males claiming to be women/girls as the existence of third spaces generally. Not validating or exciting enough.

It would also look highly suspicious that they would cross the line into indoctrinating pupils and failing in their duty to be politically impartial.

Surely the child can be a gender critical LGB ally? If asked when attending he just has to be really clear that he is there to support his homosexual and bisexual friends and neglect to mention gender.

This doesn’t make sense.
The natural implication of this is that homophobia is even more normalised in sports because people who are not homophobic will participate in special non-homophobic clubs.

No sports clubs should be a place for homophobia.

What's most annoying about this is that the l and g don't need a separate group, they can just play sports in their own sex teams. Their sexuality has no bearing on their playing sport.
It is only people who don't want to compete in their own sex teams who need a separate group.
So annoying that it's all lumped together.

How many kids are going to this club? Absolutely unbelievable that this is what schools are promoting, despicable. Completely messed up.

I would hope that they would also offer a ‘club’ to students who hold GC beliefs, which as you well know are respected and legal, as they too are subject to bullying and harassment for holding such legal views.

I've been in a women's sport club that folded because of a inter-team relationship breakdown 😞 a sad and difficult situation.

Although I also sadly acknowledge the homophobia I've seen directed at any successful sportswoman, whether gay or not, over many years.

They may still want/need their own group due to prejudice and underrepresentation. I can see justification for a gay men's football team. A lesbian women's football team would be far less justifiable.