Telegraph: Trans guidance for teachers was wrong, says watchdog

[ResisterRex]

Story in the Telegraph, which says that the EHRC has written to Sex Matters to say their 2014 guidance had things wrong with it:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/16/trans-children-pupils-teachers-schools-guidance-regulator/

"The equalities regulator has said the Government must urgently publish its delayed trans guidance for schoolss_ to provide teachers with “much needed clarity”.
Marcial Boo, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s chief executive, revealed that the watchdog had been privately urging the Department for Education (DfE) to “expedite” their new guidance, amid wrangling in Government over how to respond to children seeking to change their gender identity in schools.
Writing to campaigners, Mr Boo also admitted that the EHRC’s own official guidance, in place for almost a decade, had been wrong to tell teachers that they would automatically be guilty of anti-trans discrimination if they referred to a “previously female pupil” as a girl. He said the regulator was urgently correcting “inaccuracies” in its “technical guidance” on the application of the Equality Act in schools."

"In a letter sent on Wednesday Mr Boo said: “Schools ... are calling for clear information on these matters. We have been urging DfE to expedite their new guidance and expect them to consult on it shortly.”
An EHRC spokesman added: “We urge them to bring forward this guidance as soon as possible, to help provide much needed clarity for schools and families.”"

"But, in a letter to the Sex Matters campaign groupp_, which alerted the EHRC to “errors” in the guidance, Mr Boo said: “You raise important and complex areas of equality law. For example, as you suggest, it may not be directly discriminatory for a school not to refer to a child by their preferred gender (where it differs from their legal sex). However, schools must carefully consider how they justify and consistently apply their policies on this matter to avoid any risk of indirect discrimination.”
Referring to the 2014 guidance he added: “We recognise that since that time, several areas of policy and law, including in particular considerations around sex and gender such as those you raise, have evolved.
”We are currently undertaking a rapid review of this guidance and intend to publish a revised version, correcting the inaccuracies which have been highlighted to us, within the coming weeks.”"

So when are the government going to tell schools the following?:

The EHRC technical guidance was wrong and schools can speak accurately about children's legal sex without falling foul of the law?

Schools are legally required to be politically impartial (Education Act 1996) and therefore should not be allowing political queer theory groups campaigning to remove women's rights etc into schools to influence policy and children.

Only the Courts can remove parental responsibility with the police & social services adhering to this. Why does any school believe they can remove parental rights and transition children in secret?

Children are legally entitled to single sex toilets, changing rooms and showers.

Socially transitioning children is not a neutral act (see Cass Review)

Why is this so difficult for the government to spell out to schools?

I don't know, MrsOverton. I wish they would hurry up.

It feels like we're running through treacle.

Maybe we should just copy and paste this and send it to all MPs and Councillors (not forgetting many of them have influence on local education Committees.

At least there is movement in the right direction.

In Australia, the laws are passed - everything you mention above has already been enshrined in law, and no one is listening to any voices of dissent against gender ideology and queer theory. I just hope that once your guidances are clear, other governments throughout the world will realise the harm they have legislated.

Trouble is if parents are in support the school them has to support transition too so this is not going to stop the harm. Parents still believe this is better than certain suicide.

It is a step in the right direction though and will help to avoid harm to all the other children impacted by parents who approve the school "affirming" Child XX as ChildXY and vice versa.

Am I right in thinking that both parents would need to approve? Not all parents are in agreement with each other. When it is left to the school they might be going against the wishes of one or both parents.

It needs to be written up as a case study in how organisations have been corrupted and then issued to every school, college, university, government department with an order to review policies and procedures to ensure compliance.

Feeling a glimmer of hope and optimism...

Very true but there are multiple different routes that will come together to support children.

Schools guidance is key to setting the standard for how gender-questioning children should be supported at school i.e. don't just affirm (and also don't push gender identity belief on to children as "fact") and make sure the parents are aware and involved.

On a second (and third) front of the battle, parents (and health professionals) need access to evidence-based information which helps them to navigate this and support their child with confidence.
Saying no to mental health care for my daughter, when she was hospitalised with self-harming, is one of the hardest things I've ever done. I wasn't saying no because she didn't need the care (she very much did) but because they were stating that she identified as a boy (which they later acknowledged she never did) at the point of entry, meaning any care that she was given would have been pulling her further and further down the wrong pathway. Thankfully, we resolved this and she accessed the care a month later with the right safeguarding in place.

Most (almost all) parents want what is best for their children. If you're told by health professionals that affirmative care is the best care, with its small nod to exploration but mostly "listen to your child", you're very likely to listen. Especially if your child is emotionally hurting. It's on all of us as parents to do our own research, but I can understand why many parents trust the health professionals.

As a follow-on, any parents which do support transition will obviously result in the child being supported as transgender at school.
I would hope that the guidance makes it clear that other children have a choice to show support for that child's belief (that they are the opposite sex) or not i.e. that the child's belief can't be compelled on to others.
I would also hope that the guidance states that schools can accommodate the child's belief but only where it doesn't impact anyone else's belief (that sex is immutable) and doesn't break the law regarding the protected characteristic of sex (single sex spaces etc).

If it's all framed from a belief perspective, it helps to break it down.

Parents are free to believe that their child is the opposite sex, should they think this is the right approach for their child. But no child or parent gets to compel others in to this belief.

The ECHR guidance was wrong?

Fgs they hold everyone over a barrel, get it wrong and then demand expedition

What if we’d set in stone that inaccuracy already

Honestly how shite are they

@DiabolicalFinial do you mean laws reflecting that list or in the other direction?

What kind of laws do you have

@EasternStandard - sorry for the confusion, I wasn’t clear.

We have laws here that mandate the horrors mentioned above - so schools are to actively assist a student’s transition, keep it from parents, and to encourage any child who has issues with parents not affirming/complying with GI/transition to engage with the anti-discrimination commission (ie report parents).

Social services are able to remove children if their parents refuse to affirm (socially, puberty blockers, hormones, surgery), and so parents are left with affirming or losing their children to the state.

Schools have guidance written by a Stonewall/MM equivalent (seemingly imported with little local vocabulary or culture displayed) that dictates schools must, immediately, affirm, use preferred pronouns, allow preferred uniform, and permit the trans student to use the “gendered” facilities of their choice (including toilets, changerooms, accommodation, pe, sports, etc).

The schools are captured - not just government schools, either. There have been cases where religious/independent schools have had vitriolic and sustained abuse when they have attempted to counter some of the GI madness.

Of course, the government is completely directing the agenda - education ministers with ‘non-binary’ (adult) children, politicians hosting drag Queen story time in Parliament House, and the ability to change your ‘gender’ on your birth certificate up to once a year….

I despair as to how this can be rolled back to reality, to a biological basis for facts and a return to actually educating and safeguarding children.

Apparently then come the next election, I have a choice between a government that has morals but is too weak and gutless to do anything other than handwring, or a government that is stark raving bonkers and hates women.

I'm not sure which is worse, but I'm not giving either of those two disaster options a vote.

Article in the Guardian Observer

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/17/teachers-need-guidance-to-resolve-issues-gender-identity-in-classroom

It's probably a normal thing, but the line at the bottom 'Sonia Sodha is an Observer columnist' reads like a 'don't blame us' kind of thing!

So your guidance had been wrong for nearly a decade and is harming children? Perhaps get a wiggle on and issue the correct guidance then? And CC Girlguides while you’re at it

Yes. Any promise the Tories had shown with standing up for women is apparently evaporating.

As is my patience.

To win my vote, a party needs to take clear, firm action to protect women, children, and freedom of speech.

Labour Sex Fudge won't cut it, and neither will Tory dithers.

This is awful, I really feel for anyone who is GC in that environment, I would find it very hard.

It’s a reminder of what is in balance here. Once legislated we will have very little recourse

@Froodwithatowel i know people are frustrated and I understand why, it’s a big issue that is already impacting dc

One thing I’ve learnt from all these threads is just how much the current law is defended by invested parties. Of which there are many and powerful.

I find TRAs hard to read on here sometimes but they show why they can defend what they do, the law is backing them and it takes ages to change. It takes consultations and process

I’m not giving up yet and will look out for legislative change at next GE.

It’s the only thing that will change our status quo

There is no way that Gillian Keegan should be allowed to continue kicking this along in to the long grass but equally, when the EHRC admits that the foundations upon which the new guidance will rely are wrong, this is a difficult situation.
However, it should mean full steam ahead on all fronts. Very quickly.
They should use anything that is sensible (Cass Review, EHRC guide on single sex spaces, Sex Matters' guidance) as the start point. Everything else can be tidied up in its wake, through judicial review or other tests via case law, just as Miriam Cates suggests. Any other approach is abhorrent, because of the medical scandal that is currently happening to more and more children.
I'm aware that Miriam Cates holds the Sex Matters' guidance in high regard but does anyone know the officially recognised position on this? What's to stop opponents saying they are a politicised lobby group (aside from the obvious irony of how Stonewall Law got woven in)?

To me, having gender reassignment as a protected characteristic is the stumbling block in all this.

You're not supposed to discriminate. And there's the rub. What does discrimination constitute? Discrimination means you can't keep treat them differently from anyone else. Which if it's ended there, would be fine.

But it doesn't.

However, schools must carefully consider how they justify and consistently apply their policies on this matter to avoid any risk of indirect discrimination.”

i'm guessing indirect discrimination means that something would affect a child who says they are trans more than it would affect a child who isn't, even though it's the same treatment. Ie toilets. They both have to use the toilet of their sex, so it's the same treatment, but it indirectly affects a trans child more

So they have to say either:

a) the protected characteristic doesn't apply to children.

b) it doesn't constitute indirect discrimination, because applying it would discriminate against others.

Of course, the Cass report (I think it was Cass) said that social transition is the biggest indicator of medical transition, so to my mind, they should be able to institute option a) purely on that basis.

Plus several protected characteristics don't apply to children. Pregnancy, for instance. So it's not unprecedented.

Whatever it is, they have to be unequivocal.

They can't have this 'pronouns are okay under some circumstances', concept.

And, for the love of God, stop teaching this shit in schools. It's not necessary.

The other thing, of course, is to rewrite what the protected characteristic of what gender reassignment means. Currently it's so woolly it's meaningless. Plus children can't have surgery, so it can't mean that.

As people have said it's a mess.

it's equally clear that it requires something of a backbone to sort it out.

I vote for MrsOvertonsWindow to show them how it's done.

The suggestions below seem good to me, I’d be interested in why anyone thinks they couldn’t be the case on legal basis

Guidance can’t go out of the bounds of legislation so this to me is an almighty fuck up

Writing to campaigners, Mr Boo also admitted that the EHRC’s own official guidance, in place for almost a decade, had been wrong to tell teachers that they would automatically be guilty of anti-trans discrimination if they referred to a “previously female pupil” as a girl.

He said the regulator was urgently correcting “inaccuracies” in its “technical guidance” on the application of the Equality Act in schools."

They are still correcting inaccuracies.

Their position needs to be known before the we can determine guidance here given ECHR applies to us

I second MrsO!

Letter:

sex-matters.org/posts/updates/ehrc-to-correct-inaccurate-schools-guidance/

sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/2094Forstater.pdf

A third vote for Mrs O!

Let's tell Rishi and Baroness Falkner that we've got this one sewn up 👍