Girl Guides and Trans Awareness Week

[ScoldsBridle]

Pinning their contradictory, conflicting opinions to their mast. Who on earth do they think they’re appealing to? ‘Girl-only’ surely can’t include boys?

Sorry meant trans girls are boys. Typo as tired.
Agree that it's all the latest social contagion but our lot (when you hear anything about it) think it's bonkers.
Leaders know exactly who is on our unit. And no way would we allow mixed sex sleeping.

But if you stick to biological sex - and ignore "identifying" - there is no problem.

So how would you actually deal with it if a trans girl wanted to join your unit?

The press release was shared to the County FB page for the area I volunteer in. Let's just say there weren't many "likes" for it . . the tumbleweed was rolling on down the post

Down at the grass roots, we continue to serve our girls as best we can, whilst batshittery is peddled at national level.

"Either the word 'girl' refers to biological sex, in which case transboys should be admitted but transgirls not, or it refers to some innate sense of 'girly' essence which is shared by all girls and transgirls but is not shared by transboys. I fail to see how an 'all girls' group can admit both transboys and transgirls while still claiming to be solely for girls."

This is not right. I don't think most (actual, real) girls have a innate sense of 'girly essence'. All GG have done here is effectively exclude most (actual, real) girls by only actually welcoming people, of any biology, who ascribe to very old-fashioned stereotypes and then align themselves with the female stereotypes.

In this day and age, there are many, many, many girls who don't have that girly essence and are therefore apparently not welcome at a guide.

Way to go guides. You must be so proud.

Didn't she already say that? She's say no because they're not an actual girl and then if GG central went all 1984 on her she'd leave because she doesn't want to be part of enforcing the patriarchy in that way. Good on her.

But wouldn't that be directly against GG policy?

The crying shame of all this is that their policy is outrageously sexist towards girls.

Their definition of a girl is someone who is girly.

And, originally, i'm sure they did say they exclude girls who identify as boys! How fucking sexist is that??

I think they changed their mind pretty sharpish. But now it's completely incoherent. Only one sex is believed when they identify as a different sex.

When girls identify as boys? Nah, they're still girls.

I so wish woman's hour would have them on.

It's impossible to follow a policy which says we only let girls in, but also we let some boys in.

When it's logically incoherent nonsense, there's no point in trying to follow it.

Besides which, some policies, when they are exclusionary and sexist (like this one) should not be followed. We should not use obedience as an excuse for discriminatory behaviours.

It might go against policy, but no policy can force a volunteer to do something that could get her into legal trouble. I do not believe the policy is compliant with the Equality Act. Nobody under 18 can legally change sex. If I admit one boy on the grounds of what they say they feel they are - not a protected characteristic - then I need to admit every boy, regardless of feelings.

I have control over my waiting list. If the next person to come up for admission transpires to be a boy - which may be apparent from their personal record - then I will take advice from my DC. If I am advised I need to admit him, I will resign, and leave it to my successor to deal with. If I admit a boy inadvertently (ie no prior notice of their perceived gender status), I will resign and let my successor and the DC deal with it (the reality is the unit will probably fold - not my problem). I will not in any way make the child responsible. I will make the adults above me who are in governance and power responsible; and I will make myself responsible for my own feelings about the matter by removing myself from a situation I do not believe should be happening and which is illegal.

All these organisations are governed by guilt. The guilt of women in particular is strong, we find it hard to walk away. But that is the only way they will listen.

Look, if Guide leaders are actually prepared to refuse to allow trans girls to join the Guides on the basis that GG's policy is against the Equality Act, that's great.

I'm just wondering what the consequences would be for those Guide leaders if the trans girl in question complained to the head honchos.

This thread has reminded me that I received an email on 10th Nov asking me, "What do you think of guiding?" If you're a parent of a guide/ brownie/ rainbow, you might have it too.

It's interesting as a lot of thr survey focuses on single sex spaces. Also it has a lot of free text boxes to expand on your answers, unlike previous surveys. I have now completed it, including providing somewhat robust detailed answers in the free text boxes.

Who knows what it will achieve but please consider doing the same if you have been sent that email.

I imagine you'd get the Katie Allock treatment. My view is that I'd rather just walk and let them have the ball ache (pun intended) of saving the unit from folding. That way, I'm removing myself from the situation, not requiring the boy to remove himself and not discriminating against anyone. I'd make my feelings plain and my opinion on their policies known. What are they going to do to me if I've left, but not prevented the boy from joining? I'm not particularly invested in GG as an organisation, I'm not going to enter a legal battle with them - I simply don't care enough about them as a org to want to save them from themselves.

What consequences could there be? GG give out two diametrically opposed pieces of policy information: we are single sex and we allow boy as well as girls in. The leader would be following one arm of that incoherent information. I guess the TGs folks might try and sue GG but wouldn't that be GG central not the leader? (also it would be a shit thing to put their child through and I think they'd be better off investing their efforts in helping their child find a way to be comfortable in their own skin whilst not encroaching on protected spaces because actually most people don't want to shit on others and you don't want to give that vulnerable boy something else to have to come to terms with (aka the knowledge as they mature that they disrespected girls).

I think it's obvious that they are now using a completely different definition of "single sex".

If the consequence is that leaders just quit, this could be the end of the GG.

They need to define single sex if they want people to understand they mean both female and male bodied people.

Unfortunately, a lot of the things we think these idiots need to do, they don't agree they need to do.

Isn't it dreadful watching a once respected organisation for girls being destroyed from the top like this? It's the Denton's playbook of entryism - destroying all things centred on women and girls. With the irony that every time individuals boast about gaining access, media scrutiny evidences that they're a safeguarding disaster.

So true! but then I'm not sure that they can pin anything on the leader who follows one arm of their conflicting policies.

I have moved from a much kinder (on the surface, but maybe not when you look deeper) position of going along with some accommodation of trans demands. I now think there actually is a wrong way to be a woman, and that is to pretend that you are a man (and vice versa) - not because I have anything but concern for the transgender people I know, but because they have been caught up in a movement based on distorting truth. And Guiding is enabling that distortion, to the detriment of the people they originally set out to help.

It's highly dishonest, isn't it? Using a statistic of 82% of girls agreeing that transw shouldn't be discriminated against and conflating that as:

82% of our girl members agree with great enthusiasm that trans identifying males ought to be welcomed unconditionally into the Guides.

Pushing of conversion therapy and instilling of internalised homophobia. How very progressive.

Yes. It's completely ridiculous. Trans people deserve as many rights as everyone else and should not be discriminated against. That doesn't mean TW/ TG (aka males) get free reign to go into spaces for women. That's not a right's issues. That's male privilege.

Our Royal Charter states that Girlguiding is for… the primary object of educating girls and young women to help them
develop emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually so that they can make a positive contribution to their community
and the wider world’gaslighting girls and young women to help them better serve boys and men, learn to deny girls’ own instincts, needs, privacy, and dignity, and instead to police the girls’ language and behaviour, while enabling the fantasies of adult cross-dressers and providing those men with access to the sleeping and changing spaces of female children, so that the children can make a positive contribution to men’s rights activist groups in their community and the wider world.

There, fixed that for you.

Fantastic to see how strongly girls and young women support inclusion, and great to see an organisation respecting their views! Well done girl guiding