School Guidance out Tomorrow

[Igneococcus]

I don't have time to read this fully right now, but it sounds messy:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/789e1fd3-4a82-4b71-a0bf-e165b5f410b1?shareToken=054150e42690555c0ffe751a53776e92

There are lots of comments on twitter and reddit from teachers concerned about having to 'out' children to their parents. So schools are transitioning children without parental consent.

Lots of schools have been very reluctant to share sex education materials, including their teaching on gender, with parents.

Schools are forcing children to refer to other children and teachers with incorrect pronouns. Parents do not know if their daughers are sharing toilets, changing rooms and sports lessons with boys.

Some schools have encouraged lots of secrecy around this area - an obvious safeguarding risk.

If schools were unsure of their obligations, why didnt they demand clarification years ago? They know that the EqA isnt the only law thats applicable here - theres the childrens act and the education act.

I know its not all teachers and not all schools. But pretending that schools havent legitimised the concept of gender identity into schools isnt truthful.

I don't think so. It sets out statutory duties and the law so it can't do that, and overstep the law at the same time. But Michael Foran says it better than me:

"It's evidence based & legally compliant. This will have been painstakingly assessed by UK gov lawyers and my own view is that there is no danger of breaching the Equality Act if this guidance was followed. Any suggestion to the contrary should be treated with extreme suspicion."

x.com/michaelpforan/status/1737204280434540875?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

What I mean is that those who bring a test case against "social transition should be rare" will have to prove that the current law prevents this because the way that the law protects gender reassignment applies to children AND applies to children who have done no more than go into school and say they want to change gender (ie the stonewall case). It's not actually clear that this is the case, but it's not clear that it isn't.

It is quite possible that a court might find that actually the threshold for what constitutes protected undergoing "gender reassignment" in children means that the person generally needs to have committed to a pathway, involved medical professionals or had counselling etc. or maybe not.

But at least it would be clear.

It would be fascinating to know just how many schools are being unprofessional and not following standard safeguarding guidance when dealing with pupils who come out as trans to a member of staff, and to be able to compare this to schools who use common sense, standard protocols and liaise successfully with pupils and their parents to negotiate their way through this minefield.

Our school does it very successfully, including preserving single-sex spaces, and I would like to hope that we are not an isolated case.

Not that I particularly agree with children being ‘allowed’ to socially transition in school, but if parents have instructed the school to change a child’s preferred name then that should stand in my opinion.

The biggest issue is the pronoun and name part.

Because it's not a neutral act, the children already believe they are entitled to be seen as completely different. I agree it's unclear what should happen next for these children.

The schools who've done this in secret are in deep shit.

Ritchie Herron has made this point on Twitter:

My heart breaks for the younguns who have had nothing but affirmation, and now suddenly face a rude awakening.

They shouldn't have been placed in this position, and I do worry how this will intersect with the affirmation or suicide narrative.

Poor bairns

This has been a horrific safeguarding failure.

I'd also be cpom-ing everything.

Is Schools Week a reliable source? It seems to think that DfE lawyers’ advice was not acted upon sufficiently?

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/trans-guidance-dfe-lawyers-said-schools-face-high-risk-of-being-sued/

On a very personal note, I hope schools do take all of this on board.
DD socially transitioned at school, and only at school a few years ago. Despite telling them I did not want her name changed, it has been. She wasn't allowed to be in the girls dormitory on a school trip but was able to share with the boys, with our permission! Which obviously wasn't given.
Her brother has also been pulled up many times for calling her his sister and using her wrong name.
The utter madness of it all must come to an end, but I fear it won't even with this guidance and we will be those parents for more years to come.

It was painstakingly assessed by UK gov lawyers and their advice was ignored. The advice they gave was leaked, as posted upthread.

"Schools face a “high risk” of successful legal challenges if they follow several elements of today’s controversial trans guidance, advice written by the government’s own lawyers reveals.
The leaked legal advice, issued in the last week and obtained by Schools Week, shows Department for Education lawyers flagged concern that several passages in the guidance would fail to stand up to a legal challenge.
Despite the warning, these passages were still included in the official draft guidance published today, which was signed off by Number 10 and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch.
It means the government has issued guidance its own lawyers made clear would likely lead to schools facing legal challenges that they would lose. Other warnings included the department itself would lose a legal challenge over aspects of the guidance.
A government spokesperson said: “We do not comment on leaks."

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/trans-guidance-dfe-lawyers-said-schools-face-high-risk-of-being-sued/

I hope its not a very high percentage. But the DoE did have to remind schools to share the RSHE materials with parents. That doesnt inspire confidence in a lot of schools relationships with parents.

If a parent informs the schools of their childs new name, they would need to respect that. But expecting all other children in the school to comply with preferred pronouns is not reasonable adjustment. I think even using incorrect pronouns in front of a child as a teacher is a safeguarding concern.

Interesting about the leak. Of course, the government takes advice from a range of lawyers. Given everything we know about the extent of trans capture in the DfE specifically - it is quite possible that Stonewall captured lawyers in the DfE gave this advice based on Stonewall law and have subsequently been over ruled by more experienced lawyers who dismiss the Stonewall law.

They've now leaked their preferred advice in a tantrum having been overruled?
Who knows. Only time will tell.

Is Schools Week claiming that DFE - which is led by the Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan - has put out guidance which Gillian Keegan did not agree with and did not sign off, and was therefore signed off by the Secretary of State for Trade and Business and the Prime Minister instead of the Secretary of State for Education?

If Schools Week is publishing articles creating the impression that Gillian Keegan, as Secretary of State for Education, didn’t sign off the DFE schools guidance, it makes you wonder who leaked the legal advice submitted to Gillian Keegan by her departmental lawyers.

Yes but on the one hand you've got someone claiming that it has been painstakingly assessed by government lawyers as a defence of the guidance and then on the other hand you've got the government lawyers saying that it isn't actually legally tight.

I'm sure Badenoch had her own lawyers look it over as well as the DfE. Given her keen personal interest, I don't think she'd have relied on Keegan's department.

If schools were unsure of their obligations, why didnt they demand clarification years ago?

Schools have been asking for this guidance for years. It has been promised and delayed and promised and delayed multiple times.

So rather than wait, they ignored all their safeguarding training and transitioned children without parental permission, allowed boys to use girls changing room, and withheld details of the trans ideology they taught from parents?

Why didnt they just say, we cannot be part of this until we get clear guidance?

Now schools are getting guidance, why are teachers saying that they will ignore it?

Some did, on the legal advice of Stonewall, and in the absence of any other expertise.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission only recently admitted that it got the law wrong when it said you couldn't impose a blanket ban on pupils using the toilets of the opposite sex and it should be considered on a case-by-case basis.

The law here is not easy to interpret and incorrect legal advice has been given to schools in the absence of government guidance.

you've got the government lawyers saying that it isn't actually legally tight.

The Schools Week leak doesn’t include the full text of the legal commentary, so the nature of the concerns raised isn’t entirely clear.

However reading the selection of quotes, the lawyers’ concern seems to be that the guidance’s explanation of the under-pinning legal framework doesn’t go into sufficient detail, doesn’t spell out where the legal test is from EA2010 versus from safeguarding legislation, and doesn’t emphasise the exceptions as much as the lawyers would like. One criticism for example is that the guidance says “there’s no general duty to do X” but doesn’t also say that in some specific (aka non-general) cases, there may be a duty in that particular instance.

It seems to me that it’s possible for “there may be a specific duty in some individual cases” and “there’s no general duty” to both be accurate. Caveat IANAL.

It could be that the policy set out in the guidance is rational and lawful, but that the wording of the explanation for it isn’t quite nit-picky enough for the lawyers. It’s out for consultation, so those who think the legal explanations miss the mark could explain why in their responses.

Even if the pc of gr can potentially apply to children can anyone under the age of 18 actually acquire a grc?

If children do not have a grc then why would the guidance be overstepping the law? If children do have a grc, I could see how the guidance would be a step too far but the first question would be how did the child get a grc?

So in practice all of the argument on the applicability of the guidance is a moot point since even if the pc applies, it cannot be applied?
And anyway there is no hierarchy to the pcs..

Sorry I'm late to this party and trying to catch up.

You could equally argue that it's possible for parents to sue schools for unlawful removal of their parental rights and responsibilities (particularly around safeguarding which requires open communication), or that it's possible for parents to sue schools for breaking the existing law around single sex toilets over the age of 8.

KCSIE defines emotional abuse as 'The persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to cause severe and persistent adverse effects on the child’s emotional development. It may involve conveying to a child that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only insofar as they meets the needs of another person. It may include not giving the child opportunities to express their views, deliberately silencing them or ‘making fun’ of what they say or how they communicate.' Sanctioning children on a regular basis for normal English usage of pronouns, for 'misgendering' and creating an environment where they feel scared to express their belief in binary sex, placing the desires of a tiny minority of students above the needs of all the other students (in some cases affecting the ability to communicate freely for some children - it's bloody hard to use wrong sex pronouns) could easily be argued to fall into this definition.

This is statutory guidance.

None of this has been argued in a court of law yet, but if it gets to that point I doubt it will be around one narrow law (the EA) disregarding all the other laws that govern what happens (or should happen) in schools and regarding children.

I really hope a case comes sooner rather than later.

Of course it's very difficult for schools - but they successfully (to a greater or lesser extent) balance the needs of children of different religions, with different needs (e.g. those with and without SEND or with different sometimes conflicting SEND needs). However in the case of all other issues, it seems the basic principle of respect for others holds true.

For example, students are expected to show respect for other religious beliefs but they are not expected to adhere to the customs of that religion.

In only one area are children expected to change their beliefs and actions for a minority with absolutely no regard for their needs and reason seems to have fled.

The trans issue stands out like a red flag. During Ramadan in DDs school, non-Muslim students are expected to be respectful of those Muslim students fasting. They are not expected to themselves go without lunch. Compelling the use of pronouns (and the teachers using wrong sex pronouns is doing this) is equivalent to expecting all the other children to fast too. Except instead of just for a short period of time it's ALL THE TIME. It's literally insane.

Some did, on the legal advice of Stonewall, and in the absence of any other expertise.

This why i suspect some schools are captured by gender ideology rather than genuinely seeking neutral advice.

No one could describe Stonewall as neutral.

Stonewall, back in the day, were a trusted gay rights organisation.

So having got the government guidance they've been asking for for years why are some teachers questioning its legality and reliability? They've been happy to follow Stonewall's 'legal guidance' in the meantime without question. And Mermaids and all the other trans lobby groups they invited into schools.

Why is that? It strikes me it's less about the law and more about politics. Shame on them.

They're not an amorphous blob.

Mermaids have an automated reply form

mermaidsuk.org.uk/schools/

I said 'some' teachers.