Finally: Gender questioning children: draft schools and colleges guidance

[WarriorN]

Gender questioning children: draft schools and colleges guidance

consult.education.gov.uk/equalities-political-impartiality-anti-bullying-team/gender-questioning-children-proposed-guidance/

@WarriorN good to know that about NHS training materials thank you.

My DD is Autistic. She believes she is gay (I suspect this will turn out to be correct but, age 16, she still takes a plushie to school so is very immature still (10 hrs a wk mainstream provision as she's 'not ASD enough for special school'). She also, heavily encouraged by school, believes she's 'Trans'. She recently took part in some NHS online workplace 'training' (at school) & was told off for saying that paramedics sometimes attend women in labour.

She's vulnerable & just the sort of girl / woman who needs most protection but Scotland is far worse than England on this & will now worsen still: a political move. Meanwhile our children are enduring a horrible social experiment.

Ofsted have also commented on the safeguarding risks of schools transitioning children in secret from parents:
‘It is really important that parents understand what their child’s concerns are – if their child is having serious questions or doubts or explorations of gender identity, to keep parents in the dark about that is obviously a safeguarding risk,’ Amanda Spielman (Head of Ofsted)

More back up for parents in challenging transactivists in schools.

Yup, the nature of statutory guidance is that schools have to consider it and, if they choose not to follow it, they have to have a very good reason.

The guidance is explicit about single sex changing rooms and showers:
"Schools must not allow a child, aged 11 years or older, to change or wash in front of a child of the opposite sex, nor should they be subject to a child of the opposite sex changing or washing in front of them".

Teachers in pp are professionally unwise to use identifying tweets in opposition to this and guidelines generally

It's also explicit about mixed sex sleeping:
No child should be allowed to share a room with a child of the opposite sex.
And sport:
"For all sports where physical differences between the sexes threatens the safety of children, schools and colleges should adopt clear rules which mandate separate-sex participation. There can be no exception to this"

It highlights the unfairness of not offering girls the oppotunities for single sex sport:

"For competitive sports, schools and colleges should be aware that without separate sex participation, it is unlikely that they will be offering equal opportunities to boys and girls".

It's not everything I'd have hoped for but it's better than I was expecting.

I love the fact it states that gender identity is a contested belief.

I love the clarity on pronouns at primary.

The fact that no one can be punished for not using them.

The clarity on single sex spaces.

We've come a long way from the Trans toolkits being pushed in schools 5 years ago.

Thank you Kemi Badenoch.
And the women of Mumsnet. You did this.
But it's not over yet.
Labour government heading this way...

But it's a huge step. It's clearly said: there is no longer a presumption that schools have to go along with the Trans kid narrative to be kind.

Now the onus is on them to make the case why schools should.

Mrs O thank you for highlighting these points.

Thank you Kemi Badenoch.
And the women of Mumsnet. You did this.

Ditto from me.

If we can hold this line and keep improving gender ideology will wither. If you can’t indoctrinate dc it gets harder to normalise

The DfE via their Stonewall captured civil servants have been putting out dangerous drivel about trans issues for years - along with funding / enabling the most unsuitable organisations in the world to go into and influence schools. So it's a real relief to finally see something balanced, child and safeguarding centred be issued by them.

It's going to be very hard for tra teachers to say that they disagree with this sort of statement.

Why would they be wanting and willing for a male child to sleep with the girls?

Denying these statements are safe and reasonable throws up some serious issues with intent

So where do this leave Girlguiding I wonder?

It's also clear about the needs of ALL children. It suggests to me that you cannot say the 1 trans-identified child needs to be in with the opposite sex because what about the feelings and safety of the others? Schools generally hry and do their best for the many not the few!

@medianewbie

It's in here:

www.minded.org.uk/

It's also for teachers and other professionals who work with children. There's also a section for the general public

I’m absolutely delighted about this. It is clear on single sex toilets, changing facilities, sleeping accommodation. I also like this bit:

For competitive sports, schools and colleges should be aware that without separate sex participation, it is unlikely that they will be offering equal opportunities to boys and girls.

I’m a teacher, not a lawyer. But to me, that looks like a warning of potential indirect discrimination if schools fail to provide single sex sports.

Thank you for pointing that out @JemimaTiggywinkles I had been worried about the talk of single sex contact sports only. I get the safely aspect but what about the running races and fairness too!

@WarriorN - Thank you, that's very useful!

I truly hope that every member of the Queensland/Australian Parliament are forced to read this. This protects ALL children, whereas they have legislated the exact opposite of every single point this guidance makes.

It's really cleverly written. Safeguarding, ensuring parental rights and equal opportunities at the heart of it. And as has been pointed out - once you start arguing that teenage boys must be allowed to sleep / shower alongside girls it puts you into the role of a predator - as they're the people who are determined to erode boundaries.

This looks better than I feared. Tra teachers at my school are going nuts. I am avoiding the staffroom as I can't cope with it all. I do agree with a pp this is a false dawn though; Labour will get in and reverse it all.

I wonder?? Labour setting themselves up as the party that removes safeguarding children, the rights of girls to single sex showers & changing rooms? That insists primary schools must enable the transitioning of little children?
I'm not sure that transactivists have quite the hold over the party that they used to?

Labour might reverse it. But they'll have to do it in the open and not quietly in the background while kept away from the eyes of the public. Labour will know that this will lead to difficult questions and captured/foolish answers will be hostages to fortune.

Perhaps a silly question but I don't work in education so not sure how it all fits together: how does this excellent and sensible sounding guidance link in with the issue of what schools are supposed to teach pupils about gender identity as part of the PSHE curriculum? Is there guidance on that yet/has there ever been?

I am a secondary teacher of over 20 years. This is the best document to come out of the DfE I think I have ever seen. It is completely workable and puts the welfare of all of the children in our schools front and centre - just like it should be.

There's a separate guidance that's being worked on at the moment. Due out next year? Hopefully a central part of that will be to ensure that political activists in queer theory have no place educating children about sex and relationships.