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/

The TRA gravy train will have to move on from using children for gain. Tg

It's going to be pretty suspect and indefensible to want to argue that 11 yr old girls change and wash in front of boys.

When you pull a thread on this gender ideology stuff it shows how deeply suspect it all is.

Adults tried to indoctrinate dc. Hopefully we can now say that’s over to a large extent

I'm seeing / hearing an argument that "you don't know if the parents are going to be a safeguarding risk to the child if the teacher tells the parent" about a disclosure of gender dysphoria.

Trans person on Jeremy vine just made this point.

The whole point is "you don't know if this child is going to grow up to "be trans." (Which is not really about gender dysphoria. It's an idea piggy backing "being gay.") How do you know?

If there is no evidence a parent is a safeguarding risk then the presumption simply must be that parents love their children more than teachers do. Where there is evidence a parent is a safeguarding risk schools should be following safeguarding best practice to ensure the child is safe.

Exactly.

There's some very ill informed thick people attempting to contest the guidance.

The problem is that activist teachers think that a parent not affirming their child's self-declared gender identity as fact means that parent is a safeguarding risk.

Honestly, as a teacher I’m so relieved with this guidance. It gives those of us working in schools the exact cover we need to say “no, I’m not doing that” if (for example) I’m told I should allow a gender questioning boy to use the girls toilets. It means I can say “no, I’m not doing that” if asked to sanction a child for “misgendering”. It also gives parents the ability to push back on behalf of their children too.

And

This is such an important point. The guidance removes the tyranny of "you're a bigoted transphobe, shut up" and allows professionalism and children's needs to be at the centre once more.

Absolutely.

It brings discussion and debate on this specific issue, to the fore in schools and educational sphere. And it needs to be discussed by teachers. And the unions.

Some I know via women's networks have told me that teachers they know haven't been aware of this being an issue at all. Partly as the conversation has been silenced so much.

I am relieved, I do want more in KCSIE though. But it's a good first step.

@PaleBlueMoonlight partly thanks to the dodgy suicide stats.

They'll be traipsed out rather a lot I imagine.

x.com/kemibadenoch/status/1737118906735870059?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Excellent tweet by Kemi.

"Sex is not assigned at birth."

"There is no general duty on schools to allow a child to socially transition.

No child is born in the wrong body

Some children may not like their body, and we should help them. But social transitioning is not a neutral act and should only happen in rare circumstances (2/6)"

No one loves children more than their parents and it is wrong to exclude parents from what can be a pathway to irreversible medical decisions (4/6)

Exactly. It's nothing like coming out as gay.

I hope you're listening, mermaids. 99% of the shit you spout is in direct opposition to government guidance.

The hyperbole in her quote tweets is insane.

Whilst I agree that the problems in schools partly stem from the fact that they are having to apply a number of different laws, the problem is exacerbated by a number of law firms who themselves have been captured by Stonewall and interpreted the law accordingly. When leading law firms issue guidance to industry bodies o the Equality Act and refer to "gender" rather than "sex", what hope do schools and school leaders have?
One question I have is whether pupils can still be sanctioned if they don't use (accidentally or deliberately) the pronouns that a teacher has requested be used.
Also, will schools still be teaching children about gender identity? At my DC's school they have a number of external organisations who come in to deliver parts of the PSHE programme and this includes teaching them that there are 72 different genders. How does that tie into this guidance? Will they have to caveat their teaching to say "there are 72 different genders but, when it boils down to it, there are only two different sexes"? Even that would be quite a change.

Hopefully @wideawakeinthemiddleofthenightagain the forthcoming guidance on SRE will address the issue of all the queer theory groups being allowed to peddle literally fantastical nonsense at children. They're all political activist groups s and schools are required to be politically impartial by law.

But that's worth feeding back as part of the consultation - SRE is used as a "trojan horse" by many organisations who should be nowhere near children or schools and that loophole needs to be closed.

The comparison with being gay, and schools telling parents is so confused.

The guidance isn't saying parents have to be told if a child mentions they are trans. No, parents have to be consulted before school take any action which would support this. Or parents have to be told if this is relevant to the childs well being or other safeguarding concerns such as mental distress.

In the same way schools don't have to tell parents if a child says they are gay. But they would have to tell them if they had knwoledge that a child was on Grinder , or if the child was experiencing distress linked to their sexulaity.

In both cases they'd make a safeguarding deciosn about how safe it was to share the information to parents and if concerned involve advice from outside agencies.

Schools do not have to reveal every incidental pice of inmormation they have about a child. They are not the gestapo. But they do have to share every piece of information related to the childs well being and decsion making to parents.

It is supporting transition that schools cannot do without parental consent not an obligation to 'out' children.

e.g. if a child says they watch anime yu dpn't ahev to tell parents.
If the child says they are watching 18+ anime you need to riase this.
If there are concerns about a childs mental helath you have to share that the information about anime may be relevant.

The guidance is applying the same safeguarding rules that apply to evrything else including being gay. Trans should never have been viewed as a special case. That's safeguarding 101.

Great post @MalagaNights The problem is all those using and abusing the notion of safeguarding as a weapon to isolate children from their parents are not people who actually deal with safeguarding in schools.

This is so much more robust than I expected.
Did anyone else hear the discussion on Nicky Campbell R5 this morning?

The SRE guidance is going to be the next step in dismantling the idea in schools that gender identity ideology is the neutral 'kind' position and instead place it, as this guidance has done, as a fringe ideology which shuold not be taught to children or supported as factual.

It is merely a belief some people have, and no one else is required to pretend they believe.

This is concerning: a principal edcuational psychologist in a local authority is publicly supporting schools who are saying they will ignore government advice.

https://x.com/viola_jane/status/1737089090363805851?s=20

https://x.com/viola_jane/status/1737093882775572817?s=20

This person will manage a team of psychologists who advise schools. and be involved in forming local authority policy and safeguarding in children's services.

The ideology is deeply embedded in the psychology profession ,and local government management, it's going to hard to uproot.

What do we feel about Liz Truss's comments about law is needed rather than statutory guidance? Apparently the guidance may be up to legal challenge and there are loopholes.

Already I think this may be the start of something rather than the end of something IYSWIM. Already we trans supporting teachers decrying the guidance and unfortunatly I think there are going to be some actively refusing this.

Already there are interviews with students who are implying this is an assault on their identities and I fear this is going to be flag for many young people to rail against.

The guidance is definitely going in the right direction but there will be battles ahead

I agree that legal change is essential in the long run. And that this is the start of the process of turning this shameful situation round.
Someone cited an Education Psychologist & teachers claiming they'll be undermining the guidance. I suspect they'll find that a hard position to hold given how carefully this has been written. All professionals are required to uphold professional standards - including Ed Psychs. Ofsted have already stated that schools transitioning children in secret from parents is a safeguarding concern. I can't see the unhinged keyboard warriors getting very far given that child safeguarding and welfare is key in the guidelines.
But they do make a lot of noise

On the thread I started earlier about this(!) I pointed out that as this is open for consultation and they are anticipating thousands of responses, it is more than likely that the well oiled Stonewall machine will generate a huge number of responses.

And as this will then be assessed by a Labour Government I wouldn't get too excited.

Especially as there is now more than enough time for stories to start filtering through about children being harmed by this temporary guidelines, and teachers being put in an impossible position.

Labour MPs already strongly criticising these guidelines.

Can't see how they won't be reversed in a year or so.

Do hope I'm totally wrong. Children are the future after all.

I’ll be responding to the consultation, I hope we can get a good amount from FWR to counteract Stonewall lot

I'm not that interested in what Labour back benchers have to say about it, but I'll be watching the shadow cabinet very closely, particularly Bridget Phillipson (shadow education secretary) and I've not seen or heard any of them comment yet,

I love that they've formalised the notion that gender identity ideology is both an ideology and a contested belief - this is a huge step forward as these statements can't logically be refuted by the believers.