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/

I have a lot of very GC social worker friends and an even bigger number I know professionally who I wouldn't call GC but only because they aren't familiar with the issues in any depth outside of their work spheres, but who definitely have a GC approach.

It's completely insane that information has been withheld.

The silencing and secrecy has been a rot that has really fucked things up for this generation of children.

They've used section 28 repeatedly as a straw man in the last day. That forbid teachers from talking about same sex attraction. Michael Fornan made an extremely important point that this guidance does the opposite and allow wider conversations that's not the rigid affirmative approach that is so anti safeguarding.

The status quo has been that you can't talk about it.

I hope that universities also take significant note here.

*universities who train teachers specifically

The Guardian has - of course - run a story today about the horrors of being a 15 year transboy at school, headed 'transphobic bullying is rife'.

That's higher up the front page than the fact there's going to be another byelection due to Peter Bone being suspended. Priorities, though!

From a social work perspective it's bizarre to us that information could have been kept from parents when we have such clear guidance about the parameters for withholding information from parents and the threshold that has to be met to withhold.

Excellent post, thank you. This cannot be said enough.

These strategies intended to protect children from harm have been weaponised to enable politics to be played out using children. And to fix a belief that heresy is the equivalent of serious physical harm. As section 28 and the experiences of gay people are now being vigorously used to try and co erce co operation with a political agenda, and as the historic experiences of gay people are vigorously used to try and force through a law against anything but affirmation for gender questioning people while criminalising heretics.

This reads well, but teaching unions and Mermaids et al are already representing this as guidance only, not statutorily binding, and scaremongering that schools abiding by it will find themselves sued. And of course, Starmer’s mob will just negate it in a year. We need something stronger.

I strongly suspect that this is what this guidance has been designed to illustrate, so that it becomes inevitable that the law will have to be changed.

All the nice, reasonable, co operative ways are being tried first and will have to be exhausted for government and general public to fully realise and support why.

The problem with this argument is that you could say ‘parents pose a safeguarding risk’ about pretty much anything to do with a child: they are truanting/not handing in homework/never have their PE kit or lunch money/are self-harming or using drugs - should we contact the parents because they may be part of the problem and raising this with them may create a risk for the child? Safeguarding leads make these qualitative assessments all the time and usually call the parents - or social services if they are concerned. As parents we are legally responsible for the welfare of our children until they turn 18. We can be prosecuted for neglect and abuse - but on this issue, with children many teachers only see for a few hours a week in tutorials or particular subjects (and then in a group setting), schools feel they are more able to asses the needs of a child and default to the assumption that parents are a risk to the child?

There's a professional arrogance being displayed by adults in schools insisting that they have the right to keep a child's secret. There's a reason everyone who works with children is mandated to share information about children appropriately in their workplace. Just as there's a reason that only the courts can remove parental rights with social services and the police required by law to seek permission to remove children from their parents - and even then the parent retains parental right to involvement in decision making.

It's depressing to see so many education professionals buying into trans activists ill informed beliefs about safeguarding and spouting dangerous nonsense about confidentiality that only serves to make children more vulnerable and less safe.

Yes. You have to have evidence that the parent poses a risk, not just act on the off chance. Also, the risk needs to meet the threshold for significant harm, not just be a risk that the parents will be angry, or unkind. That's not 'risk'.

The hyperbole and rhetoric is insane online in response to all this.

The term "trans child" needs to be repeatedly challenged. It's a straw man fallacy. They're defending an idea that doesn't exist / is a distortion of what is being discussed.

We need to change it to gender questioning children at every available opportunity.

It's typically irresponsible reporting from the Guardian. Note that at one point the child says they were given permission to use the disabled toilet. But why? If they are a boy then why aren't they asking to use the boys' toilet?

Of course the truth that goes unacknowledged in the article - and the core reason for needing the new guidance - is that there is a massive safeguarding risk once you start treating boys as girls and vice versa. What would happen if this girl used the boys' toilet? If she played on the boys' sports teams? If she used the boys' changing rooms, and shared dormitories with the boys on residential trips?

The guidance doesn't, in fact, ban social transitioning in schools - if she wants to use a boy's name, she can do so, though she can't compel others to call her "he" (some will out of politeness, of course). What the guidance does is protect her from sexual assault by her male peers. You can see why perhaps a teenage girl doesn't understand that, but you might expect the numpties at the Guardian to grasp it.

It's depressing to see so many education professionals buying into trans activists ill informed beliefs about safeguarding and spouting dangerous nonsense about confidentiality that only serves to make children more vulnerable and less safe

you've got that ignorant woman Kate Osborne calling Kemi Badenoch's guidance 'hate'.

But Jarrow MP Ms Osborne posted: 'This guidance is cruel and unworkable. It is upsetting to think of how many trans kids will see this and feel unsafe. We need to call it what it is – hate.'

This needs directly addressing, in my opinion. She needs to be asked how evidenced based safeguarding protocols constitute hate.

And Infuriating though it's, this is why I think it's a good thing. They will keep up their nonsensical hyperbole and will definitely be losing support on the back of it.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12883253/amp/Fury-schools-ignore-governments-trans-guidance.html

Bridget Phillipson (Labour Shadow Education secretary) was apparently welcoming the changes on Sky this morning although I can't find a clip. The usual suspects are screaming at her though so I think this is probably accurate.

More generally the anti-guidance people seem to be focusing on the issues around parents being informed and ignoring the new guidance on changing rooms and sports. I wonder whether they realise this is a no-hoper and are concentrating on what they think might be amended after consultation?

Osborne, again, "trans kids."

Osborne hasn't bothered to read the guidance then which is clear that there are no trans kids, there are gender questioning kids.

And it's hard to know what the 'hate' bit is. Which bit is hateful? The safeguarding of all children bits? The not forcing kids to undress with a kid of the opposite sex? The ending of the right of schools to circumvent parental rights and exclude them while they politicise their child?

Madder than a box of frogs.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_0vT9OTshXI&t

Madder than a box of frogs.

Totally. Operation: let them speak in full flow.

The teaching unions have seemed happy with the guidance; Labour would be idiots to challenge it considering it's based on Cass and there's a GE coming up.

Can you imagine the questions during a GE about "why would you want 11 yr old boys to wash in front of 11yr old girls ?" Etc.

BTL comments depressingly predictable on that YT link. The kind of people who'd sort the country's problems out in five minutes if only they were in charge. I guess Labour have been caught pretty flat-footed on this. Of course, they could have been braver, and staked out their own clear position earlier...

Great post from safe schools alliance

x.com/safeschools_uk/status/1737472951698559354?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Always worth reminding ourselves how & why some very vulnerable children were removed from #safeguarding frameworks. A #PublicInquiry is needed into how the safeguarding frameworks themselves were infiltrated.

These clauses have stopped teachers & others working with children from recognising the unique vulnerabilities of children just discovering a same sex attraction, especially when searching for information online.

It has also prevented professional curiosity around what has preceded a child announcing an opposite sex identity & them then receiving the help & support they need.

Remind us what your expertise in this area actually is @NancyMK?

#SafeguardingFail #PolicyFail #RestoreSafeguarding #WomenEd #Edutwitter

(Nancy is quoting KCSIE that states that trans isn't a safeguarding concern.)

This draft guidance is the most twisted document to have come out of this government since the Rwanda refugee proposals.

Not only is it devastating for transgender children, it’s an offence to girls, and non-heterosexual children. I am disgusted.

I refuse to be defined by my vagina.

Is there anyone on this thread, or indeed on this (so called) feminism, gender and sex discussion board who feels the same way?

👍🏻. All children must conform to the norms and conventions associated with their genitals at all times. Cos “safeguarding”.

What is a "transgender child" @Tandora ?

Do you really believe that children can be transsexual?

I wouldn’t used the word transsexual, but , yes, some children are trans .
This is an empirical truth about people who exist in the world.