We are a Safeguarding Organisation - Not a Gender Critical Campaign - Safe School Alliance

[IwantToRetire]

We have been alarmed at some of the rhetoric we have seen from some in the “Gender Critical” movement recently. We have therefore published our position as a non-religious, non-political, safeguarding organisation. We shared the following statement on X in February. It still holds true.

We believe conflating same-sex attraction with a fetish or sexual deviancy is an abhorrent position borne from prejudice and we thoroughly reject it. Lesbians are women and are welcome in women’s spaces. Gay men are men and should be welcome in men’s spaces. Social and/or medical transition of ‘gender non-conforming’ children who may grow up to be same-sex attracted is gay conversion therapy.

We would like to categorically state that we do not agree “a lot of lesbians seem to get a sexual charge for presenting as a man and they wear very male clothes”.

We are not a ‘Gender Critical’ organisation. We are not part of the ‘Gender Critical movement’. We are a child safeguarding organisation and we always take a safeguarding first approach. We will not tolerate safeguarding being undermined by anyone or anything.

Please read the whole statement! Available at
https://safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2024/06/18/our-position-as-a-safeguarding-organisation/

I am confused by this, as they seem to link "gender critical" with some strange ideas about what being a lesbian is, or do they think that being gender critical means you are homophobic?

I have read this twice now, and am bewildered.

Can anyone explain the point they are making?

Very, very

Yep, that's the sad reality of any school where the SLTs' heads have been turned by genderist beliefs. It doesn't take much to do it and for the most part, I suspect the majority are really just trying to be kind to minority groups.
Once that label is applied, it takes a long time to prise the conversation open. It's the equivalent of sharing Daily Mail links, which I've also had to do at times (obviously with a "I appreciate the DM isn't to everyone's taste but it's the only place I can find this story published") when explaining something. I'm 18 months in to a conversation with the school and I still have to be incredibly careful with what I share. I'm relatively comfortable with this because the school has an obligation to be apolitical, but it's a tricky situation if they don't realise that they've already been politicised and are viewing their own gender-faithful position as impartial 🤦‍♀️

That FPFW info appears to be specifically in the context of a legal challenge to the census questions - 4 years ago. As pointed out by PP, that would be shaped by what they were able to feasibly push back on within the context of existing laws, not necessarily their own preferred stance. Is there evidence that they actually promote the concept of legal sex?

And the WRN screenshot posted on the first page is someone thrown out of the WRN for their views. So clearly not shared by the network.

I clicked on this thread expecting to agree with SSA. Safeguarding and GC are two different things, nothing wrong with making clear SSA's focus and having a big tent.

But their message is weird in two ways: i. it's pushing back on a claim that isn't a core tenet of GCism at all. ii. just because someone's wrong on the internet doesn't mean an org needs to comment on it. Doing so actually makes SSA seem more attached to the GC movement, or why engage with intra-group arguments.

I clicked on this thread expecting to agree with SSA. Safeguarding and GC are two different things, nothing wrong with making clear SSA's focus and having a big tent.

But their message is weird in two ways: i. it's pushing back on a claim that isn't a core tenet of GCism at all. ii. just because someone's wrong on the internet doesn't mean an org needs to comment on it. Doing so actually makes SSA seem more attached to the GC movement, or why engage with intra-group arguments.

I agree on both points.

Clarifying your mission is good. Thay can be done without reference to others. Coded, cliquey squabbling looks unprofessional. It will baffle and put off many who are just looking for help with the organisation's core purpose.

No idea why that's picked up my previous post as a quote. It should quote @GenderRealistBloke

They were tagged here. It seemed to me that they decided to respond.

The Genspect SOM comment on lesbians getting a sexual thrill from wearing trousers got no (or close to no) pushback from GC organisations and individuals at the time.

It is my own interpretation that, had SSA not commented, this idea that lesbians are on a par with AGPs would / could have started to take root. It's unevidenced and offensive. And it starts to lump AGPs in with lesbians, which aids AGPs as they benefit from being in with a benign group, but it harms lesbians to be placed in a group like AGPs. This is very obvious.

Like SSA said, maybe the detail didn't work for a strategic position. But I say well done them for standing up and being counted.

Clarifying your mission is good. Thay can be done without reference to others. Coded, cliquey squabbling looks unprofessional. It will baffle and put off many who are just looking for help with the organisation's core purpose.

I agree with this.

If SSA believes it's helpful to set out what it doesn't believe, this could be done in a FAQ, explaining the issue around (say) legal sex and why "some people have argued x because they think this helps y, but we disagree. We believe y, because..."

That helps educate and providing it's done fairly in how the alternative view is characterised, isn't off putting.

My y should be a z, obviously!

It is my own interpretation that, had SSA not commented, this idea that lesbians are on a par with AGPs would / could have started to take root.

Then they should comment on it direcrly, where it happened. Not as a vague position statement somewhere else that will be read mainly by people who have no idea what they're going on about. That, if anything, reinforces the idea by raising it to a new audience.

Or. And here's a thought. Or we could see this thread for what it was? An attempt to trash SSA on FWR. And maybe - just maybe - we could start to see all these kinds of threads for what they are. Attempts to trash individuals and organisations who understand safeguarding. People who are trying to raise the alarm.

Who benefits from that? Cos it sure as shit ain't women and children.

I notice the OP has not returned.

The OP is very opinionated on what other women should do and is a regular and prolific thread starter, so I don't think this thread was a deliberate attempt to undermine SSA. I'm not sure they have that level of cunning. There are other posts on the thread which I believe are aiming to do that.

Thank you @ResisterRex.

To clarify. We did comment on that incident when it happened. If you follow the link in our website post to X you will see the full discussion. We asked for feedback on this thread about whether we should keep that specific comment in our statement and removed it following feedback from posters.

The revised statement is better. But it still starts with a reference to 'parts of the GC movement' that drops people into the middle of an argument they are quite possibly unaware of and that you then claim not to be part of. The web post linked in the thread header does not seem to link to any explanation on Twitter (and with Twitter changes a lot of people would be unable to read it if it did) - it just references 'recent events'.

It's confusing.