My 14 year old daughter has been sharing school changing rooms, including swimming, with a male. The school never told me, or her. What would you do?

[SernieBanders]

I believe this to be a failure of safeguarding and a risk to every female in the school.

I do not believe the school can give consent in any way, all children are under the age of 16, so they cannot either.

The school in question has adopted the Brighton Trans Inclusion Toolkit which actively encourages males and females to share spaces, including sleeping, without any supervision. They also have unisex toilets.

For the record, I believe all gender questioning children should be given full, dignified support for their schooling. However their needs do not supersede safeguarding and dignity of all female pupils.

What would you do? What legislation, guidance, rules would you quote to them? Straight to governors? The police? What?

But most of the girls will be very uncomfortable with a male in their changing room. They may not say so. They may even say 'but he's a girl really'. And even if they say they are happy a boy should not be in their changing room. It is teaching those girls that their boundaries mean nothing, that they should not even have boundaries. Which is an incredibly dangerous lesson for girls to be taught.

Are you able to articulate what you find creepy?

Look at the Swim England policies. Girls and boys separate and separate from adults.

🙄

OP, what does your daughter's mother say about the situation?

Would be bloody Brighton.

Contact Transgender Trend - Who Are We? - Transgender Trend, consider a judicial review.

I just don’t believe the OP has suddenly discovered this. Given that he has several threads on the exact same topic already. Sorry .

i also think a man not trusting “anyone with a penis , clothed or unclothed “ is a ridiculous thing to say.

As has been mentioned by others, this is illegal. The advice given by Karon Monaghan KC deals with changing rooms in sections 98-126. To summarise briefly, what the school is doing is illegal as it's:

1. Indirect Discrimination on the grounds of Sex, Religion and Belief, contrary to sections 19, 7, 10, 11 and 85(2) of the Equality Act, 2010;
2. Sexual Harassment, contrary to sections 26 and 85(3) of the Equality Act, 2010;
3. Breaches of the children's Human Rights, specifically Articles 8 (the Right to Privacy), 9 (the Right to Religious Freedom), Article 14 (the Right to Freedom from Discrimination) and Protocol 1, Article 2 (the Right to Education), contrary to the Human Rights Act 1998.

She goes into some detail, expanding the arguments and dealing with possible counter-arguments. This was, essentially, ignored by Brighton and Hove Council, but it remains the Law and the school will likely be aware of this, especially if you include a copy of her advice with your complaint.

The Safe Schools Alliance have a webpage detailing the process of how to complain to your school. I would recommend following it and, if possible, getting as many other parents as possible to also complain. They have a template letter you can amend and send in. Delete all the sentences about toilets and just keep the ones about changing rooms. And maybe add the bit above, as to how and why it's illegal, and attach a copy of Karon Monaghan's report, pointing them to sections 98-126.

Don't rule out the possibility that the school might ignore this and force you to take them to court. It's happening to me on a related, but separate issue - Nottingham College fired me for revealing to a parent that the college was socially transitioning her daughter, and conspiring with her to keep this hidden from her mother. I'm having to take them to court over that.

@LondonPapa i agree totally and don’t find the comments normal.

Good advice and really constructive.

Such a contrast to some of the batshit comments that have been posted.

Good luck @Steve3742

I think law suits are what will end all this.

And they will be coming in their thousands soon.

Every detransitioner.
Every female cheated out of prize money/scholarship
Every victim of assault where the rules were trampled on to allow a man in

And every grown up who advocated for this or who didn't stand up for girls and say no, should be held to account.

Ok. I think that someone who might have been compelled to start several threads because they may have just really started finding their voice, could have only discovered what their schools policy is. They may have just discussed it with their daughter in passing saying something about the EOs. It took me some time to have the confidence to ask about my teen’s school to see their policies.

Maybe you assume that the OP lives with his daughter and he might not. There are plenty of explanations for not knowing until now.

What are 'queer' teens? Most gay and Lesbian people do not use the word 'queer' to describe themselves.
Statistically men commit most violent and sexual crimes, at the rate of 98% of such crimes are committed by men. Government stats.

You can't extend the changing rooms argument to sexualities/races/religions/preferences etc (even if we were all ridiculously homophobic enough to give this argument credence) because changing rooms are not separated willy nilly on a whim depending on who is there.

They are separated by sex, for very good reasons, evidence based, legal reasons. Even things you might not care about, like female participation in sport are helped by single sex changing.

If someone tried to push towards changing rooms separated by sexuality, they'd have to prove there was a problem that this would help solve, that it could work in practice, that it wouldn't be discrimination.
They can't, because lesbians are not a problem to women, because you can't tell sexuality by looking and there's not a single reason to do this. It's the same as the racist crap spouted to let men get into women's sports.

Do we separate changing rooms and sports by sex: yes for good reasons
Do we separate changing rooms by sexuality: no there's no reason to
Do we separate sports by race: no of course not

None of the lesbians or black sportswomen are in the wrong category - just the men with identities, that's why it's different.

“Perhaps OP is struggling with their own ‘gender identity’ and is extremely jealous? Who knows. What I do know, OP is batshit insane and needs therapy”

A parent concerned by safeguarding their daughter in the situation of sharing changing rooms with male children is most certainly not batshit insane. This is remarkable post.

I just find the comments the op has made about men strange and inappropriate. “men are the problem” etc etc.
we can agree to disagree I guess .

Deleted before I could report! Good grief…..

It is worrying for girls in Brighton- but also for girls everywhere else in England as I gather Brighton are very proud of their toolkit and have made it available to schools all around the country.

Yes. We can. I think though that robust safeguarding reflects his sentiment. That is why we there is an extra layer of safeguarding protocols when male people are involved.

Yes the toolkit needs challenging legally. Like parents and children. Challenged in Oxfordshire 5 years Go. OCC withdrew the toolkit when the court found there was a case to answer and it was cleared to go to JR. We tried to support Brighton parents to challenge their toolkit but they decided that wasn't the route they wanted to go.

Its basically the same toolkit. All
The same legal arguments remain.

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/legal-action-against-oxfordshire-county-council/

Well, self-evidently, men are the problem. I don't mean to suggest that all men are evil, being one myself, but the behaviour and proclivities of men in general in this society make men the problem that needs addressing as far as women's and girls' changing rooms are concerned.

It’s so incredibly refreshing to have several men on a thread like this who are prepared to be honest about the risks that men present. Genuinely- thank you chaps for engaging with the issue and supporting women. It’s honestly such a rare thing to see.