School "Gender Questioning" policy

[Aethelthryth]

I am a Governor at an independent girls' school and have just received a draft "Gender Questioning" policy to review. At a glance, it accepts gender ideology wholesale. I would like to resist it strongly and should be grateful for pointers towards helpful materials. Being a girls' school, there are none of the difficulties around loos and changing rooms or the presencece of autogynephile men; but there are a disproportionate number of girls (most with other mental health problems) who have decided that they are "non binary" or boys. I cannot believe that affirming any of this is a good idea and would be grateful for strong supporting evidence. I want strong arguments to put to the Board and some suggestions as to what should be our policy here. Matters are complicated by the fact that the VAT imposition has had a serious impact on numbers and we are desperate to be popular. The most bizarre thing is that there are "non-binary" girls who want to stay with us because we are a girls' school. The cognitive dissonance is staggering. All help gratefully received

Can I add that having a Governor who actually cares about reality and evidence is wonderful thanks for being brave and taking a stand

"there are none of the difficulties around loos and changing rooms or the presencece of autogynephile men" - oh but there will be! if boys who identify as girls can join the school. Similarly, what about teachers?

Current DfE guidance isn't legally binding but it is what the government is asking schools to follow. If they don't, they ought to have good reasons why!

Is the proposed policy based on the Trans Toolkit? If so, this has been withdrawn by Oxfordshire County Council and Warwickshire County Council, after a threat of legal action. There is plenty of information about how poor it is, let me know if you need help with this.

NHS training module from MindEd is a reputable source for guidance.

Lots of great advice already. I’d look at using language like “gender non conforming children/students” rather than non binary.

I would also make sure as per Cass report school’s attention is brought to the fact that many of their students that identify as NB etc may well have co existing MH or ND diagnoses and the school have a duty to ensure the mental wellbeing of these pupils.

It may be that adopting an evidence based approach where they can say to prospective parents that they support GNC pupils and help them grow in confidence in themselves is seen as a breath of fresh air in comparison to other schools. Parents looking at Independent girls’ schools will not be unaware of the social contagion issue!

Following a ruling obtained by GDST we don't have to accept boys who identify as girls and that is build into the admissions policy. I agree about teachers; but I'm trying to deal with the more immediate problems first

This is really helpfull, thank you. Can you point me to where the Government said this please?

Yes to all of this.

The draft policy is really flaky on involving parents, which I think is a huge safeguarding/legal risk where there are also other mental health problems involved

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/12/gender-questioning-children-guidance-schools-colleges/

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

I'm trying to find the draft guidance, but failing so far!

This is really helpfull, thank you. Can you point me to where the Government said this please?

An early paragraph in kcsie states that "must" is legally binding and "should" is seen as best practice. (P4)

Paragraph 208 states that schools "should work in partnership with the child's parents."

P 55

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66d7301b9084b18b95709f75/Keepingchildrennsafeinneducation_2024.pdf

That really is what schools must and should be following.

Thank you everyone for your help and support with this. As of yesterday we have a policy which robustly reflects Cass, Forstater and the Draft Guidance, which is a massive improvement.

Well done OP. That's what good governors do - ensure that school policies reflect the best guidance that protects children and young people.

Do you feel that you could share a redacted version of the policy on here, for the benefit of other governors, schools, parents etc?

👏👏👏

Well done OP!

OP, that's amazing! Superb work.

Well done.

It's really excellent! Thanks for the good work, I'm sure the parents will be grateful.
How was the process? Did you find strong resistance? Which were the resources that helped most?

Thank you everyone for the lovely messages. I will produce a redacted version: I'm a bit reluctant to share it on here because, even redacted, it would be immediately recognisable by staff. I would be very happy, however, to share it with anyone who DMs me. It's quite difficult to find examples of other schools' policies: they're not generally on the websites. Sex Matters has a pro forma; but it assumes a mixed school. Likewise, there's a firmly GC policy in place at St Joseph's in Cardiff, also mixed. The GDST Policy takes gender as reality as a starting point, so tangles itself up quite badly. SPGS' policy also accepts gender as reality and pre-dates Cass and Forstater; but, from a practical perspective has some helpful parts.

All the resources suggested were helpful; and it was really good to be pointed to the relevant parts of KCSIE, being guidance already in force. I took a fairly aggressive approach, tearing up what the school had produced (broadly the Brighton & Hove nonsense with a bit of tinkering round the edges) and re-writing, based on the draft guidance and placing strong emphasis on the Cass finding that "Social Transition is not a neutral act". By "holding the pen" I could ensure that what I had written would stand unless I was actually convinced by an argument to the contrary. There are very few good arguments to the contrary.

I was lucky that the Head was supportive. No Governor objected but most did not seem to want to engage. I think that the pastoral staff are uncomfortable with the new regime, since it seems (but obviously isn't) less inclusive and "kind". No-one in a small independent school wants to rock the boat too much at the moment, so I suspect that they didn't fight as hard on the text as they might have done and they lost most of the points which they did raise. The real challenge is making sure that the new policy is actually implemented.

One encouraging thing which came out of the discussion is that the prevalence of gender questioning seems gradually to be declining. Fingers crossed.

What an absolute boss. You should be very proud.

As is often the case in response to posts like this, I have opinions, but nothing useful or practical to add!

I find myself focusing on the fact that it is a girls' school. I attended an all-girl's school and I think it was very beneficial in lots of ways, even though I stuck out like a sore thumb because I was very gender-non-conforming, perhaps to the point of gender dysphoria, if there is such a thing.

I had a range of role models of strong women (all the teachers were women, a mixture of nuns and 'civilians'). The person who taught civics was a woman. The person who taught us about our Gaelic culture was a woman. The person who taught science was a woman. The person who taught maths was a woman. The person who introduced us to our first foreign language was a woman. And so on.

So even though I didn't like being a girl, and dreaded growing up to be a woman, I could see that 'being a woman' could mean being knowledgeable in a whole range of subjects, from physics to 'Apologetics' [as RE was strangely called.]

In other words, being in an all-female environment, while difficult for me, at least showed me that there were different ways of being a girl, and I didn't have to be a boy to be scholarly, even in STEM subjects.

So the idea of girls in a girls' school opting out of being a girl is problematic for me, and for the school to encourage it implies that they are sanctioning a stereotyped definition of what a girl is.

Not very practical or useful, sorry Aethelthryth! but there's a voice in my head saying 'it's a girls' school, for fexsake, that has to have a meaning, an ontology, a teleology, or something ending in -ology!'

So odd that girl’s private schools don’t question the ideology.

There are pros and cons to single sex schools, but 40 years ago a massive pro was that it was a place where girls could just be themselves without being told that only boys play rough sports or do physics.

Well done OP!!!

I absolutely agree with everything the previous two posters say about girls' schools and how gender ideology flies in the face of everything else that we do and say to encourage girls to disregard stereotypes, to be confident in STEM etc.etc.. The trouble is that a gender critical approach, rejecting stereotypes, is counter-cultural these days and, for example, an unhappy, autistic girl can very easily be convinced online that she must be "non-binary". The school then has to deal with a very fragile, gender dysphoric child and staff, having been indoctrinated by Stonewall, will have affirmed to be "kind". The Cass report has provided the evidence on which one can argue that affirmation is not "kind" and Forstater has empowered people to say so. We need to be so grateful to Hilary Cass and Maya Forstater: they have made it so much easier to fight.

Just hoping that the conversion therapy debate doesn't land us back at square one