Secondary School complaint about mixed sex changing rooms. Update, school response and request for help writing the escalated complaint to governors

[TangenitalContrivance]

Hello everyone. Some may remember I asked for help with a complaint to my daughter’s secondary school in Brighton which allows Males into female changing spaces. Including swimming, without informing either children or parents.

this is clearly a safeguarding issue, borderline illegal and must not be allowed to stand.

I’m going to have to take the whole thing through a governors complaint and even higher, which I am willing to do.

please, if you can, could you read my complaint and the schools subsequent response and give me pointers for what to say in my follow up.

feel free to use the original complaint at your own school. You will be surprised how many are doing this!

True. Although on balance, it seems fair to everyone from an equality perspective that a child who holds a belief that they have a gender identity that differs from their sex is given this option. It's in line with the draft Gender Questioning Children guidance in that respect too.

When it comes to safeguarding gender questioning children, we're way off where we need to be in schools. However, making sure that they don't have access to opposite-sex toilets and changing rooms is an important step in that journey as it safeguards both those children and everyone else who would be impacted if they used the opposite sex facilities.

Unfortunately at my children's school, even the teachers that do understand some of the risks associated with social transition are having their heads turned by other messaging that they are hearing. For example, I was told by one such teacher that a gender questioning child at school "doesn't mind if you get it wrong" when it comes to pronouns. I politely pointed out that even if this child is genuinely relaxed if people are using sex-based pronouns, it's coercive that the school supports the idea that it's positioned as having accidentally made a mistake and "getting it wrong" to do so. There's a big guilt trip going on and an implicit understanding that it's cruel to acknowledge someone's sex. I have made it clear to this teacher, the DSL and the Head that I won't be a part of any child's social transition because social transition is not a neutral act and that the statutory KCSIE guidance says that extreme caution is needed here (I avoid using pronouns altogether but I do refer to the child as a female who identifies as a boy). Sadly, the statutory guidance that covers this is the bit that the school says it doesn't need to follow. Sigh.

I appreciate that's all a bit of a derail when it comes to this thread though. Sorry OP!

Bit by bit, safeguarding is coming back to schools. But it's a hard slog and it's appalling that there are school leaders who are ignorantly or actively undermining it at every turn. I'm looking forward to hearing the update from the OP on all of this 🤞🤞

I don’t think it’s a derail; it’s all part of the issue that schools will be considering and will be driving their responses

OP - excellent letters! If I were a Governor, I'd be taking this very seriously indeed.

Do let us know what the response is.

Great post as usual BonfireLady

I'm still convinced that we need a line in KCSIE - as for GDPR - that EA2010 can never override safeguarding law and statutory guidance. That safeguarding law takes precedence and it is ok to 'discriminate' as it may be seen under EA2010 in order to safeguard a child.

We don't let kids drive - that's age-based discrimination under EA2010. Ditto drink. Ditto live entirely alone in a tent. Ditto get a job stacking shelves. Etc etc. Looking at things only from an EA2010 discrimination perspective is profoundly harmful to children. Ironically because of their pc of age!

As age is a pc and children are uniquely vunlerable due to their age ensuring this is crystal clear - that EA 2010 considerations cannot undermine safeguarding (including appropriate sex-based safeguarding) - is surely part of not discriminating against children due to their age!

And not letting gender questioning children do irreversible things to their bodies when they cannot meaningfully consent is part of not discriminating against their pc of gender reassignment. Because we wouldn't just let non gender questioning kids cut off healthy breasts because they wanted to. Thankfully hopefully this at least is a battle now won in the UK. However the social transition side which paves the way to mastectomy is still very much happening, seemingly.

And this ISN'T a derail because a clear statement EA2010 does NOT take precedence over safeguarding in fact the reverse is true is needed to save everyone a lot of time, lots of money (that could be otherwise spent on actual education and appropriate facilities) and stop a lot of harm.

It's great OP is doing this but so many people are wasting time on this up and down the country because schools are breaking the law. We just need a line in KCSIE that is extremely clear safeguarding MUST come before EA2010 and that includes sex-based safeguarding. Any school not safeguarding first is breaking the law and putting children at risk.

Absolutely spot on.

whether the DfE understands this is another question.

Maybe we will get a better KCSIE now :)

Agreed.
The only reason so many children have been actively harmed by transactivistm in schools is because of the usual bullying and intimidation. It's been evidenced in GIDs, it's all over the NHS & the rest of society. Too many schools also caved in.
Had some brave parents pushed this as far as the courts, no court would ever agree that a sex change was the greater priority to safeguarding a child below the age of consent from dangerous experimental drugs & surgery, future infertility and all the rest. A school arguing in court that 13 year old girls must be compelled to undress for swimming in front of 13 year old boys would lose the case.
The pc of gender reassignment is not more important for children below the age of consent than keeping them safe. No matter how much some adult transacitvists try to push this at children.

I'm not deliberately being obtuse here, but what safeguarding law are we talking about?

Keeping children safe in education

Thanks @WarriorN . I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but I'm not sure whether KCSIE can specify that it overrides EA2010 as previous posters have suggested it should, as the former is just statutory guidance and the latter is primary legislation. If it was possible, then isn't there a danger that the Government could introduce statutory guidance to the GRA that overrides the protections to single sex spaces in EA2010 we've just had confirmed?

Well it does re safeguarding; it overrides religious belief in the case of fgm.

it’s specifically for children - re law I think there are other laws too such as the children’s act?

the discussion below is wrt schools and education and any provision for children

There’s the children’s act and also working together to safeguard children. Kcsie comes from that.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/669e7501ab418ab055592a7b/Working_together_to_safeguard_children_2023.pdf

there are also other acts that were passed to safeguard vulnerable adults.

@TakingMyChancesWithTheRabbits @WarriorN

I had a quick Google and the primary legislation that underpins the KCSIE statutory guidance appears to be the Education Act 2002, section 175. I would expect that this also interacts with other primary legislation, such as the Children Act.

It does make sense that the primary legislation itself needs to work together to clarify any potential conflict. The EA versus the GRA in the recent court case is indeed a perfect example.

I'm guessing that somewhere within these two acts it states that religious belief does not justify FGM. It feels like this is the exact type of clarification needed here too: that a belief that everyone has a gender identity (and that it's possible for this to differ from someone's sex) does not justify social transition. Given what we already know about the risks of social transition, I would expect it to be wholly appropriate to ban social transition of children unless it has been expressly recommended by an NHS health professional - and for there to be clear law around the limitation of that social transition where it impacts others. The clarity that has resulted from the recent Supreme Court case will help significantly with the latter and it's incumbent on the NHS to continue tighten up how it supports gender questioning children. For the OP's situation re changing rooms, all that is needed is the Supreme Court clarity.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06787/

the EA is about discrimination. It evolved from the race relations act 1976 I understand (which Lisa Nandy’s father worked on.)

i dont know enough about the GRA other than it wasn’t designed to override women’s rights. It was basically a medical certificate as far as I can tell to confirm a medical diagnosis of GD to prevent discrimination and abuse. And then later the protected characteristic of TG

It’s this situation where “protecting from discrimination and abuse” has become “I have more rights.”

Small update. School currently refusing to give me the email addresses of the senior leadership team individually. Am asking why not….

Are they not on the school's website?
I've no doubt they want to keep this under wraps but is it essential that every member of management is involved? If you're following the complaints procedure then maybe just stick to that at present? Some schools seem very trigger happy in labelling a parent a "vexatious complainant" and looking for an excuse to restrict responding to emails etc.
Frustrating as it is, if it's not a part of the complaints procedure maybe hold back for the moment?

Indeed. That's my frustration. IANAL and I've no doubt that there's plenty of legal arguments on both sides. My frustration is that schools have accepted the whole nonsense and actually there's a whole set of competing issues - none of which has been legally explored by those who should be safeguarding children.

I also think, a bit like the Isla Bryson case, a court case where views that sex change for children must be prioritised over the need to safeguard them from an adult ideology would be a game changer. It would expose how schools and children have been cynically exploited by the trans lobby.

yes follow the complaints procedure to a T, do not deviate

yes that would be a ground breaking case.

unfortunately the kickback from the SR is distracting from the evidence in the Cass review.

I just hope the guidance for Gender questioning children comes out soon and kcsie is clearer.

if feels as if the SR ruling and the latest statement that all children referred to gender services will
be screened for autism is setting up a background against which the guidance could be firmed up. At the same time I can foresee ongoing issues and loopholes that could be exploited.

they need to address curriculum guidelines on this too

My next worry is the conversion therapy bill, tbh. There are already good ex-NHS therapists who have left the UK and are giving exploratory, non-affirming therapy remotely (not a patch on face-to-face, but needs must) because they were hounded out.

Yes that’s a concern

Interestly I was going over the DfE school specific brief (building regs) and it was asking if the school were having single sex OR unisex toilets. Very odd wording but it maybe why some schools have ended up with unisex cubicles will a common hand sink. Also a bit of a problem for many schools now.

my secondary in question - has a large mixed sex toilet room and two single sex either end of the school.