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!

You clearly didn't read the quote I bothered to post saying this has not been ratified in law.

Maybe you have been Stonewalled.

And the point of the guidelines is to tell schools there is no legal precedent.

You should be glad I have found you this quote so that when presuming to give advice to someone who needs genuine information with a current situation in a school they will know that schools are not able to state what you are saying.

they may say this is what they practice but could face the real threat of being taken to court for doing it.

No school age child is likely to have a GRC as you need to be over 18 years old before you can apply for one & to have lived in your acquired gender for more than two years.

@IwantToRetireyou are just displaying your own ignorance. The EA pc is not based on the age of the person and it isn’t dependent on any of the rules set out in the GRA such as living for two years as the opposite “gender”.

Indeed. This is a key point.

And? It doesn’t mean children wouldn’t be protected.

Hello @2fallsfromSSA - very happy to take advice from you guys

Thanks!

OP it sounds like the safe schools alliance are who you need to speak to. And to cite this case in your argument.

And in the meantime theres a pre-action letter on that website that @2fallsfromSSA posted you could fact check against.

Can you request that they issue the Equality Impact Assessment that the school did to justify this action when you send your repose? They can provide a redacted version. [edited to add - a non existent or poorly conceived EqIA will win your argument for you]

I don’t know anything about this situation but based on my experience fighting in the middle SEN quasi-legal system, if your original is sound but ignored it’s more powerful to re-refer to it and then add some short statements/questions than to write a whole new one. As it makes the thread of arguments easier for others to follow later as you get towards the tribunal/court stage. Obvs I’m not a lawyer but that approach of hammering the same stuff home has worked well to assert our rights and avoid court/full legal by getting the other side to back down.

good luck

Even your quote falls on the side of children being protected under the EA.

Just because it hasn’t been tested in law doesn’t mean that’s not how it is worded and therefore used and the only thing to prevent that will be a successful challenge in court which as you know, hasn’t yet happened.

OP I feel your pain - I’ve been through a similar process unsuccessfully. In our case we had outright lies, new meanings of words invented, shockingly bad EqIA and a point blank refusal to acknowledge the issue.

I would focus on the safeguarding issues around a male student being in with females. Why do they not let all boys change with girls? Surely they know that the student hasn’t changed sex purely by his own wishful thinking? ‘Gender identity’ is not sex.

It’s interesting that the school rejects the basic premise of the non statutory guidance issued by government but is happy to listen to the extremely legally dodgy guidance from the Brighton and Hove Trans Inclusion Toolkit.

It’s extraordinary that a professional teacher leading a British state secondary school needs local authority funded legal services to defend against a parent asserting a very basic, very obvious safeguarding position.

“I seek a clear, written assurance from SCHOOL XXX that:
a. Males of any age or identity will never use female-only changing or shower facilities (and vice versa).”

The head teacher’s use of very narrow legal interpretations to enable his or her school to furtively work against parents is the obliteration of parental trust.

The tiny minority of parents who are happy for males to use female only changing or shower facilities are not recognised by the headteacher either, they just happen (this time) to be inline with the unilateral decision made by the headteacher.

Where on earth are the Governors, their absence and the headteacher’s very public position can only show their support.

Thank you OP for dragging the headteacher into the sunlight

I was thinking about this last night OP and I think what KnottyAuty says here is similar to my thoughts:

if your original is sound but ignored it’s more powerful to re-refer to it and then add some short statements/questions than to write a whole new one. As it makes the thread of arguments easier for others to follow later as you get towards the tribunal/court stage. Obvs I’m not a lawyer but that approach of hammering the same stuff home has worked well to assert our rights and avoid court/full legal by getting the other side to back down.

Short statements/questions following up on your original letter and their reply will probably be harder to ignore.

'You state that
"As a school we wish to avoid putting students who identify as transgender in humiliating or uncomfortable positions as far as is reasonably practicable"
and therefore a boy who identifies as a girl shouldn't be forced to use the boys' changing room.

Shouldn't the same apply to girls? Is it acceptable to put girls in the "in humiliating or uncomfortable position" of having to undress in front of a boy or boys?

Any student who has a need or desire for increased privacy,
regardless of the underlying reason, will be provided with a reasonable alternative changing area such as the use of a private area or with a separate time to change.
Would it not be more workable to offer these alternatives to any boy who declines to use the boys' facilities, thereby removing the issue of girls being placed in 'humiliating or uncomfortable positions'?

The principle that girls should not be required, under any circumstances, to share their single-sex spaces, required under [official guidance] with boys, should be straightforwardly and reliably stated in school regulations.

What is your rationale for making it a 'case-by-case' rolling issue?"

I hope you are not overwhelmed by all the suggestions, OP, and I wish you the best of luck.

Good luck, OP. I'm sure it feels utterly overwhelming. Especially as your first letter should've been a slam dunk.

Just keep chipping away using as much advice as you can. It doesn't have to be perfect.

They're clearly just batting it back to the council to get advice. You constantly reiterating why they're wrong, is going to require them to ignore it more and more.

They will absolutely be beginning to understand that they are on the wrong side of history, given the direction of travel of this issue.

Good luck, and thank you, on behalf of parents everywhere.

'You state that
"As a school we wish to avoid putting students who identify as transgender in humiliating or uncomfortable positions as far as is reasonably practicable"
and therefore a boy who identifies as a girl shouldn't be forced to use the boys' changing room.
Shouldn't the same apply to girls? Is it acceptable to put girls in the "in humiliating or uncomfortable position" of having to undress in front of a boy or boys?

Bingo! 🎯I think the Head's tone was disgraceful.

Also, if you swap the males and females around - surely the head teacher can see the insanity of sending a lone teenage girl into the a changing room full of teenage boys? Even if she thinks she's male - that's basic safeguarding.

This is really good advice - keep forcing them back to their incoherent decision that they are enforcing a "humiliating or uncomfortable position" on girls by insisting they undress in front a boy.

Enforcing mixed sex changing is also exposing children / teenagers to potential allegations of committing criminal acts - specifically voyeurism and indecent exposure. A 17 year old Lia Thomas in the swimming team and therefore in the pool changing rooms with 12 / 13 year old girls changing for their events could have some very serious charges laid against him .

This.

It's also hard to miss that there is a clear hierarchy in their minds that is sex based. That boys have the right to use girls. That boys' wishes and feelings and dignity/privacy is of high value, where it is not even granted the most cursory notice when wishing to use girls as a resource to award to boys.

It is binary sex class based thinking. And extremely sexist in who it privileges and who must submit.

Yes, exactly.

This.

Gender reassignment as one of the 9 protected characteristics cannot apply to anyone under 18. Whereas sex - another of the 9 protected characteristics - applies from birth.

They're breaking the Equality Act, it seems to me - creating an education setting where there is the potential for sexual harassment?

@LittleBigHeadit isn’t contingent on having a GRC or applying for one.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/7

1)
A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.

What the gender reassignment pc doesn’t do though, is give a positive right for males to use female spaces and vice versa. Single sex spaces are an exception to the general prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sex. As a pp said, the legal comparator in a gender reassignment case is likely to be another person of the same sex without the GR protected characteristic.

My concern is the live as for two years part

so can that start at 16??

Or does the processs start at 18.

Yes. The other legal issue that's never been explored is the conflict between this PC and safeguarding. In schools, safeguarding children from harm is meant to be the priority. So it never makes sense that adults compelling girls to undress in changing rooms, showers, dormitories are not challenged for putting girls at risk, especially from sex offences of voyeurism and indecent exposure. To my knowledge, so powerful are the men insisting on male access to undressed girls that no education institution dares challenge them and they all ignore the undermining of safeguarding.

Are you referring to the ‘qualifying’ period for a GRC?

There are parents who have transed their very young children and schools that have supported it.

In theory it may be possible to apply for a GRC just after your 18th birthday? Obviously this school is very confused as even a GRC doesn’t mean you are required to treat someone as if they were the opposite sex for ALL purposes.

Yes, the whole ideology requires many breaches of basic safeguarding rules and too many people in positions of power are willing to go along with it for *reasons.

Well done for pursuing this, OP. You've had some great advice here.

Unfortunately some misinformation keeps popping up on the PC of gender reassignment. Eresh has been giving great information on this PC in the thread.

As has been mentioned above - and I think you've picked up on it too, OP - it is key that the Head is conflating LGB and gender questioning children in the comments made about risk. This is a misrepresentation/misunderstanding of the statutory KCSIE guidance, which makes it clear that there is a significant difference in relation to risk.

You've got plenty of good info on this thread so hopefully you're armed with plenty of ideas for the response. Your brilliantly worded original complaint suggests you'll nail this. Good luck, OP 💪

(I was initially concerned that you had put info about the draft Gender Questioning Children guidance under the title of "statutory" information, but the fact that you only pulled out the "must" sections is genius. The Head is on the back foot here and floundering, but as has been said above, this is likely to be a long slog 😬)

My concern is that yes, if an 18 yr old could have a grc the day after they turn 18, it means some sixth forms would have a harder issue around this. An older child could turn 18 in September and have a grc for the whole of the upper sixth. And what would certain schools/ lawyers say there? Hopefully it’s becoming clearer with current cases pending but it really really does need to be clarified.

editing to add the concept of this is quite disturbing and confusing for other 17yr olds around such an individual under all the current rhetoric. Hopefully over time much more caution will prevail