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!

Eresh has answered my questions (I am still finding this new app hard to follow in discussions.)

but the impact of the cognitive dissonance if an individual who is 18 and still in school gets a grc, is extremely concerning

I would recommend against this. It's an issue for parents of pupils at this school, not for everyone who lives in Brighton and Hove. If the aim is to get the school to have all pupils use toilets and changing facilities for their sex at birth, inflating things by involving the press doesn't help and the reporting parent then has to deal with journalists as well as the school.

Yes. A GRC causes cognitive dissonance all round. Imo the GRA is a terrible piece of legislation - badly drafted, ill thought out and all of the concerns raised during its passage through parliament have come to pass (and more!)

Cementing and affirming a trans identity in young people is far too early when the brain hasn’t fully developed as Cass found in her review.

Well, to be honest it’s an issue with every single secondary school in Brighton, that’s got to be 10,000+ kids - however the Argus is not going to be that friendly to the cause. Frankly I might get the house doxxed or graffiti on it. If it has to go full public, I will anyway don’t worry. I’m not the sort to care about reputation. Its an autism superpower 🦸

at Everyone - thanks so much for your advice I really appreciate it

im a bit confused about the GRC and protected characteristic stuff still and it seems we are here as well. I believe this is still to be tested correct and the original intent of the protected characteristic was people really transitioning but it has been broadened to anyone who even says they are doing it?

regardless I’ll need to make a call - the school say 20 days to respond I assume this is 20 total. I can write the letter no worries but need to ensure I have consulted far and wide and have included each and every essential point!

The problem is there is no definition of what “transitioning” is, and that is how the law was written, following intensive TRA lobbying. So the EA pc applies to the majority of males who “identify as women” on a permanent basis, however that’s defined.

Someone just posted this on another thread:

https://www.legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/09/02/a-practical-guide/

It’s a review by Naomi Cunningham (of Sex Matters and of Sandie Peggie v Fife NHS) of an….interesting…book about trans law. The book and review will mostly be irrelevant to you, but at one point she discusses the authors’ take on children using the wrong sex bathrooms at school, and corrects them. Her understanding of the law is pretty solid, so you may find it useful.

@Ereshkigalangcleg I understand that - but I also understood that children under 18 couldn't legally be contemplating reassignment ...

Really apologise for not rtft if someone has already mentioned it. But the quote from Kcsie that talks about harm actually means LGB/T children are not by their mere existence at more risk of being harmed themselves. The headteacher's misunderstanding of this in itself is a massive concern. Secondly it doesn't matter who thinks who is a risk. We don't let boys and girls run around changing rooms looking at each other. Full stop. God at 14 even the idea of seeing an unwanted phallus at a hockey match would have put me off sport. It's hard enough to get girls to play sport as it is.

I think the problem is that gender reassignment is never really defined properly. It doesn't say it's surgery, for instance.

"In the Equality Act, gender reassignment means proposing to undergo, undergoing or having undergone a process to reassign your sex. To be protected from gender reassignment discrimination, you do not need to have undergone any medical treatment or surgery to change from your birth sex to your preferred gender."

So for all anyone knows, it could be bloody clothes. Or a mindset. Plus Proposing to undergo', is so woolly, it could be just thinking about it, or telling your mum.

and you don't even have to possess that protected characteristic, to be discriminated against because of it.

For instance, you can discriminate against someone because you think they're gay, even if you subsequently find out they're not gay.

The actual issue is, that it doesn't matter if you've got that protected characteristic, you can still be excluded from women's changing rooms.

Hello @TangenitalContrivance

I have been campaigning for safe toilets. Their reply mentions toilets so I presume they may be lumping them in together so I have some comments.

Your school and council are being selective in the guidance they like and follow. From their reply they are prepared to follow The Technical Guidance for Schools in England of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (no date given - the latest is July 2024) and know they have to follow KCSIE 2024. So I am just going base what I think in relation to those two.

Safety inside premises used by schools
Ten years ago in Parliament it was discussed that there was at least 1 rape inside a school premises each day (over 600 in a 3 year period). The data, collected by the BBC, mentions an example occurring in a store cupboard. It was found that there were thousands of sexual assaults and hundreds of rapes inside schools. This wasn’t down to the government investigating - it was actually the BBC who contacted every police force in the country via FOI around 2015/2016. There was talk about getting a database - this didn’t happen.
Then some wonderful young people started ‘Everyone’s Invited’ which again shone a light on how prevalent sexual abuse was and how much was going unreported. Some accounts on ‘Everyone’s Invited’ mention school toilets as the location of in-school sexual assaults, including disabled toilets (the mixed sex private toilet space). This time the government asked Ofsted to have a look. Ofsted found it was widespread and how much was going unreported. They were disappointed they had to refer back to BBC investigation data as there wasn’t a more recent data. Ofsted published the Review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges (2021). Ofsted said ‘It is hard to get an accurate picture of the scale and nature of sexual harassment and violence between children and young people in schools and colleges, as there is no centralised data collection …’
Ofsted said the problem was so widespread, and incidents are so commonplace that ‘It recommends that schools, colleges and multi-agency partners act as though sexual harassment and online sexual abuse are happening, even when there are no specific reports’.
‘Children…especially girls…do not want to talk about sexual abuse for several reasons, even when their school encourages them to. For example the risk of being ostracised by peers or getting peers into trouble is not considered to be worth it…They think they will not be believed, or that they will be blamed. They also think that once they talk to an adult, the process will be out of their control.’

These findings are also in line with ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education (2024)’:

15.Staff working with children should maintain an attitude of 'it could happen here’ where safeguarding is concerned. When concerned about the welfare of a child, staff should always act in the best interests of the child.
456. Whilst any report of sexual violence or sexual harassment should be taken seriously, staff should be aware it is more likely girls will be the victims of sexual violence and sexual harassment and more likely it will be perpetrated by boys. Children with disabilities are also three times more likely to be abused than their peers’.

87. Provisions within the Equality Act allow schools and colleges to take positive action, where it can be shown that it is proportionate, to deal with particular disadvantages affecting pupils or students with certain protected characteristics in order to meet their specific need. A school or college, could, for example, consider taking positive action to support girls if there was evidence that they were being disproportionately subjected to sexual violence or sexual harassment. There is also a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled children and young people.

These are a few of the more recent statistics of sexual assaults and rapes in school premises from Freedom of Information requests. Obviously the exact location is not noted but it is reasonable to assume most serious assaults will be unsupervised areas open to mixed sex like toilets and cubicles:
Essex Police
Metropolitan Police
Warwickshire Police

HOWEVER when someone tried to get the figures for Brighton and Hove they were taken to the ICO as they did not comply to FOI requests.
https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/decision-notices/2022/04/ic-162697-k9n7/
I have still not found out if Brighton and Hove did reply to FOI requests.

Relating back to your complaint, there is NO evidence to say that there is not a significant safeguarding risk if they were to use a changing room of the opposite sex. However there is plenty of information which evidences the opposite view. There is no evidence to suggest that trans students might pose a significant safeguarding risk if they
were to use a changing room of the opposite sex. No studies have been done, I expect because it was never thought to be a situation that would arise before and schools wouldn’t agree to it.

However, the guidance NEVER suggests that boys should share with girls.

The Technical Guidance for Schools in England of the Equality and Human Rights Commission includes:
3.20 The way in which school facilities are provided can lead to discrimination.
Examples:
̶ A school fails to provide appropriate changing facilities for a transsexual pupil and insists that the pupil uses the boys’ changing room even though she is now living as a girl. This could be indirect gender reassignment discrimination unless it can be objectively justified. A suitable alternative might be to allow the pupil to use private changing facilities, such as the staff changing room or another suitable space.
5.10 Sex segregation is permitted in certain situations, such as where it is necessary and appropriate to preserve privacy and decency. The law requires schools to provide single sex toilet facilities for children over eight and single sex changing facilities for children over 11. These may be either in sex-segregated communal facilities or in single-user lockable rooms.

My campaign is against rooms that are completely private, such as toilet cubicles or single-user locker rooms. That’s because they are dangerous when children collapse or when they are assaulted. For example there will typically be on average at least a dozen children with disabilities such as epilepsy, diabetes and heart conditions within a typical secondary school. That’s why private school toilets are now designed to never be completely lockable - they are designed to be able to be opened outwards from the outside because bodies stop the door opening. Of course, this means someone could let themselves in. The design has been criticised by so different people because in reality they are dirty, people have sex in them, self-harm, and do drugs. However the Department of Education don’t hold any Equality Impact Assessments or risk assessments for enclosing toilets (from a FOI).

I very much doubt anyone has even thought about risk assessments for a mixed sex changing room as it seems so unbelievable.
I don’t know how it can be justified to Ofsted or the Government.

I think the problem is that gender reassignment is never really defined properly. It doesn't say it's surgery, for instance.

Indeed, @Datun It's this sort of lack of clarity which Stonewall have exploited, and then it's swallowed up and mangled third-hand as we see that @TangenitalContrivance 's Head teacher has done (eg. talking about LGB children when the issue is trans-identified children).

BTW, buckets of the best of British luck to you @TangenitalContrivance You're a mensch.

Knowing Brighton quirtewell from years ago, it shouldn't surprise me that this is an issue across the city. What a battle to be fighting, especially with a head who appears to confuse being gay, lesbian or binary with transsexualism.

You probably know this anyway, but follow the school's complaints procedure to the letter. Then, if the governors don't offer a satisfactory resolution, you can escalate to the Department for Education (DfE). Although as a general principle I'm in favour of school autonomy so heads can tailor what the school does to the school community, I do think there is a need for prescription from the DfE when it comes to safeguarding and provision for self-idenifying trans pupils. The right for girls to be able to use single-sex toilet and changing rooms free of male-born pupils isn't something parents should have to fight for school by school. Determination will win the day!

As Datun said, they can be contemplating or undertaking “reassignment” as per EA because it means very little in the EA. It does not mean getting or applying for a GRC.

You’re enormously kind 🥹 not quite there yet but talking to safe schools alliance. School already hate me, I’ve got no fucks left to give so might as well have a pop :)

Sending you bonne courage as well. We are all behind you, all of us vipers. 🐍🐍🐍

Thank you OP. All our children need parents like you challenging this dangerous nonsense being forced on them.

@TangenitalContrivance Just to make sure you are aware, that technical guidance for schools in England from the EHRC also includes:

Victimisation for actions of parents or siblings
5.77 A school must not subject a pupil to a detriment because of something that his or her parent or sibling has done in relation to the making of a complaint of discrimination.

Just to say that I was struck by the “femaleness” of your statement. You’re struggling to carry on knowing that the school disapproves. That’s not a feature I’m seeing from the other side of this - worth remembering in tough times. Best of luck with it all xx

Exactly what I thought reading that bit.

Can you ask the school to clarify what they mean when they say a child is trans?

A child cannot get a GRC, can no longer get cross sex hormones and I hope surgery has also been stopped.

So what is a trans child? If they cannot identify a trans child how can they provide suitable services to that child and to any other?

What about a child who identifies as female only of Friday afternoons when they want to get out of PE?

Good luck with this OP don't let the bastards grind you down.

Pointing out they appear to be conflating a child's desire to identify as a different gender with a child's sexuality and that the complaint has not touched on and is not at all concerned with children's sexuality would be good.

But the definition of "trans" that the school uses is irrelevant to OP's complaint. OP is asking them to ensure their policy reflects the need to have single sex facilities. Her focus is on ensuring male pupils aren't allowed to enter female spaces (and vice versa). A male child - regardless of the school's definition of trans - should not be entering female spaces. It would be pointless to try and debate that with them.

im a bit confused about the GRC and protected characteristic stuff still

In a nutshell:
Let us assume the widest possible definition, i.e. that any child of any age who claims in any way to be "trans" is protected by the characteristic of gender reassignment.
Such a male boy (who wants to be a girl) would not be discriminated against under this protected characteristic by stopping him using the female spaces.
Because NO BOY is allowed to use the female spaces. The correct comparator is other boys, not girls.
If no males are allowed in, it is not discriminatory to say the 'trans' boy is not allowed in.

Someone mentioned this was settled in a court case - does anyone have the name of the case for OP to quote?

To further explain, although not relevant to the OP:

The protected characteristic of gender reassignment is intended to stop discrimination against 'trans' people. So for example an employer could not refuse to consider a trans person for a promotion just because they were trans.

It does NOT mean that trans people have to be treated as the opposite sex and allowed into opposite sex spaces.

Furthermore, an employer could not prevent a transwoman (a male) from using the male toilets because "the other men don't like it". A male has the right to use the male toilets, even if they are a transwoman
They don't have the right to use the female toilets.

Thank you that really does make a lot of sense