Residential trip: club following Stonewall advice

[Fireandwaters]

My DD is in a club which has a residential trip abroad over the summer.

Buried deep in the FAQs is some info about rooms policy. I couldn’t believe my eyes:

”[Club] has a strong equality, diversity and inclusion ethos and is an inclusive organisation.
Sometimes, rooming on the trip will need to be arranged in line with our responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 towards young people with a Protected Characteristic. Ordinarily, rooms will only be shared by people of the same biological sex, however this may not always be appropriate, in order to facilitate the wellbeing of those on tour. If rooms are shared by people of different biological sexes, then there must be a bathroom/toilet available with a lockable door and the people concerned must be 16 or over.
Any such arrangement will always be carefully considered and our various responsibilities –
to the Act, to safeguard all the young people in our care, and to the principles of confidentiality
– will be carefully balanced. [The club ] believes that safe spaces are created by careful agreements
around behaviour; it is behaviour, not bodies, which makes situations unsafe.
This guidance has been developed in line with the following key documents:
• The Equality Act 2010
• Data Protection Act 2018
• The Human Rights Act 1998
• The Gender Recognition Act 2004
• Stonewall: An Introduction to Supporting LGBTQ+ Children and Young People, a
guide for schools, colleges and settings
• Provisions to support gender-questioning children in schools,
commonslibrary.parliament.uk, April 2024“

No mention of the Supreme Court ruling, and no insight into the absolute insanity of accommodating teenagers of opposite sexes together.

I think it’s more virtue signalling than anything else (I don’t think there are any trans identifying kids in the club) but I’m pretty shocked.

How do I approach this?

Thanks all. I will definitely contact the safeguarding person and the leader of the club. It’s tricky because they are volunteers and I hate being a PITA. But I just can’t believe that they’ve got this policy.

There is a dad on here who has been trying to get his children’s school to reverse their mixed-sex policies - his threads have some very useful info in them. I’ll see if I can find the latest and will link it.

One thing worth raising in your correspondence with the club is insurance, and does their insurer know that they are following Stonewall guidance (which is not law) and not following the law (which…is the law).

Because annoyingly while you may not be able to persuade them on safeguarding grounds, you may persuade them if they realise that if a lawsuit were brought against them, they - personally, as in, each volunteer - would not be insured if they are actually breaking, or encouraging breaking, the law.

Here you go:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5330837-secondary-school-mixed-sex-changing-rooms-complaint-update-from-school-again

I know that being over the age of consent means very little in safeguarding terms. So challenge that over 16s bit strongly. Over 18s are a different kettle of fish and it will come down to personal preference. But they shouldn't bring sharing with under 18s technically.
Who is the designated safeguarding lead?

And as a long term volunteer safeguarding lead, please raise this. It for the best for all the children and adults. Just be polite about it, which I'm sure you will. You probably know more than they do on this, and if they have no trans kids, they probably didn't even read that bit.

Oh FFS 🤦‍♀️. Well no child has a GRC so even before the SC this was insane. Yes, please contact the safeguarding lead. Safeguarding rules aren’t developed with the best behaviour in mind but the worst and they protect us all. And definitely mention the magic word insurance.

Good luck

With this lack of awareness about safeguarding how can you be sure that everything else has been properly researched and assessed. For example it it is activities like sports or climbing. I'd withdraw my child and ask for any deposit back .

Your daughter can't be unraped or unassaulted. Be the parent who makes a fuss

And how exactly do the club organisers plan to police the behaviour of ‘bodies’ with a penis?

As well as the obvious discrimination on the basis of sex, it’s also discriminatory to any pupils who don’t want to share with the opposite sex on religious grounds. <head desk>

Just came back to say sorry I didn't post anything useful late last night, but glad and not surprised that others on FWR had stepped in with loads of relevant advice.

I hate religion getting brought into the sex matters single sex spaces thing.
Non-religous have the same rights to dignity and single sex spaces as religious. Lots of non-religous will equally be uncomfortable sharing with trans, but not be able hide behind 'religion' as a reason not to. Therefore saying anything makes them look like unreasonable Terfs. (Not that Terfs are wrong but being a labelled a terf could be very uncomfortable for young people)

I can't believe that after the SC ruling, and the interm guidelines that anyone would want to risk putting boys and girls in the same room.

Giving the safeguarding lead the benefit of the doubt, They might be thinking putting the trans-girls together and calling it a "girls" room, keep them happy but keep them out the actual girls spaces.