All girls' school - safeguarding and boys issue

[wejammin]

My daughter has just started year 7 at a girls academy school. It appears (although this is only what she has told me and what I have seen for myself) that there are at least 2 boys attending who identify as girls. When I say I have seen it - one of the boys is visibly male.

The school's equality policy says "the school may exercise discretion in allowing admission of both male and female transgender students and supporting transgender students at any stage of their education at the school." I admit I hadn't read this until this week.

Given it's a girls school, I'm worried about safeguarding re sports, changing rooms, toilets and residential trips. I have an older teen boy - I know how big, and strong, they get, and how hormones kick in. I presume there are no boys toilets or changing rooms, but I don't know for sure. There are definitely no boys sports clubs.

Does anyone know the best way to approach this with school so that it is taken seriously? I mean no ill-will towards the male children. I just want my daughter to be safe.

Schedule 11 confirms single-sex schools can restrict admissions by sex, and it says a school remains ‘single-sex’ even if it admits a few opposite-sex pupils where admissions are exceptional or small in number.

This is from the Equality Act.

The protection means that single sex schools cannot be challenged on sex based discrimination by only admitting a single sex.

I don't want to derail but it's not nonsense.

Again, I am not saying I in anyway agree with this schools stance as they are protected here by the law to be single sex and by admitting children of the opposite sex they undermine that.

As previous posters have said there are plenty of mixed sex schools that parents who believe they have a trans child can choose to attend.

It’s totally wrong to say “there are mixed sex schools and they are fine” well yes because they are managed as mixed sex 🙄🙄. There will be no boys sports at this school and hardly any boys toilets.

It’s totally inappropriate. I would be furious. Particularly when there are plenty of great mixed sex schools surely gender non conforming pupils can go to one of those. They are making a point by muscling into a girls school. So glad the fearsome head of dds school had no truck with this. It was a hard no to the boys that tried to get in.

You've had some great advice about the Supreme Court ruling here, OP.

Yes, they are breaking the law. If they call themselves a girls' school and then admit some boys (who identify as girls) that's direct discrimination if they won't admit all boys. They can't have it both ways. They are either a girls' school, under the single sex exemption in the EA, or they are a mixed-sex school. They can't be a "girls' school", which admits some males, regardless of the males' belief that they are girls - the law on separation by sex is based on fact (biology) not belief (gender identity) or gender reassignment.

Separately, you're absolutely right about the safety and safeguarding risks relating to mixed-sex sports, changing rooms, residential accommodation etc. Once males hit puberty, they become a risk to females in all of these scenarios.

In mixed sex schools contact sports are separated by sex.

Sadly not at my children's secondary school. The Head seems wedded to the idea that it's much better for all PE lessons to be mixed-sex, including where contact sports matches are played within the lessons. You'd think an injury to a girl by a boy would be a wake-up call but sadly not: my daughter was injured in the face by a spiked volleyball at close range by a boy. Unfortunately some schools seem to have forgotten basic safeguarding and common sense about why we separate the sexes in some scenarios.

You could start by asking to see their policies on sports, changing rooms and residentials regarding the mixed-sex cohort. If they won't accept that they are running a mixed-sex school you could ask to see the risk assessment which covers these areas. For example, have they considered what could happen if a student made another another pregnant on a school trip or do they have a way of separating the "girls" with penises from the girls without penises....? The wording of their policies or risk assessments could be quite illuminating. If they haven't covered this type of risk, are they in breach of their insurance requirements?

You're expressing yourself perfectly.
There is a world of difference between mixed sex schools, with provisions for both sexes, and single sex schools with provisions for one containing both sexes.

What you’re failing to note is that in mixed sex schools, there are single sex changing rooms, single sex toilets and single sex PE lessons. There are many instances of girls being assaulted by boys in mixed sex schools - to say they’re perfectly safe is plain untrue. Have a read of this report.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-sexual-abuse-in-schools-and-colleges/review-of-sexual-abuse-in-schools-and-colleges

A father has been working on his school. Settle in - there is a lot to read but it’s all useful. Check all the previous threads.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5404868-single-sex-changing-spaces-in-a-brighton-secondary-school-new-school-year-new-thread

Usually, that's to allow a teacher's child to attend the school that the teacher works at. For fee-paying schools, a reduced fee for the staff's children is part of the salary and benefits package, so allowing staff's children of both sexes to attend an otherwise single-sex school can be argued as a form of fairness to the staff.

I'd be asking on what grounds these boys who want to be girls were admitted. For an opposite-sex admission to be "exceptional", there must be grounds for that exception to be made.

You may also want to look (as the Brighton parent linked above has) at the school’s insurance - given that the Supreme Court has clarified that mixed-sex by stealth (that is, saying something is single-sex, but allowing members of the opposite sex if they identify as the first sex) is indeed illegal, many insurance companies are requiring the bodies that they insure to follow the law or risk losing their insurance cover.

Re last paragraph: Excelpope's essay remains relevant. https://excelpope.net/2019/02/28/the-unaskable-question/

What is you basis for that statement?

The school safeguarding was formulated on only having female students and a mixture of female and male staff. There is no indication yet that the school has updated its policy to to account for a mixed sex school.

If the school is telling the girls that the boys are girls and that the girls must pretend that this is true the school is undermining a basic safeguarding as girls are more at risk of VaWAG from boys than girls.

If it was a female only school the studert services provided will be based on only having one sex and that sex being female. Toilets, changing rooms, shower and washing areas will not have been built for males so there is a question of how the school is proposing to provide these services.

Actually the risk to the girls has increased.

Previously their risk of getting hurt or sexually assaulted by a boy at school was 0.

Now it is 2 x (0+x) where x is the personal likelihood of the individual boy to hurt a girl. We don’t know what x is but may not find out until it’s too late and he’s hurt someone.

In claiming a trans identity, these boys either have some sort of mental health disorder or have malign influences in their lives. That is not going to be particularly good for the girls they mix with.

At best, it places an emotional burden on the girls to ignore their own rights and requirements and put these boys first. At worst they could be farmed.

Yes, sadly the school management is cowardly and captured enough to admit boys. That doesn’t bode well for their clear thinking on safeguarding for the girls.

To put in place safeguarding measures would demonstrate that they know the students are boys which then raises the question why are they being admitted?

So the school are likely to actively avoid any normal safeguarding measures here so they are not fundamentally contradicting themselves.

I am in complete agreement. Whatever the reason for the exemption whether it's a staff child or another reason the school need to explain this as it will affect future admissions as a precedent is set.

I sympathise with the OPs position. If I had chosen a single sex school for my child, it's single sex nature would be the first thing I would expect to be upheld. I just wanted to share what current guidance states so they can challenge the school appropriately.

My biggest concern would be that due to the nature of the school, it is far more difficult to safeguard the children in it due to a lack of facilities and room to separate on sex where that is completely necessary. If single sex is one of your USPs, why undermine it?

I think it would be worth checking out the safeguarding situation with the school first before you go in all guns blazing about the law.

I only say this because when I did my A-Levels it was the first year the local boys school decided to have a mixed 6th form. For my first year I was the only girl student in the building. I was given a dedicated toilet and shower/changing room.

They may have already considered all your concerns and the law and put things in place.

On a wider point, I don't think it's healthy for a trans identifying boy to be placed in an all girls school. It is worse than other gender affirming care. They can't change their mind without losing all their friends.

I agree checking out the safeguarding situation as they may be using different toilets and changing rooms. If you contact them write a very careful letter saying they've probably thought of this but some schools haven't.

If there is no separate changing/shower/toilet faculties for the TiMs, and they are playing contact sports all together, this is a safeguarding issue.

Yeah you can see in my next paragraph I mentioned physicality.

To be really clear, I have no intention of challenging the school on the existence of boys, however they choose to identify, in principle. I respect the school's decision to teach them and the parents' decision to send them to that school.

My only concern is my child's safety and how this arrangement can be safely managed. I'm not looking to make ideological big waves here, I'm just a worried parent. I want to be polite and understanding, but I do need some answers. I'm very much hoping that they will have already thought all of this through and it's not a difficult question.

I will read through the Brighton threads, thank you.

You may see the terms TIF (trans id female) and TIM (trans id male)

If they are playing rugby then the regulations from the RFU (which schools have to follow to play any matches and to be insured) then they can only play same sex from the age of 11.
Therefore of the school has any boys on the pitch then your daughter won't be insured if she has an injury.

I've not seen this before but it's a great way to explain the principles of safeguarding: imagine the worst case scenario as an outcome and make the simplest viable policy that mitigates it as much as possible.

You need to find out if possible if the males are in your childs year.

And also ask to see their policy:
For dealing with boys
For dealing with TIMs
What provisions have been made for toilets and changing rooms

To find out what the "pronoun" policy is as this will be a tell as to how and if your child has to pretend the boy is a girl.

It's absolutely terrible parenting to send your male child with a gender identity to an all girls school - do these families have nobody in their lives able to point out the insanity of it!?

There's no scope to see how varied boys can be, no way to have any doubts at all without major consequences, a place they will always have to strive to fit but never can, showing them women's things exist to validate them - there is no way parents who have made this unreasonable choice, which is bad for their own kid and all classmates, deserve any respect at all.

They will be the kind of parents so heavily invested in it that they will fight at every turn.

My DD had a lot of kids with identities as primary, two have zealous parents who might have done this but most of the others have either tried to quietly drop the identity all together or have worked through a whole range of fluid identities and ended up landing just on a vague "queer," with no need for any medical nonsense or intruding on opposite sex spaces. The overly invested parents are doing a lot of harm to their children by pushing them down such a path.

Solidarity OP - my daughter has just gone into year 9 at an all girls state high school and I would be absolutely fucking furious if I were to discover that there were male children who say they are girls on roll, as would at least 90% of the parents, many of whom are orthodox/conservative parents of various faiths (I’m an atheist terf myself tho).

Thankfully my DD’s school seems to be pretty much impervious to trans ideology having weathered the peak of the transboy pandemic without cowtowing to any of the cultural pressures to stop using ‘gendered language’ that many girls schools caved to (including at least one locally) so I’m not left wondering if our DDs are at the same school - still, do try and seek out other parents who feel the same way as you - single sex schools are sufficiently scarce that very few pupils will attend one by accident, thus it is usually the ‘single sex’ aspect that has been the draw for parents and students alike.

If there is a girl who's bigger and stronger than the trans kids in your daughter's year, will you stop her playing rugby with them?