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.

@wejammin, I’m so pleased for you that you had a good conversation with the head - both in terms of there not being biological boys at the school, and in terms of her being understanding and approachable about your concerns re the same.

@BonfireLady, I am with you. I have said this before on other threads here: when my grandmother was a child, if you were “gender nonconforming” - if you were a boy who liked to crochet, or a girl who liked to climb trees - you would more than likely have been taken out behind the woodshed and had it beaten out of you. That is, there was an acceptable “box” (clothing, behaviour, etc) for each sex, and if you tried to leave your box you were put back in it.

When I was a child, in the 70s and 80s, there was a huge push to get rid of the boxes - I had super short hair from teenage hood to adulthood, my brother had long hair, boys wore makeup and nail varnish, Lego had advertisements that explicitly stated that boys could build dollhouses and girls could build cranes and that didn’t make them less boys or girls. Bowie and Annie Lennox! Proper gender nonconformity.

I always assumed we would keep moving in that direction - that is, no more boxes - but it really feels like we have gone back to boxes, but instead of your sex dictating your box, now your box dictates your sex: you have short hair? Oh, you must be a boy! Let’s cut some body parts off of you to make you fit in the box even better.

It’s loathsome, and regressive, and it pisses me off completely. I really would like to know how we got here - and how we get out.

The single-sex exemption in the Equality Act applies as a binary i.e. a school (or other organisation) either is or isn't single-sex. If it is, it can't admit anyone of the opposite sex.

If it wants to be mostly a girls' school but then admit a few boys, it wouldn't be able to call itself a girls' school. It would then need to be very careful not to be discriminatory if it wanted to limit the number of boys that it admitted. It's possible that it could justifiably have more girls' spaces than boys, on a positive action basis, if this was a justifiable means of meeting a legitimate aim (e.g. perhaps a school specialising in a subject which has a low intake of girls). But it wouldn't be a girls' school - and it wouldn't be able to admit males who identify as girls into a girl's place.

Hear hear 👏

That would totally make sense. It’s not the law though.

This is EA 2010 Schedule 11 which talks about single sex schools. 1.1.3.a is where exceptional presence of opposite-sex students is disregarded.

Single-sex, in a legal sex, is a binary classification. But presence of a single opposite-sex person doesn’t, in a legal sense, make it not-single-sex. That section gets called into play.

Good news all round.

however. I would be very tempted to ask for clarification of school policies as to whether a biological male would be admitted, under any circumstances.

Ah. I stand corrected. I guess the bit where I said that a male who identifies as a girl can't take a girl's place still applies (i.e. the male would be considered as an opposite-sex exception) but the rest of what I said was... bollocks 🤦‍♀️

Thank you for the info. It's bonkers really, that schools can be single-sex (legally) while being mixed-sex (in reality). Perhaps Shrodinger created these clauses in the EA 🙃 I wouldn't be surprised if a legally-minded TRA starts from this position, campaigning for a change to the EA because it's unfair to the Most Marginalised not to apply this clause beyond schools. That said, to put this argument forward they would have to accept that sex in the EA is as observed at birth. So they'd need to weigh up the chances of conceding on that key point versus a successful campaign of emotional blackmail to allow a small number of exceptions into women's spaces.

I have a feeling the exceptions are to allow the attendance of the children of staff where those children are the opposite sex.

Yes I think that’s one of the examples in the explanatory notes.

Where do you think the carve outs are, exactly? The gist of the Supreme Court judgment was essentially, there are no exceptions.

Hi OP, I applaud you for taking this on. In one of your previous comments, you said
"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."
did you talk with the deputy head about the possibility that it might happen, even if it isn't now?

I’m very surprised that it took over 2 weeks for the DHT to make such a phone call given the seriousness of your queries. Is it too suspicious of me to think you’re being ‘lied to’ or fobbed off?

There have been quite a few cases where the people asking were lied to (the hospital one springs to mind) so I'm not holding my breath.

If it is then I am too. We know some trans identifying males call themselves 'biological women'.

Unfortunately all trust has been eroded. And if the school has a policy that specifically states they may admit males if they feel like it then why the disingenuous surprise that parents have concerns? Smells like gas lighting to me.

I'm suspicious you were told in a phone call rather than in writing - might it be worth an email to the Deputy head thanking her for her phone call clarifying that there are no biological males in the school, so that you do have a trace in writing if it turns out she was fobbing you off?

EA 2010 Schedule 11, section 1.1.3.a.

The SC judgment says sex in EA2010 is biological sex. EA 2010 says that presence of opposite sex students doesn’t nullify the single-sex status of a school, provided it meets the criteria in 1.1.3.a.

Oh blimey. That's disappointing.

People send their children to single sex schools specifically because they want them to be educated in a single sex environment.

That's a good idea. And ask for clarification on the diversity statement

very much, given my own experience, if it's not in writing, it didn't happen. Get full written clarification of the now, and also of the what if in the future

Exactly, I've had my fair share of "just calling as it's quicker and I wanted to catch you in person" phone calls from schools when they were on dodgy ground with SEND issues or GDPR or whatever.

All very sound advice about getting it in writing.

As cheered on by the OP's news about the conversation with the Head, it's all to easy for spoken words to disappear into the ether.

I guess it also wouldn't hurt to clarify (in writing) that the Head's definition of biological sex matches the clarification that the Supreme Court provided on the EA. That way, when they confirm how a male or female trans-identifying student would be supported re changing rooms, loos and residential accommodation it's clear which sex is being referred to.

OP, apologies if you've already answered this but were you mistaken about the sex of the child you mentioned who was visibly male?

If this is a single sex school for the female sex, which it is, ‘trans’ as an identity does not change the sex of male children into female.

They are therefore breaking the law by being at the school. If these males/boys who identify as being
‘trans’ can go to the school, then it is a mixed sex school and any other boys can join the school too.

Also, it against guidance for schools to affirm children in their belief they are in the wrong body.

Apparently what I just said is not true. So there is not necessarily any secure legal basis for single sex schools. See @GeneralPeter · Yesterday 21:15

Yeah, this is the bit that is a potentially exploitable loophole outside of schools.

It's imperative that schools clearly demonstrate that they understand the intention behind this exemption, otherwise I suspect we'll have organisations trying to leverage it for other "admissions" e.g. saying that it's possible to keep ladies' toilets designated as single sex if they admit only a small minority of opposite-sex people on an "exceptional" basis. I can well imagine lots of pulling on the sympathy strings to say how hurtful and harmful it is that schools can do this but no other organisation can.

What a nonsense bit of law that is in the EA.

On a plus note, if the TRAs do try this we'll have autogynophilia discussed in parliament in detail. Also I would hope that it's pretty easy for enough politicians to grasp that letting opposite-sex children into a single-sex school (which has changing room/toilet facilities for those students) is very different from letting opposite-sex people into the actual facilities. Although given the likes of Dawn "a baby is born without a sex" Butler and David "let's grow you a cervix" Lammy.... maybe not 🤦‍♀️

I have heard anecdotally of a very rare instance in a boys’ public boarding school, of a house master’s daughter being allowed to join the boys for lessons. (In the 1970s)

Perhaps this was the sort of thing they were thinking of at the time if drafting that EA sub-clause about how a rare exception does not change the nature of a single sex school.

That’s a pity, because someone should be challenging them.

You respect the school’s and the parents’ decision to break the law?