Girlguiding faces legal action from parent over trans policy

[Misla]

Good. Well done that parent!

Charity is accused of failing to follow Supreme Court ruling on gender, leaving girls ‘exposed to harassment’

Girlguiding is facing legal action from a parent over its transgender policy which she claims discriminates against her seven-year-old daughter.

The claimant, who has asked to remain anonymous to protect her daughter’s identity, has alleged in a pre-action letter to Girlguiding that the organisation’s policy “exposes girls to harassment”.

Under the policy, trans girls — boys who identify as girls — are allowed to join Girlguiding, and trans women — adult males who identify as female — are permitted to undertake volunteer roles previously reserved for women.

“It constitutes and encourages unwanted conduct which violates their [girls’] dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment,” the correspondence said.

“This includes, but is not limited to: sharing toilets, showers or changing facilities with boys, contact sports with boys, and sharing accommodation with boys, all without their prior knowledge or consent.”

The letter goes on to point out that Girlguiding operates “as a charity for the benefit of girls and young women”.

Girlguiding faces legal action from parent over trans policy

Quite honestly, I'm disgusted by what a bunch of transphobes you are. What do you think we have the kids doing on guiding? Running around and flashing their genitals? As nice as it is to have a girl only space (any by girl I mean anyone who identifies as a girl, not just those who were born with female genitals), I sincerely hope that if the issue is curved on this, the way Girlguiding responds is to change who they accept so they accept girls and boys (but keep the name Girlguiding so it doesn't appeal to boys). We might have less of a struggle for leaders then too because we wouldn't be putting off dads/men.
Seriously, get a grip and stop hating on people for who they are.

Utter nonsense. Were you being ironic? They are breaking the law.

I see the drive-by scold is up early this morning. 🙄 I suggest you educate yourself about safeguarding best practice, because Girl Guiding’s failure to address safeguarding concerns and their lack of transparency with guides and parents is the issue here. When you are up to speed you’re welcome to make your arguments.

ETA: They are also breaking the law, as the previous poster has pointed out.

I am not scared of people who identify as another ‘gender identiy’.

The discussions here is about a legal entity set up for single sex purposes. It has become mixed sex in breach of its articles of association/ charitable objects.

If you have a dog society that allows cats to participate in your shows - then you don’t have a dog society. It’s a cat and dog society.

If Girlguides want to become Girls and Boys guides then they need to follow a legal process.

It Is not transphobic to confirm that in line with the law only biological women and women and biological girls are girls.

No amount of inner feelings can change that.

I honestly thought a traditional organisation such as this would have come to its senses by now. I have kept my kids well away.

Really depressing that someone has to do this to challenge what is so so obviously wrong.

Glad to see this news and very sad it has come to this. Guiding is a wonderful thing and brought me huge joy and benefit growing up. I hope this case will do what's needed to sort it out and that other organisations will start to realise it's time to act within the law without fear. The girls only space that Guiding previously created is not a 'nice to have', it is imperative to support girls to become the confident young women they deserve to and give them the same opportunities boys take for granted, and is a hugely important element of the Guiding movement. It is an absolute disgrace that TRAs were allowed to destroy it in the first place.

FFS, the girl might be harassed by a female or a male. There will be no scouts or girl guides if this nonsense isn't stopped.

Lol. If you don't think teenage boys and girls sharing dorms on camps is a recipe for disaster, then you've never worked with teenagers.

It's posts like this that showcase just how awful this situation is. You're presumably an adult working with children while demonstrating you lack the skills to discuss on Mumsnet without resorting to insults?

It's OK not to be proud of the long history of girl / women only groups set up by our foremothers (very sad but if that's your views so be it). But when you say "a girl only space (any by girl I mean anyone who identifies as a girl, not just those who were born with female genitals", you're choosing to gaslight children by pretending that the sex class of women / girls doesn't exist. If you can't accurately name and classify a group, you can't accurately identify their needs.

As others have said - if the GG want to become "Guiding for Children" then own it. Be open that you see no need for single sex resources for girls. Just stop teaching girls that they have no right to boundaries and their role is as a support human for mentally vulnerable men and boys.

And thank you to all the leaders upthread who are holding on in the face of all this and running your groups for ther benefit of girls.

I expect safeguarding regardless of how children or adults identify. Safeguarding in various situations - overnight, changing facilities and contact sport definitely needs to be applied. Otherwise why do we have them at all? And we know we have these safeguards for good reason. We therefore don't abandon them the second someone identifies out of their gender because sex and gender are separate things and physically sex doesn't change regardless of how you identify. This is recognised legally.

In terms of how girls/ women have less confidence and different physical abilities and physical barriers I have come to appreciate some single sex only groups.

It is recognised by a number of outdoor adventure sports that the macho nature of boys puts off female participation. The official governing bodies have been putting these on, because they recognise this and they recognise that women want to talk about biological issues without men present. They have realised that different coaching styles work better for different sexes as a result. For example for kayaking women face certain challenges in terms of simply carrying equipment and physical strength in the water. They don't want men to patronise them and necessarily pick up boats for them. They prefer to work in pairs so they don't have to rely on the physical strength of the men. In coaching they tend take longer to build confidence to approach the same obstacle and this is largely because the men have more brute force and ignorance whereas the women - even the bigger ones - can't match them for strength and have to rely far more on strength. There's also a whole bunch of issues around periods etc. It's not that women can't do these activities - it's just that in practice they have to do them differently. It's about time we recognised this.

It's totally understandable for Guides too. In school from primary age the boys do dominate physical activity with a much more rough and tumble aspect. This is fine and great and some girls are happy with that. Others less so. That doesn't mean they don't want to do the same activities. It means they want to do them without being dominated by the boys.

Guiding and Scouting have completely different cultures and ways of doing things. Personally I think guiding isn't well run and needs a rocket up it's arse, but I also think there's a place for it, if it gets it act together.

Anyone who doesn't understand all this is following outdated bullshit and needs to get their head out of their arse before they find themselves legally up shit creek.

This is boggling. So this charity agrees that a small number of parents should be able to enforce validation for their own parenting of their distressed and confused sons, at the direct expense of a safe space for girl children? And this charity wants to attract unsafe adult men to apply as volunteers by giving good new access to girls and women, that previously only adult women were allowed? When women are statistically so much safer than men?

It’s so clearly not in their remit to support the adult wish for child or adult male validation and/or to increase adult male access to child or adult female bodies. Why is this not immediately obvious to some people?
You can’t give one child a safe space by taking a safe space away from another child.

It shows how we are already living in a deeply sexist society.. because this policy only makes sense if men and boys inherently deserve more rights than women and girls do.

Any male wanting to access spaces where women and girls may be undressing / undressed that should raise a red flag for safeguarding.

Also there is a little thing called the Equality Act which they are not following.

Well done whoever challenged this. An inclusive policy would be to allow trans men and not trans women and girls. For safeguarding reasons this makes sense, but it is also kind if girls start transitioning but want to continue to attend their group with their friends.

So making your take is making Girl Guiding mixed sex and lying about it so that boys who might want to join aren't aware they're welcome?

Why bother? Why not just make both organisations mixed sex? I mean, girls lose out on a Girl only space which has been proven to be beneficial to them but as long as the boys are happy, right?

And the disingenuousness of the 'the girls arent running about with their genitals out at meetings, you know!!!' argument (if you can call it that). Clearly parents are more worried about sleeping accommodations on trips and camps, having male leaders when that massively ups a safeguarding risk etc etc.

I sincerely hope you are not a Guider, given your anti girl stance.

If they want to be open to girls and boys and have male leaders they are free to do so, but they will have to rethink their safeguarding policies because at the moment while they are pretending to be a single sex organisation you have th situation where trans is tidied boys can share sleeping and washing facilities with the girls and likewise adult male leaders who “identify as women” can supervise girls in the sleeping and washing areas.

and if you can’t see the massive obvious risks with that then I can’t help you

And what makes me so sad about the direction Girl Guiding has taken is that during my time in Guiding (and I was in every section - Rainbow to Guider), it was proudly pro female. It was acknowledged that having a girl only space (which they still claim to have until you really drill down in their policies) meant that girls could develop friendships, develop their skills and become strong leaders, unafraid to use their voice and challenge things in the knowledge that they weren't having to step aside for boys or having to diminish their achievements or to find themselves shouted down by boys (as we so often find in the workplace or in meetings etc). I was immensely proud to be part of that worldwide sisterhood of Guiding.

But because, despite there already being a mixed sex organisation in which boys who 'feel like girls' could join and be alongside girls and boys, boy's feelings are being prioritised over girls, girls lose out.

I would actually have more respect for GG if they just admitted that they have become a mixed sex organisation and dropped their pretense that they are 'proudly girl only'. But they don't want to drop their (deceptive) USP.

We might have less of a struggle for leaders then too because we wouldn't be putting off dads/men.

Did have to laugh at this. I was a Guider and always intended to come back when I could give it the time it deserved.

But after seeing what happened to Katie Alcock? Not a chance.

And I'm not alone.

Very good news.

It still is proudly pro female and we are doing our best to keep it that way. What happens at HQ and what happens on the ground are two different things.

What astonishes me reading these posts is the ongoing conflation of sexuality (and by that I don't mean genetic sex) and gender... The truth is that most trans girls (and they are in a very small minority) have probably been through hell in their journey to express their gender identity and are desperately in need of a safe girl-only space in which they can be their true selves and find some solace away from the very same damaging patriarchal behaviour and mysogeny that the majority of posters on here are calling out. Its simply is NOT the case that a boy would put on girls clothes and live his every day life as a GIRL just so that he could infiltrate female only spaces - that makes absolutely no sense! And what about lesbian leaders? Are we saying they shouldn't have access to female only spaces? No. Because they've been through safeguarding checks - the same checks that a trans man or a cis man would go through. And queer girl-guides? What to do with them? Because that absolutely exists, but no-one seems to be worrying (quite rightly) about conduct in same sex spaces because there are standards that are upheld and safeguarding procedures in place to deal with issues and misconduct. We already have all of the tools, procedures and policies in place to welcome trans girls to girl-guiding, the only thing standing in the way is a broken ruling from the supreme court (which organisations have the freedom to interpret) and, yes, I'm sorry to say it, but transphobia and utter ignorance surrounding trans-identity from the majority of people posting on this thread. Go ahead and shoot me down. I stand by the fact that trans-girls are amongst the bravest, most vulnerable and most maligned, abused girls in our society and they deserve our support, not our hate

It's not hateful to recognise sex and want to have a single sex organisation

A safe girl only space is one which excludes all males however they identify.

Lesbians are women so why would they be excluded from females spaces

Rather a long winded way of stating that you believe that boys are more imponrtant than girls.

But I was able to tick off a few boxes on my TRA Guiding Bingo card!

Mention of lesbians - tick
Complete lack of understanding of the EQA2010 and the Supreme Court judgement - tick
Boys being 'bravest, most vulnerable and oppressed' - tick
Conflation of sex and gender (when referring to a single sex group) - tick

And so on and so on.

If 'trans boys' want validation, they can join the Scouts and pretend to be girls in an actual mixed sex organisation (though I feel rather sorry for the Scouting girls in that case).

They are not girls, abused or otherwise. No they do not need access to single sex spaces for women and girls. And you have not provided any evidence

Sexuality does not come in to this. Why would you even introduce this?

No one is hating 'trans girls' just that they should not be welcome in a female only space, it stops that space being female only.

That impacts every girl guide and the leaders.

It also makes it harder / impossible for girls from a strict religious / cultural background to join. Growing up in northern town when I went to guides it was all white girls even though the area has a significant Muslim population.

Muslim parents are not going to send their daughter to camp with a boy in the tent. And if that girl goes to camp and it is only then that she realises there is a boy that can be culturally very difficult and the ramifications will include Muslim (possibly Jewish) and other 'sheltered' girls being withdrawn.

They are not girls, abused or otherwise. No they do not need access to single sex spaces for women and girls. And you have not provided any evidence

Sexuality does not come in to this. Why would you even introduce this?

No one is hating 'trans girls' just that they should not be welcome in a female only space, it stops that space being female only.

That impacts every girl guide and the leaders.

It also makes it harder / impossible for girls from a strict religious / cultural background to join. Growing up in northern town when I went to guides it was all white girls even though the area has a significant Muslim population.

Muslim parents are not going to send their daughter to camp with a boy in the tent. And if that girl goes to camp and it is only then that she realises there is a boy that can be culturally very difficult and the ramifications will include Muslim (possibly Jewish) and other 'sheltered' girls being withdrawn.

You're just reinforcing everything I've stated above without actually engaging in any type of meaningful exchange. Please enlighten me and explain how my post centres boys rights over the rights of girls and trans girls) and disparages lesbians. Id also be glad to hear your interpretation of the legal standing.