Girl Guides existing members

[magentafox]

Is anyone addressing the fact that boys who have already joined the Guides - or who join in the next few days before the policy comes into force - can stay?

Yes and the same should apply before anyone (including minors) receive any sort of so called gender affirming care. There must be an understanding that the individuals sense of self in no way applies to other people that person may interact with.

Yes, I don't know what possesses parents to put a boy in a girls-only school or group. (And I do know parents who did this.) It's setting them up for a nasty fall down the line. So short sighted. As parents it's our job to have an eye on the long term happiness and not just what will make them feel good today.

Any affirmation really, but particularly putting them in the wrong single sex groups. There will come a point where reality bites. It's inevitable. However true believer you are. I really struggle to see a reason for doing it except political point scoring. There's no shortage of mixed sex groups for kids who prefer hanging about with the other sex.

anyone seen this?

I think they’ll be chucked out, GG are just drip feeding the “bad” news.

Fingers crossed anyway .

I’m afraid I can’t really get worked up about it. They should never have been allowed to join in the first place. The grievance is with the people who let them believe the law said something different to what it does. They can join the Scouts which is sex inclusive. When women have lost jobs, livelihoods etc for speaking up against gender ideology no I don’t really feel sorry for a handful of young boys, who have other options. We don’t all get what we want in life as other people have rights too.

And even if I did feel sorry for them they still have to leave guides.

"Young people are removed from youth organisations every day for a variety of reasons, sometimes policies change and children are no longer eligible and somethimes it is becuase of behavioural issues, It can be becuase a unit that is no longer viable closes down and the child is unable to travel to the next nearest branch or the unit actually moves from obe rented venue to another that is no longer suitable. "

I understand this is a highly emotive situation and lots of leaders feel that they've been treated unfairly which adds fuel to it. But I've never in all my years worked or volunteered for a youth organisation that would kick any young person out of a service effective immediately with no follow on support or help and assistance to access a different service or gradually wean them off. Even when they were no longer eligible to be on a programme, even when there has been significant behavioural issues both of which are service transitions I've had to deal with. As someone senior in that sector I would seriously question the ethics of any organisation who take the approach that an immediate cut off of any child is acceptable. Obviously a service needs to function and meet the needs of core members who fall within organisation remit, but there are ways to meet that need, to retain the correct profile of children your organisation serves and protect those children while still providing support to potentially vulnerable children who no longer meet that threshold for whatever the reason. It just takes compassion and time to reflect a bit. So no I don't think it's at all appropriate to call for immediate cut off in this scenario. What needs to happen is that the children who will be affected need to be identified, supported to understand why this change is taking place (as will their friends using the service) and they will need to be signposted to the next most appropriate service. Ideally with a supported handover. If a service can't be identified then that child should be moved to a 2- 1 service and gradually weaned off. Because let's be clear, this is not a behaviour issue requiring immediate removal for safeguarding purposes, that would be a different matter, this is an overall policy change affecting referral threshold. The organisation needs to have time to consider the best approach to take to this which also involves equipping their staff or volunteers with the correct information, language and skills to navigate this within their pack so there is a consistent and sensitive approach. Not all leaders are going to be equipped with the emotional sensitivity or tact to be able to navigate this well and i think it's unfair to expect that of them without proper guidance and support, especially if they need to deal with backlash from parents or from the other children in their packs.

It's their actions not their words that are important.

I really think you believe GG is a mental health service. It isn't! It's a club!

Thank you for at least engaging on the actual thread topic. Hardly anyone else has!

Girlguiding is not a "service". What are you even talking about?

Any youth club or organisation offers a service to young people. These terms are used interchangeably. Obviously it's not a mental health service. But it's still something that vulnerable children may be relying on. Youth clubs and organisations and their staff are hugely important to children.

And vulnerable young girls may be relying on the Guides being single sex

That doesn't mean they have any duty whatsoever to try and find an alternative hobby club for the child to join. They just have to conduct matters lawfully and communicate the decision in an appropriate way.

Young and adult members are sometimes told to leave for a variety of reasons such as age, behaviour, needs which cannot reasonably be accommodated. There is no requirement to find them a new hobby or provide "follow-up support". Frankly, even actual mental health services rarely do that.

For example, in response to inappropriate behaviour:

"If you think it’s necessary to remove a young member from your unit, you must discuss this with your local commissioner so they can help you to decide if this is the only remaining option.
You or your commissioner must have a conversation with the young member’s parent or carer so they understand why this action is being taken. Your commissioner can give you guidance on how to have this conversation, and you might find it helpful to have another member of the unit leadership team present for support. Explain to the parent or carer what adjustments have already been made and how the behaviour hasn’t improved."

https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/information-for-volunteers/policies/young-members-policy/young-members-procedure/

And legally it's a membership organisation not a service provider.

There are different rules in the EA2010 for services offered “to the public or section of the public” and for Associations (defined as a group of more than 25 members with rules and a selection process for membership).

when you call the GG a service, you or someone might inadvertently consider them to be bound by the laws on discrimination for services. They aren’t. The rules for associations are very different.

Language matters.

There's certainly a lot of former volunteers who quietly quit rather than pretending that it's possible to change sex, but I'm not sure they'll be leaping up to re-volunteer while the official line is that the organisation is "heartbroken" to be forced to comply with the law. If the central organisation started instead being proud and confident to offer a safe and welcoming environment for everyone of any gender identity who was born female, emphasising how welcoming it is for trans-masc and nonbinary female children and focusing on being an environment with zero gender expectations of any of the female children, then I think there might well be more volunteers. I think I would consider volunteering for an organisation with that philosophy myself even. But not for the "heartbroken" organisation it currently is, no.

An organisation that still actively believes in gender and in gender identify, isn’t one that I’d be any hurry to go to. The belief that being a girl is primarily about femininity seeps through their current programme offer, which is far less exciting, challenging or active than Scouting. The skills we learned camping in the 80s (backwoods cooking; pioneering) are now a “kindness” badge for Brownies, and one on “fandoms” for older sections. No thank you.
My DD switched to Scouts at 11, having had enough of the constant girliness of it all. An all-girl space that reinforces stereotypes isn’t doing its job, imo. In the 80s camp was space to wear wellies, not give a stuff about being mucky and to be strong and have fun together away from boys.

Exactly. An organisation that has built itself around re-enforcing the femininity of the boys who want to identify as girls isn't a healthy environment for the female members.

And yet, if those are the activities in which its members want to engage, they have every right to do so. In the absence of boys.

Who knows, it’s possible that without a cadre of members who are there for, let’s call it “pink” affirmation, things might get muckier and stronger again.

Right, I'm giving up now. This thread was supposed to be about the likelihood of GG ever actually removing trans identifying boys who are existing members. Not a general chat about the rights and wrongs of the decision to ban them from joining as new members from next week. There are a couple of other threads on the generalities already. But hey ho, never mind 🙄

They said more information next week, so I think it is a point of being patient for a few more days.

Agree, there will be more to discuss once they release specific details. I suspect this will play out similarly to the TAC closures. There was some serious upset and inappropriate behaviour in response then and GG circulated the special support team details in their communications about that.

I had forgotten but some members held a vigil and march of some kind in protest to the TAC closures. That didn't stop GG proceeding. It will be interesting to see if there is a vigil about this change too or just poison on SM.

That said, this is a bit different because GG has already put out comms about "evolving" the offering in a way that sounds similar to the WI's "sisterhood" plans.

@magentafox
GG will have to reject membership and subscriptions from male children.
Otherwise they are in breach of their Royal Charter.
The simplest way will be to do it at membership renewal date for each child.

Can you image writing the policy on exactly how volunteers are expected to spot the male children, prove they are male and handle rejecting them? (I know we can tell by looking, but I don't fancy having to put 'have a look at how they walk and whether the mother looks a bit on the loony side' into a policy document)