Working Group - KCSIE 2026 changes - improve the guidance via the consultation process, promote more responses & more

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

Hello everyone - I was hoping to start a working group of some sort in order to respond to the proposed changes to KCSIE (Keeping Children Safe In Education)

Press release https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-publish-new-gender-guidance-for-schools

Proposed changes and response mechanism https://consult.education.gov.uk/independent-education-and-school-safeguarding-division/keeping-children-safe-in-education-2026-revisions/

I have a large personal interest in this. If you are not aware, I am the father in this article in The Times https://archive.ph/C4eXs

Can we come together to build a strategy of supporting the parts the changes which are great, for example the very clear statements of toilets and changing rooms being single sex?

And think how to propose possible changes to the statements about sport and especially about allowing social transitioning at school?

I'd very much love to hear your ideas and suggestions. I don't want to lead the group especially or tell anyone what to do - I am certain there are people with more knowledge than me, but I thought I could start off the conversation?

The general public is constantly being told that it's transphobic to use sex-based pronouns.

Whether it is or not is open to debate. TBF I think the general public is pretty confused on whether it is or not and seems to be slowly coming up with a rule book that makes no sense e.g. it's not transphobic to say "he" for Isla Bryson but it is for Hunter Shafer. It's ok to refer to drag queens as "he" when they aren't in drag but it has to be "she" when they are.

So yes, unfortunately I think you're right that the general public isn't "with you on this one". Pronouns seem to be the front line of the battle for Kindness and Respect.

Avoiding them entirely (when someone has preferred pronouns that differ from their sex) seems to save a lot of time IME. I appreciate that approach will annoy people on both sides of the debate, as it were.. but I can't really afford to worry about that when I'm focusing on keeping my daughter safe.

We've had a block of unisex toilets (the rest single sex) for years so toilets have never been an issue.

Depends on the issue.
With respect, you have been lucky that there have been no known incidents that you have had to deal with in the unisex toilets, presuming they are full floor-to-ceiling ones. If you have a look at Everyone’s Invited you will see what women talk about has happened inside their school premises, sometimes years later, discussing it for the first time. Unfortunately all the recent fatalities that I know the toilet design of in uk schools, it has been a floor-to-ceiling private design. This is not to say it would have made any difference to the outcome in these cases - but it did in the situations I confronted.

Would I have wanted to use unisex toilets on my period and wash my hands next to a boy? No, I would have always used the girls or, on heavy days, abstained from school if there was no choice of toilet. I had to spot wash my skirt more than once. Unisex toilets take provision away from girls.

Toilets in schools are never safe. We have teachers 'on guard' outside our single sex toilets as well as our unisex ones. And CCTV pointing at the doors.

CCTV is useful to look back on when things went wrong and someone tells you things went wrong. You can’t have someone watching cctv on the entrances to toilets, or toilet doors all day.

Toilets are really difficult to get right design-wise in schools. The unisex one was traditionally by the entrance, opposite the reception desk.

The general public is constantly being told that it's transphobic to use sex-based pronouns.

I don’t think it’s even that. Not a fear of getting it wrong, more a desire to get it right. The general British public are quite obliging when it comes to preferred manner of address, e.g. Dr, Sir, Dame.

You just need to refer to them as “preferred” pronouns and manners will do the rest.

Although I don’t think that would apply to weird pronouns like zie.

That applies to any toilet design. Teachers can’t be on toilet duty all the time. Toilets that were large single sex rooms with cubicles were also not safe.

Lock the toilets at lesson times to solve that problem and all hell breaks loose.

Schools cannot win.

I think you're right about politeness here. But fear of getting it "wrong" does also stifle critical thinking. So it's effectively a double whammy:

Polite desire to get it "right" + fear of getting it "wrong" = acquiescence to the rules gender identity belief

The custodians of "right" and "wrong" are the gender identity believers. Everyone else is perceived or framed as heretical and/or too ignorant to understand. It's the Emperor's New Clothes writ large.

The fear of social ostracisation (and worse.... see Bash Back's threats) is as much a powerful motivator as any genuine desire to be kind. More so sometimes.

I've just started going through the new KCSIE section on gender questioning children line by line. I've hit a snag in the second paragraph. IMO it does not go far enough. It seems to state schools shouldn't initiate a social transition but its A-okay if requested by a child and or the child's parents. I don't think schools should be asked to (or volunteer) to support social transition without clinical advice from the child's medical team.

Clearly the waiting lists are a problem in taking this approach but it can't be schools that step in here as the risks are too great. (I know teachers are expected to step up for all sorts of areas they are not qualified to do - several teachers in my family) but I think we have the evidence in this case that doing so could be detrimental.

I will post the para and my thoughts / evidence selection in the next post (as it's long! sorry)

246. It is not for schools and colleges to initiate any action in this area; this guidance is focused on circumstances where a child or their parent has raised a request relating to social transition to which a school or college is responding.
My thoughts: I don’t think this is clear enough. The first clause is OK but schools are in no way qualified to respond to a request to socially transition a child without following clinical guidance from the child’s medical team.

There are a great many ideas about “gender ideology” that have permeated the UK’s institutions, including schools, that indicate pretending a child is the opposite sex is the “kind” thing to do. However, the evidence of recent years suggests that there are risks as well as potential benefits to social transition and that it may have significant effects on psychological functioning.

Supporting a social transition without clinical guidance may not be kind for the child requesting the social transition, their peers or teachers/staff who are being asked to take on a clinical function without the requisite training or expertise. This should be made clear in para 246.

• cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/interim-report/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cass Review Interim Report p62 “it is important to view it [social transition] as an active intervention because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning.”
• Social transition concretises an idea that previously resolved in the vast majority (approximately 66-95%) of cases (see Cass Review Final Report p67)
• There are risks to social transition (beyond concretising) cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cass Review Final Report p164 “This [advising on the risks and benefits of social transition as a planned intervention] is not a role that can be taken by staff without appropriate clinical training.”
• Results from a Finish Registry study published in April 2026 showed: “Those [Adolescents and Young Adults] referred after 2010 had greater psychiatric needs than earlier cohorts, both before (47.9% vs. 15.3%) and ≥ 2 years after (61.3% vs. 14.2%) referral.” It concluded: “Severe psychiatric morbidity is common among gender-referred adolescents and appears to be more prevalent in those referred after the recent surge in referrals. Psychiatric needs do not subside after medical gender reassignment.”

Sorry the embedded links have gone haywire, they should be:

Cass Interim Report
Cass Final Report
The new Finnish study

248. Schools and colleges should take time to understand the thoughts and feelings of children who are questioning their gender and should be appropriately professionally curious about the full range of the child’s experiences. Schools and colleges should remain aware of the potential vulnerabilities of children who are questioning their gender, including the possibility of complex mental health and psychosocial needs, for example relating to relationships with family, peers or their broader social environment, including discriminatory bullying.

My thoughts: why should schools get involved with the thoughts and feelings of children? This seems like it is giving permission for teachers to coach children into an ideological way of thinking. Schools and colleges should surely liaise with parents if any concerns about the safety of children arises?

251. Schools and colleges should not initiate any action regarding social transition; this guidance applies where a child or their parent has made a request. Members of staff should not adopt any changes relating to social transition unless a decision has been made by a school or college in consultation with parents or carers.

Thoughts: This is better than paragraph 246 but surely the decision should not be made by school or college at all? No action should be taken unless the child in question is under medical supervision and then only to follow the direction of the medical team?

249. Schools and colleges should consider adopting policies across school and college life that maintain flexibility and avoid rigid rules based on gender stereotypes.

Thoughts: Yes. This could do with emphasising. Gender stereotypes should not dictate what any child can and cannot do/wear at school.

I think, now, a case can be made that it is not simply ‘kind’ to use a child’s preferred pronouns but actually something that should be treated with caution.

I don’t think the same case can be made for adults who have expressed a desire to be referred to by wrong sex pronouns?

Convince me that it isn’t the polite thing to do and that misgendering isn’t rude. Talking purely about pronouns here, not access to single sex spaces. Imagine it’s a colleague.

253. In making decisions about supporting social transition, schools and colleges must comply with their distinct but interacting obligations under safeguarding legislation and equality and human rights law, ensuring that any assessment of discrimination is informed by their evaluation of the welfare and best interests of the child and other children.

Thoughts: This should be clarified. “In making decisions about how the school will support a medically indicated social transition in partnership with the child’s medical team and parents …”

Schools should not be making decisions about supporting social transition, they should only follow the instructions of a child’s medical team -

Yes, teachers barely have time to teach. It would be very difficult for them to take anything but a very superficial interest in a child’s thoughts, and they would be unlikely to have any but the most superficial understanding of their needs.

Also the examples cited, ( ’for example relating to relationships with family, peers or their broader social environment, including discriminatory bullying’) are very selective, with no mention of the well documented underlying other problems often faced by gender questioning children.

Toilets that were large single sex rooms with cubicles were also not safe.

They are safer and even safer still if they have door gaps. The designs can be life changing.

Toilet designs are not equal. Single sex designs in a single sex environment can have door and partition gaps. Door and partitions gaps, as standards said at the time of 1992 legislation, were advantageous for ventilation, cleaning, prevention of misuse and supervision.

None of advantages have changed over time.

Take supervision for example. In order to rescue a pupil in time, you need to:

1. know they are in trouble,
2. to be able to get to them
3. and have means to give them medical treatment/resuscitate them.

There is so much emphasis put on 2 and 3. Toilet cubicle doors have to be able to be unlocked easily from the outside and the doors changed to open outwards so a body doesn’t get in the way. Defibrillators are in every school. There’s a whole raft of measures for storing and giving the correct medicines.

I can give you evidence if you want on how design matters. I have a 90 page report (30 pages of references and incidents) I am trying to edit at the moment. This isn’t just on schools but schools are featured heavily as they were never under so much health and safety legislation as workplaces, so it was more of a free for all. Train carriage toilets and night club toilets are featured a lot too - unisex ones usually. And it’s young women who are mostly affected.

edit to add: 1992 legislation didn’t apply to pupils in schools or students in universities

Schools and colleges should surely liaise with parents if any concerns about the safety of children arises?

It does worry me that the guidance explicitly says that a child expressing gender confusion to a teacher can be held in confidence rather than treated as a safeguarding issue in and of itself. Given that gender issues seem to be a red flag for mental health issues I think it should be required to be recorded on CPOMs or similar.

256. This means that the first step when considering a child’s request for support with social transition will be to consider what is in the best interests of the child and other children, and a decision relating to social transition may not be the same as a child’s wishes.

Thoughts: Ibid! This implies that the school will decide whether to support a request for social transition and how it will do so.

Suggested alternative: “The first step when considering how the school can support the medically indicated social transition plan from the child’s clinical team, will be to consider how the transitioning child’s needs may impact other children. Practical support must be offered in a way that is in the best interests of both the transitioning child and other children.”

What worries me about wrong sex pronouns for adults is the safeguarding aspect. I really worry about children being taught/being expected/being shown an example of referring to someone they know is a man, by she/her pronouns.

Extreme example but 'Miss X got really cross with us today because she said we were taking too long in the showers after swimming, and she came right into the shower area so her skirt got all wet'

if I hear that from my daughter, I take a very different message to

'Mr X got really cross with us today because he said we were taking too long in the showers after swimming, and he came right into the shower area so his skirt got all wet'.

It is a very nuanced message to get across to a child that they should use she when it doesn't matter (eg she asked where my book was and I said it was at home) but he where it does matter (he put his hand on my shoulder and I didn't like it).

257. As below, in the vast majority of cases we would expect the school or college to work with parents to determine what is in the best interests of the child as well as considering any clinical evidence or advice and seeking any additional nonclinical professional advice where relevant (for example the SENCO), including involving the DSL. Schools and colleges should consider everything that could be affecting a child, including whether they have any wider health issues or neurodiversity. In considering the best interests of children, schools and colleges should also take into account the principle below on taking a careful approach.

Thoughts: edit to put the emphasis in the right place

257. As below, in the vast majority of cases we would expect the school or college to work with parents to determine what is in the best interests of the child as well as considering any the clinical evidence or advice and seeking any additional nonclinical professional advice where relevant (for example the SENCO), including involving the DSL. Schools and colleges should consider everything that could be affecting a child, including whether they have any wider health issues or neurodiversity. In considering the best interests of children, schools and colleges should also take into account the principle below on taking a careful approach.

There’s two male designers from America whose names crop up for inclusive design in school toilets over there and here. I have read their back catalogue of work to see how they came up with the similar designs we see in schools.This person’s work (with less explicit language) was also used as an evidence reference for consultations in Document T (in England).

https://aaa.org.hk/en/like-a-fever/like-a-fever/on-stalling-and-turning-a-wayward-genealogy-for-a-binary-abolitionist-public-toilet-project

I want the civil servants to read this link and see where the background of health and safety for everyone comes into it. I don’t think people are reading references on the origins of newer designs. I think they see the phrase ‘inclusive design’ and it sounds kind and inoffensive.

I want everyone to have the safest toilets possible. Mixed sex, private designs, you can get into easily from the outside, are least worse for healthy men. In the article above there are such designs as one-way door mirrors for a man to look out of (into the mixed sex wash basin and ‘grooming’ areas), whilst he is sitting down in his enclosed toilet cubicle. What girl wouldn’t want that?!

258. Schools should be particularly conscious of safeguarding concerns relating to primary aged children. For example, the Cass Review noted evidence that children who socially transition before puberty – and those who transition prior to receiving clinical advice – are more likely to proceed to a medical pathway than those who do not. Schools should also keep in mind that some children who socially transition before puberty will be “living in stealth” meaning other pupils and/or staff may be unaware of their biological sex, and schools should be aware of related safeguarding concerns as in the section below on living in stealth.

Thoughts: Schools should be particularly conscious of safeguarding concerns relating to primary aged children and should work in partnership with parents to ensure they access clinical advice before supporting any social transition at school. Schools should not support children to “live in stealth” due to the related safeguarding concerns for the child themselves as well as other children at the school.

These are the relevant passages of <a class="break-all" href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20250310143933/cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cass Review Final Report p164
Children:
• Parents should be encouraged to seek clinical help and advice in deciding how to support a child with gender incongruence and should be prioritised on the waiting list for early consultation on this issue.
• Clinical involvement in the decision-making process should include advising on the risks and benefits of social transition as a planned intervention, referencing best available evidence. This is not a role that can be taken by staff without appropriate clinical training.
• It is important to ensure that the voice of the child is heard in any decision making and that parents are not unconsciously influencing the child’s gender expression.
• For those going down a social transition pathway, maintaining flexibility and keeping options open by helping the child to understand their body as well as their feelings is likely to be advantageous. Partial rather than full transition may be a way of ensuring flexibility, particularly given the MPRG report which highlighted that being in stealth from early childhood may add to the stress of impending puberty and the sense of urgency to enter a medical
Adolescents:
• For adolescents, exploration is a normal process, and rigid binary gender stereotypes can be unhelpful. Many adolescents will go through a period of gender non-conformity in terms of hairstyle, make-up, clothing and behaviours. They also have greater agency in how they present themselves and their decision-making.
• For those considering full social transition, the current long waiting lists make it unlikely that a formal clinical assessment will be available in a timely manner. However, it is important to try and ensure that those already actively involved in their welfare (parents/carers, any involved clinical staff such as their GP, school staff or counsellors) provide support in decision making and plans to ensure that the young person is protected from bullying and has a trusted source of support.

Impacts of stealth:
Cass Review Final Report p159
12.12 The MPRG [Multi Professional Review Group] is concerned that some children living in stealth have a common, genuine fear of “being found out”, suffering rejection either due to not having taken friends into their confidence (withholding personal information regarding biological sex or specific sex-based experiences), or due to transprejudice or transphobia. They observed that this fear of “being found out” is driving a sense of urgency to access puberty blockers, which may not allow consideration of other pros and cons of the treatment.
12.13 The MPRG also observed that living in stealth appears to increase a child’s level of stress and anxiety with resultant behaviour and mental health problems. These included social withdrawal, with children becoming increasingly isolated, including resorting to home-schooling or tutoring and even rarely leaving their house.

259. Schools should keep in mind the emphasis in the Cass Review on early clinical involvement when families are considering social transition for pre-pubertal children, including how to support their children in a non-directive way, whilst also keeping options open and flexible. The Cass Review emphasised that clinical involvement in the decision-making process should include advising on the risks and benefits of social transition as a planned intervention, referencing best available evidence. This is not a role that can be undertaken by staff without appropriate clinical training.
Parents and carers should be actively involved and their views treated with importance

Thoughts: Cass also hints at the “vegan cats” phenomena (p164 “It is important to ensure that the voice of the child is heard in any decision making and that parents are not unconsciously influencing the child’s gender expression.”)
The underlined bit should be strengthened. Perhaps as follows:
Due to the inherent safeguarding risks, schools should never support the social transition of primary aged children without the guidance of the child’s clinical team and should always seek the active involvement of parents and carers.

I have to go do other things now. Please let me know if my posts are helpful for sparking debate or just spamming the thread! I can keep going if helpful but don't want to be tedious 😬

They're really helpful! Your post as 11.57 is excellent doe reminding schools they're completely unqualified in this area:
"253. In making decisions about supporting social transition, schools and colleges must comply with their distinct but interacting obligations under safeguarding legislation and equality and human rights law, ensuring that any assessment of discrimination is informed by their evaluation of the welfare and best interests of the child and other children.
Thoughts: This should be clarified. “In making decisions about how the school will support a medically indicated social transition in partnership with the child’s medical team and parents …”
Schools should not be making decisions about supporting social transition, they should only follow the instructions of a child’s medical team"

I also need to go but have been skim reading. Need to come back for a proper look. Your posts are great. Thank you!

(Bit worried now TBH that I'm inadvertently spamming the thread. Hopefully not. It's good that your posts are taking us back to the content of the guidance)