Mixed sex changing rooms in a Brighton secondary school - part 3 - we're really cooking now

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

Hello friends.

I'll let the press do the talking...

https://www.gbnews.com/news/trans-school-court-changing-rooms

It would be unkind to ask how the attempt at silencing you and avoiding publicity is going .

I spoke to DD earlier and read her the PP who said a 15 year old couldn't understand the discussions here. DD said "well it sounds like at the very least there are at least 2 of us who do!" (meaning her and OP's DD).

We both wanted to say that we think you are amazing and thank you so much for persisting with this fight and what you are doing to defend the rights of girls across the country. We will send a card to you via the solicitor. Sending courage and many hugs to @SingleSexSpacesInSchools and your DD xxxx

She did speak about sex based rights then, whatever else she did. I remember listening to a speech she made about how she saw the European Court as a hindrance to some important issues in British law, and that was one of them, rightly or wrongly. It was quite a compelling speech. I imagine she feels freer to do so now.

And it is a political issue, Sian Berry is a big part of the problem.

@SingleSexSpacesInSchools & daughter.

I am a lawyer. I’ve been following your Dad’s journey in supporting you advocate for single sex spaces. This was a battle fought by courageous women decades ago and now again you are standing up for women’s rights.

Future lawyers will read about you (on an anonymous basis) in text books. You are on the right side of history. You may receive personal attacks from people who want you to ‘be kind’. ‘Be kind’ would have kept Rosa Parks at the back of the bus and discriminated against. You are a proud woman who doesn’t deserve to lose her dignity & privacy because men think their rights have precedence regardless the cost.

You are strong, brave and will help many others see the truth. So many women stand with you & your Dad. Bravo & see you in the textbooks, case summaries & future quotations in law cases.

If I address a card to

"Single Sex Spaces in Schools' Daughter,"

Is that likely to get through?

Dear SSIS DD

This can't have been easy, but what you and your Dad are doing is absolutely the right thing. Your actions will help so much impact.

You are amazing, please know that.

A heartfelt thank you to you and your daughter on behalf of me and my 2 young daughters. It gives me hope.

I have wondered to myself where your daughter’s mother stood on all this @SingleSexSpacesInSchools It’s a real shame that she has bought into the whole TWAW thing, but you would hope that finding out her daughter is directly affected by the issue would open her eyes to how this really affects women and girls. We can but hope! It further illustrates how brave and tenacious your daughter is when one of her parents can’t understand the problem ❤️

There was always a divide in Brighton of deprived areas like Whitehawk and Moulscoomb hidden away from the town centre and the New Age hippies and affluent middle class.

It’s one thing for the parent(s) of someone saying they’re trans to fight for getting things for your child but it beggars belief that a mother of a girl would agree with things that the daughter has said cause her detriment (for want of a better word!).
It seems to me that the head teacher and the governors (one of whom being a head teacher from another school, I believe you said) are responsible for aiding and abetting sexual offences, would this warrant them being on a sex register, I wonder?

This is a bit long, sorry. But two things are bothering me about this quote:

At the centre of the case lies a genuine legal collision, not between law and prejudice, but between two protected frameworks: the rights of female pupils to privacy, dignity, and sex-based protections, and the rights of gender-questioning pupils to non-discrimination and inclusion.

First:
Do 'gender questioning' pupils have a specific right of inclusion? Does anyone? We all have the right to not be discriminated against regarding some very specific characteristics, one of which is:

Gender Reassignment

• Proposing, undergoing, or having undergone a process to reassign one's sex.

But that doesn't give us a specific right of 'inclusion'. The right to not be discriminated against and the right to be included are subtle but different. The Equality Act says that exclusion as an act of discrimination would only be actionable if it causes a disadvantage and is not justified as a proportionate means of meeting a legitimate aim. Excluding someone from something where it meets that aim, and is proportionate, and does not disadvantage them, would be entirely acceptable.

So in this scenario, excluding the boys from the girls changing room, and not providing them a third space to change would be a disadvantage. But giving them a third space which allows them to change with the same facilities as the other kids could only be considered a disadvantage if we genuinely think that these boys will somehow be 'outed' by using that space. But these girls will know the boys are claiming to be trans, they spend all day in classrooms with them, they're friends with them in some cases. In many cases they've grown up with them and knew them as Pete before they changed their name at the end of last term. It's totally impossible to think they would not be outed as trans already.

So my point is we really need to be careful about the language we use. I don't believe there is an automatic right to inclusion. There's a right not to be excluded in certain circumstances, that's not the same, and bandying about comments in the press about rights, without recognising the nuance of those rights is how trans people wound up thinking they have rights they really actually don't have in the first place.

Second:
Do 'gender-questioning' pupils actually fit under the protected characteristic of 'proposing/undergoing/having undergone a process to reassign one's sex?' The descriptor of gender questioning implies that a decision has not yet been made for one. Plus I think it's pretty well established now that children are unlikely to understand what they are consenting to when going through the medicalised gender reassignment process, hence the suspension of puberty blocker prescriptions to children, pushback against the puberty blockers trial, shut down of the Tavistock clinic work etc etc. So could they realistically consent to what is required to fit under that protected characteristic? It's obviously vague and wooly to encompass a broad range of scenarios, but I think whether it applies to children really needs testing.

I had a slight wobble about jigsaw identification and pulled a comment I made earlier, nothing fishy. @womendeserveequalhumanrights thank you for your kind comments, sorry yours got pulled at the same time

I did have an hour long Zoom surgery with Sian... she knows all the details, every little thing.

You might like to read Al Hijrah in which it was held that "separate but equal" treatment of boys and girls in education was itself a detriment, despite being "equal". To that extent there is a "right" to inclusion, albeit as we all agree, a qualified right.

www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/interim-executive-board-of-al-hijrah-school-20171013a.pdf

I'd forgotten that you were going to see her as a constituent! I assume she bluffed or ignored everything, but she absolutely cannot plead ignorance if it comes back to bite her. The paper trail you have with this issue casts a wide net over many months, let's hope it's useful in court.

No worries at all. I can understand you being worried - glad MNet were quick to pull it.

Would love to see Sian Berry have to explain herself in court.

Agreed. Appalling woman. It's another of those cases where i think, does she really believe the shit she comes out with? Whether she does or not, does her no credit, though.

Not heard of Sian berry before but I just saw this old article in the Argus.

She said this

"I have heard from the parents of a 14-year-old trans girl about how this decision could affect her safety. From a parent of two young cis daughters, I have heard about how their future could hold daily difficulties if they don’t conform to ‘traditional’ gender norms. And I have heard from someone whose much-loved brother is trans, who is very fearful of rising hatred."

How can she talk about "if they don’t conform to ‘traditional’ gender norms” the whole trans movement is reliant on conforming to traditional gender norms. I mean how else does a boy identify as a girl?

How can she not see this. Gender norms don’t change your sex.

Thanks for this, it looks like an interesting judgment, I will have a good read.

This pisses me off so much. I've already said this, but if you have a child who doesn't "conform to "traditional" gender norms*" , they do indeed encounter problems.

Yes, half of those problems are being told "you can't wear that because you're a girl/ boy" but the other half of those problems come from children who've attended gender training / have ideological parents. These children are liable to ask/ assume/ tell a non conformist that they MUST now be the opposite sex because of their choices. Or at least non binary. Hell, I'VE even been told I'm non binary.

Both of these scenarios are annoying but fine if you're a confident kid and much much worse if you're not.

*Traditional gender norms in primary school are essentially blue footballer or pink princess. "Non conforming" doesn't even have to mean anything out there.

Quite. It's having people beat you over the head while screaming at you, 'be tolerant like I am! Be kind!'. It is the odd thing about this movement: so much fuss about being different, outside of limits, and yet rigidly policing those stereotypical limits in ways we haven't seen in decades. Everyone must be in a box with a label.

How can she talk about "if they don’t conform to ‘traditional’ gender norms” the whole trans movement is reliant on conforming to traditional gender norms. I mean how else does a boy identify as a girl?

I agree, the whole ideology is complete rubbish, but this is the biggest piece of claptrap that they spout. It shows they know they lying through the teeth when they chant TWAW because by their own 'logic' he can't be anything but a man, he's one that doesn't conform to "traditional’ gender norms”, if he were a women he would be conforming "traditional’ gender norms” and he wouldn't be 'trans'. 🤯
Make it make sense zombies.