EHRC draft schools guidance (mentions changing facilities for trans pupils)

[hethor]

I may have missed a thread, but there's some new draft guidance from the EHRC on schools out for consultation: www.equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/technical-guidance-schools-consultation

Notably, it gives this admirably clear example:

A secondary school is considering how to provide appropriate changing facilities for a trans pupil who identifies as a girl. The school must provide single-sex changing facilities and showers for children who do physical education at the school. It is therefore not permissible to allow the pupil to use the girls’ changing room. The school decides that the pupil must use the boys’ changing room. This is unlikely to be justified and so is likely to be unlawful indirect gender reassignment discrimination. A suitable alternative might be to allow the pupil access to a single-user, lockable changing room, which might be a staff changing room or a mixed-sex accessible bathroom.

You're right that 'No-one here is suggesting that trans people change sex', but that's the basis for Boy X claiming that he is now a girl and refusing to use the boys' facilities.

Boy X remains a boy, does not and cannot change sex, so why does a school have to find an alternative space for him?
Because he doesn't feel comfortable sharing with classmates of his own sex?

Lots of children don't feel comfortable sharing communal facilities - they are shy, they have body image issues, etc - so in fairness shouldn't they also have alternative spaces as Boy X? Why is Boy X's discomfort about having to share facilities different from any other child's?

And from a practical point of view, how are schools going to deal with the demands of all these uncomfortable children?

I know a lot of people disagree with this topic, but trans people don’t change sex and it is not the basis for the child saying they are a girl. It’s about identity and the gender dysphoria that is caused by the mismatch between body and brain. I’d say it’s more accurate to say that child is presenting as a girl because that is what makes them more comfortable. They are not allow to use women’s spaces because they are not female, but they so deeply reject their birth sex they are going to experience distress in the male facilities.

Generally, the level of distress between someone with gender dysphoria and someone a bit shy is going be much more severe for someone with gender dysphoria, so that is why it could be indirect discrimination and adjustments should be made.This is why depression is commonly seen alongside gender dysphoria.

There should be one unisex toilet opposite reception, as is stipulated in most school designs. This could be kept an eye on. There should be accessible toilets directly off the corridor on each floor, as happens now. Then single sex cubicles (with door gaps) within a single sex environment containing hand basins. Ambulant toilet designs would be within the single sex suite. Ideally, the accessible toilets would be within the single sex accomodation too (with door gaps), but that’s the dream.

The advantages would be that provision is safer and healthier for everyone. The disadvantage is that children with paruresis or bowel conditions will not get so many toilets to choose from.

Private designs attract misuse. Sex, drugs, hidden cameras. They cost more, are less easy to clean and ventilate and therefore contain more pathogens. It takes much longer to realise a child is in trouble in them. They are a pain during fire drills for quick evacuations as it takes so much longer to check.

Even children themselves complain about been pushed in, bullied, smells and dirt of enclosed designs. Often schools will restrict use as they can’t keep an eye on children in private toilets.

This is a quote from a child who really wants to use a ‘gender neutral’ design but is complaining how others treat the one on each floor: it’s not uncommon that the four small bathrooms are filled with sex, drugs or vaping. We need to address these problems, or the gender-neutral bathrooms will continue to be the most disgusting in the school….I consider everything in the third floor bathroom a biohazard. Almost every time I make the mistake of going in, I leave trying to purge my mind of the horrors I just witnessed. Whether it is people having sex, poop smeared on the walls, or the toilet being clogged with an entire roll of toilet paper, horrible things have happened in that bathroom.’

Some schools have spent a lot of money buying in alarms systems for ‘single use’ toilets, because of the problems caused by privacy. This causes problems as children don’t like being monitored understandably. What’s to say the alarm isn’t a camera? The alarms can monitor how many children are in each toilet compartment, it anyone is vaping, and if they say ‘stop it’ or ‘help me’ they will send a text alert to a member of staff.

It is not as good as a door gap as it doesn’t tell you if a child is having a mental or physical emergency and has collapsed. It doesn’t prevent the toilet from being vandalised or someone vaping in them. In addition the alarms go off so often that they are often switched off. Children will set the alarms off on purpose.

The first mixed sex private design produced as a standard non domestic design was the disabled toilet. Radar keys were introduced because of the misuse (sex, drugs).

There has been no risk assessment or equality impact assessment done on these private designs.

What I have done is look at real life incidents and seen how design affects outcomes. That’s how I can justify my conclusions.

I agree of course that trans people don't change sex, but TRAs don't agree with us - 'TWAW and how dare you be so transphobic as to suggest that TW are not exactly the same as any other woman?'
Or Dr Upton in the Sandie Peggie case stating that he was now a woman - a biological woman?

So although some transpeople may have different takes on what they've transitioned from/to, it's as likely that Boy X in the example given is claiming to actually be a girl as a boy 'presenting as a girl'.

A child who has such deep-seated distress about their body is in need of a lot of support to help them accept and love their body as it is, including the reality of the sex they were born into.

Boy X has a right to be told the truth, and to be supported to accept the truth.
It seems cruel to encourage him to believe that if he presents as female, he will become or be seen as or treated as female, when the truth is that some point reality is going to catch up with him - the reality that he can never change sex, that he will always be male, and will probably always look male, that he will never be a woman.

As you can see , I feel very strongly about the rights of gender-dysphoric children, because I was one.
I was so lucky that social transitioning, PBs, hormones, surgery etc were not available when I was a little girl, because I fear I would have done anything and everything I could to avoid becoming a woman, and I dread to think what my mental and physical health would be like now if I had taken any of those routes.

In the absence of these 'solutions', I had to learn to accept the truth of who I am.

That's what I wish for Boy X and all the other boys and girls who feel so negative about their bodies - love, support and above all the truth, from their schools as well as from their families and friends.
.

I can't find any reference to a minimum age of two for the PC of GR. The Draft Code of Practice explicitly says that there is no lower age limit at all. Which seems bonkers!!

2. Who has rights under Part 3 (services and public functions) and Part 7 (associations) of the Act?

2.43 There is no minimum age for the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, which means that children and young people are protected if they are proposing to undergo, are undergoing, or have undergone a process of gender reassignment.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/equality-act-2010-draft-code-of-practice-for-services-public-functions-and-associations-2026/equality-act-2010-draft-code-of-practice-for-services-public-functions-and-associations-2026#who-has-rights-under-part-3-services-and-public-functions-and-part-7-associations-of-the-act

This child has anorexia. It is up to the school to enable the anorexia to make sure the child doesn't feel uncomfortable and trigger distress in that child. Children will bulimia should be allocated time and a designated space within the school day/premises to throw up discreetly so that they aren't doing so in front of other children which may embarrass them.

Does everyone understand how bonkers this all is? Feeling uncomfortable about your body during puberty is NORMAL.

If you are socially transitioning your child or enabling your child to socially transition before the age of 18 you are not looking after their mental health or safeguarding them. There is no middle ground on this.

When are we going to actually wake the fuck up?