Maya Forstater is co-founder of Sex Matters.
Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, in charge of finalising “transgender guidance” for schools in England, a hot potato that has been passed between the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Department for Education for the past five years.
It was due to be released this week, but it appears to have been delayed again after disquiet amongst Conservative MPs.
According to a recent interview in The House magazine, Keegan had alighted on “parental consent” as the answer to what schools should do in response to the rash of children demanding to “socially transition” and be recognised as transgender and non-binary in classrooms across the country.
This is a mistake. Certainly, it is true that schools should not be “socially transitioning” children to treat them as the opposite sex without their parents consent.
But the bigger question is whether schools should be transitioning children at all.
Schools are rules-based institutions. The rules need to be clear and fair. They must enable schools to keep pupils safe, respect all pupils’ rights, and not discriminate, while getting on with the business of education.
Most rules (such as who can take woodwork and who can take home economics) treat boys and girls equally. Where schools have rules that treat boys and girls differently (such as requiring them to use separate changing rooms), this is for good reason; parents cannot demand that schools override their rules or develop special new rules just for their child.
The Equality Act 2010 outlaws discrimination based on the protected characteristic of “gender reassignment” (being transsexual). This is widely misunderstood as meaning that people with this self-declared characteristic have the right to be treated as the opposite sex.
The law cannot create any such right. Other people have the right to recognise the material reality of sex, and to use ordinary words to describe it (and employers that forget this can face significant liability, as the £106k payout in my case last week should remind them).
What the Equality Act requires is that schools ensure that children who identify as transgender (or gay, or straight, or Muslim or atheist, or any other protected characteristic) get the same access to education as other children. Those children don’t need to be treated differently.
Indications in the press are that Keegan understands this when it comes to maintaining clear rules about who can use which toilets and changing rooms, or play on which sports teams. It looks likely that the guidance was set to tell schools that they should say “no” to requests to treat children as if they are the opposite sex for these purposes.
This sensible prescription would have been be enough to bring on howls of “genocide” and “transphobia” from Stonewall and the rest of the gender lobby. They think that schools should be facilitating childhood transition: treating a boy who says he is a girl as if he is one, and vice versa (and setting them on a pathway to take puberty blockers and hormones to try to maintain the illusion when puberty inevitably breaks the spell).
While Keegan seems to understand that schools cannot do this, the interview suggests she is trying to negotiate with the extremists by offering a watered-down version of “social transition” for children whose parents want it (and for those over 16 regardless of what their parents want). These children will be allowed to “change their pronouns”, she says.
But what can this mean? Any child can say to their friends “call me zie” (or they, or he or she). Those friends may cooperate with that wish, or not. It would be impossible for schools to stop this, or to require parental consent for the language that teenagers use among themselves.
But Keegan’s apparent suggestion is that schools must do something else. She seems to envisage every school having rules about what pronouns by each child is to be referred, which hinges on parental consent.
Such a rule then it must be enforceable; it must discipline other children (and teachers) who use the “wrong” pronouns.
Already, this scenario is nightmarish. But children and their parents who demand other people “respect their pronouns” are not concerned merely with the words “she” and “he”. They also want the words “girl” and “boy”, “female” and “male”, and “daughter” and “son” to be by personal choice.
Thus, anyone using ordinary words that relate to a child’s sex will be considered to have committed the sin of “misgendering” by a parent who wants everyone to pretend that their son is their daughter or their daughter their son. In legal terms, giving into the demand to engage in such semantic gymnastics does not pass the test of being a “proportionate means to a legitimate aim”.
The only fair, safe and reasonable policy is that when it comes to school pupils, “sex” means what it always has: girl and boy, male and female, and the pronouns that go along with these ordinary words. This should not up for negotiation.
Maya Forstater is co-founder of Sex Matters.
Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, in charge of finalising “transgender guidance” for schools in England, a hot potato that has been passed between the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Department for Education for the past five years.
It was due to be released this week, but it appears to have been delayed again after disquiet amongst Conservative MPs.
According to a recent interview in The House magazine, Keegan had alighted on “parental consent” as the answer to what schools should do in response to the rash of children demanding to “socially transition” and be recognised as transgender and non-binary in classrooms across the country.
This is a mistake. Certainly, it is true that schools should not be “socially transitioning” children to treat them as the opposite sex without their parents consent.
But the bigger question is whether schools should be transitioning children at all.
Schools are rules-based institutions. The rules need to be clear and fair. They must enable schools to keep pupils safe, respect all pupils’ rights, and not discriminate, while getting on with the business of education.
Most rules (such as who can take woodwork and who can take home economics) treat boys and girls equally. Where schools have rules that treat boys and girls differently (such as requiring them to use separate changing rooms), this is for good reason; parents cannot demand that schools override their rules or develop special new rules just for their child.
The Equality Act 2010 outlaws discrimination based on the protected characteristic of “gender reassignment” (being transsexual). This is widely misunderstood as meaning that people with this self-declared characteristic have the right to be treated as the opposite sex.
The law cannot create any such right. Other people have the right to recognise the material reality of sex, and to use ordinary words to describe it (and employers that forget this can face significant liability, as the £106k payout in my case last week should remind them).
What the Equality Act requires is that schools ensure that children who identify as transgender (or gay, or straight, or Muslim or atheist, or any other protected characteristic) get the same access to education as other children. Those children don’t need to be treated differently.
Indications in the press are that Keegan understands this when it comes to maintaining clear rules about who can use which toilets and changing rooms, or play on which sports teams. It looks likely that the guidance was set to tell schools that they should say “no” to requests to treat children as if they are the opposite sex for these purposes.
This sensible prescription would have been be enough to bring on howls of “genocide” and “transphobia” from Stonewall and the rest of the gender lobby. They think that schools should be facilitating childhood transition: treating a boy who says he is a girl as if he is one, and vice versa (and setting them on a pathway to take puberty blockers and hormones to try to maintain the illusion when puberty inevitably breaks the spell).
While Keegan seems to understand that schools cannot do this, the interview suggests she is trying to negotiate with the extremists by offering a watered-down version of “social transition” for children whose parents want it (and for those over 16 regardless of what their parents want). These children will be allowed to “change their pronouns”, she says.
But what can this mean? Any child can say to their friends “call me zie” (or they, or he or she). Those friends may cooperate with that wish, or not. It would be impossible for schools to stop this, or to require parental consent for the language that teenagers use among themselves.
But Keegan’s apparent suggestion is that schools must do something else. She seems to envisage every school having rules about what pronouns by each child is to be referred, which hinges on parental consent.
Such a rule then it must be enforceable; it must discipline other children (and teachers) who use the “wrong” pronouns.
Already, this scenario is nightmarish. But children and their parents who demand other people “respect their pronouns” are not concerned merely with the words “she” and “he”. They also want the words “girl” and “boy”, “female” and “male”, and “daughter” and “son” to be by personal choice.
Thus, anyone using ordinary words that relate to a child’s sex will be considered to have committed the sin of “misgendering” by a parent who wants everyone to pretend that their son is their daughter or their daughter their son. In legal terms, giving into the demand to engage in such semantic gymnastics does not pass the test of being a “proportionate means to a legitimate aim”.
The only fair, safe and reasonable policy is that when it comes to school pupils, “sex” means what it always has: girl and boy, male and female, and the pronouns that go along with these ordinary words. This should not up for negotiation.