In May 2020, Oxfordshire County Council withdrew their ‘trans’ guidance for schools following a challenge in the High Court. A local teenage girl had been willing to take them to judicial review over the guidance, which she felt was sexist and failed to safeguard her as a female pupil in an Oxfordshire school. A high court judge agreed that there was an argument to be made that the Council’s schools guidance was unlawful.
In the light of Oxfordshire’s withdrawal, numerous* other local councils withdrew their ‘trans’ guidance for schools. However there are many which remain. We are encouraging parents and carers to look at their own county council’s trans policies, check them against our Equality and Diversity ‘Red Flags’ factsheet, and contact the council if they are concerned. We are aware that there are schools resources promoted by other local education authorities which are equally concerning in disregarding child safeguarding; the best way of getting these looked at is for local parents to complain.
We want to avoid getting to the point in the UK where parents are alienated from their children or prevented from raising concerns. This is already happening in the US, as reported by Abigail Shrier in her excellent and troubling book about the effects of transgender ideology on teenage girls: Irreversible Damage. We do not want that to happen here.
*Barnsley, Birmingham, Ceredigion, Denbighshire, Derbyshire, Doncaster, Essex, Flintshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Leicester, Merthyr Tydfil, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Warwickshire and Wrexham have withdrawn their guidance as of 14/07/20.
You can download our template letter here:
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