Guides to let transgender boys shower with the girls
BOYS who believe they are female will be allowed to share tents and bathrooms with girls on Girlguiding camping trips.
Teenage boys, who dress or live as a girl, will also be able to use the same changing rooms, showers and toilets as females when away from home on trips.
The controversial move comes after the group, formerly the Girl Guides Association, changed its “girls only” rule to allow transgender girls born male to join.
Yesterday the Girlguiding movement was criticised for allowing itself to be manipulated by an “extreme minority”.
“It is a shocking and ultimately sad story that the Girl Guides would decide to destroy themselves in this way,” said Laura Perrins, a former barrister and family campaigner, now co-editor of The Conservative Woman.
Privacy
“It was a proud organisation for girls and young women to explore the world and challenge themselves. This, like many other female spaces and organisations, is being ruined by an extreme minority.”
Other critics warned that allowing transgender Guides, particularly those in their teens, to share accommodation and personal facilities on trips posed a threat to the safety and privacy of girls.
David Davies, Tory MP for Monmouth, said: “If transgender girls who are physically male are going to be sharing facilities, it’s going to make some girls threatened and uncomfortable and the Guides shouldn’t be doing that.”
Feminist campaigner Julie Bindel said: “The concern I and many feminists have about boys invading bedrooms, tents and showers, is disproportionately the victims of sexual violence are girls and women, and overwhelmingly, the perpetrators are boys and men.
“This signifies the end to girlonly spaces and the safety of girls in single-sex organisations.”
The advice, which applies to Girl Guides aged five to 25, is published on the Girlguiding UK website in a section on organising accommodation for residential trips.
Under the heading “Using Facilities”, it states: “The use of gendered facilities, such as toilets, can cause anxiety. Members are allowed to use the facilities of the gender they self-identify as.”
Asked if this also included showers and changing rooms, Girlguiding said: “That is correct.” Parents of Guides as young as five would not automatically be told if their daughter was sharing facilities with a boy who thinks they are the wrong gender.
It emerged in January that boys who identified as girls could join the Guides for the first time. The guidance on trips was updated to let transgender girls, born boys, “share accommodation with other young members if they wish” and use the same facilities.
Safe
It marked a departure from the Girl Guides origins, set up 107 years ago, as a female-only organisation. It also ignored the findings of its own survey in which members stressed how important it was to have a girl-only safe space.
Its gender guidelines state: “Girl is based on gender identity. This means that any child who selfidentifies as a girl should feel safe and welcome in our girl-only space regardless of the sex that they were assigned at birth.”
Girlguiding UK had no record of the number, if any, of transgender members. Chief executive Julie Bentley said the rule changes were to comply with UK equality law, which states people should be treated “according to their acquired gender”.
The Queen is patron of Girlguiding UK.