Illegal to deny sex can change, teachers told

C of E schools issue warning about potential breach of Equality Act if transgender pupils upset

A GROUP of Church of England schools told teachers that they would probably be breaking the law if they said a person cannot change their biological sex.

The Bath and Wells Multi Academy Trust, which runs 42 primary schools, said defining sex as immutable was “damaging” and likely to breach the Equality Act, despite legal rulings to the contrary. The Trust’s policy on transgender pupils also stated that girls who did not want to share changing rooms with boys who said that they were trans should be moved to a different facility.

It comes after revealed that up to three quarters of schools are misrepresenting equality laws. An analysis

POLICE SCOTLAND’S “sub-standard” training for their officers on Humza Yousaf ’s new hate crime laws confuses the threshold required for someone to be charged, it has been alleged.

Some parts of the two-hour online course, seen by correctly inform officers that someone commits of more than 600 policies showed teachers are being told to transition children as young as four without their parents’ knowledge and to allow them to sleep in dormitories and use toilets that match their “gender identity”.

Many policies remain in place despite draft government guidance published in December which states that schools should not accept all requests to social transition and should involve parents in any decision that is made.

The Transgender Pupils Policy from the Bath and Wells Multi Academy Trust (BWMAT), which is part of the Diocese of Bath and runs schools across Somerset, shows that teachers and parents were warned against questioning controversial trans ideology.

It states: “Everyone has the right to their own beliefs whether based in faith or another philosophical system, but it is the position of our Trust that the expression of the belief that sex and gender are unchangeable, when heard or seen by pupils, colleagues, parents, carers and other visitors to our schools, an offence if they behave in a “threatening or abusive” manner.

But another part wrongly changes the legislation’s wording to “threatening and abusive”, a higher standard as any offensive comment would have to meet both criteria rather than just one.

For Women Scotland (FWS), a women’s rights campaign group, said the flip-flopping “on this basic point... only exacerbates our concerns over clarity ‘The expression of the belief that sex and gender are unchangeable is damaging to those affected by gender dysphoria’ is damaging to those affected by gender dysphoria. Such expression is likely to amount to breach of the Equalities Act according to recent legal judgement.”

The policy does not identify which judgement it is referring to. It was updated in November 2021, months after a judge ruled that gender-critical views were protected by law, in a case brought by Maya Forstater. It remained in place despite rulings confirming legal protections for those who express the belief that sex cannot be changed.

It has been removed by BWMAT in recent weeks after a concerned member of the public wrote to the school saying it breached equality laws. It is still available on one school website.

Ms Forstater, now CEO of Sex Matters, a charity which campaigns for clarity on sex in law, policy and language, said of the policy: “It looks like it was written by an activist based on ideology, but the responsibility for this, as with all the trust’s policies, lies with the CEO and the board. There should be an investigation into how they adopted and shows the impossibility for police officers to be able to enforce the law.”

The disclosure comes after Siobhian Brown, the SNP’s community safety minister, was criticised this week for getting key details wrong about the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, which came into effect on Monday.

In media interviews, Ms Brown also incorrectly stated the threshold for criminality was “threatening and abusuch a dangerous, irrational and legally illiterate position.”

Parents and staff at BWMAT schools were told they should create a “gender neutral environment”, “allow the pupil to self-describe” their identity and “use the preferred pronoun” for a person.

In PE there “should be few, if any, issues regarding participation in the sports of their true gender”, it said. Any advantage or physical risk biological males have should “be managed properly within the lesson context rather than by preventing young Transgender people from participating”, it added.

Pupils should be able to access toilets and changing rooms that match their “gender identity” and “no pupil shall be required to use” a single-stall toilet if they don’t want to. It gives an example of a parent complaining: “My daughter doesn’t want a boy changing next to her, what if he looks at her body?”

“In this scenario it would not be appropriate to remove the trans person from the changing rooms if a concern is raised by a parent or carer,” teachers sive” and introduced a new test, that the comments had to “cause fear and alarm.” However, there is no reference to the latter phrase in the legislation.

Humza Yousaf oversaw the passage of the hate crime law at Holyrood in 2021 when he was justice secretary in Nicola Sturgeon’s government. However, it did not come into force until Monday, as Police Scotland said it needed time for training.

It creates a criminal offence of “stirring up of hatred”, expanding on a similar offence based on racist abuse that has been on the statute book for decades. The legislation extends this to other grounds based on age, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity.

Concerns have been expressed that ‘It looks like it was written by an activist based on ideology, but the responsibility for this lies with the CEO and the board’ the legislation’s definition of a hate crime is too ambiguous, and the force has been inundated with thousands of complaints since Monday.

The Scottish Police Federation, representing rank-and-file officers, has

‘If Police Scotland has not been able to understand the law in three years, what hope has the public?’

criticised the level of training for its members and warned the legislation was “confusing and fraught with difficulty” to enforce.

Trina Budge, FWS’s director, said: “Having only yesterday called on the were told. “In this situation, it would be far more appropriate to look at offering an alternative changing arrangement for the child who feels uncomfortable around the trans person”.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission clarified the law two years ago, stating that trans women can be excluded from female-only changing rooms if it “is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim” such as protecting privacy and dignity.

A BWMAT spokesman said: “After being made aware that an out-of-date version of our Transgender Inclusion Policy remained on our website and that of our schools, we removed the document and advised all our schools to do likewise. We apologise for any confusion caused. Publication of an up-todate document had been delayed as we were aware that Government guidance was due to be published shortly.”

They added that Government guidance will be reflected in the policy.

Simon Johnson ScottiSh Political Editor

JK ROWLING has said people who criticised her decision to highlight a series of trans sex criminals are like “those who hushed up paedophile priests to protect the church”.

Hours after the SNP’s controversial hate crime laws came into force on Monday, the author posted pictures of 10 high-profile trans people and ridiculed their claims to be women including the “double rapist” Isla Bryson and Katie Dolatowski, a trans paedophile who sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl in a supermarket toilet.

Rowling dared Police Scotland to arrest her for misgendering under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act. The force later said complaints against her had been rejected because her comments did not meet the threshold for criminality. But Humza Yousaf, the First Minister, said that her tweets “may well be offensive, upsetting and insulting to trans people”. She was also criticised by some for including trans women who are not convicted criminals in the same list.

Rowling defended her list on X, formerly Twitter, saying: “There’s no difference between those who hushed up paedophile priests to protect the church and those trying to make it unsayable that some trans-identified men are sex offenders. Both prize an ideology more highly than acknowledging risk and preventing harm to women and children.” One critic said that there was a “massive difference” as the convicted sex offenders on her list had “faced justice”, whereas “the church covered up horrific crimes to prevent justice”.

Rowling responded: “So all sex offenders have been convicted, there’s no risk to women or girls any more, so no need for any safeguarding?”

Following Rowling’s posts, Mr Yousaf said: “JK Rowling produced some tweets that were offensive, that were insulting – but of course the law does not deal with offensive. The law is dealing with new offences, criminal behaviour that has to be threatening or abusive, intent to stir up hatred. Hence why she was not arrested.”

minister responsible for this shambles of a law to stop misrepresenting its basic terms, it is hardly surprising to find the police training materials equally confusing and inadequate.

“Inevitably, it will lead to crimes not being investigated properly or, worse, people being charged unjustly. If neither the Scottish government nor Police Scotland has been able to understand this law in the three years since it was passed, what hope has the general public?”

She added: “It’s very worrying, and surely its disintegration into an utter pile of incomprehensible and unenforceable nonsense in just a few days seals its fate.”

Police Scotland was approached for comment.