UK government split on transgender guidance – The Times

The Department of Education is reportedly proposing introducing gender-neutral bathrooms for students, among other “common sense” measures

The UK Department of Education’s latest set of proposals aimed at providing transgender guidance for British schools has caused an uproar, The Times reported on Monday. The move highlighted a rift in Prime Minister Liz Truss’ government, and has sparked a backlash from children’s and women’s rights advocates.

The proposed measures, according to the Times, include allowing trans pupils to use school changing rooms ahead of their fellow classmates, permitting children that do not identify with their biological sex to wear the uniform of their own choosing, as well as introducing gender-neutral bathrooms.

The Department for Education has described these measures as a means to defuse a “culture war” over gender identity in schools and has enlisted the help of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, as well as leading doctors to come up with the guide while trying to avoid creating political flashpoints.

Nevertheless, the issue seems to have already caused a split in the new UK government, as Home Secretary Suella Braverman is reportedly pushing for a harder line on gender and insists that single-sex spaces are “really important, particularly in schools.” 

Prime Minister Liz Truss has also expressed a more conservative stance on gender rights, having stated during her campaign that trans women were not women and that “under-18s shouldn’t be able to make irreversible decisions about their own future.”

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Meanwhile, a group of women’s and gender rights campaigners has also issued a message to the UK government in response to the proposed guidance, slamming the measures as unsafe, a dangerous misstep, and “regressive misogyny.”

“Sex is real. It matters,” gender rights campaigner Helen Joyce was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. “We all know this. Thousands of us have fought to raise awareness about the harm gender ideology is causing to vulnerable children.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman from the Safe Schools Alliance said: “We are absolutely appalled at this latest ineptitude from the Department for Education. This is not a ‘political flashpoint’ or a ‘culture war’, this is once again a serious, national failing of safeguarding.”

According to the Times, the Department of Education has stressed that the list of proposed measures is not final. Additionally, the guidance is not expected to be compulsory once it is eventually published before the end of the year.