Schools in England must be involved “properly” in developing new transgender guidance that needs to work alongside their existing safeguarding duties, the UK’s largest education union has warned.
As the government prepares to publish its first draft of the long-awaited guidance, the National Education Union (NEU) said many LGBTQ+ young people still found school a negative experience.
“The guidance promised by [the education secretary] Gillian Keegan has been heralded for months, but is still yet to be seen,” an NEU spokesperson said. “When it is finally published, the government has said that it will be non-statutory, in draft form, and out for consultation for nine weeks.
“We hope the Department for Education [DfE], school leaders and unions can all work together constructively so that all LGBT+ young people have a good experience at school. Schools need to be involved properly in developing guidance that is clear and helpful and can work successfully along their safeguarding duties.”
One teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Guardian the long-running debate around the guidance, and the non-stop media reporting of what it might – or might not – contain, had only increased transphobic bullying in her school.
According to reports this week, under the new guidance teachers will not be made to automatically “out” pupils who come to them with general questions over gender identity. Schools will, however, be expected to inform parents if children tell staff that they want to take any steps towards transitioning.
The teacher, who works in a secondary school in the north of England and has a transgender daughter, said she would be reluctant to out a pupil to their parents, were they to ask to be called by a different name and use different pronouns in school.
“For us, talking to parents and outing them to parents, it’s not our place to out any pupils at all,” she said. “We’ve got to safeguard that child.”
Caroline Derbyshire, the CEO of the Saffron academy trust, said school leaders were hoping for guidance that would be “extremely clear and very straightforward”, to help in circumstances where the views of young people and their parents are often in conflict.
“We try to do what we think is sensible, but every situation is different and requires a lot of thinking about,” said Derbyshire. “It’s a really difficult area to manage. Whatever the schools decide to do, somebody’s going to object to it. We can’t do right for doing wrong.
“The thing about having guidance is you can say: ‘We are following the guidance.’ When you are in a situation which is fraught with difficulties, that can be something of a life-saver for a school leader.”
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Rishi Sunak had initially pledged to deliver the guidance by the end of the summer term but missed his own deadline after months of internal disagreements on the issue, including over whether the guidance would be compatible with equality laws.
Bayswater is a support group for the parents of “trans-identified adolescents and young people” and has 650 members across the UK. “Schools need clear guidance because it is unacceptable to expect teachers to take decisions with such profound consequences for their students,” a spokesperson said.
“By viewing gender exclusively as a ‘civil rights’ issue, children with complex mental health problems and trauma have been failed by adults who should have been protecting them.
“Unlike sexual orientation, a trans identity is linked with likely medicalisation and high rates of comorbidities. Taking a student’s rejection of their natal sex at face value, rather than being curious and compassionate about what might have led them there, is a safeguarding failure that all of us should care about, regardless of our political affiliation.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “The upcoming guidance will help safeguard pupils and crucially ensure that parents are involved in decisions relating to their child, as the Cass Review has made clear that any degree of social transition could have significant consequences for children. It will be published in due course.”
