The DfE has issued a consultation document on Gender Questioning Children. The Department for Education, working closely with the Government’s Equality Hub, has produce this guidance to provide clarity for schools and colleges, and reassurance for parents.
Social Transitioning
Schools are facing requests to take actions such as changing names, uniforms, or using different facilities to help a child appear more like the opposite sex, with the expectation that they will be treated as if they are. This is often referred to as social transitioning.
The DfE guidance is based on a set of five general principles that schools and colleges can use to frame their response to such requests:
- Schools and colleges have statutory duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children.
- Schools and colleges should be respectful and tolerant places where bullying is never tolerated.
- Parents should not be excluded from decisions taken by a school or college relating to requests for a child to ‘socially transition’.
- Schools and colleges have specific legal duties that are framed by a child’s biological sex.
- There is no general duty to allow a child to ‘social transition’.
dsga.org.uk 