Include the inclusion
The Guardian version:
Trans girls will no longer be able to join Girlguiding, the organisation has announced, saying it has made the decision after seeking legal advice as a result of the supreme court ruling on gender earlier this year.
Blahblah. The question is why were boys allowed to join in the first place? What’s the point of having Girl Guides if you let boys join? This business of boys joining relies on the presence of girls, after all. If all the girls leave then what are they left with? Another thing for boys. Don’t they have enough yet?
The statement from the top people
added that Girlguiding “believed strongly in inclusion” and would continue to support young people and adults in marginalised groups through a new taskforce.
But if your goal is inclusion then you should never have had Girl Guides in the first place. It should have been just Guides. Open to girls and boys, women and men, big and small, cats and dogs, goats and sheep, elephants and lions.
What they mean of course is inclusion where possible, inclusion where it makes sense, inclusion of people the organization is meant for. They don’t mean inclusion of everyone and everything – so why bring it up at all?
Because it’s manipulative, that’s why. It makes people feel guilty. It makes it sound as if Girl Guides is excluding clumsy girls, malnourished girls, girls without money, girls with the wrong accent, girls who don’t own a tennis racket. But excluding boys from a group for girls is not like excluding girls without money or expensive clothes. It’s like excluding adults, or professional athletes, or serial killers. Some exclusions are necessary, and not all inclusions are safe or fair or reasonable.
Girlguiding had been facing legal action from a parent over its policy allowing transgender girls to join as members and trans women to volunteer in roles reserved for women, claiming it “exposes girls to harassment”, the Times reported.
Its policy allowing trans members was introduced to some criticism in 2018, but Girlguiding defended its decision by saying: “Simply being transgender does not make someone more of a safeguarding risk than any other person.”
Same old cheap trick. Yes we know that; the point is that being male does make someone more of a safeguarding risk.
Will this trans bullshit never end?
It’s funny sad. I knew a couple of Guide Leaders quite well maybe 20-30 years ago. They were a fair bit older than me now and had a strong focus on doing outdoor sports and activities with the girls. I commented once that they were doing things that boys would love to do as well. The response was polite but firm. The point was for girls to try things out, gain confidence, and become confident that they could do things and achieve as girls and under the mentorship of girls and women in the absence of men. the only time men were involved was as technical/safety experts for specific activities where they couldn’t find a suitable female leader. I’m not sure where that ethos got lost.
Such a good point — and one missed by so many.
@2 It’s not as if there’s no opportunity at all for boys to do those fun outdoor sports and activities that they would love to do; why even bring it up?
Fair question. After so long I genuinely don’t remember the exact context of what I said. I do remember the firmness and lucidity of the response I got though. I don’t, and didn’t, have a problem with it.