What does the trans guidance for England’s schools say?

How to make sense of some of the key passages from long-delayed guidance

The UK government finally published its long-delayed guidance for England’s schools on youth transition. The document promises a clear set of principles for teachers and staff as they wrestle with the needs of children who are questioning their gender identity. According to the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, the guidance “puts the best interests of all children first”.

But while the guidance has been broadly welcomed by those who believe that it is too easy for young people to “socially transition” at school, there are others who disagree vehemently. They see the government’s approach as informed by an underlying hostility to trans people, and scepticism about whether they even exist. And although the guidance does not include an outright ban on allowing social transition (said to have been under consideration until it was found to be unlawful), it clearly creates new barriers for teenagers who want to talk to teachers about their gender without fear of being outed at home.

In recent years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of children questioning the way they feel about being a boy or a girl … This has been linked to gender identity ideology, the belief that a person can have a ‘gender’ that is different to their biological sex.

We have not used the term transgender to describe children. Under UK law children cannot obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate and therefore cannot change their legal sex.

As part of testing whether this is a sustained request, schools and colleges should seek to understand societal or other factors that may have influenced the child, for example:

Has the child been influenced by peers or social media?

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 should engage parents as a matter of priority, and encourage the child to speak to their parents, other than in the exceptionally rare circumstances where involving parents would constitute a significant risk of harm to the child.

[Schools] may conclude that the impact on the school and college community is such that it may not be possible to agree to support a request [for a change in how a pupil is treated at school].

Schools and colleges should only agree to a change of pronouns if they are confident that the benefit to the individual child outweighs the impact on the school community. It is expected that there will be very few occasions in which a school or college will be able to agree to a change of pronouns.

This is non-statutory guidance from the Department for Education. Its focus is to provide practical advice, which we expect schools and colleges to follow.