Fury as school guidance set to include separate gender-neutral toilets under 'common sense' proposals

11 October 2022, 00:56 | Updated: 11 October 2022, 00:57

Campaigners have hit out at fresh proposals that will see schools encouraged to accommodate trans pupils in "common sense" guidance for changing rooms and toilets.

The move will come in a bid to defuse a "culture war" over gender identity, according to The Times.

However, some have suggested that the proposals caused "anger and disappointment" from women, parents and professionals.

The guidance is understood to include ideas such as providing gender-neutral toilets as well as those for boys and girls and letting trans pupils use changing rooms before others.

The Department for Education is believed to have turned to senior doctors to create an evidence-based guide for schools.

Education Secretary Kit Malthouse is said to be backing a "common-sense approach" and wants to publish the guidance earlier than the planned date next year.

It comes despite Liz Truss holding a hard line on the issue during the Tory leadership campaign, telling party members that "under-18s shouldn’t be able to make irreversible decisions about their own future" on gender transition.

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Activists have been quick to condemn the possible changes to guidance.

"Women, parents, professionals and activists concerned about gender ideology are pretty active on social media," Helen Joyce, of gender rights organisation Sex Matters, told MailOnline.

"The suggestion the DfE is rowing back from a clear position provoked a huge response. The anger and disappointment were plain to see. Sex is real. It matters. 

"We all know this. Thousands of us have fought to raise awareness about the harm gender ideology is causing to vulnerable children."

Transgender Trend said: "Safeguarding is key to getting the trans guidance right. Kit Malthouse must start from this premise.

"We’d ask him to really engage with the Cass Review which is currently looking at gender healthcare for young people."

They went on to say: "Suggesting that a boy who feels he is a girl uses girls’ facilities is not safe.

"The same applies to 'gender-neutral toilets'. These are in fact mixed sex and do not meet basic safeguarding standards for that reason."

Liz Truss on single sex toilets in schools

However, a senior government source told The Times: "This never used to be such a divisive issue: people just accepted trans people and got on with it.

"It only became an issue once the activists got involved and polarised people. We need to get back to that British fudge that so often works."

They added: "In schools we need to find a compromise that works for all pupils, whether that’s having gender-neutral toilets as well or something else."

The Department for Education previously told schools that gender issues were "complex and sensitive matters to navigate".

They advised teachers not to "reinforce harmful stereotypes, for instance by suggesting that children might be a different gender based on their personality and interests or the clothes they prefer to wear".

The new guidance is not expected to be compulsory.