{"id":295496,"date":"2025-12-02T20:48:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T20:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/295496\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T20:48:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T20:48:15","slug":"trans-girls-banned-from-joining-girlguiding-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/295496\/","title":{"rendered":"Trans girls banned from joining Girlguiding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AlamyAlamy<\/p>\n

Girlguiding is responsible for youth girl groups including Brownies and Guides<\/p>\n

The organisation that oversees girl guide groups in the UK has announced it is banning trans girls from joining.<\/p>\n

Girlguiding said the move \u2013 which means it will not accept biological boys who identify as girls – was in response to the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that said sex meant biological sex in equality law.<\/p>\n

The trustees said they had made the “difficult decision” with a “heavy heart” and there would be further announcements on what this will mean for current members.<\/p>\n

Trans rights organisation TransActual said: “There is no problem being solved here, only harm being done.” Women’s rights charity Sex Matters said Girlguiding had done the “right thing” in making the change. <\/p>\n

Around 385,000 girls and young women between the ages of four and 18 take part in Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers groups around the UK.<\/p>\n

Girlguiding said: “From today (2 December) trans girls and young women, and others not recorded female at birth, will no longer be able to join Girlguiding as new young members.”<\/p>\n

Girlguiding said there would be no immediate changes for young members, but more information would be shared next week. <\/p>\n

It is not clear how many people the rule change will directly affect, as the organisation says it does not collect data on gender identity.<\/p>\n

“This is a decision we would have preferred not to make, and we know that this may be upsetting for members of our community,” the trustees said. <\/p>\n

“Girlguiding believes strongly in inclusion, and we will continue to support young people and adults in marginalised groups.”<\/p>\n

In UK law, the 2010 Equality Act sets out the rules for single sex organisations and spaces being able to exclude members of the opposite sex.<\/p>\n

In April, the Supreme Court ruled that this meant biological sex<\/a>, meaning, for example, that a trans man could be excluded from a service set up for men.<\/p>\n

Draft guidelines on how to interpret the law by the equality watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), were presented to the government for consideration in September. A leaked copy was reported on last week, but it has not been officially published.<\/p>\n

Girlguiding said it has made its decision following consultation with members and legal advice. It will now allow only biologically female members to join.<\/p>\n

It said: “Girlguiding’s governing charity documents set out that the membership and people who benefit from our organisation are girls and women.”<\/p>\n

The organisation was reportedly facing legal action from a parent who felt it was failing to follow the law.<\/p>\n

Biological girls who identify as boys are still able to join. <\/p>\n

The organisation also said most adult roles were already open to all and it was “confident that no volunteers will have to leave”. <\/p>\n

Other adult roles are already designated specifically as female roles.<\/p>\n

Reacting to the decision, Sex Matter’s CEO Maya Forstater said Girlguiding had done the “right and only thing for it to do”.<\/p>\n

“Both girls and boys deserve to have opportunities for adventure and learning, and Girlguiding provides an organisation that is just for girls.”<\/p>\n

Tammy Hymas, from trans rights campaigners TransActual, said: “It’s awful that an organisation, which would happily be inclusive and has been for many years, is being forced to exclude young trans girls”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alamy Girlguiding is responsible for youth girl groups including Brownies and Guides The organisation that oversees girl guide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-295496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}