Marcial Boo, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s chief executive, revealed that the watchdog had been privately urging the Department for Education (DfE) to “expedite” their new guidance, amid wrangling in Government over how to respond to children seeking to change their gender identity in schools.
Writing to campaigners, Mr Boo also admitted that the EHRC’s own official guidance, in place for almost a decade, had been wrong to tell teachers that they would automatically be guilty of anti-trans discrimination if they referred to a “previously female pupil” as a girl. He said the regulator was urgently correcting “inaccuracies” in its “technical guidance” on the application of the Equality Act in schools.
Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at Sex Matters, said: “When Sex Matters wrote to the EHRC, we argued that a school refusing to refer to a boy as a girl, or a girl as a boy, is not discriminating against a ‘trans child’. In fact it is protecting that child, because biological sex is a crucial factor in safeguarding.”
Source: Guidance for teachers on supporting trans children in schools was wrong, says equalities regulator