Girlguiding has announced today (2nd December 2025) that it has chosen to ban transgender children from its various organisations.
The announcement, posted on their website, claims that this choice comes following April's UK Supreme Court ruling that under the Equality Act 2010 the term 'woman' means 'biological sex', and that trans women should not be considered women. The group, which has been open to and inclusive to trans and nonbinary children for several years, had previously said that they would stand by that policy, but has now chosen to reverse this stance.
The statement makes no mention of the threats from 'concerned parents' that were featured in the press earlier this year following the UK Supreme Court ruling. This unidentified parent, who I personally doubt has any actual relationship to Girlguiding and is simply an angry bigot, spoke to The Times in November, saying that they had written to Girlguiding threatening legal action if they did not ban trans children. They claimed that simply allowing trans children to exist around cisgender children was 'harassment' that violated their dignity and 'creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, or offensive environment'. They also made heavy implications that allowing trans girls to attend Girlguiding meetings would be somehow unsafe for cisgender girls by the inclusion of trans children. Despite not mentioning this bad press, and threats of legal action the timing of the decision from Girlguiding feels awfully convenient and are surely unconnected, especially with billionaire bigot J.K. Rowling financing legal cases against trans people and trans inclusion.
Despite the mention of the Supreme Court ruling in their statement as the main reason for them making this choice it should be noted that there is no law or legislation saying that Girlguiding, or any organisation, must ban trans people following the decision. Despite this, Girlguiding is one of dozens of organisations and businesses who have jumped at the chance to ban trans people in some form. Others, whilst not outwardly banning trans people have instead chosen to enact a form of segregation, such as transgender people being forced into a separate space; a separate space that they reassure us will be equal.
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| 'Guide with Pride' was perhaps a bit of a huge fucking lie. |
Girlguiding say that this decision, which no one forced them to make, comes with a heavy heart. They also say that despite deciding that only some children are worthy of inclusion in their group they're 'committed to treating everyone with dignity and respect, particularly those from marginalised groups'. It would appear that their statement is missing the caveat of 'but only for cisgender people'.
The decision that Girlguiding has made is one of exclusion. It's one that singles out certain types of children as 'others', others that aren't allowed. These are children who don't have a space that they can fall back on. Trans girls do not want to be included in boys groups because they're not boys. They're girls, girls who are just as entitled as any other to be included in girls spaces.
Girlguiding has said that more information will be coming in the next week, and I can only imagine that this will include just how they are going to enforce this ruling. Will it become mandatory for any new member of their groups to undergo physical examination in order to confirm they're 'real girls'? Will any such checks be carried out by medical staff, or will it simply be the people running these meetings asking girls to strip for them? If they have no 'prove you're cis' policy in place and simply accept self identification what will they do if they learn a girl in one of their groups is trans, will she be expelled? What happens when some psychotic bigot parent doesn't like the look of a child and believes they're 'secretly trans' and accuses them of such? Are Girlguiding ready to engage in trans witch hunts as we've seen in other spaces that have tried to implement such bans?
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| Bigots celebrating trans exclusion outside the Supreme Court. |
All of this isn't even taking into account that the excuse they're giving for their choice to be bigoted, the Supreme Court ruling, hasn't even bothered to explain what it means by 'born female'. How is being female determined? Is it by chromosomes? This would be fairly ridiculous as almost no one knows their chromosomes, and there are many women with intersex conditions that do not have the typically expected XX chromosome pairing that are still considered women. Is it the need to have a certain reproductive system? If so, what about women born with vaginal agenesis, missing ovaries, missing wombs, or other non-typical genitalia who are still considered women? The Supreme Court have decided that women means female, yet female is not one thing, it is a cluster categorisation, and by simple definition this means that it cannot be an exclusionary group. It's no wonder every reputable scientific and medical body has condemned this choice.
And now Girlguiding's choice should also be condemned. There is no evidence based reason to ban trans people, let alone trans children. Trans people are not committing assaults or violence at any more of a statistical rat than cis people. Trans people aren't dominating sports or setting records. Trans people are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators, yet they have been made into a monolithic figure of fear, the group upon which all the ills of the world can be placed. Girlguding has made the decision to play along with this. They've decided that some children are a threat, that they must be shunned and excluded. Fuck Girlguiding.
On a personal note, my wife is a volunteer at a Girlguiding group. She was a member as a child, then a young leader, and has found great joy in her time with them, having recently re-joined them. But following this decision she is leaving them. She is attending a meeting tonight, their Christmas party, and it's going to be her last. She is refusing to work with a group that has chosen hate, exclusion, and bigotry over the values of inclusion, dignity, and respect. I doubt that she will be the only person to walk away from the organisation because of this. Girlguiding have made a stupid choice, one that will leave a stain on their reputation for years to come as they walked back on equality.
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