The Government’s draft guidance on “gender questioning children” for schools and colleges launched in December 2023. It will affect many trans and nonbinary students in Further Education if it is implemented. You can learn more about it here and sign our petition for a new guidance here. 

The language used in the document, as well as many of its recommendations, have been labelled as “out of touch” and “unworkable” by trans rights organisations such as Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence.  

Several sector bodies and unions have also expressed their concerns about the aplicability of the guide as well as potential legal implications for schools and colleges. Additionally, many charities, human rights organisations and education practitioners have called for the guidance to be scrapped.  

At NUS Liberation we are not aware of any student involvement in creating the guidance, so we gathered trans and nonbinary students’ opinions and experiences to write an official response to it. 5 FE students' unions expressed their concerns and worked with NUS in this process.  

We created a guide for students and apprentices to run their own consultation workshops at their institutions and feedback to us, as well as an online survey. We also ran our own assembly and consultation for FE trans and nonbinary students to make sure we heard as many voices as possible.  

Based on results from 3 consultation workshops and over 50 survey entries from students, we created our official response to the government guidance.  

The government opened an online survey to consult the public about the 20-page guidance with over 40 questions. We aimed to answer most of the questions and cover most of the main topics of the guidance, while also adding those new concerns students raised.  

Most of the survey and workshop participants considered the guidance to not be useful in achieving its aim of giving practical advice to schools and colleges in how to support trans and nonbinary young people.   

Based on their own experiences as trans and nonbinary people, students and apprentices don’t consider the guidance to be beneficial to the wellbeing and dignity of young people and are seriously worried about the consequences its application could bring.  

There is a real risk of this guidance being harmful for the individuals it claims to support. Our students were very clear about the risk of condoning misgendering, deadnaming and other ways of curtailing children's rights to develop and express their identities in a safe environment. 

We urge the government to seriously reconsider the general approach of the guidance, which advises treating pupils as their assigned gender until it causes distress, as it is clearly not prioritising young people's wellbeing.  

It is imperative that young trans and nonbinary experiences and expertise are centered in the design of a new guidance. There are trans rights organisations already working on this, as well as good practice that is already in place in many schools, colleges and universities that has already helped many young people feel safe and welcoming through their education and that should be considered by the government.  

Results in detail

Based on the statements and analysis offered by trans right charities Gendered Intelligence and Mermaids UK, we classified our students’ responses in five main topics: coming out, expressing yourself, facilities and sports, general approach of the guidance and how support should look like. 

Coming out 

The government guidance advises that in order to support those coming out as trans or non-binary, schools should wait for an unspecified period of time, inform parents (unless there's a “significant risk of harm”) and consider other ‘factors’ such as parents’ agreement, age, sexual orientation, neurodiversity, “influence” by peers and social media, as well as unspecified ‘impacts’ on the community.  

To the question, “Based on your experience at primary, secondary or further education, would this advice be helpful to support students coming out as trans?”, trans and nonbinary students overwhelmingly responded negatively:  

Pie chart of the distribution of 53 answers. 

The guidance should offer tools to help schools and colleges understand what individual pupils want and need to feel supported and protected. This is something that changes from case to case and according to our students' and apprentices' experiences, involving parents cand lead to harmful consequences for children when it has not been clearly requested by them. Students and apprentices agreed that telling parents should be discussed with individuals first as many might not be ready to tell their families and could even be potentially harmful and risky when parents are unsupportive. In the words of one of the participants:  

" School was able to be a safe and comfortable space for me when I came out. If they had told my parents, I'd come out at school this would have caused major issues at home."  

In that sense, staff and parents should be supported and guided to know the best way to listen to young people and respect their autonomy. The whole process is also something that makes pupils feel singled out and isolated. 

"If a child believed that it was safe to share their gender identity with their parents, they could do that themself. If a child does not trust their parents enough for that, their parents should not be told." 

Expressing yourself 

Many topics fall under this category, but the most mentioned ones were pronouns, names and uniforms.  

Pronouns: The guidance states that primary aged children should not change their pronouns at school and, even for older pupils, teachers will not be required to use their chosen pronouns.   

Names: Schools and colleges will record a pupil’s legal name and will only change an informal (‘known as’) name after consulting parents.   

Uniform: Students will need parental consent before being allowed uniform changes and schools will not allow trans pupils to wear swimwear consistent with their gender identity.  

Pie chart of the distribution of 45 answers. 

Many of the guidance’s considerations are based on unproved assumptions that a persons' gender identity is a result of external pressures and even that it can have a negative impact on the wider community. As said by a participant,  

"Using delaying tactics and looking for alternate and pseudoscientific explanations such as sexual orientation or ‘peer pressure’ to be trans is ridiculous. It is invalidating people’s identities”. 

The proposed guidance seeks to stop young people from coming out as trans through actively discouraging ‘social transition’ and it strips them of autonomy by requiring teachers to forcibly ‘out’ students as trans to their parents. This approach is considered negative by consulted trans and nonbinary students:  

"It would be highly detrimental to the children as they need to prove their identity to a body that is not willing to understand them".   

In terms of the undetermined "waiting time" before supporting a pupil's transition, students said:  

"You should help trans students immediately, even if they were to realise they weren’t trans after a while, that wouldn’t take away their need for support during the time that they were exploring their gender identity" 

Those aged 16 and over can already change their legal name without parental consent so it should not be any different for their ‘known as’ name at school or college. Using the name that aligns with your identity can have a huge impact on an individual's mental health, just as the opposite case can bring a lot of trauma. As said by one of our participants:  

"In my experience the use of a preferred name made school so much more accessible especially with the inclusion of the register where a student would otherwise be reminded daily of their dead name (which is painful and humiliating Infront of a class of peers)".  

Students also pointed the lack of consistency in the guidance:  

"Forcing students to be their gender assigned at birth while in school but reporting to their parents that they are trans is contradictory". 

Preventing trans students from being themselves may lead them to avoid school or college altogether, depriving them of an education. In our students' experience, "children should use whatever pronouns make them feel comfortable and said pronouns should be respected". 

This approach has a positive impact in mental health and sense of belonging:  

"As a transgender male, my teachers using my preferred name and pronouns has made living in university a lot more comfortable and stress-free than if they didn’t...also makes me feel seen as a member of that community and not outcast".  

The opposite experience can be very detrimental for trans and nonbinary children and the government's guidance can't support this: 

 "The explicit endorsement of refusal to recognise pronouns and anything other than a legal name is harmful to trans students and amounts to state sanctioned bullying and harassment". 

Facilities and sports 

In terms of toilet and changing facilities, as well as sports, the government guidance suggests staff should take the default approach that trans pupils be treated according to their sex assigned at birth, unless it will cause them distress to do so. 

Pie chart of the distribution of 46 answers. 

Forcing trans young people to use separate facilities will further isolate pupils who already experience disproportionate harassment and bullying. According to our students' experiences it can be dangerous to force them to use facilities different from those they identify with as they could experience discrimination and overall feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.  

Many of them have experienced bullying and even assault when they've been forced to use the facilities from their assigned sex and not from the one they identify with. Beyond these dangers, they said "It will always cause a person distress to not use the bathroom that aligns with their gender".  

Many called for more gender-neutral bathrooms and for avoiding just using the accessible toilet for this as it's not appropriate. 

Forcing trans young people to use separate facilities will further isolate pupils who already experience disproportionate harassment and bullying. Equally, for many trans young people, being told they cannot play in sports teams consistent with their gender identity will be an effective ban on participation.  

Many of our students pointed out that all of our houses already have gender neutral facilities, and many colleges also have them, whether that be a disabled toilet or staff facilities, and that’s never been a problem for anyone.  

In terms of sports clothes and uniforms, preventing trans students from being themselves may lead them to avoid school or college altogether, depriving them of an education. A trans young person’s name, pronouns and clothing are their choice and that must be respected.   

Forcing trans kids to wear clothes based on their assigned birth gender can cause dysphoria which can be mentally and sometimes even physically damaging.  

School uniform gives a sense of unity to students who feel alienated from the community otherwise, it would be harmful to deny them access to a uniform that not only affirms their gender but also their sense of belonging to the school.  

Children should be able to make choices about what they want to wear and be called in school without the consultation of parents first. 

General Approach 

There is not a transparent rendition of the sources consulted to create the guidance and certainly no evidence of any consideration or involvement of pupils or college staff in it. Any report or guidance should have a clear reference to the sources and methods used to back its allegations. The lack of adequate references, sources and further reading or resources makes it hard to take the guidance seriously. 

The guidance says that trans pupils must be excluded in these many but is unclear about how this interacts with schools’ and colleges’ Equality Act obligations, how alternatives will be provided for students who are excluded, or what staff who are unable to provide alternatives are expected to do. The refusal to allow them to express themselves in a way that corresponds with their identity is likely to result in trans students simply refusing to participate in their education. It invalidates trans identity. It’s their bodies, not their parents. 

There is a real risk of this guidance being harmful for the individuals it claims to support. Our students were very clear about the risk of condoning misgendering, deadnaming and other ways of curtailing children's rights to develop their identities in a safe environment. Many felt this could bring a real threat of harassment and assault, as well as a negative impact on mental health that could even increase the risk of suicide.   

What support should look like 

The main problem with this out of touch approach is the fact that no lived experience was included in the design of the guidance and no advice on how to include trans and nonbinary students is given.  

Trans and nonbinary students that have lived many of these experiences themselves were generally negative towards the guide:  

"All the guidance that was outlined in this survey has felt callous, insulting, and designed to maximise harm to trans students in the hopes of intimidating them back into the closet" .  

As mentioned, they consider there is a real risk of this guidance bringing more harm than good is it's not seriously redesigned to include trans and nonbinary experiences: 

“All teachers and staff and counsellors need training from trans people and trans-first training to help them help kids. Everyone from my school knows a trans kid who was bullied to death or took their own life due to lack of acceptance. These deaths were preventable and have prevented beautiful people from flourishing and being given a chance to live. Trans education is necessary and needs to be led by trans people." 

We urge the government to seriously reconsider the general approach of the guidance, which advises treating pupils as their assigned gender until it causes distress, as it is clearly not prioritising young people's wellbeing.  

It is imperative that young trans and nonbinary experiences and expertise are centered in the design of a new guidance. There are trans rights organisations already working on this, as well as good practice that is already in place in many schools, colleges and universities that has already helped many young people feel safe and welcoming through their education and that should be considered by the government.