Girl Guides once provided a safe space to explore being a woman – so what is its purpose now?

Turning a female-only organisation into a mixed-sex one – by adopting new rules on the inclusion of trans women and girls – will, by definition, introduce risks to young women

Girl Guides has changed its official guidance on trans inclusion, angering some parents (PA)

In 1909, 11,000 Boy Scouts gathered at Crystal Palace for Britain’s first jamboree. And among them, illicitly, was a small group of girls. Barred from membership because of their sex, they rustled up some makeshift uniforms and smuggled themselves in with the crowd.

“We were laughed at, we were whistled at, there were catcalls, but we didn’t mind,” remembered one of the girls, seven decades later. “We were there and we were part of the show.” Baden-Powell was outraged when he spotted them – but after talking, he left them with a promise to think about incorporating girls into the Scouting movement.

The result was the Girl Guides, which ran from 1910 to 2017 as a single-sex organisation. It’s been criticised for reinforcing stereotypes (certainly, I was uninspired by arranging biscuits for my Hostess Badge as a Brownie in the 1980s). And in 2007, all sections of the Scouts were finally opened to girls.

So why the need for the Guides at all?

While the Scouts is now mixed sex, it’s still male-led: there’s a glass ceiling when it comes to Scouting management. For the girls themselves, just being in a female-only organisation can be of benefit. “It is nice just being yourself and not needing to worry about boys,” said one Guide, when the girls-only policy was challenged in 2012.

The Guides has been stalwart in putting girls first, campaigning against gender stereotyping and raising awareness on girls’ mental health. But in 2017, a new policy on trans inclusion, developed with advice from the LGBTQ charity Stonewall, declared that anyone who identifies as female can take up any role within Guiding, from the Rainbows up to leadership.

Girlguiding leaders are now told to make the privacy of transwomen and transgirls a priority: “It is not a requirement – or best practice – to tell parents that a trans person, including those who are pre-operative, will be attending a residential event,” says the guidance on supporting trans members.

This means that Girlguiding has become, with one stroke, mixed sex.

Some members are, understandably, not happy with this fundamental change to the organisation. A group of parents and volunteers wrote a letter to the Sunday Times protesting that the policy “poses safeguarding risks, reinforces gender stereotypes and denies informed parental consent”. Two of the leaders who signed the letter have been expelled from the Guides – and their units closed down, since there is no one else available to run them.

Girlguiding has defended its policy, stating that “simply being transgender does not make someone more of a safeguarding risk than any other person”. This is true – but it is not the point.

Being trans does not make someone a risk, but being born male does. In 99 per cent of rapes and sexual assaults, the perpetrator is male. Turning a female-only organisation into a mixed-sex one will, by definition, introduce safeguarding risks.

Trans activists claim that being trans is so difficult and painful, no one would ever fake it. But that is simply, and obviously, untrue. To accept that should not, and does not, undermine those experiences that trans people report.

When self-identification is the standard, all you have to do to “identify” as a girl or woman is say that you are one. No physical operation, hormones or even professional psychological diagnosis is required. If that sounds like an easy system to game – well, it is.

Marie Dean, convicted as a man for burglary and voyeurism offences (breaking into teenage girls’ rooms and dressing in their clothes), identified as a woman while incarcerated and lobbied for transfer to a women’s prison. The request was denied. Rapist Karen White’s request, however, was successful: White, who retained a penis and testicles, sexually assaulted four female inmates.

Everything we know about sexual violence says we should treat males seeking access to female-only groups with extreme caution. We know that male children are a danger to female children: about a third of girls have been sexually harassed in school; about a quarter have been subjected to unwanted sexual touching. We know that abusers seek out positions of trust, which offer both alibi (they are a pillar of the community!) and access to victims. David Challenor, for example, who tortured and raped a 10-year-old girl, was a Scout leader.

As a single-sex organisation, the Guides had a defining purpose. As a mixed-sex one, it has no need to exist alongside the Scouts. It no longer offers a female-only environment where girls can thrive. It can no longer challenge stereotypes: just watch the CBBC documentary I Am Leo to see how, under the doctrine of gender identity, being a girl becomes a matter of having long hair and liking the colour pink.

Just over a century after those young girls at a Scouting jamboree refused to conform to their gender and claimed the right to a movement of their own: Girlguiding has given up on girls.