With drawing from Girl Guides

Looking that way SueDonim. Women and girls can have nowhere for themselves now. No safe spaces, no clubs, no hospitals or prisons that are solely for women. Every single area is being commandeered by men who don't always have our wellbeing and safety as their priority.

Don't know Callistemon but the GG Association are "thinking about it". And whilst they're doing that, they've disabled their "contact us" portal on their website. Unless 1000's of alarmed parents crashed it in their stampede to get answers.

The President is Sophie, Countess of Wessex and the Patron is HM Queen Elizabeth.

Now, they are going to be between a rock and a hard place, aren't they

Chief Guide Amanda Medler:
www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/girlguiding-appoints-first-chief-guide-since-changing-role.html
CEO Angela Salt:
www.girlguiding.org.uk/what-we-do/our-stories-and-news/news/welcome-our-new-ceo-angela-salt-obe/
Link for email at the bottom of the page.
Plus a Board of Trustees.

I suppose they’re handy to use as balloons, Chewbacca. ?

Seriously, I can’t help wondering if this is some sort of plot to bring down girl guiding altogether, eliminating anywhere we dangerous girls and women can congregate.

Who is in charge?
Who made the decision?
Who even began to think that this was a good idea?

V3ra, I agree a female teacher should not be watching girls shower. My post was not intended to cause trouble - I was perhaps over sensitive! My mum was also a Guide Captain for many years , prior to that she was a Ranger and I have the certificate she was given when she joined. My mother was born in 1911 so was a Girl Guide in the early years , at a time when girls would not normally be allowed to be under canvas!! She loved it and in later years she enjoyed being a member of the Trefoil Guild. Her love of guiding was passed to me and my sister. If she were here today reading what has happened in the Guide Association she would be horrified. As indeed am I!

And she's been proven right hasn't she Callistemon. The original ethos of GG has been obliterated by those who have a completely different agenda for what the movement is/was about. I'm hoping that the national press get hold of the story in the coming days.

Chewbacca anything less like a Girl Guide leader than in the photo you posted I have yet to see.

Here is what Helen Watts said and, presumably, why she was sacked:
fairplayforwomen.com/helen-watts/
Common sense, safety of girls sacrificed on the altar of the self-identifying transgender rights movement.

Who knew that girls as young as 13 could be supplied with condoms by GG, without their parents knowledge, SueDonim? Gives a whole new meaning to their motto "Be Prepared".

Someone is also pondering on the need for GG leaders to supply barrier methods of contraception on an all-girls residential trip.

You're not wrong SueDonim, There are a lot of parents contacting GG HQ to demand answers. As one poster said on MN, everyone is entitled to a private sex life but the fact that MS made their sex life public, by uploading dominatrix photos to Instagram, has made it open for public scrutiny. To also pose for selfies with guns just beggars belief and makes me question the GG safeguarding procedure.

My DGD, now 19, joined the Scouts on leaving the Brownies (she thought the Guides were 'too girly). For six years she has been a Cub leader, now fully qualified. I haven't asked her about washing and lavatory facilities at camp, but I'm sure she will have interesting observations to make. She's a fearless character so no doubt will make her opinions known.

There are some very unhappy parents - I assume mostly mums - talking about this on Mumsnet.

Quite apart from the issue of the dominatrix Guide leader with dubious connections, and the potential for embarrassment, indignity and coercion from penis-owning girl guides, is the more traditional consequence of girls and boys finding a way to be together overnight without adult supervision. None of this is likely to meet with the approval of very many parents, surely?

You couldn't make it up, really.

The world has gone mad.

Scouts being already set up as mixed-sex doesn't mean they will be any better.

I'm pretty sure the separate 'single-sex' sleeping and washing facilities at camp will be open to whoever chooses to identify as a girl or a boy.

I would have first asked the question of why the job wasn’t given to a woman, but I’d have been under attack, and it wasn’t my major concern.

Incidentally my Mum was a Guide Captain for many years. I can only imagine what she would have to say about the original post ?

Shelflife I'm not suggesting anything.
I'm describing how my daughter and her friends were uncomfortable with the situation they were put in every week, and how she told me they managed it.
No adult should think it's ok to make children feel uncomfortable, or tell them they shouldn't feel that way, whoever they are.
And as I wouldn't have watched my teenage daughter in the shower, why should another adult expect to? And why should I have been expected to not mind?

Coast path, please don’t apologise, I don’t see your post in any way as ignorant.
I wasn’t a Guide though two close friends were. Their experience mirrors yours.
My daughters were Brownies but didn’t stay in Guides. We still meet Brown and Snowy Owls, 30 years later when shopping or walking locally. Brownies was a huge and positive experience. Brownie camp their first time away from home aged 6 - 7. The nonsensical ideas that we are somehow expected to accept now would have prevented me allowing my girls to be in these youth groups

I know nothing about transwomen and so would not normally post on these threads.

I felt compelled to comment here though as Girl Guiding was transformative in my life. I came from a background where there were domineering and bullying men and the heaven of the all female environment of guiding freed me and gave me a safe place. The incredible women who were leaders made anything seem possible and gave me the confidence to go out into the world as my own person.

The Guiders I encountered were exceptional women. Strong, sensible, caring women who saw the power in other women and girls and freed it. I suppose they were feminists although they would never have said that. I imagine they area all dead now, but what they would have thought of guide leaders who publicly pose with whips and guns - whatever their gender/sex - I dread to think.

Apologies for my ignorance. I just had to express my shock at this.

At what point will this playing Russian roulette with girl's safety end? When will "lessons be learned"?

Shelflife

I digress now from the OP. V3ra you infer that because the teacher who happened to be gay she was also had a sexual interest in the girls! " The female games teacher ,who was openly gay, watched" What are you suggesting?

Lesbians are no more likely to be sexual predators than heterosexual women. I’ve never been happy with games teachers ‘watching’ ie supervising, ensuring that girls or boys run through the showers. Does it really matter if the youngsters avoid this?

I digress now from the OP. V3ra you infer that because the teacher who happened to be gay she was also had a sexual interest in the girls! " The female games teacher ,who was openly gay, watched" What are you suggesting?

Chewbacca

So he's not only posed with guns and whips but is also involved with another transman, (Aimee Challenor), who is in famous for trying to get their father involved in the Green Party campaign, even though he'd been charged with 22 offences for crimes including the rape and torture of a 10-year-old girl? FFS.

"Someone" will be along shortly to tell us our fears for young girls is transphobia.

What is this individual doing in Girl Guides?
There’s ample research about the way predatory individuals find their way into organisations that give them access to children.
No I’m not saying all trans people are predatory. I’m saying some people, usually men, are and that they pose a risk to children/adolescents.

When my daughter was at high school I was naming her uniform and said I should name her bras as I knew they had a shower after games. No need apparently.
She said you don't think we take anything off do you? They just ran through the showers, wrapped in a towel, while the female games teacher, who was openly gay, watched.