Civil service lawyers accused of trying to scupper trans guidance

Civil service lawyers are accused of trying to scupper Kemi Badenoch’s trans guidance for teachers following a leak

  • DoE’s legal team claimed the new guidance would be overturned in court

Civil service lawyers have been accused of trying to thwart ministers by raising objections to new guidance on transgender pupils.

A leak has revealed the Department for Education’s legal team claimed key parts of the long-awaited document for teachers on ‘gender-questioning children’ would be overturned in court.

They even stated that stopping primary school children from adopting new pronouns had a ‘high risk of successful legal challenge’. 

The clash is the latest in a series between the Whitehall ‘Blob’ and the Government, which has seen frustrated ministers claiming their policies have been blocked by activist civil servants.

Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch, who drove through the new guidance, has previously told how officials tried to stop her banning gender-neutral toilets and advised her against meeting a young woman who regretted transitioning.

Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch, who drove through the new guidance, has previously told how officials tried to stop her banning gender-neutral toilets

Civil service lawyers have been accused of trying to thwart ministers by raising objections to new guidance on transgender pupils

The clash is the latest in a series between the Whitehall ‘Blob’ and the Government, which has seen frustrated ministers claiming their policies have been blocked by activist civil servants

A Government source said: ‘This guidance is legally robust. Yet the very fact that someone, presumably in the Department for Education, has felt the need to leak this legal advice, shows the battle that Kemi Badenoch had to fight to shift the institutional assumptions and get this guidance to where it is today.’

The leaked advice, obtained by Schools Week magazine, tells how Department for Education’s lawyers warned of a ‘high risk of successful legal challenge to position taken on pronouns in primary and compelled speech – whether to the guidance itself or schools who follow it’.

And it raised the question of whether teachers referring to classes as girls or boys could be challenged ‘because use of collective nouns could be indirect discrimination’.

Meanwhile Labour’s education spokesman Bridget Phillipson welcomed the long-awaited guidance.

She said: ‘School leaders have been telling me they wanted to see greater clarity on how they should approach what is a very sensitive and, at times, difficult issue.’

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