Statement on the Trans Inclusion Toolkit

Updated: 04 May 2020

Safeguarding children and young people is a critical part of our work.

The Trans Inclusion Toolkit, which was published in November 2019, has been an important part of that work. Created in partnership with multiple stakeholders with safeguarding responsibilities, the Toolkit was designed to help schools support young people who are trans or gender questioning.

The guidance contained in the Toolkit was rooted in the principle of protecting and safeguarding all children and young people. It sought to help schools and colleges become inclusive environments whilst ensuring they were compliant with the relevant law and Department for Education guidance.

However, the guidance in the Trans Inclusion Toolkit will soon be superseded by guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). We anticipate that the EHRC will provide UK-wide information and resources to support trans and gender-questioning young people.

As we will be adopting this new national guidance, we have taken the decision to withdraw our Toolkit and to withdraw from the judicial review of the toolkit that was due to be held in the coming months.

The coronavirus pandemic means we are currently facing huge demands on our vital frontline services. During this period of crisis, the resources of Oxfordshire’s multi-agency safeguarding partnership need to be devoted to protecting the most vulnerable children. To have continued with the court case at this time would have diverted valuable resources away from this urgent work.

Although we have taken the decision to withdraw the Toolkit, we will continue to prioritise support for young people and schools in dealing with the safeguarding concerns which our guidance originally sought to address.

We are very much aware of the challenges faced by young people who feel they are not the gender they were assigned at birth. We will do our utmost to safeguard these potentially vulnerable young people and help the schools who support them as part of our critical safeguarding work.