Teachers MUST allow children to choose their own gender under Labour's trans guidance

Schools are instructed to take account of any clinical advice received by the family and to involve parents unless there is a genuine safeguarding reason not to do so.

Under the new framework, pupils’ preferred pronouns should be respected in the classroom.

However, children over the age of eight will still be required to use toilets and changing facilities that correspond to their biological sex, with single-sex spaces, including on overnight residential trips, remaining in place.

The guidance emphasises that no child should be made to feel “unsafe” through mixed-sex sports, toilets, changing rooms or dormitories.

Labour's new framework has the backing of Baroness Cass, whose landmark review in 2024 warned against rushing children who believe they are transgender into treatment they may later regret.

Dr Cass recommended that families should be able to access medical professionals swiftly where a primary school child wishes to socially transition, and concluded that under-25s should receive “unhurried, holistic, therapeutic support”, with “life-changing” decisions properly considered in adulthood.

She said children’s safeguarding must remain at the centre of decision-making and welcomed the new guidance for providing “proper accountability” for teachers.

“The updated guidance is practical and reflects the recommendations of my review, giving schools much-needed clarity on their legal duties so they can support children with confidence.”

Ms Phillipson defended the measures, saying: “Parents send their children to school and college trusting that they’ll be protected. Teachers work tirelessly to keep them safe. That’s not negotiable, and it’s not a political football.

“That’s why we’re following the evidence, including Dr Hilary Cass’s expert review, to give teachers the clarity they need to ensure the safeguarding and wellbeing of gender-questioning children and young people.

“This is about pragmatic support for teachers, reassurance for parents, and above all, the safety and well-being of children and young people.”

Sex Matters, the women’s rights campaign group, said the proposals risked putting children in harm’s way. Maya Forstater, the organisation’s chief executive, said allowing social transition in schools amounted to encouraging “a dangerous fairy tale”.

“Schools are still being left with the idea that they can facilitate ‘social transition’ – which remains undefined – and that they should negotiate this on a case-by-case basis,” she said.

“They are being encouraged to think that children have a ‘birth sex’ as well as some other concept of sex. This has no basis in law or reality and undermines safeguarding.

“It should be clear by now that allowing children and parents to think that a child who starts their education as a girl can graduate as a boy or vice versa is a dangerous fairy tale," Ms Forstater said.

However, she added that Sex Matters welcomed the "long-awaited guidance for schools on ‘gender-questioning children’ has been integrated into the statutory safeguarding framework.

"This is the right way to think about how to ensure the safeguarding and well-being of all children and young people in school.

“Putting this guidance into the statutory framework makes clear that schools have the same legal duties towards all children, and it ensures that the guidance can be updated.

“The guidance gives non-negotiable red lines for every school and every child: schools must know, record and be able to refer to each child’s sex, and must not allow any child to use opposite-sex toilets, changing rooms or dormitories on school trips.”

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