Sex Matters, Girlguiding, and the Girls Being Left at the Door
Girlguiding was founded in 1909 when girls demanded the right to join in. So why is it now being used to decide that some girls do not qualify?
There is something deeply uncomfortable about watching an organisation that was built on the radical idea that girls deserve equal opportunity being used to argue that some girls simply do not qualify. Sex Matters has been vocal, persistent, and strategic in its campaign to exclude trans girls from spaces like Girlguiding UK, and what troubles me most is not just what they are arguing, but the language they are using to do it. They frame exclusion as protection. They invoke girls’ happiness, girls’ safety, and girls’ sense of belonging to justify policies that actively harm girls, just not the girls they have chosen to count.
The History They Would Rather You Forgot
In 1909, a group of girls turned up to the first Scout rally at Crystal Palace, dressed in homemade Scout uniforms, and refused to leave. They had not been invited. They had not been included. They came anyway, because they believed they deserved to be there. Robert Baden-Powell eventually responded by creating the Girl Guides, and that founding story, girls pushing back against a boys-only world to claim their place, is not just historical trivia. It is the very DNA of the organisation.
Girlguiding was born from the refusal to accept that gender should be a barrier to adventure, friendship, and belonging. It was created because girls said: we are here, we matter, and we will not be left out.
Forgive me if I find it more than a little ironic that this same organisation is now being called upon to do exactly what its founders pushed back against. The difference is that now, the girls being left at the door are trans girls.
Whose Happiness Are We Really Talking About?
Sex Matters wants us to believe that this is about protecting girls, about preserving safe spaces, about ensuring that all girls feel comfortable. I want to take that argument seriously for a moment, because it deserves a careful and honest response.
The trans girls who want to attend Guides, earn their badges, go camping, build friendships, and develop their courage and curiosity are doing exactly what Girlguiding exists for. They are not a threat to that experience. They are part of it. The evidence does not support the idea that including trans girls harms other girls. What the evidence does tell us, consistently and clearly, is that excluding trans young people causes profound harm to those young people.
So when we talk about happiness, I need us to sit with that for a moment. Whose happiness is actually being prioritised here? The girls who are already inside, whose experience of Guides is not in any meaningful way changed by a trans girl earning her badge alongside them? Or the trans girls who are being told, at an age when belonging matters more than almost anything, that they do not count?
A Message to You, If You Are Reading This
If you are a trans girl, a trans teenager, or a young trans person who has been made to feel unwelcome, I want to speak to you directly for a moment.
What is happening right now is not a reflection of your worth. It is not evidence that you do not belong. It is the last loud gasp of a very small group of people who are frightened of a world that is bigger and more beautiful than they are willing to imagine. They do not speak for most people. They do not speak for the values that most of us hold about kindness, inclusion, and the simple human need to find your people and feel at home.
You are real. Your girlhood is real. Your desire for friendship, for adventure, for a community that sees you and celebrates you is as valid as anyone else’s. The world is changing, even when it feels impossibly slow. There are people in every corner of it who are fighting for you, who believe in you, and who will not stop.
You deserve a Brownie pack. You deserve a camping trip. You deserve a badge for something you worked hard at. You deserve every single thing that every other girl deserves, without condition and without apology.
What We Should Be Saying to Girlguiding
Girlguiding UK has, at various points, tried to be inclusive. It has policies that attempt to navigate this space, and I am not here to say that Girlguiding is the enemy. What I am saying is that now, more than ever, is the time for organisations like this one to stand clearly on the side of all the girls they serve.
When external groups apply pressure, when campaigns are run to roll back inclusion, the response matters. Silence reads as acquiescence. A quiet retreat from inclusive policy, dressed up in careful language about reviewing guidance, tells every trans girl in your packs exactly where she stands.
Girlguiding was founded by girls who would not be silent. Girls who showed up when they were not wanted and demanded to be counted. You can honour that legacy, or you can betray it. There is no neutral ground here.
Stand up for all your girls. All of them.
Share This
If this matters to you, please share it. Let the people around you know that this conversation is happening, and that there are voices pushing back. Every share, every comment, every quiet conversation at a school gate or in a staffroom is part of how we change things.
Dr Helen Webberley
Gender Specialist and Medical Educator
www.helenwebberley.com