In Absentia Parentis – a Summary of the report and EBSWA Comment

From the foreword by Nimco Ali OBE, CEO of the Five Foundation and former Independent Government Advisor for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls:

"the state is once again failing, this time some of the most vulnerable children in its care: gender questioning children. These young people have no parents or family members to act as their advocates…………. in too many cases, the systems meant to safeguard them have been infiltrated by individuals and organisations projecting their own ideological views about gender and identity onto children, without adequate checks, evidence-based guidance, or the presence of strong and independent safeguarding voices.

There is nothing progressive about allowing vulnerable children to embark on life-altering changes without robust safeguards and without ensuring they truly understand what those changes mean."

The preface to the report discusses why Social Workers might find it hard to say no to children in care of the local authority when they have already suffered so much trauma “It is easy to see why instant unquestioning affirmation of gender identities and transition looks and feels to many to be a kind and responsive model of practice.”  The report references the Cass Review and why what may seem kind in the short term may not be kind in the long term and that gender transition, including social transition has serious ramifications on physical and mental health.

The Study:

In August 2024 Policy Exchange sent out Freedom of Information Requests to 129 county councils, unitary authorities, and London boroughs “every Local Authority with care responsibilities”.  This appears to only refer to England although there are 153 Director’s of Children’s Services in England.

128 authorities gave full or partial responses:

Questions Sent:

1. Information relating to the total number of Looked After Children in your care

2. Information relating to the number of Looked After Children in your care currently who have expressed that they may be a different gender to their sex or expressed a wish to change their gender. I would like to know:

a. The total number of such children – only 47 LAs were able to provide answers to this question.  6 said none, 14 gave exact numbers adding to a total of 48 in those 14 authorities.  Others did not report specific numbers eg reporting less than 5; 18 reported fewer than 5, 1 reported fewer than 10, 2 reported fewer than 3.  From the numbers given this indicates a range from 68-131 gender questioning children in care in those 47 authorities.

In addition, if you can provide the information below without identifying children, I would also like to know:

b. The number of such children aged 10 and under

c. The number of such children who are:

i. Biologically male; i.e. their sex at birth was male

ii. Biologically female; i.e. their sex at birth was female

3. Information relating to the number of Looked After Children in your care who have been referred to an NHS Service in the last 48 months due to their expression of gender dysphoria, gender incongruence, or the belief that their gender identity is different to their sex.

4. Documents relating to any training or resources you have used from an external provider (charity or commercial organisation) on gender identity, sex and sexuality, or transition in the last 48 months.

5 Local Authorities had used Mermaids as a training provider; the Charity Commission opened a compliance case into Mermaids in 2022.  Mermaids had been providing breast binders to children as young as 13 without their parents’ knowledge.  Breast binders are known to cause serious health issues which are listed in the report so this was a serious safeguarding concern.

6 LAs had purchased services from Gendered Intelligence – they also give guidance that is not in line with the Equality Act.

“Councils should not be relying on charities with an activist agenda to instruct them on how to support gender questioning children in their care. Instead, their training should be focused on their legal safeguarding responsibilities and research such as The Cass Review. These training sessions are neither good value for money, nor safe and responsible. Politicised charities cannot be relied on to establish best practice for supporting children experiencing gender distress.”

1. If training has been provided, please provide details of the organisations who provided the training, the date, and the cost to the Local Authority.

5. A copy of all your policies relating to transgender or gender questioning Looked After Children.

81 Local Authorities were unable to provide any policies.  Of the LAs who provided this information for many it was limited to a section on ‘gender identity’ within other documents which appeared to have been copied from the same source.  This short section does not refer to The Cass review or the need for a cautious approach to transition (which is included in government guidance Keeping Safe in Education 2024).

Only 2 LAs mentioned The Cass Review.

The report looks in detail at some issues with policies provided by other LAs and highlights Safeguarding issues in them.

6. Who, if anyone, would the local authority consult before allowing a Looked After Child to socially transition (i.e. identify as a different gender to their sex). Please name all relevant roles.

7. Whether you are a member of any Stonewall schemed including their “Diversity Champion” scheme

17 Local Authorities were members, the report highlights one of the issues with this being that Stonewall encouraged members to adopt policies that were not in line with the Equality Act 2010, were critical of the Cass Review and of the government’s evidence based ban on puberty blockers.

a. Whether you have been a member of any Stonewall schemes in the last 48 months.

b. Any application you have made to Stonewall to be a “Stonewall Diversity Champion” or to be included on Stonewall’s “Workplace Equality Index”

The report also refers to the guidance from CAFCASS published in 2023 which takes a pro-affirmation approach:

“gender/gender expansive people (as well as LGB people) have existed since time immemorial. Therefore, any perception that being transgender/ gender expansive is a social construct or a new phenomenon is factually incorrect. Gender expansive children have existed in all times and all cultures of which records remain.”

The guidance advices practitioners to ‘ask what name and pronoun you should use to address the child’. There are repeated references in the document to the fact that involving or informing a child’s parents about their gender identity may be inappropriate. Activist organisations, including Stonewall, Mermaids and GIRES, are all given as signposted resources at the end of the guidance.

EBSWA Comment

This report gives us a good starting point in terms of the information we need; most Local Authorities are not collecting data on how many children in care are questioning their gender, many of them don’t have specific policies on working with these children and others have policies which “rely on vague, activist-derived language that fail to reflect legal duties or clinical standards”.

The report found that some Local Authorities are “being influenced by external organizations like Stonewall, Mermaids, and Gendered Intelligence, without any consistent framework to ensure their safety and long-term wellbeing.”

 Social workers don’t only work with children, we also work with vulnerable adults (with disabilities, mental health issues, the elderly, survivors of domestic violence) and not all the children we work with are children in care.  I work with teenagers, some of the cohort we work with are homeless 16 & 17 year olds, some of whom have identified as trans and this may have been a factor in the breakdown of relationships at home.  There are also other factors relating to the interplay between gender identity and safeguarding children in care which haven’t been covered in this report, at EBSWA we feel there are more questions to be answered:

Are there transgender foster carers and how is their sex recorded? 

Are there clear policies and guidance regarding their assessment and the placement of children with them? (eg declaring their past names and gender for the purpose of DBS checks and safeguarding children).

Was disagreement over gender identity a contributing factor in decisions made about a child no longer living with their parents?

How are Local Authorities recording sex and gender identity (when relevant); do they have options for recording both?

Do your policies and guidance refer to The Cass review?

The Policy Exchange Report only covers Children in Care in England; we need to ask the same questions to Children’s Services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland too.  And what about vulnerable adults?  Following on from the Cass Review into gender identity services a review chaired by Dr David Levy into adult gender services is underway. 

The evidence base for medical transition is weak, studies are poor quality and the only study into the long term outcomes was carried out in Sweden and shows an increased rate of suicide in adults who underwent gender transition.  This has implications for Social Workers working in Mental Health services and Social Workers working with vulnerable adults as well as those working with children. There are vulnerable adults who are vocal about the harm done to them by being affirmed by mental health professionals and led down a path of medical transition. One man who speaks out about this is Ritchie Herron who had OCD, depression and anxiety and developed an obsession that he was transgender; Ritchie has done many interviews (eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSYL7eiPM-E) and writes on Substack (https://tullipr.substack.com/).

As Social Workers we are responsible for advocating for the most vulnerable in society and need to keep using our critical thinking skills not blindly accepting the popular narrative that the kind thing to do is accept and affirm everyone who says they are transgender without questioning the long term harms.

Without data we don’t know how many of our vulnerable service users and their families have been affected by a pro-affirmation approach to gender identity by Social Workers, directed by the lack of unbiased policies and guidance from our employers. How many parents have felt Social Workers encouraged them to socially transition their children which later lead their child down a path of medical transition? The Policy Exchange report demonstrates that too few Local Authorities have put any serious thought into the impact of their policies on gender identity, they haven't read the Cass Review, they aren't collecting data and without a push will carry on ignoring the potential harms being caused.