We all know the price of progress

Vigilance, right?

There’s a murder trial going on in Manchester.

Over the past few weeks the jury have heard from witnesses and seen footage of a 16 year old girl leaving her home for the last time, and catching a bus to the park where she was killed.

Brianna Ghey was transgender, and the trial of those accused of her murder is the backdrop as the Government yesterday published new draft guidance for schools on ‘Gender Questioning Children’.

That guidance - which is out for consultation - at no point provides guidance for schools and colleges on how to support or ensure the safety of transgender pupils.

Instead, it calls gender identity - the idea that people can have a gender they define themselves - a ‘contested belief’, while saying schools have no ‘general duty’ to allow social transitioning (including the use of different pronouns, or changes to uniform), and emphasises the impact on other pupils and staff.

It muddies the water with talk of influence from social media, the pressure of gender stereotypes and invoking SEND provision. It then talks about the religious beliefs of other pupils and staff, and how those need to be respected.

It notes that those under the age of 18 cannot legally change their sex, which is true, and is the reason Brianna Ghey’s death certificate likely misgenders her.

Whenever issues involving trans people are in the news, I feel compelled to remind people that we’re talking about 0.5% of the population, and a group where - according to Stonewall research from 2018 - two in five have experienced a hate crime, one in four have experienced homelessness and 28% have experienced domestic abuse.

It’s a vulnerable 0.5% of the population, but that’s the overall average. For those aged 16-24 it’s 1%, or probably about one or two people in each averaged-sized sixth form.

I did almost all my schooling under Section 28, as it came in in 1988 and wasn’t repealed in England until 2003.

You cannot look at that chart and not see the legacy of silence and prejudice.

You cannot tell me that those bigger bars for younger age groups are anything other than the result of tolerance and acceptance.

You cannot tell me that the “significant increase in the number of children questioning the way they feel about being a boy or a girl” talked about by two government ministers in the foreword of the new guidance is because there are suddenly more people grappling with these issues.

We’re seeing an increase because young people - who would be grappling with complex issues and feelings around their gender regardless - look around, see others like them and feel able to ask questions rather than go through it alone.

There’s enough hate in the world. Enough pushing people into boxes they don’t need to be in.

How about we just have compassion instead?

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Where do young people feel safe?

Not completely unrelated to the above, the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office commissioned some research on where in the region young people feel safe, which was run by Connected Voice.

Speaking to more than 300 young Northumbrians, they found concern about a number of different public settings - parks, buses, metros - as well as saying they felt unsafe at school.

The report makes a number of recommendations for improvement, including accessible community venues, building trust with police, and better surveillance of public transport and other public spaces.

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Suicide and drugs

There were a handful of cheerful updates from the ONS this week.

The first contained suicide figures for the English regions, which showed the North East once again with the highest suicide rate in the country - 12.8 per 100,000.

There's a clear North-South divide there, or a North plus South West and Wales divide anyway.

Something similar exists in the figures for drug poisoning.

The North East’s 133.9 deaths per million is the highest in the country, which has been the region's rank for ten years.

There are some interesting snippets in the main report - while opiates are still the most commonly mentioned drug in death records, cocaine has increased sevenfold since 2011.

The average number of drugs mentioned per death has risen to 2.0, whereas between 1993 and 2011 it was either 1.4 or 1.5.

Two complex problems, which appear to be becoming more complex.

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What I’ve been enjoying this week

• Mary Earps winning Sports Personality of the Year.

• Nick Cave's performance of Rainy Night in Soho at Shane MacGowan’s funeral.

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What’s coming up in the next week or so?

• Reaction to this morning's inflation figure

• House Price Index a bit later this morning

• Retail sales for November are on Friday

• Parliament is in recess until 8th January

• IT'S CHRISTMAS!

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Working with me

I’m working to the end of the week, then off through Christmas and the first week of January - I might do a quick newsletter note next week, we'll see.

Drop me message if you want to chat about anything you're working on in 2024.

You can find out more about me on my website.

You can email me on worroom@substack.com or arlen@arlenpettitt.co.uk

I’m @arlenpettitt on Twitter, and you’ll find me on LinkedIn and on Bluesky too.