Supporting transgender pupils in schools: guidance for education authorities and schools – revised

Policy, legislation and further information

In this section:

• Education policy and approach
• Legislation
• Puberty and gender identity health services
• Additional resources

This section sets out the policy and legislative context for supporting transgender young people in schools. The section also provides further information, including on how puberty might affect a transgender young person. It also suggests some useful educational resources, books and sources of further information.

Education policy and approach

The following policy and legislative context provides the framework for supporting transgender young people in schools.

Education policy and approaches are designed to allow teachers to use their professional judgement to establish the content, context and manner in which they are carried out. If the words 'trans' or 'transgender' are not specifically mentioned in policy, it does not mean they should be excluded from your approach or from the curriculum.

Curriculum for Excellence

Scotland’s Curriculum - Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) - aims for children and young people to be confident individuals, effective contributors, responsible citizens and successful learners.

Under 'Health and Wellbeing' responsibilities for all, 'Children and young people should feel happy, safe, respected and included in the school environment and all staff should be proactive in promoting positive behaviour in the classroom, playground and the wider school community'. For transgender young people to feel happy, safe, respected and included, their identities need to be positively included in the learning environment, and they need to feel confident that they can talk to school staff.

Under 'Responsibilities for All' children and young people should, amongst other things:

• develop my self-awareness, self-worth and respect for others
• understand and develop my physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing and social skills
• understand that adults in my school community have a responsibility to look after me, listen to my concerns and involve others where necessary
• learn about where to find help and resources to inform choices
• reflect on my strengths and skills to help me make informed choices when planning my next steps
• acknowledge diversity and understand that it is everyone's responsibility to challenge discrimination.

CfE experiences and outcomes under Health and Wellbeing^[82] cover respect, healthy

relationships and personal development. There are opportunities in other curriculum areas too, including social studies^[83]:

• ‘I can gather and use information about forms of discrimination against people in societies and consider the impact this has on people's lives.' SOC 2-16b
• ‘I can discuss issues of the diversity of cultures, values and customs in our society.' SOC 2-16c
• ‘I can explain why a group I have identified might experience inequality and can suggest ways in which this inequality might be addressed.' SOC 3-16a

These outcomes give teachers scope to discuss the experiences of transgender people, and encourage understanding of issues which affect transgender young people and adults.

In 2017, the Scottish Government published guidelines on what it expects to be covered through Health and Wellbeing^[84]. It notes that learners working in Level 2 and higher should be able to 'demonstrate an understanding of diversity in sexuality and gender identity'.

Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood

In September 2019 the Relationships Sexual Health and Parenthood resource was published^[85]. This resource will strengthen the delivery of RSHP education across the country through provision of learning activities that are age and stage appropriate for use in all education settings. The resource includes learning material on healthy relationships, consent, physical and sexual abuse, sexual health and reproduction, emotional wellbeing, stereotypes and equalities, gender and parenthood, all of which are areas that young people have told us they want to learn about.

Improving gender balance and equalities 3-18^[86]

Improving Gender Balance and Equalities (IGBE) provides age and stage appropriate resources and research for practitioners to help:

• challenge gender stereotypes;
• address unconscious bias;
• improve gender balance in subject uptake and learner pathways;
• promote whole-establishment approaches to equality.

Getting it right for every child

“I felt unsafe at school. People would yell at me across rooms, shove me into walls and on the stairs and I've had water bottles thrown at me.” Trans young person

Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) is the national approach in Scotland to improving outcomes for young people through promoting, supporting and safeguarding their wellbeing so that they can become confident individuals, effective contributors, successful learners and responsible citizens. It aims to provide support that is easy to access and responsive to the wellbeing needs of children, young people and their parents, through an approach that is:

• Child-focused: ensuring the child or young person, and their family, are at the centre of decision-making, and building solutions to support them
• Holistic: looking at the whole picture of a child or young person's wellbeing so that issues are not addressed in isolation from their individual circumstances, their strengths, and their resilience.
• Easily accessed: identifying a need as early as possible so that effective support is offered at the right time and before those needs get worse
• Joined-up: the child or young person, their parents and professionals work together to consider what help is required, involve the services needed to support them, and ensure co-ordination of services where beneficial through a single planning process.

All young people need to be nurtured, included, healthy, active, achieving, respected, responsible and above all safe. Consideration of wellbeing is based on those needs in the context of a young person’s world and unique circumstances, as well as their strengths and factors that affect their resilience.

For transgender young people, the Getting it Right for Every Child approach means support should be holistic and they should be at the centre of any assessment, identification of solutions and support, decision making and planning.

• Schools should actively ensure that the school culture and Getting it right for every child approach is inclusive of and responsive to transgender identities, even if there are no 'out' transgender young people in the school. This helps to raise everyone's awareness and prevent transphobic bullying.

“You just have to be more open-minded and understand that that's a person, it doesn't even matter about the gender, that there's a person behind that.” Trans young person

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)

The UNCRC applies to all young people and underpins the approach to children's rights in Scotland.

The UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024, which came into force on 16 July 2024, incorporates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into Scots law. This means that children's rights, as outlined in the Act, are now legally protected in Scotland. The Act requires public authorities to act in a way that is compatible with the UNCRC requirements. Local authorities, as is the case with any public authority, have a duty not to act in a way which is incompatible with human rights protected under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). This applies to all young people including transgender young people. They all have rights and protections and strengths and vulnerabilities. All young people should experience privacy, safety, dignity and respect.

The articles of the UNCRC are an important reference in supporting transgender young people. For example:

• Article 2 ensures the right to protection from discrimination. Discrimination is being treated unfairly because of who they are. Transgender young people have the right to fair treatment in school. Refusing to accommodate a transgender young person could constitute discrimination
• Article 3 requires that the best interests of the child must be the primary concern in making decisions that may affect them. Schools must keep the best interests of a transgender young person at the heart of decisions made about them
• Article 6 requires children and young people to have a right to life, to survive and develop. Transgender young people have the right to develop and grow in school, and this article states clearly that they should be supported in that. Transgender young people are more likely to suffer from suicidal thoughts and self-harm than their peers
• Article 8 details the right to an identity. It doesn't specifically name transgender young people or gender identity but it clearly states that parties should respect the right of the child to their own identity and name
• Article 12 requires respect for the views of the child. When schools make decisions about a young person, they should inform the young person and take their views into account. This is, therefore, important when making decisions about transgender young people in school settings
• Article 16 ensures a child's right to privacy. If a young person comes out as transgender there is no immediate need to inform their parents or others. See more on confidentiality and information sharing on page 32.
• Article 17 gives children the right to information that is important to their health and wellbeing. For transgender young people, this includes telling them about the support available
• Article 19 gives children the right to be protected from being hurt and mistreated, physically or mentally. Schools have a key role in keeping transgender young people safe from bullying, including transphobic bullying
• Articles 28 and 29 ensure the right of all young people to an education. This can be achieved if transgender identities are respected and included in the school environment.

Rights-based approaches can be a very powerful way to engage with learners in relation to wide range of issues.