The new legal analysis by Monaghan was commissioned by a family in Brighton who are arguing that their child’s school helped their child to socially transition without their consent, because it was using the toolkit. The family wrote to the council on Friday threatening possible legal action if it does not withdraw the guidance within two weeks.

The child’s mother, who asked not to be named in order to protect the identity of her child, told the Observer: “Our child was socially ­transitioned at school by a group of teachers who are quite active in the trans rights arena, despite our child’s complex mental health needs, trauma and autism.”

She said she and her husband “thought we had agreed a unique plan with the head” that the school should support only what she called a “pre-transition phase” until the child left secondary school. Instead, she said, they had been “shocked” to discover the school had supported their child socially transitioning. The family is now estranged from their child.

Seriously? You’re so disgusted by your child identifying as something other than their assigned gender at birth (often shortened to AGAB) that you’ve lost the ability to love and give them affection? The alternative is that you’ve been so shitty to your child as a result of their desire to be different from their AGAB that you’ve driven them away and they’re no longer able to show you love and affection. Either way, you’re the asshole here.

Edit: For Americans, because I had to look this up: secondary school is similar to middle/high school (in the US, middle school is generally 11~13yrs old, high school is typically 14~18). So they’re basically saying that their kid isn’t allowed to social transition until they’re an adult and the parents can no longer legally control what their child does with their life.

Edit 2: decided to change the wording to try and be a bit more accommodating. Originally I had used phrases like, “their birth gender” and “birth sex” because I didn’t want to confuse people who weren’t aware of the nuance or terminology associated with “assigned gender at birth”, and because personally, phrasing things that way doesn’t really bother me and so I struggle to see the point. Still, I’m changing it because I want to make sure I don’t unintentionally cause someone dysphoria.