Keeping Children Safe in Education - Draft Guidance by the Department for Education

Transparent Action plans to respond to the draft Guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education, published on 12 February by the Department for Education (DfE). This Guidance will affect how trans, non-binary and gender-diverse children are treated in schools.

We’d like you to answer some questions about your child’s experience at school. We’re keen to hear from parents of children of all ages – children and adults – about their experiences in education now and in the past.

This will help us shed light on the real life challenges that trans, non-binary and gender-diverse young people face at school, how that has changed over time and how they might be better understood and supported.

As always, your privacy is very important to us and all responses will be kept private and only quoted anonymously. We will use your responses in our formal reply to the consultation. We need your response by 31 March 2026 to be included.

We will also be working with other organisations to create a template for parents who want to submit their own responses to the DfE.

You can find the draft Guidance on the DfE website. There are two main sections that affect trans, non-binary and gender-diverse young people - ‘Regulations and safeguarding requirements relating to school premises’ (toilets, changing rooms and showers) and ‘Children who are questioning their gender’.

NOTES ON TERMINOLOGY

* Parent – This includes all in a parental or caring role of a trans+ person of any age: including adoptive parents, guardians, carers, stepparents, parents through surrogacy, and family members, or chosen family, who raise or support in the role of a parent.

* Trans – We use this term (and trans+) as an umbrella for anyone whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth, including trans men, trans women, non-binary, gender-diverse, agender and genderqueer people.

* Children – any person of any age who is the son, daughter, non-binary child or dependent of someone who fulfils the role of a parent. This includes adult children of any age.