I have seen this misrepresented or sidelined in dozens of conversations on soc media lately, just as it was last time the women’s rights issue was a hot topic.

This is the point that’s ill-understood:

Being told to stay away because of safeguarding is not a judgement on you.

Take women’s refuges for example. They are, by definition, likely to be hosting women who are actively being hunted by dangerous men. Men like that tend to be both deceitful and inventive. The only sure way refuges can operate safely is to make a blanket rule – no males.

Take child safeguarding in schools – they don’t ask you for a DBS because they think you’re a criminal, but because that way, they can ask everyone without getting mired in ‘why me?’ arguments that might allow a dangerous person to slip through.

In addition, most children’s institutions have a hard and fast rule that no adult will shut themselves in a room with a lone child. Not because they don’t trust their staff but because that allows everyone to stick their head round the door as soon as such a thing occurs, to check what’s going on.

It’s exactly the same as all those ‘signalling errors’ that constantly delay our trains. If a driver sees a red signal, (s)he stops and stays stopped until it changes EVEN IF THEY KNOW IT’S A MISTAKE. It’s a hard and fast rule, because delaying a train over a signal error is not as bad as saying ‘oh, it’s okay’ the wrong time, and killing a trainload of people.

If you say ‘oh, this signal’s wrong’, or ‘you can trust this teacher’, or ‘you don’t need a DBS, we know you’; or ‘transwomen aren’t generally predatory males’, you’ve broken the first principle of safeguarding – the rule, in fact, that makes safeguarding work.

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