Report from Pride in Education founder & Leicestershire trans campaigner highlights harm of new guidance for schools
Content warning: This release discusses transphobia, bullying, suicide and self harm, including accounts from young people. Anyone affected by these issues can contact support organisations listed in the report.
Abbie*: Abbie is a pseudonym for a real young person, and her story is not fictionalised. Her family has consented to it being shared.
Leicestershire-based trans ambassador and campaigner, Katie Neeves (AKA Cool2BTrans) has collaborated with Pride in Education founder, Laïla El-Métoui to publish a new report that shines a stark light on young people’s experience of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) and Relationships, Sex, and Health Education (RSHE/RSE). The report follows on from Laïla El-Métoui’s analysis of 1,271 comments left under Neeves’ video on school guidance which features the story of Abbie*, a 13-year-old trans girl who left school as a result of changes in guidance and ensuing bullying.
The report ‘Not Safe to Be Me: Young people's experiences of KCSIE and RSE 2026 in England’ highlights a startling trend of trans pupils in England being outed to parents, unable to use gendered toilets or facilities at school, and being isolated in education settings until they no longer feel welcome.
Inspirational speaker, presenter and trans awareness trainer, Katie Neeves of Stoney Stanton, founded Cool2BTrans to empower trans people and to show others that trans people are just ordinary people who want to be happy.
On 23rd of September 2026, she published a video on her social media, entitled “Trans Kids are No Longer Safe in UK Schools”, to highlight how trans children are being harmed by new government guidance which has been issued to all schools in England.
The huge response to the video prompted Laïla El-Métoui, Founder of Pride in Education, to create a report called Not safe to Be Me: Young people's experiences of KCSIE and RSE 2026 in England, which examines the comments left on Katie’s video.
The video, viewed more than 74,000 times across YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, tells the story of Abbie*, a 13-year-old trans girl. Abbie* had used the girls' facilities with her headteacher's permission for two years. According to her family, after her school changed its arrangements under the new Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2026 guidance, she had to change alone in a disabled toilet, was bullied as rumours spread. She is now home educated, having left her previous school.
Not Safe to Be Me, published today by Pride in Education in partnership with Cool2BTrans. It analyses 1,271 public responses to the video, with finding that catalogue many young people describing similar experiences.
The report's key findings include:
Toilets and changing rooms are the most raised issue. Pupils describe gender neutral toilets being removed, staff standing outside toilets, changing in corridors, and deliberately not drinking during the school day.
Fear of being outed is the most frightening. Pupils with transphobic parents say they can no longer confide in teachers, and some have already been outed.
Young people are leaving school. Parents and pupils describe moves to online learning, home education and long absences.
Many pupils are now too scared to come out at all, and several describe suicidal crises.
Staff are caught in the middle. Teachers, including trans staff, say they have been made to sign up to guidance they believe conflicts with their safeguarding duty.
Pupils often point to adults, not peers. Several pupils say classmates did not care until an adult made an issue of it.
Katie Neeves, Founder of Cool2BTrans, said: "Reading the comments that followed was heartbreaking. Young person after young person described being outed, shut out of toilets, bullied and pushed out of school, and many told me they are already too frightened to be themselves. This is not a future risk. It is happening now, in classrooms across the country, and every week this Labour Government leaves the guidance in place, more children are harmed."
Laïla El-Métoui, Founder of Pride in Education, said: "None of this was inevitable. Abbie's story reflects six years of cumulative hostility, from the withdrawal of funding for tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in 2020 to the RSE and KCSIE guidance now in force. Pride in Education began campaigning in the summer of 2025, warning ministers that treating trans pupils' existence as a matter of debate would make schools less safe. The voices in this report echo those warnings. This harm was preventable, and it is still not too late to put it right."
Data and method: The report analyses comments posted between 23 September and 10 October 2026 on Katie Neeves' video across five platforms, which together received 74,253 views, 1,271 comments and 7,179 likes and reactions. Of these, 995 unique comments were readable and tagged by theme; figures are indicative. Comments were public, consent was not sought, and all identifying information has been removed. Individual accounts have not been independently verified. Comments on Katie's YouTube channel require approval to keep it a safe space, and a significant number of transphobic comments were deleted there, so the figures understate the hostility the video attracted.
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