Sex not gender, No Outsiders changing the Equality Act, DepHead/DSL captured

Totally understand. I would do the same as you. So continuing with the long way, I would do exactly as you are doing, stopping, writing, quoting, challenging. It will give you the feeling of control over a situation where dictators have power over our kids' education for nefarious objectives, eg GI

Are you "public" eg in the media? The pressure from the public from the Horizon scandal increased many fold when Mr Bates Vs the Post Office aired. The general public do not tolerate injustice, especially when it is hidden and manipulated by people who think they are untouchable eg the SLT of this school

Following with interest @Vebrithien and wishing you all the best with this.

Recently joined a local college course and end of first week up comes the gingerbread character and the gender word. It has not been elaborated upon yet as to relevance to the subject but I got an uncomfortable feeling and did the research.

Not clear yet if this teaching analogy is related to the Genderbread drawing from Sam Killerman, so popular with Stonewall et al, and protested by Safe Schools Alliance. If it is, then it is being inappropriately shoe horned into an utterly unrelated adult education course. I wasn't able to download the letter from SSA but will try again/email them, as needed

I will reread your whole thread to find the best words and sentences in which to write to the college, once the situation becomes clearer.
No wish to derail or distract, but wondering if anyone else has come across a similar situation in local adult education?
Thanks.

Go Veb!! I'm so sorry you're also having to deal with this.

You were kind enough to encourage me to pursue our school for similar issues and we are just at the start - I had an encouraging call with the PSHE teacher, but once I got the schemes of work we are back to square one and I'm now drafting a tightly worded email pointing out all the places it breaches the EA/Forstater/the statutory guidance on RSE.

Luckily I also have a GC group of parents to back me up but none of them are yet at the point of signing their names to an email. I still feel very leery of leading some kind of organised campaign. I truly love this school and my DCs do too, and it makes me sad to be kicking up a fuss because they've been hijacked by a new "highly trained professional" PSHE bod aka. fully doctrinaire #bekind #nodebate.

That's a really good point @JoyousAsOtters and even if not in the planning that they may be following, could be something the teachers have conjured up given how much emphasis "safe spaces" are given these days. Trauma informed practices also use those phrases.

But of course, safeguarding should always be under pinning anything and everything.

In practise, occasionally, and from experience, I know sometimes teachers don't make links between curriculum concepts they're delivering and aspects of safeguarding unless it is explicitly pointed out.

Ooh...

🍿

@DrBlackbird Rachel Meads ET judgement https://static1.squarespace.com/static/607d6cba0ef43a2dbb27df45/t/65a00a0f1492d57d53820bba/1704987151937/2200179+2022+-+Judgment+11+1+24.pdf included the following paragraph.

279. We consider it wholly inappropriate that an individual such as the Claimant espousing one side of the debate should be labelled discriminatory, transphobic and to pose a potential risk to vulnerable service users. That in effect equates her views as being equivalent to an employee/social worker espousing racially discriminatory or homophobic views. The opinions expressed by the Claimant could not sensibly be viewed as being transphobic when properly considered in their full context from an objective perspective, but rather her expressing an opinion contrary to the interpretation of legislation, or perhaps more accurately the amendment to existing legislation, advocated for by trans lobbying groups to include, but not limited to, Stonewall.

This isn’t quite what you asked for but it is a warning to employers to use the legal definition set out in the EA2010 and not stonewall interpretation.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents which is
“7Gender reassignment(1)A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.
(2)A reference to a transsexual person is a reference to a person who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.
(3)In relation to the protected characteristic of gender reassignment—
(a)a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a transsexual person;
(b)a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to transsexual persons.”

You could legitimately send the EA2010 extract and attached the Rachel Meade judgement and ask what evidence do they have that Gender reassignment means gender identity. The only argument they have is that GC is a protected belief under Religion and Belief pc and to minimise risk they are assuming GI is a similar belief but this has not been tested at ET.

Is there anyone senior you could approach with a " on reflection this organisation seems to be misrepresenting the law. Just wondering whether the company realises this as employees repeating this can bring a company into disrepute?"

There may be something in Naomi Cunningham's analysis of the risks companies take when they indulge in Stonewall's fake law?

But just a suggestion - safeguarding your employment has to be your first priority

https://www.legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/06/06/legal-risks-for-stonewall-members/

We’re probably a SW champion. Maybe I’ll ask for clarification. However it feels dangerous to even do that these days.

This is Stonewall law - the law as transactivists would like it to be rather than what it actually says.
For a company to misrepresent the law to thousands of employees is pretty serious - especially when it has such serious negative consequences for women and children:
https://www.gov.uk/discrimination-your-rights

'gender reassignment' characteristic and that it was our understanding that this had increased with more recent legal cases to include gender expression and gender identity.

This was mentioned way back when Veb started the thread. Funnily enough (or not so funny) this exact wording was used in my recent Human Rights training, which was one of those online tick the correct boxes to pass types. In the PCs section we’re told that “Gender Reassignment’ now means gender identity as this is how it’s commonly understood. The training video has been bought from an outside provider. Unclear whom. I’m nervous to comment as our HE has already been ‘queered’ (its own words) but this training is for every single employee. Thousands.

So is there any actual information on this? Has anyone indicated (in law) that GR means gender identity as a protected characteristic?

Hi Vebrithian so sorry to hear this hydra has popped up again in your DD’s school. I just wanted to say that the ‘keep things secret that are said in this class’ thing sounds familiar to me. My children also had Jigsaw materials in their primary school and I went in and looked through them - would have been Year 4 or 5 I’m not sure which. I think there is a section which could easily be read two ways, by either children (v likely at that age) or even teachers if they are not sufficiently up on safeguarding. It’s something like:

’this is a safe space - that means that what is shared or spoken about in this class mustn’t be shared with others outside the class’.

Might be worth another look at the year 4/5 materials as a clear safeguarding clash.

I raised it with our head to ensure teachers added a bit to explain that children could tell their parents what they talked about in class, but that spreading gossip about other children around the school was never appropriate as it could be bullying.

Head said should parents hear about what other children said, but I also asked them what would the normal safeguarding protocols for a teacher be if a pupil disclosed something concerning or alarming during ANY lesson, and why should it be different in this particular class?

I got Head to agree there was potential safeguarding issue, and that teachers in particular could never keep secrets from parents unless it was a serious concern to be raised with social services. As far as I know, the ‘keeping secrets’ bit disappeared from our school lesson plans: but mine are now in secondary so it may have crept in. I think schools alas often get so enthusiastic about being welcoming and inclusive that they forget that safeguarding by definition has to apply to all situations, especially as it is never (in my experience) mentioned at the same time or in the same spaces as the EDI training.

That's a good letter, Vebrithien - I kind of expect your next update to be that they replied, "Blah blah, bullshit, keeping to the standards etc...."

But I hope not.

Thank you for explaining. I had thought it was another poster, and you only joined the thread.

Anyway, good luck to you.

Sorry, I forgot to say how admirably clear but polite your letter is.

This is awful for you and the other parents who have worked so hard to promote a fact based, reasonable, and transparent approach to teaching the Equality Act at school.

It is striking that it was only yesterday another poster on another thread was talking about another school where the was a similar breach of trust and transparency by bringing in that same book. Or am I confused?

It is an appalling, dishonest book, quite apart from the underhandedness of bringing it in without warning.

That's a great email - hope it has the desired effect.