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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Break it down for me: contacting you child's school edition

27 replies

Vebrithien · 01/03/2023 20:52

Evening.

It has been suggested (yes, I'm looking at you, @dimorphism ) that I start this thread, as a sort of depository of resources to use, if you are concerned about the conflation of sex and gender, as well as the teaching of gender identity in your child's school.

After this post, I'll start to link resources. It is not intended to replace the Safe Schools Alliance website, which I would suggest as a good place to start, and then Transgender Trend.

My initial research has been in order to challenge my DD's primary school, which has been using posters and plaques form No Outsiders, a controversial RSE (relationships and sex education) external provider, who claim provide resources to teach the Equality Act. However, their resources misrepresent the Equality Act, by replacing "sex" with "gender".

The school, and No Outsiders argues that sex and gender are conflated in law, and (in the words of No Outsiders) "It's preferable to use gender with primary school children, as it makes it easier to explain gender reassignment" (paraphrase). I was completely dismissed.

I wrote back to the school, with fully referenced letter, highlighting the Department for Education guidelines that they were breaking, as well as directly discriminating against student with SEND, students from a different culture, as well as, if sex is not recognised, the risk of safeguarding concerns.

We won! Thanks to the wonderful posters on FWR, Mumsnet, Safe School Alliance, and the support of other parents in the school, I received an email this week, informing me that the posters had been removed.

You can read the whole two threads here

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4713725-please-help-gender-not-sex-on-a-school-protected-characteristics-poster-just-spoken-to-the-head?page=10&reply=123559304

and

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4733278-sex-not-gender-no-outsiders-changing-the-equality-act-depheaddsl-captured?reply=123567727

Thank you to everyone who provided evidence.

Please, please, add any resources that you think would be good evidence, for this issue in schools of sex and safeguarding being suppressed, whilst gender identity is recklessly promoted (thanks to @ScrollingLeaves for that quote).

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Vebrithien · 01/03/2023 21:00

No Outsiders has a political agenda, (as shown by the investigation by Shelley Charlesworth, hosted by Transgender Trend). T

No Outsiders deliberately conflate sex and gender.

Andrew Moffat's (the author of No Outsiders) was a co-presenter of a paper entitled "Queering the Body: Queering Primary Education", which acknowledges that it is concerned with sex, desire and children's bodies.

Source: No Outsiders: Queering the Primary Classroom , Transgender Trend, April 2019

Link: www.transgendertrend.com/no-outsiders-queering-primary-classroom/

Last accessed on: 28/01/2023

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Vebrithien · 01/03/2023 20:56

The 2020 Department of Education RSE guidance, states that outside agencies and resources must be checked by the school, to ensure that they comply with the Equality Act 2010.

"When deciding on the external agencies and resources to use, you should make appropriate checks to ensure that the agencies’ approach to teaching relationships education, relationships and sex education and health education and the resources that they plan to use comply with:
the Equality Act 2010"

Source: Department for Education, Guidance; planning your relationship, sex and health education curriculum, September 2020

Link: www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum#using-external-agencies

Last accessed on: 24/01/2023

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