"Teachers to tell children Gender Ideology is a contested belief"

I don’t get the there’s no evidence statement

I mean children are learning about gender ideology at schools, is this really contested?

How can someone make this statement

If they do ban it as the radio news headlines suggest then that’s great

Apologies, in my last post I explained badly: at her school they finally promised @Vebrithien and her group of concerned parents that if ever they were going to teach a ‘gender identity’ lesson, they would tell the parents about it first. ( So n.b. it was not as though the parents had been unreasonable.)

The school broke this promise.

Infuriating item on Matt Chorley/Times radio just now - a Tory MP (Esther McVey?) banging on about how no sex ed at all should be taught before year 5, and conflating the whole gender ideology thing with a general rant against sex ed as a whole. MC easily demonstrated that her comments in the HoC that teaching how to do choking safely and 72 genders were “what passes for sex ed in this country” were untrue, and then quoted some guy whose name I didn’t catch who said that teachers were the experts on trans issues and there was nothing to see here. It was infuriating and I was shouting in the car 🙄

They deny it, even in the face of evidence from parents who have seen the materials used

I agree.

At s @Vebrithien’s DC’s school, even after finally promising not to teach ‘gender identity’ to the children, under the pretext that it wasn’t PSHE but PRIDE month so it didn’t count, they brought in the book:

She's My Dad! A Story for Children Who Have a Transgender Parent Or Relative
It is actually a fairly problematic book on many levels. But the main point here was the dishonesty and dissembling Vebrithien was put through.

It perhaps also shows the problem that a lot of teachers will be people who have been brought up on all this GI bollocks as young people themselves and as university students. Now they are young adults with careers and in a position to seek to promote this crap in their workplaces.

I noticed that, and there was no comment of explanation of what a Transwoman is.

So probably many Woman’s Hour listeners will think this was a woman and mother with masculine presentation, rather than a man who would like to be a woman and mother.

Also, there was no comment as to the comparatively small number of transpeople parents there are, and they will be teaching their children if they have them ‘gender identity’ anyway.

Don’t cheer too soon.

Also picked a message saying ‘what is gender ideology? I don’t understand what it is, and as a transwoman I want to be able to explain it to my child’ 🙄

Either or both but also likely politically motivated

The same reason some posters on here dismiss safeguarding

HipTightOnions · Today 08:23

+ + there's no evidence that teaching is taking place in schools according to gender identity ideology + +

My head would also say this but it's not true, and he knows it.

So many of them dissemble like politicians, when questioned. They deny it, even in the face of evidence from parents who have seen the materials used. I suppose at least parents can now see the materials and schools can't claim commercial confidentiality any more.

I am wondering if, when Starmer gets in, Labour will simply overturn the guidance enacted by the current Government.

It’s infuriating that any HT or educator can say “well it’s not happening in my school so it’s all ok”.

Are they thick, or do they not care about the safeguarding of ALL children?

Yay!

It's incredible that there are some teachers going on the radio saying that it's not taught in schools - how do they know what's happening in other schools.

It's gaslighting. If challenged robustly, they change the definition of "it". If challenged more "it" turns into something unrecognisable from here that, of course, isn't taught in schools.

It's similar to "there are no furries in schools", that as the conversation goes on, turns into "furries are not using litter trays in schools".

Nuala just picked a great listener’s message to read out, about the harmful effects of gender ideaology on young people.

It's a move in the right direction but it is not completely satisfactory.

Are kids being taught that gravity is a "belief" in physics?
That the earth being a sphere is a "belief" in geography?
That 2 plus 2 equals four is a "belief" in mathematics?

When things are incontrovertible facts, they must be taught as so.
Biology is a fact that never changes, and the fact that sex is real and that there are two sexes is a fact and should be taught as so.

If they want to add in all the gender crap they are are welcome to do so but it must be taught in the same way that they might mention that some people believe the earth is flat when discussing the facts of the planet.

Back to common sense please.

Facts never change - that's why they are FACTS.

And being "gender critical" is not a "belief" - it is just the provable, incontrovertible, unchangeable TRUTH.

Unions haven’t been great on this either, looking at NEU as an example

The political football chap is not just any headteacher, Pepe Di'Iasio is General Secretary of the ASCL (he took over from Geoff Barton in April)

He is the go to commentator on any issue concerning education and is speaking on behalf of the ASCL membership of over 25000 head teachers.

https://www.ascl.org.uk/RSHEReport

It's incredible that there are some teachers going on the radio saying that it's not taught in schools - how do they know what's happening in other schools. I've been fighting this at our school since I discovered in January this year that it was introduced in September with no consultation. I don't blame the school, I do think they genuinely have been told that they were bringing their policies in line with current guidance/KCSIE/inspection and advice from the PSHE Association and of course the lack of clarity from the current guidance doesn't help at all. You can read the paragraph that @Thingybob posted in both ways - that gender identity is a "fact" and therefore must be taught (the gender identity ideology position) or that gender identity has no factual basis, it's a belief that some people have and other people don't and therefore should not be taught (or if it is, should be taught only in the sense that it's a legal fiction).

I'm still not convinced that children under 13 can grasp the "legal fiction" aspect of the GRA and PC of gender reassignment. Most adults can't, let alone kids, and our PSHE teacher couldn't explain to me how she taught the concept of "gender identity" to my DCs without sexist stereotypes. The only thing we could agree on was that it was a "feeling" but again, she couldn't explain why that meant we should teach children that this might need puberty blockers, surgery and hormones.

🤣

Cross post!

You snooze, you lose.

It’s also going to be discussed on Women’s Hour; it’s Nuala McGovern hosting today.

There's been a shout-out for comments to go into Woman's Hour. In the post-Barnett era, I don't expect Nuala McGovern to apply the kind of critical analysis this subject deserves. But I'd be delighted to be proved wrong.

The impression given by the Radio 4 coverage is that the teachers are the experts and we must believe and follow what they say. And the way things work, they only end up talking with captured teachers. I don't blame heretical teachers for not going on the BBC. There's a risk they'd be stitched up in an interview and also they'd have made a lot of enemies in their profession.

Tomorrow is the National PSHE/ Healthy Schools network meeting and the Chair has just posted this following a slew of outraged comments from captured teachers.

I agree, it will be good to touch base with everyone. I am also trying to schedule an extraordinary meeting with SEF and Stonewall about the revised guidance, and I’ll share an invite as soon as we can pin down a date/time.

That the kneejerk response is to run to the odious Stonewall says it all. The sooner the P/RSHE curriculum is amended, the better.

I heard the political football person and if someone said no evidence I’m glad I missed that

I find them so utterly complicit in gender ideology and its harms it’s infuriating

Just gaslighting women