Pride in primary school

Not necessarily. There are many people who know very young that they are heterosexual or homosexual and that they want to love same-sex or opposite-sex people. But I do hope that many more children feel comfortable questioning what they want out of relationships and love. And Pride, and other visibility can help that.

You are being rude here.

Questioning means they don't know or have decided if they want a person that has a particular sex, gender etc.
So pretty much all children are Q in the LGBTQ then.

@GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat the curriculum is good but it's school. Seeing your community come together at an event, seeing people openly engage, perhaps for the first time seeing an openly gay couple as opposed to a generic school resource. To me that has to be a huge difference to a class.

I am not digging down back into NCCA it is huge and about to hit the road for weekend.My source is my school so not happy to share, going on some posts here I really wouldn't want them being plagued.

Questioning means they don't know or have decided if they want a person that has a particular sex, gender etc.

The reason the school should not be doing any of these, including pride, is because it is against the law for schools to push a political position. Pride is a political movement.

It is a sanitised version, hiding the true intent.

Good point. My thinking was that they were already receiving this from the curriculum at this particular school, mentioned by the OP. If the summer fête was (needlessly?) branded in such a way it would exclude pupils from more conservative religious backgrounds as they simply wouldn't be allowed to attend. Inclusivity is not just about Pride after all. The children can't help their cultural/religious backgrounds, why does the fete require a theme at all?

Would the school brand the fête as BLM, anti-VAWG, disability awareness, raising funds for Palestine (that one's political but also humanitarian) for example?

Do you have a link? The only document I can find for the Irish primary curriculum doesn't use the word questioning in that context, so I probably haven't found the right one.

But what exactly is being questioned? You said "Questioning which is a word some people use to describe who they may like to date." How can 'questioning' something be a description?

Someone else mentioned "gender-questioning teenaged girls". They're not describing who they may like to date, are they?

What do you really think this term 'questioning' means?

No it isn't the Irish primary curriculum of 2021 resources uses that language. It is available on Google. And plenty of organisations use Questioning.

Within school resources where the word queer is used the explanation often includes the word questioning to describe it.

@GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat you queried " How is this summer fair inclusive of children from particular religious backgrounds"

I would argue it is absolutely vital that children from backgrounds which don't respect LGBT+ people are aware acceptance lies in the bigger community. To me that is a huge no brainer and quite sad if it isn't seen.

Knowing they have allies may be life changing and saving for that child.

Ha! They know the actual reference is Queer and they know what that means so they hide it behind something innocuous sounding like ‘questioning’ until they are immersed.

We have gay neighbours, also some gay friends (openly and why not). Surely this is not unusual and therefore kids these days just grow up seeing gay people as a normal part of life, not something that needs to be made a big deal of…My kids don’t give two hoots about their friends’ sexuality but they certainly used to eye roll about their school’s constant banging on about LGBT. The school meant well, but honestly, give it a rest guys!

I'm in Canada and my children's school goes hardcore on Pride week with all sorts of over the top events and dress up days. I was in a tizzy about it until I actually questioned my then 5 and 7 year old last year about what Pride is. They didn't have a clue! My 5 year old said "don't know" and my 7 year old said "it's celebrating everyone being themselves". So basically it's a bunch of virtue signalling and maybe something for the older kids to celebrate (the school goes to age 13) but I don't think there is a single mention to the primary aged children of relationships or gender identity. The whole thing is quite silly, really.

Why would anyone need to 'identify as straight'?

If you're straight you're straight

I think it's nice to explain that people can all love each other and parents and families all look different and none are better than others so I would encourage celebrating pride day.

Primary-aged children should not be invited to celebrate adult male kinks, or medical transition, or any form of gender 'transition' (from and to what?) that they can't understand until they are much older. Or ever, as it's beyond even adults to place an accurate, definitive definition on what gender actually is.

Any school doing this is breaching the statutory safeguarding guidance for schools KCSIE, which explicitly says exposing children to inappropriate sexual content is abuse as is exposing children to concepts they cannot understand or cope with.

How so many schools have got away with such blatant disregard for their statutory safeguarding guidance I'll never understand.

It as often stands for questioning as queer. Most major organizations offer both words for Q.

The resources shared in our school uses questioning.

I have no idea what your reference is as I am in a different country.

Allies I know support information about the c.40+ countries where being gay is still not legally treated equal.

The definition of ally is understood for generations in Ireland to be a person or group that provides assistance and support. I assume you are aware of this.

The use of the word ally is significantly used outside military use. Though I am from a neutral country so we don't impose military definitions 🤷‍♀️

I was at school on the 70s. I remember a book in primary two about some kid with ‘two dads’. Mum and dad’s best pal was gay, as was my big cousin and a parent at dad firm. Not many lesbian in our world - but maybe that because of the ongoing misogyny.

By the time of got to secondary school the ‘cool kids’ were the far clique (including my sister - I have a lot of sisters).

This was just after the time when my big sister couldn’t get her name on her and her and her husbands first mortgage.

My other big sister was sexually abused and the police came to our house to persuade her to drop the accusation (the same bloody thing happened to my niece a couple kid years ago - same old same old eh?). She (my sister) was such a pretty girl, why was she walking alone (she was coming back from work)… the poor man wasn’t quite in his right mind, poor old thing… my niece was told that she would be torn to pieces in court and have her reputation shredded and that he’d probably get off anyway. She chose to protect herself and her little girl from the trauma.

My physics teacher told us that he didn’t like girls in his class and that we should be doing cookery instead (he was quite dismissive of the girls and ignored us mostly).

So great. Have parades and fetes and flags for the new pride - society as ever is slanted towards men - apart of course from girls who are encouraged to breast bond and have mastectomies whether they ‘identify as’ males or nonbinos.

So my almost blind sister can just muddle along, have the stress of mixed sex changing rooms and loos, rainbow, Rainbow crossings that cause her to stumble, and a lack of ‘accessible’ signage and high contrast stops on the edges of steps.

‘You’ve come a long way baby’

What does Q stand for?Questioning which is a word some people use to describe who they may like to date.

Q stands for Queer. A term many LGB people find offensive as it was used as an insult. Now it refers to Queer theory - the breaking down of society’s norms. This explicitly includes the norms that prevent sex between adults and children. All the big academic Queer theorists - Butler, Rubin, Foucault, forget the one beginning with ‘C’, are quite clear on this.

Exactly, why would a child need to celebrate someone in a same sex relationship in their lives or even wider society. Presumably they experience, internalise and accept it on a day to day basis as it is.

As a child I was always very accepting of LGB relationships and it was the fear mongering, AIDs-epidemic 80s and early 90s FFS. I honestly think this level of well-meaning, forced emphasis would've made me cringe. It's not very subtle (and no I don't mean that in a homophobic way, merely that you can organically weave it into the conversation/discussion/curriculum).

It sounds like the day to day curriculum is already very robust in this area in OP's case.

How is this summer fair inclusive of children from particular religious backgrounds? They have to forego a fun summer activity because the ethos is at odds with their family's belief system?

Were is the war? How is marching along Baker Street in a baby doll costume helping gay people in Iran?

@FrancescaContini none of my children ever barraged me with questions. Nor any of their friends. They took time to consider an answer and may ask for further context.

He understands transgender at a level that impacts his real life as in he understands people may ask him to possibly use different pronouns. He doesn't care about the bigger gender question. He cares about does his friends parent allow cookies or not. And is their dog friendly, he is ten, there are his priorities

As regards the issues you or I would consider no he isn't going to worry about female only places because again he is ten.

No I definitely don't enforce rigid stereotypes nor does his school.

My sons did the long hair for a while, the black nail varnish, I bought the dolls and toy cars I ensured as much as possible they watched a variety of shows showing that men/women can do any job etc.

Children knowing about sexuality, celebrating Pride, etc doesn't mean they have our context. It lets them know before they know about their personal sexuality that all LGBTQ+ are valued and loved and to me that is vitally important.