Has anyone come across People Changing Minds in school PSHE?

@CyanExpert good luck with your correspondence, and I hope you get some useful replies, rather than the standard "we're right, you're wrong" non-responses.

When copying the Head in, it may also be worth asking if the materials that the school plans to use have been endorsed by the PSHE Association:

https://pshe-association.org.uk/news/clarity-on-what-resources-we-endorse

This is a government-funded body which assists schools in selecting and delivering PSHE materials. I think they are referenced in the RSE guidance but it's worth a check.

Well done OP. It might be worth copying your letter to the Head. Sometimes Heads are unaware / complacent about what's going on in PSHE, just assuming that all is OK. It's only when someone raises the legal hazards / undermining of the law and safeguarding that they get twitchy and start asking the questions that should have been asked from the outset.
Professionally it's also supportive as it ensures that the Head of PSHE gets relevant professional and management support and doesn't get distracted into waging an inappropriate campaign on behalf of an external speaker.

This man has a personal, self invested agenda. There's limited evidence that he's in any way qualified to gaslight children like this or that the school should offer up children for him to share his views with.

But removing the person from the reality of their sex and reinforcing the idea that this is possible and preferable is so damaging.

Absolutely. When I think back to the time that my daughter was actively gender questioning and said she didn't know if she wanted to be a girl, she said she was thinking about "they/them" but leaning towards "he/him" and hadn't decided yet. I told her that I fully supported her exploring her thoughts on all of this but that she could not take any steps that removed her away from the reality of being a female until the end of this exploration, including stating any change in preferred pronouns.

Slowly, over time, she becoming used to the reality of her body. She still hates her breasts (uses sports bras to flatten them) and still hates periods (only gets them occasionally, owing to being on the mini-pill) but the important thing is that she understands that she is biologically female and that this can never be changed. She also understands that preferred pronouns are controversial and that although she uses these herself for trans-identifying children that she knows, not everyone does - including me. She knows that instead I avoid using any third person pronouns in such situations.

She is often mistaken as a boy. I asked her recently how this made her feel. I did so with a deliberately leading question: "I think you quite like being mistaken for a boy. Is that right?". She said yes, it's great. I just smile at people and say "No, I'm a girl. I've just got short hair and I wear boys' clothes" 👏👏 We've talked quite a bit about how it's a shame that people seem to have forgotten that girls can have short hair. It's activism like that being peddled by this PHSE provider that is driving this.

Actually, she doesn't always like being mistaken for a boy. Until very recently she wouldn't go into the ladies' loos in public places without air cover from me because she didn't like the weird looks she got. Also she still gets panic-stricken at airports when she's selected for a security pat-down and a bloke starts walking towards her. I get a very frantic "Mum... explain!". So I do. I say very matter of factly that she's a girl and I ask for the female security guard to check her. The security guards get sheepish and apologise but I smile and say it's really not a problem.

For context we're over 4 years on from when this journey started, just after she turned 13. The school and I were at odds on how to support her the whole time, meaning that they managed me as a safeguarding risk to her. That's too much of a derail for this thread but suffice to say it's been a hideous rollercoaster and I'm glad she's no longer there.Thankfully the DSL at her college has a very different take on things.

The key point being that professionals in schools (and wider support networks e.g. mental health) need a full understanding of what social transition means and why it's not a neutral act. Without this, they'll be at risk of bringing in providers such as this one.

I'd be asking what education related qualifications he has for working in schools with childre ? Child psychology, mental health? wellbeing? teaching qualifications? enhanced DBS?

If I recall correctly, the guidelines @BonfireLady linked upthread reminds schools that they are solely responsible for everything that external organsations teach to children with an implicit warning about outsourcing sensitive subjects to random external people.

Parents are also entitled to see all materials used with students so I'd ask to see a copy of all materials he'll be using before he gets near any students.

This phrasing is key here. It reminds me a lot of how my daughters' school (ex-school for my oldest, who has now done her GCSEs and left) positions it as a kindness and a matter of respect to use language which validates and affirms someone's gender identity.

What this achieves, as demonstrated above, is removing the child from the reality of their sex.

Funnily enough, I was hearing this explanation just this evening about why a relative used someone’s preferred pronouns. In this case, it was using they/them. It wasn’t the right place to have a full on conversation but I wanted to point out the illogic of confusing gender and sex, which I hear all the time. But removing the person from the reality of their sex and reinforcing the idea that this is possible and preferable is so damaging.

So he is basically Del Trotter: "No income tax, no VAT, no money back, no guarantee."

It's worth noting that as a sole trader, Henry Hudson (as People Change Minds), does not need to register with Companies House, only HMRC. So there is no public access to his accounts, and, therefore, no public oversight of his income or outgoings.

There are still safeguarding regulations he will need to abide by, but, as I say, there is no indication of a safeguarding policy on his website.

Hudson talks about being a gay man, so I imagine he must at least touch on those issues occasionally. Of course, it does depend on his definition of "gay" and if he believes that people can change sex (and, therefore, men can become lesbians, for example). To me, that would not qualify as "discussing gay men or lesbians." That would just be more activist nonsense.

Do these people ever discuss gay men or lesbians?
Is it always just about trans?

BridgetYourFortyDaysAreUp. I will never allow my kids to attend a session either.

@BonfireLady it was the "moment of euphoria" bit that struck me as quite sinister. The fact that it wasn't in quotations leads me to assume that this was a Henry Hudson turn of phrase, not the words of the "trans boy" he was writing about. Perhaps they both used it, who knows?

The fact that Hudson is using terminology such as "trans boy" and "euphoria" to me says that either Hudson has learned his craft very well in order to be able to make money from it, or this is what he actually believes (and is choosing to make money from it). Either way, I, for one, would not allow my child to attend a session of his, and I'd be telling the school why.

His LinkedIn post about turning 30 seems to have been from 2022, so he's closer to 34 now, but still... yes, I can't see how Section 28 would have affected him at all. I assumed it was just the "but...Section 28!" activist mantra we hear so often on FWR.

His face lit up as he told me about how, the week before, he’d been at the bus stop and an older women addressed him as “young man” as she thanked him for letting her get on the bus before him. It was a moment of euphoria and his answer was simple: “I feel happiest when people see me for who I am.”

This phrasing is key here. It reminds me a lot of how my daughters' school (ex-school for my oldest, who has now done her GCSEs and left) positions it as a kindness and a matter of respect to use language which validates and affirms someone's gender identity.

What this achieves, as demonstrated above, is removing the child from the reality of their sex. "When people see me for who I am".... that sends a shiver down my spine. This is exactly what puts a child onto a pathway of medical transition. A simple mistaken observation from a person who believes this child is a boy has become a reality in the child's mind: "I truly am a boy. I will only be happy when others can see it too".

To validate that mindset through PHSE teaching at school, or permeated across all aspects of school as part of a "respect" approach, is dangerous. That's exactly why social transition is recognised as a safeguarding issue in the KCSIE guidance and why the RSE guidance is clear on never teaching gender identity as fact. I do wish the KCSIE had gone further and said that every child who wants to socially transition is a child at risk of coercion. But what's written in there is clear enough when read alongside the RSE guidance.

Edited for punctuation fail.

Probably would have been more helpful if I'd included a link 😁

Here you go @CyanExpert :

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education

The pdf for the current guidance is accessible via that link.

See paragraph 70 (the section I quoted) in particular.

So he's 30 so born in 1996 and section 28 was formally repealed (though in practice had not been used for many years) in 2003 when he was - checks notes - 7

Give me the confidence of an upper middle class young man...

#lgbtq #mentalhealth #education #inclusion #pride | Henry Hudson | 10 comments

And... there it is! "Pinch me" connections (including Diversity Role Models, who are now run by Stonewall):

[from 2024]

Last Thursday, super-ally Simon Ruddick generously invited us to be a charity beneficiary of a special LGBTQ+ gala performance of Sister Act the musical (habits welcome but not compulsory), run by OKRE with the amazing Matt at LGBT Great.

A real 'pinch me' moment was seeing People Change Minds' logo up there with organisations I respect so much like Terrence Higgins Trust and Diversity Role Models.
[my bold]

It's from this year's statutory RSE guidance.

#education #inclusion #pride #lgbtq #school | Henry Hudson | 29 comments

And Henry Hudson clearly likes to talk about himself "share" his experiences, so I would be concerned about him influencing very young secondary school students.

[here he is writing about being 18, etc., and about how he is now 30. Along with mentioning "Section 28" of course:

I was bullied and harassed by other students considerably both before I came out and after, and I never really told anyone about it because I didn’t believe it could change.

That harmful environment was the legacy of Thatcher’s pernicious piece of legislation, Section 28, which forbid the “promotion of homosexuality” in schools and was only repealed in England in 2003.]

And here's his "in" (as @Theeyeballsinthesky said, he seems to have started off by making the rounds of his old stomping grounds):

I’ve spent the last two years working with the brilliant leadership team at my old school, Kingston Grammar School, to make the school more inclusive for LGBTQ+ people.

I wonder if Henry multiple posh names corporate jobs come from familial links.

This sums up Henry Hudson's angle, I would say:

#lgbtq #lgbthistorymonth | Henry Hudson

Recently, I was talking with a 15-year-old trans boy in school about some of the challenges he was facing, and I asked him: when do you feel happiest?

His face lit up as he told me about how, the week before, he’d been at the bus stop and an older women addressed him as “young man” as she thanked him for letting her get on the bus before him. It was a moment of euphoria and his answer was simple: “I feel happiest when people see me for who I am.”

It’s LGBT+ History Month in the UK, and for the first time in my adult life, I genuinely feel like we have entered a bad period of history where the rights of trans people are being challenged and stripped away by politicians who want to divide us to win votes and distract from their own shortcomings, and where the rights of all #LGBTQ people feel precarious. I am afraid for my community’s safety in the UK, USA and of course globally; it feels like none of of our hard won rights can be taken for granted....

Lots of red flags there. As a parent, I would ask the school to show me the materials that will be used, including the teaching guidance, and to explain how the school has ensured they meet the standards required by the statutory RSE guidance. For example how will they meet this requirement:

70. In teaching this, schools should be mindful that beyond the facts and the law about biological sex and gender reassignment there is significant debate, and they should be careful not to endorse any particular view or teach it as fact. For example, they should not teach as fact that all people have a gender identity...

From the information on their website it sounds like they will be teaching children their own views on this.