..to think Stonewall should not be involved with schools?

[ConcernedMum100]

AIBU to think Stonewall should not be involved with schools...

Historically, Stonewall has done amazing work and led the way for equality. However, over recent years their priority seems to be a different sort of activism, which has caused many of their original supporters to abandon them.

I want to stress that I am very much in favour of primary schools teaching about diversity and different types of families including same sex parents, etc. I believe that's very important. I do however have reservations with Stonewall for various reasons, as follows:

-Its school resources with regards to transgenderism and gender identity, such as An Introduction to Supporting LGBT children, breach the Department of Education’s guidelines in many ways, including the sexist and regressive suggestion that children enjoying clothes or toys typically associated with the opposite sex is a sign they may be transgender. The resources also say that children are given a label at birth (they mean their sex is recorded) and that sometimes this label will have been wrong. They are not referring to the tiny percentage of babies born with a DSD, but children whose gender identity is supposedly different to their sex. Whatever that means. The resources also say that a school should not tell the child’s parents about their gender identity if the child does not want them to. Which means they’re suggesting schools change a child’s name and pronouns without informing the parents. Seeing as they communicate that children with gender dysphoria are often vulnerable and even suicidal, this seems very irresponsible.

-Its stance on child safeguarding. Stonewall have been very clear that they disagree with the High Court’s ruling which concluded that children under the age of 16 are highly unlikely to be able to consent to puberty blockers. They are in favour of medicating children as young as 10 years old, who are experiencing gender dysphoria and say they want to live as the opposite sex. This follows research showing puberty blockers do not have a positive effect on the children’s mental health, but do cause issues with brain development and bone density. Nearly 100% of children who have taken puberty blockers go on to take cross sex hormones which will likely lead to loss of sexual function and infertility. There has been an alarming increase in children identifying as trans over the last few years and the reasons for this is unknown, and there has been no research to understand the apparent strong link between autism and gender dysphoria, nor homosexuality and gender dysphoria.

-Its stance on women’s single sex spaces. Via both Tweeting and their school resources, Stonewall have made clear they believe women and girls do not have the right to single sex spaces at time when they may be vulnerable, because they believe males who identify as women (the prerequisite of which is to declare themselves a woman-no need for any medical treatment or diagnosis) should be treated as females in every aspect of life. This means access to women’s communal changing rooms, prisons, hospital wards, toilets, and rape shelters, to name a few examples.

-Its stance on women’s sports. Stonewall disagreed with World Rugby’s decision to prevent transwomen competing in women’s rugby. This decision was reached by World Rugby because they found that to include TW in the women’s teams would be unfair and unsafe (in increased risk to the women on the team by at least 20-30%) Stonewall appear to believe (and say) that inclusion comes above all else, even the safety of women and girls and their right to fair competition.

I don’t feel comfortable that an organisation with these highly controversial and political viewpoints has access to primary school children, whether it’s via face to face sessions, training school staff, or learning resources.

Of course Stonewall are not the only organisation which has these worrying beliefs. However, they are the biggest and most well funded. They are also listed on the Department of Educations “experts” page, despite breaching its own guidelines, which I think is wrong and also makes it very difficult for parents to complain to schools.

What are your thoughts?

YANBY OP, every parent needs to review their child's school policy on PSHE teaching to check that it does not conflate sex and gender and to ensure that there are providions in there about checking out external providers and absolutely everything they propose to communicate to pupils (great guides about what to check are on the Transgender Trend and Safe Schools Alliance websites and I would recommend sending these in to your child's school). Also all parents need to ask the school which external providers they use for training (staff and/or stundents) or teaching materials. If it turns out they are using a lobby group such as Stonewall you need to make a lot of noise and ask a lot of questions about how they have done safeguarding assessments, why on earth they think it is okay etc etc.

Thank you OP for not minding my interjection. I suspect few parents are unaware that this is happening in schools- if you think about it, why on earth would you think your child’s school would potentially affirm your child as the opposite sex and not tell you? I still find it mind boggling.

YANBU

Lots of people see Stonewall and think - great. A proper, solid, LGBT rights awareness group.

They don't realise what Stonewall have become and how baked they are into every important institution across the U.K. as well as private companies and even brands!

They aren't about supporting Gay rights at all these days. It's ALL about Trans and encouraging harmful puberty blockers for very young gender non-confirming children.

School secretary here and they popped up in the emails trying to sell their PHSE material and training courses. Hit DEL on that pretty sharpish , it is part of my job to filter out unwanted sales pitches...

I have had polite disagreement with the Head on ie supplanting 'sex' with 'gender' in the school inclusion policy as, although not disagreeing with me, she is reluctant to go up against County on this. (County that had to ignominiously withdraw their Allsorts-inspired Transgender policy after legal action elsewhere...) however it's academic as there is no money for the overpriced gold-plated Stonewall turds anyway.

Schools’ basic safeguarding should prevent Stonewall having any involvement given their harmful push towards all things trans, to the detriment of lesbians, gays and bisexuals.

I’m happy for my child to learn about diversity, inclusion etc. I will not accept him learning that humans can change sex, because they can’t. I will also not accept him learning about gender in any way that doesn’t clearly state that it is based on outdated and damaging stereotypes, and that gender ideology is a belief system that not everyone has to believe in.

It is a concern for education as a whole, from primary through to graduate. I read a really concerning post yesterday from a first year under graduate whose tutor had posted a study module referring to J K Rowling as a transphobe. No nuance, no discussion, no critical analysis. Just a person in a position of educational authority expressing this unevidenced and political slur to a group of university undergraduates. Stonewall is one of the driving forces behind an iintolerant and dogmatic pushing of a single view in matters concerning gender identity philosophy. Parents do need to challenge it. Especially parents paying £9K per year for this sort of "education". An education should be balanced and take into account all reasonable points of view. At the time of writing, a woman speaking of her experiences is still a "reasonable" viewpoint.

Stonewall definitely shouldn't be in schools. I do not want my children taught ideology over facts, I do not want my children taught anti-women, anti-gay propaganda, and I do not want my children to be taught to override their own needs, wishes and concerns in order to validate others. Actually, I also don't want them to be taught that the world will bend to their will, or that people who disagree with them have no right to be heard. None of that, thanks very much.

I will categorically not allow my children to be educated by Stonewall or Mermaids. Sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, mental health denying, awful 'charities'. They are taking everything that the LGBT movement was all about, and twisted it into something ugly and unrecognisable. It's become everything they say they wouldn't be - from 'we are adults who are not coming for your children, stop abusing us for our private lives' to 'we demand your spaces and ultimate respect, and your children will follow our beliefs or you're a bigot'. Absolute insanity.

People said the same 20 years ago about section 28.

YANBU. They’ve become a misogynistic, homophobic, intolerant, science-denying bunch of zealots and should have absolutely no place in our education system. Their ideology is extremely damaging, especially to girls.

Sadly, Stonewall have shown themselves to prioritise their own political agenda over and above the safety and well-being of children, so YANBU. They aren’t the organisation they once were, unfortunately.

@Buddytheelf85

People said the same 20 years ago about section 28.

Do you understand the difference between gay people fighting for equal rights, and trans rights activism fighting to take rights away from others? If you're so deep into an ideology, you justify the medicalisation of children even though children are unable to consent to said medication, and there is no evidence the medication has a positive effect on their mental health yet it does have negative effects on their physical health, you need to start asking yourself some questions. No children were getting harmed in the fight for gay rights. They are now.

@Buddytheelf85

People said the same 20 years ago about section 28.

@buddytheelf85

Oh this old argument. The difference is, gay rights were never taking away from straight people. Gender ideology is not only taking from sex-based rights (two totally different things), they are actively trying to replace them.

This isn't like the difference between gay and straight, it's the equivalent of religious groups going into schools demanding that creationism and God is treated equally, or more truthfully than science and evolution.

Yes they did, Buddy, but for different reasons.

It’s not reasonable or helpful to say that because once some people resisted a change they shouldn’t have, that therefore ALL resistance to ANY change is therefore wrongheaded. We have to take each case on its own merits.

I have had polite disagreement with the Head on ie supplanting 'sex' with 'gender' in the school inclusion policy as, although not disagreeing with me, she is reluctant to go up against County on this.

I've had a few of these conversations. IME, as soon as you point out that replacing "sex" with "gender" is in opposition to the Equalities Act most people back down.

No lobby groups should be trying work their way into schools in my opinion, unless it is an age appropriate event with a range of views given airtime and robust challenge.

In my experience there's too many with an interest in what's in children's pants and what they do in the bedroom.

SRE needs to be factually taught with an open forum for debate and no groups with their own agendas.

@Buddytheelf85

People said the same 20 years ago about section 28.

Bullshit.

I was fighting Section 28 and homophobia thirty-two years ago, and I'm still fighting it now.

Stonewall are turncoats, grabbing at the king's shilling, and as homophobic as they come (imo).

And the recent school guidance is clear that lobby groups should not be included in schools training.

This isn't like the difference between gay and straight, it's the equivalent of religious groups going into schools demanding that creationism and God is treated equally, or more truthfully than science and evolution.

Exactly.

And this isn't about gay v straights rights. Trans ideology (the idea idea Stonewall are pushing) harms all gay rights by saying that it's hateful to think there's a thing such as biological sex. Therefore you get situations where lesbians are being called transphobic for not wanting 'women with penises'

This incorrect idea that it's "the same as a section 28" is what's captured all institutions and political parties in this.

I agree. A lot of it is really scary stuff. I have a young teen DD who went through a slightly troubled period of about 12 months when puberty hit and her body started changing. She had a bit of an identity crisis, which is not unusual, and started talking about hating her breasts etc and would only wear baggy trousers and tops. Needless to say that period passed and 18 months later she is a completely different person, but if someone with an agenda had got to her, I hate to think what would have happened...

Couldn’t agree more LolaSmiles

YANBU I have written to my MP about this exact thing (I agree that he’s swamped at the moment but I don’t want to let things sneak in because everyone was so preoccupied with covid) and I also recently wrote to my children’s primary school when I noticed they’d incorrectly used gender not sex on their equalities policy statement (as a pp pointed out this contravenes the Equality Act 2010, which still thankfully currently lists sex as a protected characteristic).

Had a long call with the PSHE lead at their school (beforehand was adamant I would take my children out of any lessons that conflated sex with gender and normalised an ideology that might set some children on a dangerous pathway of ‘treatment). In the event I didn’t need to say this, the PSHE was a bit taken aback by my query but reassured me that Stonewall was nowhere near any of the resources or training the school had and that they were required to show parents the resources they’d be using before lessons touching this area.

I have three sons so in some ways I’m less worried about safeguarding them specifically - their safety in single sex public spaces won’t be compromised, they won’t be taught to override their boundaries in the name of ‘kindness’, they won’t potentially be playing sport as teens against people dangerously physically superior... I could go on.

But as a woman and parent it of course still concerns me enormously. If I was the mother of girls right now frankly I’d be terrified.

YANBU, OP.

My child's school has a Stonewall club, and unfortunately, DC's head of year is very involved in this, in a way which makes me not trust her judgment or feel that DC would get a fair hearing if DC were to object to the breaching of their boundaries, and indeed the Equalities legislation, in the name of inclusion.

This week, all the children have been given an " IDENTITY SYM-BULB", an A4 drawing of a lightbulb with the rainbow flag on the screw part of the bulb. They are supposed to fill it in with their "identity". This is off the back of an LGBTQ+ assembly the head of year ran. Unfortunately - or maybe fortunately - DC missed this. But the queer theory alarm bells have gone off in my head . I wonder if this has come from Stonewall? They have already tried getting Girl Guide leaders to teach queer theory in one of the guide badge activities.

Why is there suddenly tonnes of these these threads on AIBU? Do I have to block AIBU too?

YABVVVU.

@Ijustreallywantacat

Why is there suddenly tonnes of these these threads on AIBU? Do I have to block AIBU too?

YABVVVU.

It's about Schools and School policies?