Hey Schools! Stop ‘Transing' Our Kids!
Five Steps for Parents
The predictable outcomes of ill-thought out policies in Scotland are now headliners in the mainstream media. Public awareness about Self-Id and men in women’s prisons are causing significant outrage. But lurking in the background is an even more explosive issue: our schools. Our schools are, intentionally or unintentionally, at risk of promoting the pseudoscience that is gender ideology. Given the harm that can be done by promoting the idea that any child or teenager can actually change their biological sex, a potential national scandal is in the offing. The taxpayer, via the Scottish Government, has funded numerous ‘diversity’ organisations to be pupil mentors, staff trainers, and policy developers. The majority of these organisations for example, Scottish Trans Alliance and LGBT Youth Groups are activists whose self-proclaimed aim, is to promote gender ideologies across public services including schools. These activists have been key contributors to the
Scottish Government Guidance for schools, Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools and has been in schools since August 2021. The guidance asserts that any pupil can be ‘trans’ and that children ‘can be born in the wrong body’. This is misleading nonsense and entirely unproven in terms of robust research (Cass Review). Indeed, there is good evidence that the ‘trans child’ is an invented concept (M Biggs, Inventing Transgender Children and Young People,2020).
The real issue here has nothing to do with the broader debate about transgender adults but it has everything to do with maintaining the positive mental health and emotional wellbeing of pupils. A child who thinks that they are the opposite sex from their biological sex and receives affirmation from parents and teachers, risks long-term psychological harms including: self and body-hatred; self-image confusions and various other mental health problems; not to mention the likelihood of significant family upheaval.
Five Initial Steps for Parents
Ask your school if it is using the Scottish Government Guidelines and if it is, be forthright in requesting your school to withdraw these (Sex Matters and Transgender Trend have guidelines based on the most robust research currently available).
Check with your school that the toilets are not gender neutral but based on biological sex.
Ask your school to give you details regarding what is being taught in the curriculum: make sure subject areas are upholding biological facts.
Ensure with your school that if your child states that they are self-identifying as the opposite sex, you will be contacted immediately.
Seek assurance from your school that it will not automatically affirm any child or young person (there is growing evidence that social transition is harmful) and that it has an agreed protocol for this eventuality to which all staff will adhere.
Carolyn Brown is a retired educational psychologist