Totally shocked!!! Need help please!

[danceswithdeath]

Okay so. My son goes to a private school; they do pray etc but we are not religious at home. There are obviously other parents who do not follow a religion too.

I am on a group WhatsApp with the fellow parents of my sons class (just gone into year three). Someone has just put a link for us to sign, and it is regarding not teaching our children about LGBTQ in class....

Now, I get it. Everyone has their own personal opinions. But I find this really shocking!! No one has replied expect myself, where I have asked if it was a mistake or not. They said no and to read it.

Well I really want to put something, but I'm not sure if I should... it's pissed me right off though!! I am so open with my son! He knows about a lot.

Has anyone any advice on what I could say that is calm and to the point?

@danceswithdeath good on you! Now you’ve taken the first step in replying hopefully others will back you up.

My kids know that some men love men and marry men, and the same for some women. Rather than just men and women getting married.

I really think that is all they need to know right now (Reception and Year 3) so if that was all that was on the curriculum I wouldn't care.

I would care if they were being told that 'some people are born in the wrong body' and all that 'men can become women' and 'if you are a girl and you like football it might actually mean you are at the GI Joe end of the jelly baby spectrum and are actually a boy' and all that shite.

Well done danceswithdeath that initial message you sent was very good and clear.

This Ted talk is not elusively about being gay but it is just lovely and I think everyone should listen to it.

www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_how_the_worst_moments_in_our_lives_make_us_who_we_are

I think what it does is show the very beautiful words of this wonderful gay man, and that's why I love it.

I'm a Christian and I know that some Christians really do have 'issues' with gayness and LGBT etc. But loads of Christians do not. So please OP do not assume all the parents in the school will feel this way.

Whatever our thoughts or beliefs, we are all trying to work through things ourselves. Actually, sometimes learning about the lives of gay people will bring others into much more understanding than arguing or shutting down debate.

And if you do want a religious' discussion with anyone, please point them to Matthew Vines...

He is brilliant.

My daughter has grown up knowing about LGBT as my sister is a lesbian and has been since being a teenager.
We have had many conversations about the fact that she can marry anyone she likes whether they are a boy or a girl.
There was one day where she came home and said that one of the kids at school told her she couldn't marry a girl. We reiterated to her that yes she could and used my sister as an example.
I think as previous posters have said it is all about the level of discussion and ensuring that the content is age appropriate. You don't need to go into the nitty gritty details to make sure kids are educated about it, just the basics and concepts. It should also encourage the child to raise it at home and hopefully allow them to have an open minded and honest conversation with their parents.
Unfortunately you will always get people who are against teaching kids about LGBT due to various reasons, which they are entitled to. However they can remove their kids from the subject, I remember going to a religious school as a child and not participating in RE as we were a different religion. This is no different to that.
If it is against your beliefs, tell the school not to include your child. However be prepared for your child to question why they aren't being included and for them to hear about it from their classmates.

If they are in secondary school then yes it can be used in a lesson but not in primary school. Kids should be kids, let them grow up without knowing, they will see it in real life, it's everywhere and if they are curious that they see 2 mum's or 2 dad's then it should be the parents job to teach if they ask. Schools should just stick to teaching academic subjects, LGBTQ is not going to teach them how to be a nurse or an engineer.

I come from a Middle Eastern background so it's quite known they are usually against it. I grew up not knowing anything about this topic, my parents didn't talk about it at all but I never asked, I just assumed it was normal.
My brother's best friend grew up with lesbian mum's, didn't occur to me to ask either. All I cared about was my Barbie dolls and dinosaurs, going to the park and running as fast as I can. I just learnt about LGBTQ as I got older, it just came to me naturally. I just knew that lots of people come in different sizes, shapes and background.

I went to an all girl's school, some of my friends were lesbians and bi. College and in uni I was surrounded by gays, lesbians and trans so I never felt the need to judge them, they were just normal to me. I just cared about their personalities.

Today my brother and his (male) partner were approved for adoption. I told my two DDs (3 & 5). My 5 year old said "but what about a Mummy?". I said to her that lots of families are different. Some have a Mummy and Daddy, some have one Mummy, some have one Daddy, some have two Mummies and some have two Daddies. Her response was "I'm excited that I'm going to have some new cousins" (they're adopting two).

At 5 years old she can comprehend that. She's always been able to comprehend that she has two uncles who live together. She has a Mummy and Daddy who don't live together. Her new cousins having two new children is not alien to her and it certainly isn't something to be scared of. Her uncles love each other and they're going to have children. What's so difficult?

She is in an infant school and they teach LGBT which I think is great. She doesn't come from a "conventional" home, and neither will her cousins. But they are loved and surely that's all that really matters.

It makes me very sad to think that my brother's adopted children may be made to feel as though they don't fit in because they have two daddies, when in their lives before adoption, they also may have felt they don't fit in because they weren't "conventional" (either through foster care or whatever struggles they had with their birth parents). Surely many children of same sex parents may be in the same situation, they deserve to feel that they're just as "normal" as everyone else.

I had a recent discussion with a friend about this debate . She is intelligent and well educated and pointed out to me that there is a lot of money to be made by certain organisations when people change sex . It hadn’t occurred to me and this may seem like a wildcard comment but why is there such a drive to teach very young children all about transgender issues as well as Lesbian / Gay / Bi . For Gods Sale can’t this be held off at least until the early teens ?? !

The problem is that people actually BEING trans doesn’t hold off till the early teens. I think it needs to be demystified and also disincentivized.

Have they even bothered to ask the school how they will be teaching this?

Well most of the LGBT orgs in the UK (Stonewall) have been totally overtaken by trans. LGBT education is just about trans. Even how you express it any child could 'identify as LGBT' is a perversoin for me as a bi women. I don't identify as bi, I am bi. You can't identify as a lesbian or bi or gay, you just either are or aren't. There is a growing movement in the LBG community to separate from the T.

For what it's worth I would be up in arms against Stonewall (or any other TRA org) coming anywhere near my kids, my friends, my friends' kids, any kids at all.

I know that's probably not where most of the parents against this are coming from, but I, as a bi woman would probably join them in their protest.

"The problem is that people actually BEING trans doesn’t hold off till the early teens"

No, the problem is that being trans isn't actually something that exists.

I can have gender dysphoria, I can feel like presenting as the opposite gender, but "trans" is not an observable characteristic that occurs in the same way as sex or hair colour or height or a as a recognisable disorder like autism or dyslexia.

Why, Mumsnet HQ, do you not delete this stuff. For any parents going through their child thinking they may be transgender this is just cruel. I don't care if I am over simplifying it. I have a child who is trans and am fucking scared they will take their life, though I hope they are well balanced enough not to.

Funnily enough I also don't think letting male offenders identify as female is OK

This is outrageous now - there is a 4000% increase in transgender children but Mumsnet finds it OK to vilify.

They just teach the basics at primary ffs! Not the "nitty gritty"! It's age appropriate! Kids need to know that same sex couples exist and it's ok. They don't teach the mechanics! Chill out!

"For any parents going through their child thinking they may be transgender this is just cruel."

For any mum going through infertility, pregnancy threads are cruel. For any mum who had a miscarriage, newborn threads are cruel. For anyone who has no friends, threads about having too many people to invite to their wedding are cruel.

Guess what. We all have problems. The world doesn't revolve around you and your child.

Wow, some awful, personal, rude comments on here. OP well done for writing a clear and well thought through response.
Yukyukyukyuk I hope your child is OK and the people they associate with in real life are more mature and accepting than some of the people on this post.

The LGB are fine, it's the T that scares me as it is confusing, unscientific and agenda driven so facts don't matter. I don't think the T is age appropriate

I agree that the teaching about-and actual promotion oftransgender identities is a problem in schools. Wanting impossible things does not make you special and you don't deserve a prize for it.

Does anyone think that the new teaching of LGBT is increasing the numbers of young people coming out as LGBT? I went to the same secondary school as ds, it was on a different site then, we had 300 pupils per year, out of my year there are less than 10 pupils who are LGBT (most of the ex pupils still live around the same area) ds year has 200 pupils & in ds form there are 11 pupils who are LGBT, 9 of which have SEN ranging from ASD, ADHD, Dyslexia & Dyspraxia, is there any correlation between SEN & LGBT? I am happy that LGBT is spoken about in relationship lessons but am worried that it forces young people to put a label on themselves too early in their lives.

Name calling starts at primary school age so education should start then too..
I have nephews/ nieces all under 11 that say ‘ your so gay’ as an insult to goad each other and I don’t think their parents were taught this isn’t right a thing school hence the fact they use it ....this part of my family does not have any gay friends ( that they know of ..anyway)
Teach all children the same at school ... those parents that disagree can influence/ counter balance with their own views at home... sa few hours at school to understand the real world will not change your child’s view on who they will love in adulthood...

@SaraNade
Re your question about are there actually plans to make a RSE compulsory. Yes. It’s on the Gov.uk webpage. I’m a bit perturbed that you could not find this?

“The Department for Education is introducing compulsory Relationships Education for primary pupils and Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) for secondary pupils from September 2020. Also, from September 2020 it will be compulsory for all schools to teach Health Education.”
www.gov.uk/government/news/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education-faqs

@Geekynzmum
“Unfortunately you will always get people who are against teaching kids about LGBT due to various reasons, which they are entitled to. However they can remove their kids from the subject, I remember going to a religious school as a child and not participating in RE as we were a different religion. This is no different to that.
If it is against your beliefs, tell the school not to include your child. However be prepared for your child to question why they aren't being included and for them to hear about it from their classmates.”

Er, not in 2020 and after can you exclude your child from RSE classes. That’s why the petition. Because they will be compulsory. The OP mischaracterized the petition in her initial post. The petition is not to stop LGBTQ being put in lessons to all kids, but to allow parents of different beliefs the ability to exclude their kids. It’s a petition against a non-academic subject being compulsory.

What worries me about this is a non-academic subject is being made compulsory and RSE is so entwined with morality and ethics. Also, despite searching I could not find any samples or examples of what will be taught when other than subject headers like “appropriate touching” or “feelings”. Nothing about WHAT will they teach or the context it is in.

There is a thread here on mumsnet where in an RSE class a child was shown a video about a man sexually attracted to balloons. It showed him getting into bed with ballooons....what else might they teach?

So, I’m sorry but everyone saying things like they don’t teach specifics, but only tell children some families have two dads or two mums, how do you know this? Can you post links to the actual curriculum? And how can this be ALL they teach in primary when it takes seconds to tell children this one fact when there are dozens if not hundreds of hours of more classtime on this subject?

The thing is, you can't 'teach' someone to be gay, because sexual orientation is innate, it's just what you like. You could teach kids about homosexuality all day long, but if a person is straight, they will still be straight, because you can't help what you like. Even if you 'tried to be gay' or wanted to be gay, you couldn't actually be gay if you are attracted only to people of the opposite sex. And because being gay involves absolutely no modification of anything and doesn't require anything from anyone else, you can experiment with what you like anyway.

This is entirely different to telling children from a young age that some people are 'born wrong' and need 'correcting' by all manner of irreversible drugs and surgery, and that if you are a girl who likes football or a boy who likes dolls then you might be one of these 'born wrong' people. Imagine telling children that! Even just planting that seed...

@Propertyofhood
“This is entirely different to telling children from a young age that some people are 'born wrong' and need 'correcting' by all manner of irreversible drugs and surgery, and that if you are a girl who likes football or a boy who likes dolls then you might be one of these 'born wrong' people. Imagine telling children that! Even just planting that seed...”

Yes I agree. It’s not just what they teach but the context they present it in. I have always been a tomboy. If I had grown up now, I am 100% sure I would be told I am trans (when I am not, I am a woman albeit one that does not match any gender stereotypes at all.) Its hard enough growing up not fitting in and being excluded and sneered at to then be told you need to surgically alter your body so that it matches society’s gender expectations and stereotypes.

I'd like to think I'd say something. You have to stand up against crap like this. If they think it's ok for them to share this vitriol then it's certainly ok for you to politely point out they are living on the wrong side of history and need to practice a bit of real humanity as preached.