Compulsory Education About Gender Identity to be Introduced

[Wanderabout]

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/07/19/sex-and-relationship-education-gay-relationships-gender-identity/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

What are they going to be teaching about gender identity that doesn't reinforce gender stereotypes?

Will it be compatible with science and biology?

Will they be teaching extreme gender ideology or a balanced range of views on the subject including critiques and feminist theory?

Who will be delivering the education and who will be vetting it from a safeguarding point of view?

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/07/19/sex-and-relationship-education-gay-relationships-gender-identity/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

The compulsory part is 16+

But the idea is it will be embedded throughout the curriculum anyway.

Schools are free to determine how they address LGBT specific content

This is the bit that ensures nothing is compulsory about it.

My biggest concern from a learning perspective is that “assigned (sex/gender) at birth” will become accepted language. Once we start pretending that’s what happens when a baby is born, we may as well abandon teaching biological facts to children.

I agree with most of it, except the bit about gender identity. What is gender identity anyway?

Are they going to teach that you must have respect for other people's wishes and personal boundaries in sexual activities, but that you have the unalienable right to ride roughshod over other people's wishes and personal boundaries when it comes to your own opinion of yourself?

I do see the need for telling children its ok to be gay or lesbian without parents opting out - but I don't get why trans is part of it.

It feels like having a lesson on race relations and then throwing in a discussion on goths.

I feel sick about being taught gender as a fact that if you stray from are really the other gender.

I've had a quick look and it looks excellent. The draft guidance is thorough, wide ranging and in my view completely appropriate. Gender identity is quite rightly included but it's proportionate and there's no dogma about it.

There's an important section on ensuring that external agencies brought in comply with safeguarding and that schools must see materials in advance. Hopefully that will go some way to ensure that trans groups currently advocating for safeguarding to not apply to 'trans' children are stopped in their tracks.

Its lengthy but well worth reading. Schools will have to publish their policy and parents (who should be consulted about a school's policy) can withdraw their children specifically from the sex ed lessons.

You can find the guidance here:
consult.education.gov.uk/pshe/relationships-education-rse-health-education/

The 3rd document on the list.

I did notice this useful section:
focus.. on boundaries and privacy, ensuring young people are taught that they have rights over their own bodies and know how to report concerns or seek advice

I agree with most of it, except the bit about gender identity. What is gender identity anyway?

Same here.

focus.. on boundaries and privacy, ensuring young people are taught that they have rights over their own bodies and know how to report concerns or seek advice

And how is that compatible with allowing penises in female spaces?

My biggest concern from a learning perspective is that “assigned (sex/gender) at birth” will become accepted language. Once we start pretending that’s what happens when a baby is born, we may as well abandon teaching biological facts to children.

Good point. Teaching 'gender identity' as per Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids, GIRES etc seems to me no different than teaching another unscientific, belief-driven ideology like creationism.

The challenge is to ensure that the trans lobby groups aren't allowed to rewrite this from their own political perspective and then sell it to schools. They won't stop - they've got the funding and will no doubt continue to try to access schools.

We need to get the message out to schools that at present the advice from some trans groups compromises children's safety and schools must exercise due diligence and ensure that this never happens. I reckon this guidance with safeguarding being a high priority, helps rather than hinders this.

There's an important section on ensuring that external agencies brought in comply with safeguarding and that schools must see materials in advance. Hopefully that will go some way to ensure that trans groups currently advocating for safeguarding to not apply to 'trans' children are stopped in their tracks.

This is good, if it works. But given where the NSPCC is on safeguarding and how it responded to even being asked questions how can we really trust this will be handled sensibly? Look at the culture in schools around discussing this and the guidelines out there already.

The challenge is to ensure that the trans lobby groups aren't allowed to rewrite this from their own political perspective and then sell it to schools. They won't stop - they've got the funding and will no doubt continue to try to access schools.

Very true.

So if I want to pull DS out of this I have to pull him out of the whole of sex education?

What are they going to be teaching about gender identity that doesn't reinforce gender stereotypes?

Nothing. Gender identity is all about stereotypes. The exception...possibly...being in cases of genuine, severe dysphoria.

Will it be compatible with science and biology?

No, because gender identity 'theory' is faith-based and entirely disconnected from science and biology.

Will they be teaching extreme gender ideology ?

Yes, because gender ideology admits no compromise. All gender ideology is extreme and prioritises the feelings of the ideologue over the lived experiences of women, in particular, and society in general.

Wanderabout
You're right to be sceptical, especially after the NSPCC shocker. When I looked at the draft I feared that the T would be all over it as the most 'special and vulnerable group ever' as that's what happened with the DfE's Equality guidance for schools with trans groups being repeatedly referenced but no other groups referenced, not race, SEN or any other vulnerable group, let alone protected characteristic.
We know how well embedded trans lobbyists are within government so it was just a relief to see that they have not been allowed to have a disproportionate influence on this guidance - and I bet they tried!

And the curriculum apparently if it's going to be woven throughout. That is the push in Pink News and internationally too.

I think the best way forward is to argue for critical thinking around gender identity, and a range of views, to be taught.

This is a key battleground on which intellectual freedom and freedom of belief about gender identity will ultimately be won or lost: what our children are taught as truth, from the very youngest ages, in school.

HotRocker
Parents have always been allowed to remove their children from the specific sex ed lessons - except when they happen in science lessons, The insistence on parents being consulted hopefully will ensure that lessons are 'appropriate' - although of course it also allows people who believe things that I would find uncomfortable - eg sex just as part of marriage etc - to attempt to influence as well.