I thought I couldn't be shocked anymore (No Outsiders programme)

[LesbianMeansSomething]

You know the No Outsiders programme which that gay teacher came up with all by himself to challenge homophobia in primary schools (and which just happens to promote a lot of the current transactivist ideology)?

Well, guess what? No Outsiders was a £575,435.85-funded project dating back to 2006, which this teacher and other individuals and groups such as Gendered Intelligence were involved in developing from the start.

What they were discussing is worth looking at for yourself: www.transgendertrend.com/no-outsiders-queering-primary-classroom/ but, to quote the article:

"There is an air of unreality about all this. ‘At what cost do we deny children’s and teacher’s sexuality? What do we lose if desire and pleasure are banned from the classroom? What is the place of the research team members’ own bodies, desires and pleasures in this research?’ Reading these questions, you have to keep reminding yourself that the bodies in question are those of adults and the children aged 5 to 11 who are in their care to learn."

This is utterly horrifying - the fact that any team members considered exploring the possibility of creating non-normative learning environments through a process of questioning or troubling established norms of sexuality and gender suggests that these are people not suitable to be trusted with the development and safety of children.

And it is every gay / lesbian teacher's nightmare - to see these ideas being touted by gay colleagues.

My best guess OldCrone is that governments are planning for a future that we don't yet see.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote two books (I think) on the implications of science for the future of humanity. He doubted our ability to develop a humanist ethics that would allow us to manage the increasing control that we are getting over such things as reproduction, genetics and so on.

One of the things that future planners must be considering is how to find a way around such things as our natural revulsion towards such things as eugenics. There has been an explosion in "life science" departments in universities around the world and the general public is largley unaware of what the implications will be for the future of humanity.

We can add to this advances in AI and robotics and large swathes of humanity are likely to become surplus to requirements. Governments will be exploring all avenues of social control in order to manage these changes that are beyond the imaginings of most of us.

it's the antimatter of safeguarding. - isn't it just that, nauticant?

Fuck me this got dark quick

Having read that link about queer theory I can’t imagine why anyone would want it to inform primary school teaching

The program was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Haven’t they funded some of professor Hines’s work?

And who are they?

The program was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Haven’t they funded some of professor Hines’s work?

Yes they have though they fund most social science research in the UK - here's a link to all the grants they funded between 2010 and 2014.

Bear in mind that some of the more obscure titles are actually fairly sensible projects but written in jargon... Lots of interesting stuff actually, dementia, children's play, children's writing etc. etc.

www.researchcatalogue.esrc.ac.uk/search/search-page.aspx?q=:&tab=grants&startYear=2010&endYear=2014&filters=on

ESRC is a government funded research council, directing public monies to research projects.

So they’re not some shadowy Davos style organisation then!

It would be nice to know what made them decide that ‘queering’ primary school teaching was something to be investigated

It seems rather a nihilistic and solipsistic ideology to me, not something I’m comfortable with being taught to my children as a good approach to life

I don't think they are allowed to push one ideology or another.
The university ethics committee should have had some input though.

Peoples sexual preferences should be private imo. There is no need to discuss it at work, and that should be inclusive to if you work at a school.

My best friend taught English and is gay. He never discussed his relationship choices with his pupils, his boss, and most if his colleagues.

Should teachers mention their families? If they have their own DCs in the school, what if their partner picks up the DCs?
So in primary school, is it appropriate for teachers to mention "my little girl likes X" or "when I got married we had Y" or "we went on holiday to Z and my partner liked ABC food"?
In secondary is it appropriate for a teacher to discuss their experience of relationships e.g. "in this poem, the poet discusses unrequited love, I remember when I was a teenager..."

"The philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote two books (I think) on the implications of science for the future of humanity. He doubted our ability to develop a humanist ethics that would allow us to manage the increasing control that we are getting over such things as reproduction, genetics and so on. "

That's very interesting, I'd tend to agree. The difficulty with secular humanism is that it has all this confidence in humanity being able to transcend its animal self, but it isn't really rooted in anything. There is no reason to imagine the human animal has any ability to do anything of the sort, or maybe more to the point, there is nothing to transcend to - rise about our animal nature to what? Science is the same way, we can figure out all kinds of clever things, but it neither imparts nor reveals a moral or ethical element to them. I don't think it's surprising that in that kind of scientific/ethical landscape a lot of people were attracted to social darwinism and eugenics, which is really just saying we are animals and subject and even subservient to all the laws of nature including survival of the fittest, whether we dress it up as something else or accept it for what it is.

My best friend taught English and is gay. He never discussed his relationship choices with his pupils, his boss, and most if his colleagues.

But what should he do if the children ask him if he's married? And if he says 'yes', start asking about his wife? Children do ask questions like this, and the teachers should be able to answer them honestly.

Would your friend refuse to answer any personal questions? Just refusing to answer would make it look as though he had something to hide.

Re Queer theory.

Methodologically, Queer theory openly refutes the scientific method.

Science, and the aim to discern truths objectivity, are presented as part of mainstream heteronormative institutions, which curtail individual's beliefs and behaviour, and which therefore must be challenged and contested.

That elements of queer theory are being brought into primary schools, without a large and lengthy disclaimer, is irresponsible in the extreme.

I also dont accept for one minute, that the No Outsiders programme provides an opportunity for interesting dialogue at home on the topics it raises.That is a very time rich assumption, many families with children in the UK are very time poor, and would not have time to sit down with their kids and work through the aspects of the curriculum which their children should make are effort to retain and those which are based on attempts to subvert mainstream thinking.

Either a child trusts its teacher to tell them what is true, or they dont, is that what queering primary schools involves, lowering trust? What implication will that have for other curriculum content?

The British educational system should be seeking to educate the current cohort to a standard which will equip them to access the workplace and contribute to their communities and societies more generally in the future, in which case scientific and technological knowledge must be placed above deliberate attempts to obscure and obfuscate, or, the British educational system becomes a vanity project for woke's ville.

Its worth acknowledging that whilst the upper echelons of British HE are, currently, globally regarded, the UK is known as a low skill economy. More queering and less science, within that context, is a good thing, no point educating them for grunt work.

This is a book from the No Outsiders project.

Interrogating Heteronormativity in Primary Schools : The No Outsiders Project

"...the ESRC-funded No Outsiders research team explore and analyse central issues which permeate the team's challenge to gender conformity through primary education. The need for primary teachers and other professionals working with children to address equality in relation to sexual orientation and gender expression is becoming increasingly urgent in the light of recent changes in UK legislation...It explores key themes related to the project's work: silence and speaking out; faith and culture; leadership and role-modelling; personal and emotional investment; gay rights/liberal humanist and queer perspectives; safety and risk-taking; the possibility of a queer pedagogy; and intersections between queer theory and practice. This academic companion to the team's practice-focused book drawing on the project teachers' classroom work, "Undoing Homophobia in Primary Schools", will be essential reading for all those in primary education who are concerned to challenge this last bastion of inequality, as well as for students and researchers in sociology, cultural studies, queer studies and related fields where the underlying discourses shaping heteronormativity and gender conformity require urgent analysis in the move towards a fairer society."

A queer pedagogy???

From the article that clitherow linked to:

Queer theory is all about breaking down norms and institutions. From the idea that sexual norms are stupid and capitalist came the conclusion that most norms are stupid and antiquated.

Can someone explain to me why primary school children should be taught about this?

@OldCrone
Indeed, my friend told them that his private life was private. Which is true, pupils don't have a right to know about their teachers lives.

And there’s sexual norms and sexual norms

The idea that violence during sex is not normal

I’d like that to continue as a norm

Many of the things queer theory seeks to question or undermine do not seem particularly harmful to me

This weird conflation of adherence to queer theory and fighting homophobia

I don’t think the two are linked at all, but the writer of that extract seems to believe one flows from the other

Queer theory is closely rooted in BDSM, the movement to normalise male violence in sex.

Sorry OldCrone I've been away.
I would say that is not the child saying to the mother - I am a boy not a girl - she's asking the mother if it is ok to be a boy not a girl - I would interpret that as asking about not conforming to gender stereotypes as she is likely learning them from her parents.

I agree with fuckerys post.

Apart from the historic funding and brand link to that one seminar over a decade ago, is there any evidence that No Outsiders is using the curriculum to promote queer theory and sexual pleasure to primary aged children? Or how individual school teachers are presenting it?

I would say that is not the child saying to the mother - I am a boy not a girl - she's asking the mother if it is ok to be a boy not a girl - I would interpret that as asking about not conforming to gender stereotypes as she is likely learning them from her parents.

So you're reading something into what she said that wasn't there. But if they had simply been taught at school that it was OK not to conform to stereotypes, but that it's impossible to change sex, why would she ask if it was 'OK to be a boy'? She would know that she couldn't, but that she could do the things boys do, or dress like them. So she would be more likely to say something like 'I want to dress like a boy', or 'I want to do the things boys do'.

So although we're both just guessing what she meant, your interpretation seems less likely.

Anyway, since you didn't seem to believe that children are being taught that they can can change sex, have you seen these "teaching materials" from GIRES?

www.gires.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Penguin-Story-Trans-Boy.pdf

From the Birmingham Mail - 'My child came home and told me am I OK to be a boy? It's confusing children about sexuality.'

In fact that whole Birmingham Mail article is worth sharing, to show how No Outsiders was presented to parents.

In fact that article is worth reading, to show what lies religious homophobes will tell to smear a campaign teaching it's ok to be gay. Religious homophobes believe a boy who is gay literally is a girl (or rather, effeminate, or non-masculine: guess what? Homophobes often turn out to be raging sexists too), so they will twist "it's ok to be a gay boy" into "they're teaching our kids to question if it's ok to be a boy".

This project was never about acceptance of others who are different. It was always about creating confusion in children's minds about what is normal and acceptable and what isn't. I can only speculate as to why they might want to do this.

I think you have summed it up.

Much as Mumsnet is right to oppose the trans agenda, the opposition to No Outsiders did not come from gender-criticial feminists or by anyone else concerned by the TRA agenda, it came from bigoted Muslim parents in a heavily Muslim area of Birmingham who did not want it being taught that it was ok to be gay and who wanted a version of section 28 being brought back.

I happen to be involved in politics in a place far away from Birmingham and the other day I and some others were interviewing candidates for a party position. One of the candidates inadvertently disclosed he was gay. During the Q&A, quick as a flash, a Muslim member of the panel asked the question (which he had not asked of any other candidate) “The community is very concerned about promoting gay lifestyles in schools, what will you do about it?”. It was clear that by “the community” was meant the Muslim community and that the question had been provoked by what was going on in Birmingham.

If what had happened in Birmingham had been done by evangelical Christians this site and many others would be all over them with ridicule and dismay.

But (correct) opposition to the trans agenda has gone so deep here that you’re prepared to allow religious bigots to bring back section 28 by force majeure in schools where they make up a majority of the parent body. Jesus Christ. And do you all want it taught that families consist of Daddy (goes out to work), Mummy (stays home and bakes cakes) and 2.4 children? Because that’s where you’re going.

I am a gay man and I disagree as much as anyone with the idea someone with a penis can become a woman, but that is no reason to allow religiously-motivated homophobia to dictate how schools teach PSHE. The opposition to No Outsiders came from homophobic religious bigots, not from a bunch of gender-critical feminists FFS.

And posters saying “I just want kids taught the 3 R’s and nothing else” – so you think it’s OK if sexism and misogyny in children is perpetuated and not challenged? Or is it just anti-homophobia you object to?