No Outsiders

[Gone2far]

What do people think of the No Outsiders programme being taught in schools?
I'm hoping that someone knows more about it than I do, but I wouldn't be happy with my children being taught about TG issues (assuming the slant it will take). The LG bit is fine, IMO.
I'm finding the protests outside schools very interesting. I'm not Muslim, and it's being framed as a religious tolerance issue, when, as I said, I wouldn't be happy with it either.

isn't it very important that feminists and feminist groups start also speaking out against No Outsiders, but from a feminist / GC point of view?

Of course. Isn't that what we're doing on here? And some parents on here have been discussing this with their children's schools. I don't have children in school, but I have written to the Welsh Education Minister about the problems around gender ideology being taught in schools. She passed my letter to the Equalities people to reply to it, though, so she (or the civil servants who work for her) clearly didn't understand what the problem was.

It really is remarkably difficult to get anyone in power to listen to our concerns, so if you have some ideas on how to go about this, please share them on here.

Hi Sunkisses. I think you are pretty much spot on. I would say that we should all speak out against No Outsiders where we feel uncomfortable with it. But feminists do carry particular clout and legitimacy so if they started speaking out about it it would have an influence. However I think you will find that feminists have played a particular role in promoting LGBT in schools in general . Also the topic is even bigger than this. It is about sex education in general - I posted some links earlier - and will post them again - this is aimed at our children in secondary schools. This is extremely explicit material which many of us might feel uncomfortable reading. I do. However it is supplied to our children . The over 13s have access to the following supplied by from Warwickshire County Council's Respect Yourself Campaign:
Anal respectyourself.info/sextionary/#anal
Felch respectyourself.info/sextionary/#F
Sunflowering respectyourself.info/sextionary/#sunflowering
Bukakee respectyourself.info/sextionary/#B

For all ages from the Family Planning Association Sexwise site we have this: www.sexwise.fpa.org.uk/blog/can-lists-make-your-sex-life-better
The FPA is effectively acting as a gateway to bondage and sadomasochism for our children. Check it out. It is difficult to believe. The following links I found on the Sexwise site.

www.thatotherpaper.com/files/Yes_No_Maybe.pdf
www.ohjoysextoy.com/sexlist/

www.ohjoysextoy.com/lets-do-munch-by-kelly-bastow/?fbclid=IwAR0HG4qCyWpzSmTFWSVO_qE0GPbt5m_a_ID-ATIcYpJq8qqP-7cLv2z7exI

And here we have Brook saying that consenting sex is okay from 13 years old in their traffic light tool for training people working in schools:www.brook.org.uk/our-work/the-sexual-behaviours-traffic-light-tool

What Muslim parents are protesting about is the tip of the ice-berg and we should listen to them and take them seriously.

Hi OldCrone It isn't what I am doing because I am not a feminist! But I did write to my daughter's school (to no avail). This organisation Parent Power provides advice about how to deal with these issues and I think you can also contact them: parentpower.family/category/advice/

Koteczek It isn't what I am doing because I am not a feminist!

"Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions, for safety in the streets, for child care, for social welfare, for rape crisis centres, women's refuges, reforms in the law. If someone says, 'Oh, I'm not a feminist', I ask, 'Why? What's your problem?"

Dale Spender, Man Made Language

It isn't what I am doing because I am not a feminist!

But aren't you speaking up about this with the same concerns as we have? That gender identity ideology is regressive, misogynistic and homophobic. Or do you feel you're more closely aligned with the Muslim parents who are fighting it?

Not that it really matters, since this ideology is so poisonous that we shouldn't be fighting amongst ourselves, we should be fighting together to get it out of schools. But I wonder why you felt the need to say you're not a feminist.

That's a great quote, Buzz.

Labels are unhelpful. It doesn’t really matter what political or religious perspective you come from, the fact is that we believe that what children is being taught in schools in sex ed goes way beyond concepts of tolerance or factual information and is actually harmful.

Nobody wants their children taught about BDSM.

I am with the parents.

I am not an educationalist, but even I know that when you are preparing a curriculum on sensitive issues for primary school children, you don't just lob half a million pounds at a bunch of gender studies PhDs and let them get on with it.

In a pluralist society you sit down with teachers from the faith communities and hammer out a compromise everyone can get on board with, before it even gets into schools.

Moffat's approach is typical of neoliberal politics: just go ahead and do it, and smear your opponents. It is the approach of every property developer who thinks they can get away with it, it is the approach of the racist settlers in the West Bank, it is the approach of all the politics wonks who have colonised the political parties, and it is deeply anti-democratic.

It is the approach of every property developer who thinks they can get away with it

All too common, IME.

Not that it really matters, since this ideology is so poisonous that we shouldn't be fighting amongst ourselves, we should be fighting together to get it out of schools. But I wonder why you felt the need to say you're not a feminist.
Yes I think that is really spot on. I did feel it important to say that I am not a feminist in response to some other comment which had assumed that anyone fighting this was, I agree that labels are unhelpful and it is much more important that we submerge our differences for the sake of protecting our children.

Why I am not a feminist is a conversation for a different thread and not relevant here.

Fair enough, koteczek. Plenty of women who do call themselves feminists don't seem to act in the interests of women, so it's not a very helpful label, since it seems to mean different things to different people.

We shouldn't leave this to the religious families to fight. We should all educate ourselves on what the programme covers and find out if/when it is coming to our schools and then remove our children from lessons as we see fit.

Old Krone - yeah exactly. Vicviking I think it might be more difficult than you realise because relationships education is compulsory. Relationships education is where they teach children that some have two mums or two dads etc. The trouble with this is that it separates parenthood from reproduction. Usually we first learn about reproduction when as children we ponder that great question "where did I come from?". Then we find out we came from our mum and dad and sex becomes embedded in the most profound relationship of our lives. What Moffat's innocent sounding 'two mums and two dad's does" is blast a coach and horses through the connection between sex and the primordial heterosexual relationship. If you read people like Ellie Barnes and I suspect Anna Carlisle smashing patriarchal heternormativity is what sex ed should be all about (one of the reasons I say I am not a feminist - theirs is a feminist position). So now we have relationships taught separately from sex from which I think you can still withdraw your child. But it is the smashing of the connection between sex and the parental relationship which does the real damage in the first place. Then later in secondary school they teach sex as something which is about self fulfillment and having a healthy life - sex once separated from parenthood and reproduction becomes an end in itself. Of course they talk about sex and relationships but it is in the context of relationships which help you achieve that great sex. Check our respect yourself, sexwise, Brook and something called 'sex positive'

I just googled Elly Barnes. She seems to be a queer theorist (Educate and Celebrate). Queer theory is not feminism.

The BBC coverage of the protests has been really interesting. This article is all about how its "hatefull", "divisive", "sour", and a deliberate attempt to undermine british values and disrupt our society. But later it quotes a bit of what the parents are actually saying:

"let kids be kids"

"don't class us as homophobic"

Parents complained books that demonstrated homosexual relationships should not be shown to children as young as five.

"We are not homophobic or discriminating in any way, we just think there should be an age category."

The TT articles talks about parents saying their kids had come home confused and asking if they could change sex.

Another BBC item featured some of the No Outsiders books being read to prove there's nothing wrong with the curriculum. You'll notice they focus on "Tango makes three", "Odd Dog Out", and "Julian is a Mermaid" whilst forgetting to mention "10,000 dresses" where a boy realises he's really a girl because he dreams about dresses and then becomes a girl by putting on a dress, or "Are you a boy or are you a girl?" which features Tiny who is a girl one day and a boy the next depending on what toys Tiny chooses to play with. The book also features Tiny's sister Fiona who is clearly a girl and pictured with long blonde hair, playing princess and dressing as a nurse while Tiny has short hair and dresses as a doctor. It's deliberately setting this up as nothing more than bigotry and intolerance (which I'm sure is part of it for some of the parents). But if they were so sure of their position they would have read the more controversial books and argued that they aren't in fact controversial.

For the record we have "Tango makes three" which we read at home, so I have no problem with the LGB bit. But I wouldn't touch "10,000 dresses" or "Are you a boy or a girl" with a barge pole and I'd be very cross if someone read it to my 5 year old and used it as a spring board to groom children young enough to believe in magic into the belief that humans can change sex.

But if they were so sure of their position they would have read the more controversial books and argued that they aren't in fact controversial.

Exactly so ... what has been missing from the media coverage is reference to the confusion that has been induced in some of these KS1 children by telling them that they can change their sex.

KS1 children believe in Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and they will believe they can change their sex if a trusted adult tells them that this is so.

Personally, I don't think this programme should be for KS2 children either. The transitioning element is based on a very harmful lie.

Queer theory is not feminism.

No it bloody well isn't.

Media reporting of No Outsiders protests will never be accurate if they can't bring themselves to inform the public exactly what queer theory is. But of course, they won't inform the public because the public will not like it one bit.

No Outsiders doesn't teach the Equality Act as Moffat is so fond of saying because it ignores protected characteristics including sex and religion. It provides a skewed curriculum on LGBT as protected characteristics because it's not so much pro-LGBT as pro-queer theory.

Parents would be aghast if they realised this was the theoretical basis of the curriculum.

Article in Guardian by P Tatchell today. Actually inviting comments... It will be interesting to see if they put up my or any other GC comments in.
www.theguardian.com/education/2019/may/28/fear-lgbt-inclusive-lessons-harks-back-to-80s-peter-tatchell?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

No comments have been put up that might distinguish between the issues. No surprise there.

I see what you say Kote. From September 2020 we won't have the right to withdraw children from relationships education. But is there anything to stop parents withdrawing children before then? Say if no outsiders was being taught in your child's primary school now?

The guidelines on RSE (from 2020) say the religious background of pupils should be taken into consideration when designing the teaching of these issues so the parents protesting this now have a point as this hasn't happened in this case.

It feels that this is being manufactured by those who want to weaken any religious objections to the content of some RSE teaching. I don't trust the motives of some of those who would want to weaken the ability of parents to protest some of this. Hence why I think we secular parents should make our voices heard now.

Angryresister
There are some GC views in there - none of them calling out the two elephants in the room - PT's positive views on adult child sexual relationships or the queering of the curriculum - presume they weren't allowed. But someone (Venice Lady) has managed to get in Tatchell wanting teachers to teach sexual pleasure to children.

Here's one of my comments which didn't get through the Guardian's moderation.

There are some legitimate concerns about the No Outsiders project. It was a large, ESRC funded project to disrupt 'heteronormativity' in the classroom, or in other words, to bring queer theory into primary schools. The book which was published as a result of this project is here: www.academia.edu/1029463/Interrogating_Heteronormativity_in_Primary_Schools_The_No_Outsiders_Project

Andrew Moffat was a participant in this project.

"Atkinson and Moffat take up the theme of identity politics and queer destabilisations of identity that has run throughout the project..."

"...the methods of queer theory [are] ‘impertinent’ methods which subvert the norms of public discourse and go beyond the safe spaces of inclusion and equalities."

It's fine for people to study queer theory at university, but it has no place in the primary classroom and it's not about inclusion and equalities. The Muslim parents are being set up to show that anyone who objects to queer theory being taught in primary schools is a bigot.

I tried for a similar comment, OldCrone, locating queer theory as the problem being obscured. I was careful to say that I supported an anti-bullying curriculum to include teaching protected characteristics. It was also rejected.

So none of us on here has been able to comment. Talk about gaslighting. Well done the woman calling out PT.