Updated relationships, sex and health curriculum guidance

[umbel]

Updated government guidance, released today!!!

Clearly Jonathan Slater was suppressing this work, IMO.

Cheerio, gender extremists. Your time is up!

these guidelines also pretty much ban groups like Transgender Trend from being active in schools as well.

How?

@FloralBunting

Wow, TRAs in the responses saying what a good thing it is that Mermaids are now backtracking. Reminds me of when Jehovah's Witnesses get their doctrine changed to something completely different by the Governing Body and all the individual Witnesses express their gratitude for such humble leaders who listen to God so closely and block out that they were ever taught anything else.

Wow, I didn’t know that about JWs. It sounds like “Eastasia has always been at war with Eurasia”, is that how it is, Floral?

[quote OldCrone]I doubt schools refer to Mermaids very often

Here's a typical example of 'Transgender guidance for schools'. Mermaids are listed under 'External Support and Resources'.

www.cornwall.gov.uk/media/13620644/schools-transgender_guidance_booklet-2015.pdf[/quote]
That guidance is aimed at teachers not children. And there's nothing in the new guidelines that will prevent a school referring a trans child to Mermaids, particularly as Mermaids are quite clear that they abide by the guidelines.

@gardenbird48

these guidelines also pretty much ban groups like Transgender Trend from being active in schools as well.

How?

They basically ban any organisations from schools that are critical of the government or state institutions, like the Tavistock for example.

I'm so pleased. I will be sending a copy if this to my school's and highlighting the OPs quote.

Wow, that is a breath of fresh air I needed this week! Congratulations to all who have so patiently worked on getting sense and safeguarding into the centre of RSE, where they should always have been. Thank you

I can’t quite believe it. The government has actually said no more brainwashing children.

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP 🥳

This has very little to do with Mermaids, who don't go into schools and deliver sessions for children.

The guidance says

“Materials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used and you should not work with external agencies or organisations that produce such material.“

Mermaids, GIRES, Stonewall and Co produce resources for schools to use, e-learning modules, and up to now have been cited in RSE schemes of work as a resource for 'further information'.

When Mermaids themselves were critiquing this section of the guidance in their 'response' they focused on the 'gender non-conforming' part, rather than that they wouldn't come under the 'producing such materials' part.

@KnightsofColumbusThatHurt

This has very little to do with Mermaids, who don't go into schools and deliver sessions for children.

The guidance says

“Materials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used and you should not work with external agencies or organisations that produce such material.“

Mermaids, GIRES, Stonewall and Co produce resources for schools to use, e-learning modules, and up to now have been cited in RSE schemes of work as a resource for 'further information'.

When Mermaids themselves were critiquing this section of the guidance in their 'response' they focused on the 'gender non-conforming' part, rather than that they wouldn't come under the 'producing such materials' part.

I'm not aware that Mermaids or Stonewall produce resources to be used in classrooms. Even if they did, they are compliant with the new guidelines as Mermaids points out. So nothing will change. And these guidelines specifically state secondary school children must be tought about trans people.

The government have basically made a big fuss about something that wasn't really happening, whilst keeping things pretty much substantially the same when it comes to trans kids and introducing some really dodgy draconian shit about keeping anyone critical of the government or supportive of direct action out of schools on the back of it. Feels like the Tories are playing some people like fiddles to me.

I am so pleased to have read this tonight. Absolutely chuffed. Really pleased that they say to check that any external resources comply with all other important policies ie. The Equality Act 2010. SO critical that the single sex exemptions are reinforced as we go forward after Liz Truss's announcement on the GRA yesterday. That's the 'perceived' Achilles Heel in all this.

@KnightsofColumbusThatHurt

Do we think that Benjamin Butterworth read the first line of this tweet and did a huge dramatic gasp whilst uttering 'I find that bigotry'?

I spent 15 minutes on twitter to look up the video of that, and it was 100% time well spent.

For the benefit of anyone else:
mobile.twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1306595442050834432

Wow, I didn’t know that about JWs. It sounds like “Eastasia has always been at war with Eurasia”, is that how it is, Floral?

Pretty much. I recall going to a convention with a school friend where it was announced that they had changed the definition of 'generation' which meant that the imminent end of the world wasn't quite so imminent and gave them wiggle room to explain away why people who were supposed to see the end of this world were all dying off before it happened. This was about 30 years ago. I watched people just accept it meekly.

You'd think seeing that would have inoculated me against cult thinking, but I took another 20 years to properly get the message!

@FemaleAndLearning

I'm so pleased. I will be sending a copy if this to my school's and highlighting the OPs quote.

Yes! Absolutely, am so very relieved. What A Day.

This page says that Mermaids provide 'training and lesson plans' for schools to use.

mermaidsuk.org.uk/professionals/

Stonewall are notorious for being very active in schools, providing materials, training and lessons plans.

GIRES are the ones who provided the infamous 'if a trans child comes out to you, you should promise them that you won't tell anyone' training for schools.

Does anyone know if Dr Haddock has responded. (Im blocked)

@KnightsofColumbusThatHurt

This page says that Mermaids provide 'training and lesson plans' for schools to use.

mermaidsuk.org.uk/professionals/

Stonewall are notorious for being very active in schools, providing materials, training and lessons plans.

GIRES are the ones who provided the infamous 'if a trans child comes out to you, you should promise them that you won't tell anyone' training for schools.

Thank you. We all know that collectively they've had huge influence on schools and many other institutions.

Fantastic!

Bye bye Merwallstonemaids.

@KnightsofColumbusThatHurt

This page says that Mermaids provide 'training and lesson plans' for schools to use.

mermaidsuk.org.uk/professionals/

Stonewall are notorious for being very active in schools, providing materials, training and lessons plans.

GIRES are the ones who provided the infamous 'if a trans child comes out to you, you should promise them that you won't tell anyone' training for schools.

Well I've never seen an example of their lesson plans and the bulk of their work is clearly training adults. But as long as this lesson plan is compliant with the guidelines, and Mermaids say they are, then there's no reason why they can't continue. They only have about 7 staff, it's pretty clear they are not a major force in schools.

As for Stonewall they mostly train teachers as well, and will likely continue to do so as I'm fairly confident they would be compliant with the guidelines (and if not can tweak them until they are, it's quite possible to educate people about trans kids without talking about gendr stereotypes. Gender stereotypes don't really have anything to do with being trans which is more about an internal sense of who you are).

Sorry as I am most likely ignorant ..

Previously was the guidance not clear or was it not very good? Did it suggest parents were not informed of something major like someone saying they were trans?

Just trying to understand the significance.

Schools were policy captured just like the rest of society. But this time the influence of adults self identifying as experts was catastrophic as their demands were anti safeguarding, contrary to how schools deal with vulnerable children and divisive. Not to mention being misogynistic in their treatment of girls.

I think that schools became frightened to challenge these groups for fear of being accused of being transphobic or being bullied online - anyone remember that Kent school coerced into removing single sex toilets by that group run by the police officer?
www.transgendertrend.com/who-is-making-policy-for-schools/

Hopefully schools will now feel more equipped to say no and realise that there is no place in schools for adults with a personal investment in these issues. The rights, needs and safety of children should be at the centre and going forward, this guidance helps restore that.

snoopdoop Teachers were advised not to out trans children to their parents.

''A trainee teacher in England who took part in a compulsory class on transgender issues last week told me it was run by the mother of a trans child on behalf of Mermaids, a charity which ‘raises awareness about gender nonconformity’. Teachers were told that gender is a spectrum and shown a graph with Barbie at one end and GI Joe at the other. They were asked to consider where they and their students would fit on this chart. Posters and stickers encouraged children to contact Mermaids directly if they didn’t feel they could talk to their teachers about trans issues.

Where are the parents in all of this? They are often not told if their child is worried about their gender. During my training, we were told to avoid ‘outing’ potential transgender children to their families. If the child so wished, we might want to keep mummy and daddy out of the loop. Un-believably, this is in line with Scottish government guidelines.''
www.spectator.com.au/2018/10/dont-tell-the-parents-the-official-guidance-to-teachers-of-trans-children/

So relieved to see this. I was beginning to seriously think my career was over because I couldn’t stay in education and give in to the ideological steam roller. Safeguarding back at the heart of RSE. Thank goodness. But only last week, alongside Ofsted saying how they will inspect RSE (and positing gender identity as an accepted, unarguable ‘thing’), was DFE guidance linking to Stonewall, so we do need the rest of the educational power base to shift too.

But meawhile, HUGE thanks to everyone involved in getting this done, and with such clarity.

@jj1968

How do you describe a "general sense of who you are in your mind" without reference to any gender stereotypes? "I feel I am a boy because I like typical boy stuff" is very close to what mermaids have been advocating - which is gender stereotyping. "I feel that I am in the wrong body and I look down and feel I should have a penis and can't associate with having a female body and would only want to have sex as a man, as this is the body I see myself having" is very different.

Of 100 girls identifying as trans, at least 80 will "recover" statistically speaking, so for most whatever feeling they have is a transient feeling that they might prefer to be a boy. Probably in reaction to social stereotypes or body hatred in puberty.

No more than 20 experience true distress at their body (ie their sex) and may go on to try to transition to change their outward appearance visually so that it aligns more with the sex that they want to resemble.

How do you communicate and support this sense of self to people who are still finding out who they are, without pushing the 80 to do something that they might regret later?

It really isn't that easy.