School, trans debate

[FeministM]

Are you comfortable with your children's school teaching our children that people choose to be a girl instead of a boy and this is called transition. I can't for the life of me understand how they can only explain one side of the ideology, particularly to young children. Our schools aren't allowed to make sweeping statements such as when you die you go to heaven, so why are they allowed to tell our children that they can choose their sex or gender!

I have always believed that schools should not teach any religion at all as they are a place for learning facts not belief in a gog of any type. If anything the queer theory gender id has only served to strengthen my feelings

I am tediously repetitive about this issue.
Schools are under a legal duty to remain politically neutral. The fact that so many of them have been captured by a political lobby group - especially one openly works to remove the rights of women and girls with an open political agenda - is in clear breach of their legal responsibilities.
It's not surprising with half of government, the NHS etc also being in clear breach of the Nolan Principles of public life but Stonewall's toxic influence in schools cannot be removed soon enough.

That should say god fat fingers on my phone

I agree, but I think we need to be honest, schools have been teaching things some parents are really uncomfortable with for a long time. Among many progressives it's seen not only as ok, but one of the main reasons to have publicly funded schools.

@FeministM

Schools should teach there are many sexuality angles and two main genders with some people are trans gender and this means that he following etc

We are not in the 1950’s

Schools should teach that there are only 2 sexes and that sex is unchangeable. Anything else is biased.

@Hoardasurass

I have always believed that schools should not teach any religion at all as they are a place for learning facts not belief in a gog of any type. If anything the queer theory gender id has only served to strengthen my feelings

And when was the last time you actually sat in an RE lesson? My teaching today consisted of year 9 students working on creative pieces expressing their ideas about good and evil, following 6 weeks of work on different religious and non-religious perspectives, plus impact on ethics and also including non god based beliefs such as Buddhism; year 12 analysing and evaluating the Christian anthropomorphism of God, whether it has a basis in scripture and why it is very problematic to view God using gender specific language; year 8 analysing part of the UN DHR and how it reflects the golden rule; and finally year 7 considering why Hindus prefer to refer to their faith as Sanatana Dharma. At no point was anyone told what to believe, at every stage students are discussing, analysing and evaluating to determine their own ideas and opinions. This is as much an academic subject as history, why are you unable to understand that?

@Dougalskeeper

Schools should teach that there are only 2 sexes and that sex is unchangeable. Anything else is biased.

Exactly this!

@FeministM

Are you comfortable with your children's school teaching our children that people choose to be a girl instead of a boy and this is called transition. I can't for the life of me understand how they can only explain one side of the ideology, particularly to young children. Our schools aren't allowed to make sweeping statements such as when you die you go to heaven, so why are they allowed to tell our children that they can choose their sex or gender!

It’s breaching the d of e guidance if schools teach it this way.

Use the grievance procedures, copy in governors and be ready to follow up with a formal complaint, copying in ofsted.

It’s something that needs parents to force schools to comply with the guidance. Take action.

balloonsintrees, I find that many atheists want to silence and censor any mention of religion.
They disingenuously argue that children should choose a religion for themselves when adult, without explaining how they can possibly do that from a position of total ignorance, even of the very existence of God.

By silencing religion, they are enforcing the teaching of atheism by default.
As a Christian, I find it offensive when gender ideology is compared to Christianity. Jesus never made rape and death threats - He gave his own life in agonising sacrifice, for love of humanity. And asked for nothing in return, except that we should love each other.
It takes a very twisted mind to equate that with the excesses of TRA activism.

Babdoc, I am also Christian and I don’t find it offensive. I completely agree that the whole teachings of Jesus is the complete opposite of TRA arguments but I don’t think that is the point. I think it is about the belief in something that may be controversial, where people tend to disagree and where you have no proof, just beliefs.

Catholics believe in transubstantiation. And papal infallibility. I explain this to my children, ask them to respect it and also tell them that this is why they not are allowed to take communion in a Catholic Church.

I love that they are learning about other religions and they wish their friends happy Eid and are excited about Diwali celebrations. But I tell them what we believe and explain it. And I also tell them that we will find out after death and that the important thing is to live a good life.

In that sense, I wouldn’t mind gender politics being taught the same way to my children. This is something some people believe, we don’t but you have to be polite and respect their beliefs.

Then religious schools need to teach agnosticism and atheism as very real alternatives to whatever religion they promulgate.

Of course Spartacus, they should.

@Babdoc

balloonsintrees, I find that many atheists want to silence and censor any mention of religion. They disingenuously argue that children should choose a religion for themselves when adult, without explaining how they can possibly do that from a position of total ignorance, even of the very existence of God. By silencing religion, they are enforcing the teaching of atheism by default. As a Christian, I find it offensive when gender ideology is compared to Christianity. Jesus never made rape and death threats - He gave his own life in agonising sacrifice, for love of humanity. And asked for nothing in return, except that we should love each other. It takes a very twisted mind to equate that with the excesses of TRA activism.

There are certain fundamental branches of Christianity that is just as extreme in its misogyny. Same probably true of all religions.

Kids should be taught about lots of different religions in school, including atheism, but they need taught that these are beliefs not fact. Kids coming home from schools saying god is real is not ok, any more than them saying there’s definitely no god, or that gods of other religions are or are not real.

@Doubletoilandtrouble

Babdoc, I am also Christian and I don’t find it offensive. I completely agree that the whole teachings of Jesus is the complete opposite of TRA arguments but I don’t think that is the point. I think it is about the belief in something that may be controversial, where people tend to disagree and where you have no proof, just beliefs.

Catholics believe in transubstantiation. And papal infallibility. I explain this to my children, ask them to respect it and also tell them that this is why they not are allowed to take communion in a Catholic Church.

I love that they are learning about other religions and they wish their friends happy Eid and are excited about Diwali celebrations. But I tell them what we believe and explain it. And I also tell them that we will find out after death and that the important thing is to live a good life.

In that sense, I wouldn’t mind gender politics being taught the same way to my children. This is something some people believe, we don’t but you have to be polite and respect their beliefs.

Agree about respecting peoples beliefs of gender ideology, but I think it would require being followed up with that doesn’t mean being compelled to use biologically inaccurate language or that their beliefs in gender ideology trumps biological fact or our laws.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

Then religious schools need to teach agnosticism and atheism as very real alternatives to whatever religion they promulgate.

The gcse curriculum for re does cover these.

RE education is crucial. A significant number of religious children in my school are taught things at home that aren’t true about other religions. They are effectively told lies: offensive, damaging lies. This leads to division within our school community (only a primary school!).
Part of my job when I teach RE is to show them the similarities between the main faiths. I also tell them that I don’t believe in God and that’s okay too (they assume I’m a Christian based on my appearance).
As far as being taught about people who are trans? I think that children should know that trans people exist. Of course however, they should not be indoctrinated in any ideology! At my school it’s briefly mentioned in Year 6. When I teach PSHE or just during general chats I often discuss gender stereotypes and how they’re basically nonsense. It’s part of the curriculum we’ve bought into (and that’s the much maligned - on here - Jigsaw).

I won’t mind because I plan on getting in there before the school and telling my kids the truth.

The gcse curriculum for re does cover these

It needs to be included much earlier though.

I mean if you don’t teach kids about sexual reproduction you can’t then be upset when they don’t have it as part of their foundation knowledge.

So yeah, as part of that syllabus they should be told that there are two sets of partners with gametes, the foetus gestates inside the female sex organs. The two sets of sex data can result in any combination of DNA, including around 30 known combinations of X and Y chromosomes, but that they’re all essentially still X and Y, which have the easiest time procreating further.

But people don’t want to tell kids that incase they gasp want find out how to have sex and then want to do it. And religious education is largely to blame for this withholding of information and many of the taboos and controls around it, however nice Jesus was, a lot of crap had been done in his name to control people.

So the biology gets overlooked and the gender expression/cultural/social/personal aspect gets prominence, in opposition to these controlling and excluding narratives. Narratives that make it rebellious and affirming to say: “oh if you like barbiedolls and were observed as a boy at birth it must be because you’re really a girl inside, let’s make the internal feeling into a physical reality for you” and people to agree as they feel like they’re failing to live up to such narrow definitions of normal.

And really the individuals relation to their sex and identity absolutely should be discussed and explored. Some people are same sex attracted some are not and there is a huge spectrum and we must let kids know it’s ok to ask these questions and feel these feelings. Does anybody really think it’s better to teach them that homosexuality is a sin and they will get murdered for deviating from a very narrow set of expectations?

So no OP I don’t mind them being told that, but I think the context is not as rich as it should be and we do them a disservice by taking the biology and mechanics of it off the table in those pshe classes.

Some HT's are woefully uniformed and bow to the 'experts'.

This has to come from DfE and OFSTED if you ask me. The schools have been lumbered with this with very little guidance, it's always going to be a fudge, but it relies on parents knowing the law if the schools don't. Thankfully there are so many resources, grassroots groups, parent connections and media coverage now to challenge it.

BloodinGutters, agreed. Obviously it has to go both ways. They are free to believe what they want, we are free to believe what we want.

Just as Catholics probably are aware that most people don’t believe in transubstantiation and respect that.

Transwomen can believe that they are women, we respect that. They have their own third spaces and can do what they want.

We don’t believe they are women and they respect that.

Then, as a courtesy, we don’t need to discuss it on a daily basis and make an effort to use their pronouns. We don’t use pronouns and if we get theirs wrong, it is rude/careless, not hate speech.

OP, Church schools absolutely tell children when they die they go to heaven. But you can choose whether to send you child to a church school and can't choose whether to send your child to a Flat-Earth school. If my daughters had been taught regressive nonsense based on stereotypes, I would have marched in there and had strong words!...

@YetAnotherSpartacus

The gcse curriculum for re does cover these

It needs to be included much earlier though.

Agree. It may well be already, I don’t know how primary cover this.

We in BERG aim to support parents in Bristol who have concerns about their children's schools - and have written letters to schools and to Ofsted on parents behalf. However schools need to hear directly from parents in order for concerns to be taken seriously. Safe Schools Alliance have excellent templates for making complaints about compliance with DoE guidance re single sex provision and information about teaching materials provided by lobby groups. We know that In many local schools gender ideology has been normalised - and raising concerns as a lone voice can be daunting. Parents are stronger together - do get in touch if you would like to hear more. And check out our latest post

Greetings from Bristol Education Research Group. Berg supports and advocates for parents in Bristol who have concerns about promotion of gender ideology in their children's schools . We have found that in many local schools gender ideology has been normalised - and raising concerns as a lone voice can be daunting. But schools need to hear directly from parents in order for concerns to be taken seriously. Parents are stronger together - do get in touch if you would like to hear more. bergbristol.wordpress.com/