Break it down for me: contacting you child's school edition

[Vebrithien]

Evening.

It has been suggested (yes, I'm looking at you, @dimorphism ) that I start this thread, as a sort of depository of resources to use, if you are concerned about the conflation of sex and gender, as well as the teaching of gender identity in your child's school.

After this post, I'll start to link resources. It is not intended to replace the Safe Schools Alliance website, which I would suggest as a good place to start, and then Transgender Trend.

My initial research has been in order to challenge my DD's primary school, which has been using posters and plaques form No Outsiders, a controversial RSE (relationships and sex education) external provider, who claim provide resources to teach the Equality Act. However, their resources misrepresent the Equality Act, by replacing "sex" with "gender".

The school, and No Outsiders argues that sex and gender are conflated in law, and (in the words of No Outsiders) "It's preferable to use gender with primary school children, as it makes it easier to explain gender reassignment" (paraphrase). I was completely dismissed.

I wrote back to the school, with fully referenced letter, highlighting the Department for Education guidelines that they were breaking, as well as directly discriminating against student with SEND, students from a different culture, as well as, if sex is not recognised, the risk of safeguarding concerns.

We won! Thanks to the wonderful posters on FWR, Mumsnet, Safe School Alliance, and the support of other parents in the school, I received an email this week, informing me that the posters had been removed.

You can read the whole two threads here

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4713725-please-help-gender-not-sex-on-a-school-protected-characteristics-poster-just-spoken-to-the-head?page=10&reply=123559304

and

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4733278-sex-not-gender-no-outsiders-changing-the-equality-act-depheaddsl-captured?reply=123567727

Thank you to everyone who provided evidence.

Please, please, add any resources that you think would be good evidence, for this issue in schools of sex and safeguarding being suppressed, whilst gender identity is recklessly promoted (thanks to @ScrollingLeaves for that quote).

The 2020 Department of Education RSE guidance, states that outside agencies and resources must be checked by the school, to ensure that they comply with the Equality Act 2010.

"When deciding on the external agencies and resources to use, you should make appropriate checks to ensure that the agencies’ approach to teaching relationships education, relationships and sex education and health education and the resources that they plan to use comply with:
the Equality Act 2010"

Source: Department for Education, Guidance; planning your relationship, sex and health education curriculum, September 2020

Link: www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum#using-external-agencies

Last accessed on: 24/01/2023

No Outsiders has a political agenda, (as shown by the investigation by Shelley Charlesworth, hosted by Transgender Trend). T

No Outsiders deliberately conflate sex and gender.

Andrew Moffat's (the author of No Outsiders) was a co-presenter of a paper entitled "Queering the Body: Queering Primary Education", which acknowledges that it is concerned with sex, desire and children's bodies.

Source: No Outsiders: Queering the Primary Classroom , Transgender Trend, April 2019

Link: www.transgendertrend.com/no-outsiders-queering-primary-classroom/

Last accessed on: 28/01/2023

Schools are legally responsible for the resources they use.

This is highlighted in the DfE guidelines on the second post.

It is also legally shown in Bailey v Stonewall, Garden Court Chambers, that the organisations taking and putting into action advice contrary to the Equality Act were legally liable, not the organisation giving the advice.

Source: Bailey v Stonewall, Garden Court Chambers and others, employment tribunal.

Link: www.judiciary.uk/judgments/bailey-v-stonewall-garden-court-chambers-and-others/

Last accessed on: 01/03/23

Schools have a legal duty to remain politically impartial, and must not promote partisan political views, but should offer a balanced presentation of opposing views

Source:
Department for Education, Guidance; Political impartiality in schools, February 2022
Link: www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools
Last accessed on: 28/01/2023

Gender critical beliefs, including not believing that you have a gender identity and the biological sex is dimorphic and immutable, are within the ambit of the protected characteristic of gender critical belief and is therefore protected at law.

This was shown in Bailey v Stonewall, Garden Court Chambers, as well as Maya Forstater v CGD Europe and others

Source: Bailey v Stonewall, Garden Court Chambers and others, employment tribunal.
Link: www.judiciary.uk/judgments/bailey-v-stonewall-garden-court-chambers-and-others/
Last accessed on: 01/03/23

Source: Maya Forstater v CGD Europe and others, Employment appeal tribunal
Link: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60c1cce1d3bf7f4bd9814e39/Maya_Forstater_v_CGD_Europe_and_others_UKEAT0105_20_JOJ.pdf
Last accessed: 01/03/23

Does this help OP?

sex-matters.org/school-check/

Yes, also handy to have here

@rabbitwoman has sent me a marvellous video of Miriam Cates and the Chief Inspector of Ofsted, who confirms that biological sex is important, and that safeguarding concerns can arise if schools are transitioning students without parental consent and medical advice.

Wonderful, wonderful resources from Safe Schools Alliance, on how to talk to your school, including the things schools often claim, and the rebuttal to that.

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/schools-resources-and-policies/

The amazing Transgender Trend have resources that clear up the myth around trans children and suicide.

www.transgendertrend.com/the-suicide-myth/

Thank you. This looks just what I need. I look forward to reading at leisure.

Bayswater have a safeguarding guide: www.bayswatersupport.org.uk/safeguarding-our-new-guide/

And an “iceberg” showing the complexity around gender dysphoria: www.bayswatersupport.org.uk/iceberg/

Thanks to @ResisterRex this was in today's PMQ.

Nick Fletcher
"A school in my constituency was complaining that it could not afford to turn the heating on, yet that school and others are spending money on PSHE materials from organisations such as Stonewall and Jigsaw that are educating our boys and girls that they may not have been born in the right body or that they may have an inner gender identity. Will the PM meet me to see how we can stop this unscientific, ideological education being taught in our schools and get our children learning where they should be learning—in a warm, safe place?"

Answer from Rishi:

"We have boosted school funding by around £2 billion in each of the next two years, which will help schools to manage their energy costs, but we do expect schools to take responsible and sensible decisions on their RHSE materials and make sure that those materials are age-appropriate, suitable, politically impartial and value for money. I look forward to discussing this matter with my hon. Friend, and I will make sure that he gets a meeting with the relevant Minister."

hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-03-01/debates/F42C8091-3C1E-4048-B904-61EF0DD5569C/OralAnswersToQuestions

Minister, June 22: "As their children’s primary educators, parents should be given every opportunity to understand the purpose and content of what their children are being taught. In the RSHE statutory guidance, which all schools must have regard to, we have set out a clear expectation for schools to share examples of resources with parents"

hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2022-06-30/debates/B651E0B9-ADA2-4A7A-A9AD-8F9A2D5BC5FC/BACKBENCHBUSINESS#contribution-799E25B1-8F02-4D32-B91F-48FC4591DD0F

Thank you @Vebrithien this is excellent: a fantastic resource for parents.

I know that I've been guilty of letting things slide in the past because it all just feels so overwhelming. I feel much more confident with this wealth of supporting evidence.

To add a little, here's a link to Keeping Children Safe in Education. I think particularly p. 10 the definition of emotional abuse is important to think about if children are being compelled to lie about the evidence of their own eyes about sex and compelled to use wrong sex pronouns, which many children will find distressing (particularly relevant for SEND children but honestly for all children) and which in my opinion undermines safeguarding.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2

Emotional abuse: the persistent emotional maltreatment of a child such as to
cause severe and adverse effects on the child’s emotional development. It may involve
conveying to a child that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only
insofar as they meet the needs of another person. It may include not giving the child
opportunities to express their views, deliberately silencing them or ‘making fun’ of what
they say or how they communicate. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate

11
expectations being imposed on children. These may include interactions that are beyond
a child’s developmental capability as well as overprotection and limitation of exploration
and learning or preventing the child from participating in normal social interaction. It may
involve seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another. It may involve serious bullying
(including cyberbullying), causing children frequently to feel frightened or in danger, or
the exploitation or corruption of children. Some level of emotional abuse is involved in all
types of maltreatment of a child, although it may occur alone.

Some of the links aren't clickable, so I'm going to add them again here:
www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum#using-external-agencies

www.transgendertrend.com/no-outsiders-queering-primary-classroom/

www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools

www.judiciary.uk/judgments/bailey-v-stonewall-garden-court-chambers-and-others/

hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-03-01/debates/F42C8091-3C1E-4048-B904-61EF0DD5569C/OralAnswersToQuestions

This may seem like I'm being picky, but there is a reason for it. I'll explain why in a few minutes.

I don't mind. Don't know why some were clickable and some where not.

Thank you, this is a really useful thread already

OK, that took a bit longer than I originally thought, but I had a go at archiving this thread on web.archive.org. The nice thing about using that is there's an option to save the outlinks if you're signed up as a member, so if the links are clickable it should usually save those as well. That said it looks like archiving of Hansard is forbidden and it won't playback embedded youtube videos, so you have to copy the video url and paste it into the address bar to watch it.

Thank you for this thread.

Oh, that's amazing! Thank you!

I wouldn't have the first idea about where to start!

www.newsocialcovenant.co.uk/RSE%20BRIEFING%20FINAL%201631%20(IS)_small.pdf

The wonderful report from Miriam Cates into the concerning RSE that is being taught in schools.

No Outsiders still doing their thing

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12752995/video-exposes-trans-indoctrination-primary-school-teacher-inclusion-lessons.html

Those 10 year old seem simultaneously too old for a picture book and too young for the message it's pushing.

The quotes from Andrew Moffat, he sounds exactly like a religious zealot.

Thomas/Tilly doesn't pass.

I didn't want to start a new thread. I'm happy to bump this one.

"In light of the Cass Review and updated clinical guidelines from NHS England, together with the increasing number of parents objecting to inappropriate PSHE lessons, the Department for Education must be clear. No school should teach gender identity theory as fact. No teacher is professionally qualified to socially transition a child and other children should not be made to collude in a psychological intervention they cannot possibly understand".

Taken from the Transgender Trend blog which I think inspired the Mail article about Moffat's personal gravy train:

https://www.transgendertrend.com/no-outsiders-scheme-teaching-children-trans/

At yesterdays “let women speak “ event in Leeds KJK offered volunteers to go with making these kind of complaints.