Drag queen storytime should be allowed in schools for ‘inclusivity’, says teachers’ union

[ChristinaXYZ]

I cannot understand why any teacher continues with his or her membership of the NEU.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/05/drag-queen-story-time-allowed-schools-teachers-union-neu/

"Drag queens should be invited into schools to help challenge the “heteronormative culture and curriculum”, the country’s biggest teaching union has said.

Members of the National Education Union (NEU) voted to support initiatives like drag queen storytime at a conference in Harrogate on Wednesday morning.

Drag queens and LGBT+ authors visiting schools challenge the “heteronormative culture and curriculum that dominates education”, the approved motion stated.

NEU members agreed that the Government is “creating a hostile environment” for trans people by blocking Scotland’s gender reform plans to allow people over 16 to change their legal sex by signing a statutory declaration.

This has “encouraged the far-Right to organise further attacks on drag queen storytime and has created an atmosphere where hate crime can thrive,” they said.

Shelby Millard, a teacher at the conference, told delegates: “The fact that Rishi Sunak has used Section 35 to stop the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform Act is sickening.”

She claimed that he is “supporting the far-Right attacks on drag queen story time”."

Much more on the Telegraph linked above.

Alternative trades unions for teachers and lecturers include Affinity https://workaffinity.co.uk/ or if you just want the backing of some legal advice Edapt (not a trades union , edu-law specialist, not quite the same) https://www.edapt.org.uk/ . Teachers in my family have mostly recently switched to Edapt but if their schools were particularly tough or employment likely to be less stable they'd have gone for Affinity.

That ship sailed a long time ago.

Completely, they are coming across as a bunch of activist numpties.

LGBTQXYZ is getting a backlash precisely because of these teacher's attitudes

You MUST support drag queen story time etc etc.

Some of us completely disagree, and not for the reasons they think. And we will be listened to. If it's so controversial try and find something which works for everyone.

@RealityFan hasn't it just. The cheek of us asking for women's rights & women's spaces to be left for us you know women 🙄 they bit off their nose to spite their face! Had they compromised & met in the centre & agree to third spaces & their own TRA rights I think they would be much happier... Now they know how us women feel after being oppressed by them for so long.

I've been as guilty as anyone on the GC side, of negative thinking, believing the battle lost, catastrophising. However from my low point about 12 months ago, my sap has been rising, the spring in my step has been bouncier, I believe we'll look back on 2023 as the year it all started coming around.

And if you're right that the TRA drone online has become regretful and conciliatory, well that makes me grin ear to ear. Because that means they know the gig is up.

Next step, all-party consensus on the EHCR recommendations, the green light for Labour to pivot.

@RealityFan they are sounding very defeated 😁 no gleeful bitching about Prosecco Stormfront mumsnet TERFs🤣 back to the smelly men's bogs with them!

I'm so consumed & invested as in this an Irish woman as we have the GRA here since 2015 & Ireland is a dark grim place for young women. I'm cheering on the UK. Get your woman's rights back UK Mammies & stay on the right side of history.

Hopefully with the UK changes common sense will prevail & well follow suit here in Ireland X

As a member of that union I wouldn't want drag queen story time in schools at all. What I would like is story time from ethnic minorities.

I also wonder if the recent changes on Twitter, with Elon Musk purging a huge swath of employees who clearly influenced content moderation/suspension/deletion/reporting policy, has had an impact.

I now see much more GC content, and see opinions and posts that would have been immediately removed or censored 6 -9 months ago.

Musk has undoubtedly allowed more free speech. Glinner was allowed back on after years, as he should be, wonderful man.

Not just Glinner, loads of GC women have reappeared on twitter since Musk took over.

I've also seen a noticeable increase in twitter accounts of gay men joining in debates and posting against trans activism, both in terms of trans ideology being homophobic to them and in support of women and lesbian rights.

These gay men also appear to have no tolerance for adult Drag entertainers in schools and children focused activities.

I'm not surprised gay men are getting pissed off and louder. If drag is the only representation of gay men (and AGPs) that's basically telling young boys "this is what it means to be a gay man". Instead of, I dunno, being an engineer or a teacher or ... jobs that people who happen to be gay do. Leaving aside the Womanface problem with drag (which is a big thing to leave aside even for a moment), it's such a regressive representation of gay men.

I'm beyond furious with them.

Apparently it's the lgbtq group not the wider neu who voted on this.

It also apparently said to

“produce materials….with Schools Out, The Classroom, and Educate and Celebrate and help those running LGBT+ spaces / lunch clubs.”

There should be no place in schools for LGBT+ groups. Schools are not there to nurture sexual identity of any sort in children below the age of consent.
No groups for heterosexual year 9s to discuss relationships, sex, attraction nor for LGBT children.
They're a safeguarding issue and any adult or older children involved in running them are opening themselves up to charges of grooming.

I think it's also about them getting abuse because they won't accept transmen as part of their dating pool or sex lives.

I've seen some shocking homophobic abuse on twitter levelled at gay men who refuse to say transmen are gay men too, or that gay men who won't consider sex with people with vaginas are bigots.

Obviously much like the abuse Lesbians get from Transwomen and TRAs for their same sex boundaries.

So...how is that an NEU policy / mission? Technically speaking, I mean? Because it really looks like they've been infiltrated at this point, if this group can tell everyone else what the policy is and you must follow it.

I'm trying to establish this - I 'm neu and certainly didn't vote on this.

Thanks Warrior. It'll be interesting to know, although the story is already out there

I've been told it was the NEU-LGBT conference that voted on this.

So...how is that an NEU policy / mission? no fooling idea.

And dragging those orgs into it is a clear breach of dfe guidance

Has the whole conference voted for it or just the NEU LGBT group? It could quite easily be the while conference as most teachers can't make it to that, and, as with most voluntary conferences, it's only the most motivated (for whatever reason) and least encumbered by caring responsibilities, who go.

I'm trying to establish that. I've been told it's just lgbt NEU conference but need to clarify where that info was found

I couldn't find it specifically on here

neu.org.uk/media/24336/view

Yes, it was the lgbt+ members neu conference not the wider neu conference.

Not sure if I can share the image of the motions yet

This may shed some light?

motion26.org/

Screen shots as I know that looks like a weird link!