Pride in primary school

[Askingforafriend24]

Help me get my head around this. Primary school is making a huge deal about pride, and running a themed summer fair to celebrate. The whole school - kids and parents - are expected to get involved. Including an educational seminar for the parents that we are expected to attend!

I’ve been told point blank I am a dinosaur for questioning why there is such an emphasis on celebrating LGBTQ+ communities to a bunch of kids who probably don’t think about any of this stuff yet. There is already a carefully planned curriculum around all of this from the LA so I am confused as to why the school feels the need to go even further, particularly holding a massive event outside of school hours! I feel I have other things I would rather do with my Saturday morning, and I feel attending Pride events should be a choice for families to make for themselves.

One parent is no longer speaking to me because she was so horrified I even questioned the event - so hoping someone could come along with some advice.

Don’t get me started on sports day, when the kids all compete against each other (up until year 5) - which means the boys win pretty much everything and the girls come away empty handed. Again apparently I am ridiculous for daring to point out how unfair it is. Really fed up with it.

I have a cousin in his 70s who is gay and has never ever said anything about his sexuality or a partner to any member of his family. There is a terrible incident of self harmin his past that was in no way positive but after it happened, he was no longer expected to 'settle down' in his home town/family business, and he was actually freer. I am glad we live in a society where Pride is a time that presents positive images of gay people and positive ideas for children about the gay people in their families. This has got to prevent suffering and improve all our lives.

On a very minor level, I've realised in my 50s that I am bisexual. I never previously considered it. I've never suffered at all but nonetheless it is better that I know about it, and if I do have a relationship with a woman, I would like ds to understand that it's OK.

I have two cousins who have transitioned. Tbh I suppose my personal view would be that as time goes on, less homophobia and more acceptance of people loving their own sex and living lives meaningful to them will mean fewer feel the need to transition medically. But I keep that one to myself because only time will tell.

I think if you really want children who have gay people in their lives (pretty much all of them) to have LESS understanding and acceptance, you are going in the wrong direction.

There is no course that can stop me being a sarcastic arse sorry.

Primary kids don't need pride. They're already taught that families come in different configurations in primary from a very young age, many will have that message reinforced by their parents, and as you say many will have first hand experience of it.

And the kids who don't get an inclusive message at home or grow up in a homophobic environment are unlikely to get taken to a weekend pride event.

But kids do think about 'this stuff'; many will know a kid with same sex parents.

I don't know why I have to say this, but homosexuality is not more 'sexual' than heterosexuality. We can't have an equitable approach to the LGBTQ+ community until people stop treating gayness like it's 'inappropriate for children'.

If pride was about teaching kids that it's oké to love whomever you want and perhaps a bit of history about how that used to be illegal and that gay and lesbian people were often persecuted by the governent or killed/attacked by members of the general public, it would be an important thing for schools to teach the kids.

This is in a similar vain to teaching children about the attrocitiets of the WW2.

However, Pride is no longer about these things. It's now only about commercialization and the mainstreaming of fetishes and sexuality that is not yet appropriate for certain ages.

The original message and struggle of Pride have been lost. In a similar vein, when you ask people who chant "from the river to the sea...." and you ask them which river and sea they are refering to, they often can't answer. It's bandwagon and the original message has been lost and most don't care. They think they have the moral high ground and that is all that matters to them.

This. Also pride is a political lobbying organisation. It was founded as such and it is still - most recently with promotion of all thing TQ+ at the expense of lesbians, many of whom feel excluded. Just because it's been insanely successful at getting businesses to virtue signal (I personally think because having rainbow marketing is cheaper than doing proper inclusivity and installing disabled ramps etc) doesn't mean it's not political any more.

It's fine for primary schools to talk about same sex marriages, families with same sex parents and in my experience they do. Plus children see their friends having normal, boring parents who just happen to be same sex - that's probably far more effective at stopping homophobia than any fete.

It's not ok and breaches the rules that require schools to be politically impartial to have a day aligned to one political movement. What next - a just stop oil fete? Where does it end and who gets to decide which political lobby group messages will indoctrinate the children?

YANBU, this stuff is such utter bullshit and so pervasive and it's so hard to challenge it.

@Askingforafriend24 go and look at the resources on Safe Schools Alliance.
Pride nowadays is all about the T and you only have to look at the work of many of the original gay and lesbian activists to see that they are also distancing themselves from it for that reason.

I wouldn't be happy particularly post Cass and the general trend towards removing this ideology from schools (in England) so would be suspecting there is a member of staff with skin in the game here (trans themselves/ child/partner).
You may find that you arent the only parent feeling the same and if you dont feel brave enough to speak out then vote with your feet and keep your child off school and certainly dont give up any of your free time to support the fair and attend the “education” event.
This has been picked up on Twitter, take a look.

https://x.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1804053527628595511?s=46&t=2rRFOIbLE0AM9N5y98zmkw

@Echobelly
I don't know why I have to say this, but homosexuality is not more 'sexual' than heterosexuality.
I don't know if you do need to say it do you? That doesn't seem to be the sentiment being expressed here.

I'm bisexual. I've had same-sex relationships. I used to go to Pride events and used to be my firm's LGBT staff network representative (back in 2014).

Not any more.

I avoid anything Pride-related like the plague. Pride is no longer about sexuality, but instead seems to focus on kink, "queer" culture and trans-activism.

I was lonely at school. I had crushes on women from a very young age. I was the target of homophobic bullying for years at secondary school. It would have been great if there was some acceptance of gay people. But that is not what Pride is about anymore.

I am perfectly happy for DD to be told that people can have two mummies or daddies. That men can marry men and women can marry women. DD's godfather is gay. But I am not having her exposed to queer theory, trans ideology or expressions like "love is love" (which is used by the MAP lobby). Nor, given the great strides we've made in society, and the acceptance of same-sex relationships, do I think that Pride is still necessary. No other minority has a month dedicated to it, with flags, rainbow sandwiches and corporate logos changing colour.

I don't think it's really any more appropriate than a school religious event (and by this I don't mean culturally religious, I mean properly religious.)

Kids learn about things like different families from meeting them out and about in the community.

I no longer have any confidence that schools should be teaching anything about any of these kinds of topics to children before high school, and I'd make that wider than sexuality and say about any cultural or ethical topics where there are different views. I don't trust them to be respectful of different parents and families, to have a good sense of what's appropriate for kids of different ages, and frankly I don't think they have a very strong understanding of many of these topics anyway.

No, this isn't a re-run of Section 28.

The problem is that the balance is not tipped equally between the LGB and the TQ. The 'B' has always been pretty much invisible anyway, as I know from personal experience. And my DC has always known that families take many forms and that sometimes couples are of the same sex. It's not a mystery or something to make an issue over.

The 'Q' is the area I have the real problem with, particularly as this relates to children. (We're all aware that the 'Q' very often relates to 'adult heterosexual male). And many of the 'L' and the 'G' personally object to the 'Q', and have asked not to be referred to as such. My advice to DC is never to presume to call people 'queer', and when the school trots out this anacronym I gently point out that the 'Q' bit is not okay.

Primary-aged children should not be invited to celebrate adult male kinks, or medical transition, or any form of gender 'transition' (from and to what?) that they can't understand until they are much older. Or ever, as it's beyond even adults to place an accurate, definitive definition on what gender actually is.

So to me, and in the light of Hilary Cass and the need to safeguard children, the T is an issue, and the 'Q' is sufficient to ensure I'll not be attending such events myself nor allowing my DC to attend.

Calling me a 'bigot' in view of that declaration is water off a duck's back to me by now. I really couldn't give three fucks.

What a shame those poor kids. I’m sure they were looking forward to a summer fair - games, races, food and fun. Not full on rainbow - and I assume the theme will include drag time story reading, q Punch and Judy, rainbow crafts….

leave the bloody kids in peace to enjoy one fun free of ideology.

I'm sure that most people have no problem with the LGB part of Pride but the T makes up 0.5% of the population and the focus on this seems disproportionate.

A PP stated "We have months to “celebrate” lots of minority groups." I love research and have found the following.

January - Dry January and Veganuary
February - LGBT History Month
April - Stress Awareness Month
May - National Walking Week
June - Pride Month
July - Plastic Free July
August - International Happiness Day
Sept - Sleeptember, Organic September and World Alzheimer's Month
Oct - Black History Month, Stoptober, Go Sober for October Month, Breast Awareness Month, World Menopause Awareness Month
Nov - Movember, World Vegan Month
Dec - Decembeard

I found 3 months dedicated to minorities and 2 of them are for LGBT.

If schools dedicated equal time to other months I would be happier. Did they spend time encouraging children to walk to school in May, did they hold sponsored walks? Is next month going to be spent raising awareness of the alternatives to plastic or recycling? With an aging population more people/families are being affected by Alzheimers, can we expect schools to focus on this come September? Never happened at my DC school.

Holocaust Memorial Day is just that, a day and I know which I consider to be the most "sinned against" minority. No, I don't want to enter into an argument about the current Israel and Palestine situation.

No rational person can object to a child having 2 mums or 2 dads but children shouldn't be taught that humans can change sex nor think that it normal to have biological men in safe single sex spaces. By teaching children this we are breaking down barriers that have protected them in the past. Is a young girl less likely to tell a parent that she was flashed by a man in a female changing room if she has been conditioned to think that this is normal?

I suspect more kids are bullied for having ginger hair than two mums. Maybe they should have a ginger hair appreciation fayre? And of course if you don't agree then you're a bigot and need educating.

Lots do. I'm a teacher. I see lots of same-sex parents. And even if it was only one kid in an entire school and it prevents them being bullied through ignorance then great

Why are school kids and their parents expected to ‘celebrate’ the sexual preferences of other adults? I’d have put the letter in the bin

If it takes an out-of-hours special event to prevent a kid being bullied the school may want to look again at its culture within normal school hours.

@FrancescaContini I am in Ireland. My youngest is ten now when he was six, they would have wore a colour of the rainbow and made a rainbow and marched in the community.

They would have discussed prejudice, what each letter meant in very basic terms, they focused on family and parents who represent LGBTQ+ community. I can't really remember what else they did. They would always have had a selection of materials reflecting diverse family structures.

This year they did some history about gay rights they discussed countries where it is illegal to be LGBT+ or to marry same sex. They did about our fabulous Senator Norris and his fight to the European Courts. They showed some media from the different decades and discussed the progress and challenges of today.

They had some LGBTQ+ family members talking about their school experience as part of the schools anti bullying campaign.

Regarding trans they are aware as one parent of their group of friends has transitioned since school began so they don't bat an eye. 🤷‍♀️

“Some families have two mummies or two daddies” and stick a few LGB friendly age-appropriate books in the school library.
Make sure you have policies that deal with homophobic bullying and LGB inclusion.

Done.

No need to ‘celebrate’ anything to do with sexuality at primary. It’s inappropriate.

What’s Pride?
Is a celebration of people of the LGBT+ community.

Why do we do Pride at school?
Because people from the LGBT community are part of the school community.

What does T stand for? Transgender

What does Q stand for?Questioning which is a word some people use to describe who they may like to date.

What do I and A stand for, and what about all the pluses? Asexual. People who don't want to have a boyfriend or girlfriend relationship. I can't remember what they learnt at six but at ten he knows them all.

What are all the colours ? There is a school pride flag can't remember but it isn't what you describe. The flag used in schools is

orange symbolises healing
Yellow sunlight
Green nature
Blue harmony
Purple spirit
There is an arrow to emphasis inclusion and progression.

I'd be careful with 'love coming in many formats'. This is a paedophile trope: love is love.

Perhaps they should stick to LGB then.

Which people in school?
Why do we have to celebrate these people?
Mummy, are you in this community? Why not?
What’s transgender?
What does questioning mean? Are you questioning?
Why don’t people want a boyfriend or girlfriend? Do you want a boyfriend? Is a boyfriend different from a friend?
What is I, and what are the pluses for? Is it like in maths?
Can only these people have sunlight? What’s healing?

I'd have been uncomfortable with that. By all means teach children, appropriately, about same-sex couples and growing up gay, but as PP have said Pride goes beyond all that now. The Pride festival nearest to us seemed to be mostly about drag with a lot of gender-questioning teenaged girls in the audience.

I'll stop thinking it's a bandwagon when just as much exposure is given to disability awareness.

I’m bisexual too and started to realise when I was around 12/13. I knew what gay meant while I was in primary school due to talking to friends, which I suspect is the case to this day. I was in school during the 90s and early 2000s incidentally.

Like you I don’t feel my sexuality defines me and I know other gay and bisexual friends feel the same. In fact we’re of a consensus of being sick of an expectation that you have to let it define you. Take for example that my gay best friend and I have been told we’re, “straight acting,” throughout our lives. It’s funny but equally annoying because neither of us are “acting” anything.

I don’t think Pride events at primary school is needed or helpful. As for secondary school… I’m unconvinced it will really add any benefits.

I avoid Pride like the plague as do many of my gay friends. I share similar feelings to Fred Sergeant. I also think, as do my friends, it’s a just an excuse for a cash cow for businesses. They also used to have the nearest one to us in August unlike a lot of other Pride events and the weather would usually be typical August weather - threatening rain, overcast and humid. They now have it in June. Very much like a radio station “party in the park” style event, so to be honest a load of cack!
Better things to be doing with our time.