New secondary school has a "Queer Club", would you potentially be concerned about this and what questions or steps would you take?

[Valdor]

Hello everyone,

Leafing through the new school materials I have in preparation for my child to attend in September, I was looking for information on the basketball club (which, to my disappointment, is only a 20-minute session once a week). However, I also found information about a “Queer Club,” which meets for 35 minutes weekly. There were no further details provided about this club, though I have asked the school for some.

Now, I, as I’m sure some of you, have concerns about the way queer and trans ideology has been taught in schools over the past 5-8 years. This includes the celebration, self-diagnosis, transitioning, and medicalisation aspects.

At the same time, I want to clarify that I am completely supportive of same-sex attracted, non-stereotypical children and am entirely opposed to rigid gender norms.

What concerns, if any, would you have about this club? What questions would you be asking the school to ensure it is safe and fit for purpose?

I’m looking for some guidance on how to approach this with the school and to make sure our children are in a supportive and safe environment.

Thank you for your insights!

Once again - they're not discussing sex. It's for quite another purpose.
I can see that I am alone on here, so there's no point in repeating myself. These are not clubs about "sex". They're a safe lunchtime space and about as innocent as you can get.
Unfortunately, we do have homophobic students who will actively bully them, and who have parental support.

I know.
And I think naïve it's ludicrous at best.
Dangerous at worst.

Lunch time clubs for lonely isolated kids are great

Clubs for children based on sexual identity aren't.

Well, you seem to know more about these clubs than me. I really don't know what else to say, so it's best if I just withdraw now, I was clearly mistaken to think I could contribute.

You are failing in safeguarding if you are allowing bullying to continue and have to isolate children to protect them from bullies.

And the clubs are based on sexual identity so they are about sex. Even if you don't discuss sex directly.

You can contribute of course.
I'm just disagreeing.
And responding to your accusation that I don't know what goes on.

DD set up the Pride club at our school and I teach there now (in the room where we hold Pride club so I have full control of the Pride noticeboard!).

DD set it up because of some homophobia and bullying. They have history talks, do crafts, sing, dance, play board games. It is always overseen by two members of staff. It's just a safe space and lots of our students see it as a haven.

No ideology, no teaching, no pronouns.

Our diversity lead is GC so it's subtly managed.

Or maybe some of us are education / safeguarding professionals (some of us even lesbians shock horror) who have an understanding of the role of schools, boundaries and an understanding of how some of these groups are potential safeguarding risks.

So you're a teacher?

I'd be really , really interested on your thoughts about my concerns, the ones at the top of this thread - the celebration, self-diagnosis, transitioning, and medicalisation aspects, not to mention fair and balanced representation of views, protecting gay kids from conversion therapy / pressure, gay to trans?

please let me know about any of the safe guarding issues, it really worries me

I'd want to understand who is running it and what it's purpose is. Internally run space for queer kids: wonderful and needed club. Externally run agenda learning sessions: no.

I am a teacher.

I did in one school come across an LGBT club that raised some of the concerns at the top of the thread.

However, at all other schools it's merely been a safe location for DC who think they may be gay (and their friends) to get together and play board games, have cake sales or do Lego or whatever.

I am not gay, however, from what my gay friends have told me (and reading bios of gay people) they were often aware they were different in some way from age 8 or 9. Being able to identify like minded friends is protective and important.

Plus if there is no official club probably there will be meetings anyway but with no teacher oversight - riskier.

I wouldn’t have any concerns about the club because I’m not a Tran/homophobic bigot.

Well that makes two of us, what good news :)

I assume however you would be as concerned as me about same sex attracted children being covered into trans children? Or about the very real possibility of peer pressure and social contagion affecting vulnerable, possibly autistic children at a very formative time of their lives?

I'll ignore the fact that you called me a trans/homophobic bigot and let you say your piece

I also assume you didn't read my actual post either.

I wouldn't have any concerns, if the child is interested they wil join, if not, they will find some other club. In any case I would rather they had face to face conversations and interactions about it than get it all online where the risk of radicalisation and agendas are in my opinion a bigger danger.

do you actually mean that the main reason young gay people might feel isolated is because same sex attraction is considered transphobic? Are you serious?
have you been close to young gay people ever? Honestly, I despair

In my experience (source: my teen child) having a LGBTQ?… identity / same sex crushes are par for the course. They joke that there is one token straight in their friend group.

if this is becoming widespread then I’d really question the need for a special lunchtime group based on a what is now a totally unremarkable identity. I mean, back in the day this was our goal, wasn’t it? Gay is just…. Normal.

Hello, I’ve posted in the thread mentioned about my experience of my D in one of these clubs. I’m part of a lesbian couple, with two DDs, and found myself raising a formal complaint regarding our secondary school LGBTQ club
The HT and school Designated Safeguarding Lead immediately upheld my complaint.
The issues we faced were extreme and too many to list here but I’m thinking about how could such a club be safe? I’m not convinced it can, because they will bring together young people who will inevitably be exposed to the idea that there is something wrong with them because they are attracted to the same sex, and encouraged to consider they should transition. That’s a safeguarding risk.

Also, despite what anyone thinks, I do not think children should be taught to view themselves as sexual until they are old enough. A club like this inevitably exposes them to that. Having said this, a safe club would, I suggest:
*have strict age limits, and not mix 11 year olds with older children- it is well known that one of the key safeguarding risks in general is from older kids

• invite well rounded happy stable lesbian and gay etc adult members of the local community to come and talk about their happy lives, and their careers, so that children are exposed to healthy role models
• Be supervised by two staff who can reflect together
• have Senior leadership oversight and clarity on reporting of any concerns about pupil wellbeing
• Not teach or encourage drag or other porn adjacent activities or associate these with what it fundamentally means to be LGB or even T
• Not share or use teaching resources from outside providers or pupil presentations, and certainly no online resources, which open up an absolute can of worms and horrific safeguarding risk
• Create a healthy open factual culture and not one based on grievance or upset
• Ensure balance. My own child’s school club pupil presentations ( I saw all the presentations of over 2 years) never once mentioned the word lesbian or woman, with an extremely strong bias towards trans people and their experiences. This is a very well known girls’ state school. It is really important for children to known you can be a lesbian or gay man, as well as gender non- conforming.

My DDs are now nearing the end of our school years and honestly it’s been very upsetting and a serious of very difficult and carefully chosen battles. I believe the teachers mean well, but they have been insistent, and in my experience also devious in hiding the content and purpose of so much of what goes on, in the mistaken belief that children should be protected from their parents. I don’t mean myself and my partner, I mean all the parents in our school. If they have any honest concerns, these should be raised with families rather than coaching children in secret. We ( my partner and I) felt we had to intervene when the teacher running our school LGBTQ club wrote to all pupil members offering to change their names and pronouns on the school register without the knowledge of parents. As I said, once we exposed this, the school had to agree that the club was not safe. Teachers can be very personally invested, and sadly the outcome is that our kids, who may grow up to be LGB or T, end up with a lower standard of safeguarding that heterosexually destined children. Please trust your instincts, as we are always told that safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility.

Excellent post.

Tbh in direct response to the OP the title of Queer Club would immediately set off alarm bells given the lack of understanding of the word as a slur.

I’d also be concerned about the staff who volunteered to supervise/lead/oversee such a club, in case they were gender-identity-supporting and were in fact indoctrinating the children - as is happening in some schools.

I’d be amazed if this was all these clubs were now. The emphasis will be on the T rather than the LGB, would be my concern. The idea that actual homosexual kids could get together to give one another support is great. But the social contagion of gender identity ideology makes me sceptical.

And many homosexual people still hate and reject it.

Your contribution has been very interesting and helpful, actually.

I'm as Terfy as they come and, like you OP, I was a bit worried about the LGBT club at DD's school. It turned out to be fine. A lovely lesbian teacher ran it and it was just a few kids getting together and watching a few films and talking about current affairs. DD is Terfy too and she really enjoyed it.
Don't assume that it's all going to be Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence nonsense. Ask the school about it.

And so what if they are trans! Just let them be who they are. Thank god for places where kids can just be themselves. I'm guessing you've not got teenagers!

I’d also be concerned about the staff who volunteered to supervise/lead/oversee such a club, in case they were gender-identity-supporting and were in fact indoctrinating the children - as is happening in some schools.

This is a valid concern. The staff who have volunteered at my school's club are "gender-identity-supporting" (to say the least) and there is no oversight of what happens there.

We can’t underestimate the extent to which kids until at least 15 or so tend to completely believe what trusted adults such as teachers tell them. That’s why the calibre and motivation of the teachers and TAs is so important. We learned of what was happening in our school only because our D told us in detail about what she had learned; and because a teacher was in the room she was (and sadly is) convinced it’s all true. Everyone on MN is naturally curious and healthily sceptical, but kids really do believe teachers