Conservatives for Women
The Government needs to act before more children are harmed
Caroline ffiske was a Conservative Councillor for Eight Years. Published on 5 July 2021.
We have written to the Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson, about material being used in schools to promote gender ideology. This material promotes the idea to children that they can be born in the wrong body. Out of the dustbin of history it resurrects regressive gender stereotypes to help kids decide what their inner gender identity might be. Of these kids, a vulnerable few, seeking to make sense of a complex world, will buy into the idea. Whose child will end up confused, scared, persuaded? Which little boy or girl will end up with their sexual organs removed, sterile, a medical patient for life? Always the most vulnerable.
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Dear Secretary of State for Education,
Late last year, in response to an avalanche of parental and media concerns about the promotion of gender ideology within schools, the Department of Education gave a clear instruction to schools. Contained within guidance on Relationships and Sex Education, it
said:
‘We are aware that topics involving gender and biological sex can be complex and sensitive matters to navigate. You should not reinforce harmful stereotypes, for instance by suggesting that children might be a different gender based on their personality and interests or the clothes they prefer to wear. Resources used in teaching about this topic must always be age-appropriate and evidence-based. Materials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used and you should not work with external agencies or organisations that produce such material. While teachers should not suggest to a child that their non-compliance with gender stereotypes means that either their personality or their body is wrong and in need of changing, teachers should always seek to treat individual students with sympathy and support.’
We are writing to you to make you aware that:
- Not all schools are complying with this guidance;
- The LGBT charity, JustLikeUs, continues to develop and promote material that, in our view, does not comply with this guidance.
- Extraordinarily, the Department of Education promotes this material and actively defends its promotion, seemingly in direct contradiction of its own advice, as outlined above.
We present a small selection of the evidence below, all material from JustLikeUs, and aimed at primary school children.
An introductory slide pack for 5-6 year olds promotes the idea that you might just 'feel like a girl or a boy' rather than actually be one.
Seven to ten year olds are told that biological sex is just a set of labels, whereas you more deeply are what you say you are.
This is a maths problem for 5 - 6 year olds:
This is another maths problem for 5 - 6 year olds:
Here is the term ‘transgender’ explained to 5-6 year olds. Imagine being 5 and being told that you were ‘assigned a gender’. If the adults in the room are telling you that you might not be a girl or a boy, as you have, till now believed, imagine how that feels? And how would you go about working out what you actually are? There is no path to this but via regressive restrictive damaging stereotypes.
Imagine telling 5-6 year olds that it is not their job to assume that another child is either a boy or a girl. This is lying to children. It is confusing them. Ultimately we think it is abusive. Humans have an innate evolved understanding of biological sex. We can accurately sex each other within seconds. We think it is abusive to disrupt and deny basic intuitive evolutionary knowledge with children. When adults lie to children, where can the children turn?
Imagine actually trying to persuade children out of, away from, simply being confident in, even fairly oblivious to, their biological sex?
Imagine gaslighting 5 - 6 year olds like in this exercise below? Denying science and reality. Giving them an exercise where they trip up over language; where they are rendered ‘without language’?
Is this little girl the one who will end up sterilised and medicalised for life? Will she be happier with her breasts surgically removed? A fake penis constructed?
A final note. The materials above seem to have taken care not to visually present male and female stereotypes in order to facilitate the suggestion that a child might be born in the wrong body. The type of slide that the charity, Mermaids, uses, with its pink barbies for girls, and GI Joe for boys is missing. We wonder if this is because of the Department of Education guidance presented above, so specifically refers to such stereotyping. So the question remains: how might a teacher, child, class group discuss the idea that someone might be born in the wrong body? Try it. You can’t do it without reference to stereotypes. Try.
And so, see the support books suggested to facilitate this classroom discussion. Spot the stereotypes?
The Conservatives need to act to prohibit this type of material being used in schools. Before more children are harmed. No child is born in the wrong body. No school should promote the idea that a child can be born in the wrong body. No school should promote gender ideology. The Conservatives must act to end this tragedy taking place with our kids, in our schools.
Conservatives for Women
