Research suggests a majority of English schools are not reliably informing parents when children change gender, and are requiring other pupils to go along with supposedly trans classmates’ gender swaps.
Citing previous research that “found that one in four young people (18-20) identify as LGBT”, a report by Policy Exchange said it was likely that “many school leavers [were] exploring their identity at school” — and raised questions about “the appropriateness of current RSHE” — Religious and Sexual Health Education — “and the impact of this teaching on children’s beliefs about their own sex and gender.”
Using the Freedom of Information Act, the think tank asked a representative sample of 304 schools a range of questions regarding supposedly transgender pupils, including whether they inform parents of the gender their children are adopting at school, how gender transitions are facilitated with respect to, for example, single-sex sports, changing rooms, and toilet facilities, and how gender issues are taught in class.
Ninety-one schools did not respond and three refused to respond, compared to 154 which responded “either fully or in part” — with a further 56 special schools excluded from the data “on the basis that many of the issues raised are not applicable or relevant” to them.
Policy Exchange found that fully 62 per cent of schools were not reliably informing parents if their children were transitioning, with a further 10 per cent providing “insufficient detail” — and an even higher 69 per cent of schools required all pupils to “participate” in the social transition of transgender pupils.
Another 18 per cent provided “insufficient detail” as to whether or not accepting transgenderism was mandatory, with only 13 per cent claiming they did not require pupils to indulge their trans peers.
Source: Policy Exchange
While requiring pupils to go along with gender transitions raises concerns related to freedom of speech and possibly freedom of religion, other policies raise more immediate safeguarding and safety concerns.
For example, the research found only 35 per cent of schools “maintain single-sex toilets”, with 28 per cent admitting they do not and a curiously high 32 per cent providing “insufficient detail”.
Only 40 per cent of schools said they maintained single-sex changing rooms, with 19 per cent admitting they did not and an again 30 per cent providing insufficient detail.
A mere six per cent of schools maintained single-sex sports — potentially dangerous, when rough and tumble games such as rugby are taken into consideration, as well as unfair to biologically female school athletes — with at least one endorsing the controversial practice of chest-binding as “important to psychological and emotional wellbeing.”
Source: Policy Exchange
In terms of how children are being taught about gender in English schools, over 50 per cent had used materials from third-party “providers” — with the likes of ‘The Proud Trust’ and ‘Rainbow Flag Award’ among the most popular.
Highly-contested woke ideas were among some of the materials uncovered by the research, including one listing 16 “sexual and gender identities” including “pansexual”, “genderqueer”, “homoromantic”, “demisexual”, and “questioning genderfluid” — and with pupils expected to be able to define at least five of them.
Schools also made use of the infamous “genderbread person”, whose creator has suggested “that childrens’ innate identities are based on heavily regressive and somewhat sexualised gender stereotypes,” according to Policy Exchange.
The think tank noted that some of these ideas, centred on eating cereal “like a Viking” being masculine and “prowling” like Catwoman being feminine, among other bizarre behaviours, directly contradict government guidance, which warns that “[m]aterials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used and [schools] should not work with external agencies or organisations that produce such material.”
Led since 2010 by the misleadingly named Conservative Party, the government has never been known to actually take enforcement action against state schools propagating far-left concepts, however, with respect to either transgenderism or similarly contested ideas rooted in ideologies like Critical Race Theory (CRT) — although leading Conservatives will on occasion publicly complain about such brainwashing without following up against it to persuade their voter base the party is on their side.
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