Parents with children in school had occasion to be heartened by the December 2023 publication of the previous Government’s draft guidance on ‘gender questioning children’ , which made it clear that no teacher or pupil should be compelled to use a child’s ‘preferred pronouns’ in school, where these do not correspond to that individual’s biological sex. The guidance, which outlines the constellation of issues affecting ‘gender-questioning’ children, provides a very welcome acknowledgement of the biological reality of sex (see our Parent Power article) and its relevance for any discussion of ‘gender’. Although non-statutory, and still in draft form, the guidance provides moral support to those schools wishing to take a cautious approach to this issue and protect children and teachers from harmful gender ideologies.
Relieved parents will subsequently have been dismayed to see a recent report by GB News of a child at school being punished for failure to use a teacher’s ‘preferred’ (if inapposite) ‘gendered’ title. GB news reports that, ‘The parent claims the conflict began when the pupil, who is in Year 9, addressed the female teacher as ‘Miss’, to which the pupil claims the teacher retorted: “I’m not Miss, I’m Mx”. ‘Mx’, pronounced ‘mix’, is a title used by some people who claim to be ‘non-binary’ — that is, neither identifying as a man nor a woman. While the Government guidance does not explicitly deal with the preferred titles of ‘gender-questioning’ teachers and adults in schools, this school’s actions clearly run contrary to the purpose of the guidance, which is to protect children and staff from being coerced into playing along with a harmful ideology. A school which is prepared to sanction pupils for refusing to address a teacher using a made-up title, intended to reify the teacher’s ‘non-binary’ gender identity, is unlikely to make efforts to safeguard children from being coerced into using the ‘preferred pronouns’ of fellow pupils. If this is the attitude that schools take to the proposed guidance, parents have every reason to be extremely concerned.
The GB News report highlights the school’s privileging of the teacher’s demand to be addressed in a way which coheres with a highly contentious ideology, over the rights of parents to teach their children basic truths taken for granted by all children in every previous generation. The parent in question holds ‘traditional’ ideas about sex and gender, and said of the school’s action, ‘They’re saying this is their policy and we have to respect what the teacher wants, but I don’t want to teach my child that.’ By sanctioning the child, the School put the parent in an impossible position. No parent should be required by an educational provider to encourage their child to participate in a lie.
According to GB news, following the initial sanction, the school instructed the child to raise their hand silently to attract the teacher’s attention, to avoid the use of a contentious title. It is deeply concerning to note that the silencing of people prepared to speak the truth, which has become such a notable feature of British society in recent years, now extends to children in schools. Incredibly, the school issued a statement to GB News in which they stated that they were an ‘inclusive’ and ‘tolerant’ school. Clearly, the inclusion and toleration of which they are so proud are not extended to those courageous children prepared to assert the truth, uncontested throughout human history, that human beings are either male or female.
ParentPower Team
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