Parents must be told what schools teach on sex and gender – it’s their right
PARENTS have a right to know what their children are being taught in schools.
This is particularly important when it comes to sex education and the teaching of highly contested theories around gender and trans issues.
But too often this is not happening.
Parents are shut out of the conversation. The school gates are locked and mums and dads are often left not knowing what happens inside. They are left in darkness.
We at Policy Exchange have carried out extensive investigations to lift the veil and discover what is really happening in our schools. Our findings are alarming.
A new woke philosophy is spreading through our schools like wildfire.
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Classrooms have become a new Wild West when it comes to teaching about sex education and gender.
Our research revealed that nearly half of secondary schools are allowing children to self-declare their gender without their parents’ consent.
Girls are allowed to say they are boys, and boys that they are girls, all without their mums and dads getting so much as a phone call.
They might change their name, wear different uniforms, go by different pronouns (he/she/they) and all the while parents do not know what is going on.
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Alarming teaching
Our research also found that one in three of these schools — 30 per cent — are failing to tell their designated safeguarding lead when a child wishes to change gender.
This is wrong. And more than that, this is dangerous.
We also uncovered some very alarming teaching in schools. In some, youngsters are taught there are 72 genders a child might feel they are on any given day, claimed a Tory MP in the House of Commons recently.
This is a highly contested statistic but being taught to youngsters as fact. And it implies that gender is more important than your biological sex.
Boys and girls are no longer boys and girls — they are encouraged to think of themselves as cisgender or genderqueer or transgender or gender fluid. The list goes on and on.
It is confusing and overwhelming. Kids are being taught to question their own gender when they are at their most vulnerable — in the middle of those angst-ridden, tumultuous teenage years.
We also discovered that some schools and education institutions are producing alarming lessons effectively teaching kids how to masturbate and normalising porn. Parents will be shocked and horrified to hear this.
Now, it is important that children are taught sensible stuff — that drugs and smoking can kill you, how babies are made, how to keep safe online and what consent means.
But going beyond this, promoting masturbation when it is not age-appropriate and normalising the watching of porn, is wrong. It is dangerous. And it is not what parents want.
This is not all the fault of schools. They are struggling with the sudden explosion in gender theory and have been given no guidance on what to do.
The result? Many schools outsource their lessons to others. They bring in so-called experts to provide the material. But often these people are activists pushing an unscientific, political agenda.
Shockingly, many are getting thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ cash to bankroll their efforts.
There has been an abject failure by the Government to regulate these groups. Often parents are stopped from seeing the lessons.
For years, complaints about inappropriate lessons were ignored and dismissed. Well, they cannot be ignored any longer. So what should be done?
In America, politicians are starting to wake up and realise they have a duty to stop schools teaching wildly unsuitable lessons. We must do the same.
It is good that Rishi Sunak has announced a review into what is being taught in sex and relationship education classes. But we must act now.
Double life
Organisations that have produced unsuitable materials should be put on a banned list, and schools told in no uncertain terms to avoid their materials like the plague.
Age ratings should be put on sex education lessons.
Teachers should be told what age children should be when they are taught certain topics, but also what should NOT be taught to kids of that age. This will help stop the teaching of totally inappropriate topics to young kids.
Gender theory should not be taught as fact.
And, most importantly, parents should be involved every step of the way.
It can never be right for a mum to find out her little girl is effectively living a double life when she steps inside those school gates.
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Enough dithering.
We must get on with it — to protect our children.