Sex education in schools: let kids be kids!

Ahead of the Scottish Union for Education event in Glasgow next Thursday, Stuart Waiton argues that children are being presented with ‘facts’ about sex and gender that are anything but.

The Scottish Union for Education (SUE) was set up in response to concerns being raised by parents in Scotland about worrying trends in education that appear to be turning education into a form of indoctrination.

Serious concerns have been raised about the inappropriate nature of sex education in schools. Others have also questioned what they see as the promotion of a transgender ideology that has been adopted by the educational establishment. Attempts to question and discuss these matters have been aggressively shut down.

Tearful parents have contacted us over the last few months confused and angry about headteachers who refuse to accept that ‘women have vaginas’, or who have found their primary-aged daughters being educated about being ‘born in the wrong body’. The most recent letter we received was from a parent whose life has been turned upside down by a daughter, with mental-health problems, whose demand to transition into a boy has simply been validated by her school and by mental-health professionals, rather than consulting her parents.

Little more than a decade ago, it was unheard of to find teenage girls wanting to transition. But in a few short years, the number of children, especially girls, identifying as ‘trans’ has grown at an exponential rate. Previously, what was called gender dysphoria was understood to be a psychiatric disorder that needed treatment. Today, schools are encouraged to simply affirm gender-questioning children.

Even primary schools are now introducing children to sexualised material and to the confused and potentially dangerous idea of being ‘born in the wrong body’.

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While some parents might welcome this ‘education’ in its current form, many feel uncomfortable or angry and believe their children are being encouraged to assume attitudes that are out of kilter with their own. More generally, schools appear to be developing a form of indoctrination rather than promoting education. The government’s curriculum increasingly tells kids what to think, not how to think.

So how should we think about what is happening? What can and should teachers and headteachers be doing? And perhaps most importantly, what should and what can parents do who are concerned about this trend?

SUE is organising a series of roadshows across the country to discuss these issues, the next of which we hope will be a big event in Glasgow next Thursday where we will also be launching our pamphlet, Transgender Ideology in Scottish Schools: What’s wrong with government guidance.

In this pamphlet, retired paediatrician Dr Jenny Cunningham explains what is wrong with the government’s approach, which denies the idea of biological sex and teaches children to adopt the language and outlook of transgenderism.

It does this in part, Dr Cunningham notes, by using unscientific and academically flawed research that suggests that those who do not validate ‘identities’ are pushing children towards suicidal thoughts. This at a time when genuine scientific studies are suggesting the exact opposite is the case.

The guidance now being used by schools has been developed by trans-activist organisations, it uses gender terminology, and is, in essence, a form of ideology that is being taught as fact. Worse still, perhaps, is the fact that schools are also encouraged to keep parents in the dark about the children who want to transition and those parents who question this development are portrayed as a risk to their own children.

The fact that many children who want to transition have mental-health difficulties is ignored by the authorities, as is the reality that the trans craze is cultural rather than a natural one, seen, for example, in the fact that it is one particular group - teenage girls - who make up more than 70 per cent of children who end up at gender clinics.

All of these issues need to be discussed and explored, and parents have a right to have their voices heard within this discussion. Which is why we are holding the public discussion in Glasgow.

Stuart Waiton is the chairperson of the Scottish Union for Education

The Scottish Union for Education event, Let kids be kids!, will take place on Thursday 15 June, 6.30pm at The Tron Church, 25 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW. Tickets are available via Eventbrite. For further information, contact SUE via email: info@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk. Transgender Ideology in Scottish Schools: What’s wrong with government guidance by Jenny Cunningham will be available via SUE’s Substack shortly.