Scottish Union for Education - Newsletter No11
Newsletter Themes: Anti-democratic trans activists, the state vs. parents, and geography’s environmental catastrophism
This week Stuart Waiton looks at the anti-democratic and intolerant activities of trans activists who aim to disrupt the Dundee public meeting ‘Are schools harming children by affirming their transgender ‘identity’?’ Julie Sandilands discusses the potential dangers of the state undermining parents who do not affirm the gender identity of their child. And geography education lecturer Alex Standish explains the potential pitfalls of promoting environmental catastrophism to children.
Trans activists are undermining the gains of the gay liberation movement
Stuart Waiton is an academic and Chairperson of SUE
While I was driving back to Dundee this week, a bus passed by bedecked with what now appears to have become the virtue-signalling campaign of choice for big business. With the now familiar and almost inescapable rainbow colouring, the bus proclaimed: ‘Stagecoach supports LGBTQ+’. Promoting transgender ideology is now the norm for much of the corporate executive class.
Reading and listening to trans activists you could be forgiven for thinking that the ‘T’ is just an extension of the gay rights sentiment that most people support today. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Those campaigning for gay rights in the seventies and eighties were very often political campaigners who craved public discussion and debate and, as a consequence, wanted to have as much freedom to speak as possible. Today’s trans activists, in contrast, go out of their way to shut down events and disrupt and sabotage public debates. Most worrying of all, they see free speech as a form of violence that must be curtailed.
Back in Dundee, I initially had to deal with the problem of simply booking a venue for our event, ‘Are schools harming children by affirming their transgender ‘identity’?’
A church and then a council venue initially gave the go ahead for this event and then panicked when they bothered to read the flier about it. They both cancelled the booking citing first ‘safeguarding’ concerns and then the ‘political’ nature of it.
It’s worth thinking about this because many parents and teachers would argue that promoting a gender fluid ideology is both a safeguarding issue and a political concern. Indeed, the very fact that the council felt that we were being political suggests that they must realise that the transgender question is political, and yet they see no contradiction in taking a political position in the gender-guidance they push onto primary school children.
Eventually, having found a great venue run by individuals who believe in the principles of open debate, we then faced the trans Twitter-mob mobilising online to disrupt the event by buying up all the tickets on Eventbrite.
Someone also attempted to hack into my Facebook account, and we now face a protest outside the venue. Note again in the tweet below how questioning the idea of transgender children is described as taking a political stance. In which case, it must be true that promoting transgender ideas is also political, and so we must ask, again, why on earth are we allowing schools, who should not be pushing an ideology onto our children, to do exactly that.
It is interesting that when people question the promotion of the transgender ideology taking place in schools they are described, as they are in this tweet, as ‘transphobic’. This idea of having a phobia about transgender people is interesting as it suggests an irrational fear or hatred of trans people, something that, the dictionary tells us often involves ‘bullying’.
And yet, we at SUE have no issue with adults choosing to live the way they wish. Nor are our concerns irrational or a knee jerk reaction. We don’t want to bully anyone; we want to have an informed discussion and debate about some of the problems entailed in encouraging 11-year-old children to think that they may be gender fluid. And we are certainly concerned, for example, when nurseries, in the southside of Glasgow, affirm the transgender ‘identity’ of four-year-old children!
The trans activists on the other hand appear to be unable to discuss these issues or allow others to discuss them. Rather, it is they who use bullying tactics, attempting to prevent or undermine or to drown out voices they disagree with.
More worrying still is the trend for these activists to see words as the same as violence. The reason this is so worrying is that once one adopts this approach there is little to hold one back from using physical violence to wreck public events.
Tragically, the trans activists move to be either disruptive, or even violent, is being facilitated by the authorities who increasingly appear to turn a blind-eye to the anti-democratic and dangerous activities of protestors.
The promotor of this protest has called for it to be peaceful. We can only hope that those who turn up will act accordingly. It would also be good if these activists protested without trying to drown out the speakers or undermine the rights of parents and teachers to discuss these issues as they should be able to in a free, democratic society.
Whatever happens in Dundee, SUE aims to hold events like this across the country. So, if you think you can help organise one of these events with us, let us know. Because this is about more than the transgender issue. It is about basic decency and principles of free speech and association. The type of freedoms that gay rights campaigners fought for and thankfully won.
SUE’s next event is in Aberdeen.
When Poppy became Alex – a cautionary tale
Julie Sandilands is an English/business teacher who worked in several secondary schools in Fife until 2017. Now based in Cumbria, she works as a private tutor teaching children both in and out of mainstream provision.
Let me introduce you to Alex.
Alex is 14 years old living in England and, until quite recently, was called Poppy. Alex is now the responsibility of Children’s Services following her request to be taken into care. Alex explains to Jane, her foster carer, that her parents don’t believe her when she says she’s currently non-binary and they refuse to call her by her preferred name. So, she kept running away from home and school until she was eventually assigned a social worker who supported her request to be taken into care.
When Jane asks why she chose her new name, Alex explains that it is more gender fluid and feels that this is important because she is currently identifying as both male and female. She says she had begun to think about her identity during a PSHE lesson where she learned that gender is assigned at birth, and it is possible that she could have actually been born into the wrong body. Jane, after having read the latest resource – A Starting Guide for supporting LBGTQ+ Young People in Care kindly sent to her by the local authority, nods understandingly because from reading page one, Jane has learnt that she should ‘use the name a young person asks you to use, even if it isn’t their registered or official name, when they are around or when they are not’, and that:
if a child is in care and wants to change their first name, the local authority can make an application to change the child’s first name by deed poll without the consent of the child’s parents/other persons with parental responsibility so long as the local authority is satisfied that it’s necessary to do so in order to safeguard or promote the child’s welfare’.
After reading page three, Jane has also learnt about Gender Affirming Treatment – Puberty Blockers and Cross-Sex Hormones and that ‘a child of any age who is deemed to be “Gillick competent” by their treating clinician can consent on their own behalf to the administration of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones (if a child is 16 or over)’ and that ‘a child who is “Gillick competent” does not need parental consent or the consent of the local authority.’
Finally, Alex is happy because Jane understands her and Jane is happy because she understands ‘them’. Poppy’s parents are deeply unhappy: they love and miss their daughter and just want her home.
Now, whilst the Alex and Jane scenario is a hypothetical one, it is not improbable given that teachers and other adults from outside agencies are seen as figures of authority and as such, opinions stated as facts are rarely challenged. This could well influence a child to explore ideas he or she might not have otherwise considered which perhaps could go some way to explain the rising number of children with gender issues.
It’s worth noting that not all children are taken into care because of poor parenting. Children who feel that their relationship with their parents has irrevocably broken down can follow Alex’s example, leaving parents in the most difficult of situations trying to appease both their child and the appointed social worker in the hope of keeping the child under their roof and retaining parental responsibility.
Finally, once a child is in care, and depending on the type of care order in place, parental responsibility is weakened, and as it states in the Starting Guide, can be bypassed by local authorities and/or treating clinicians.
In a recent article for the Telegraph discussing gender ideology and the sinister turn of events in the American state of Minnesota, Julie Bindel lays bare her concerns for both children and their parents:
Where exactly will this end up? If the state decrees that that allowing children access to surgery and irreversible hormones is “life-saving healthcare”, what will happen to those parents that oppose their child’s demands to medically transition? The logical next step would be removal of the child from their parents. These zealots must be stopped in their tracks before more children’s lives are ruined.
Who are these ‘zealots’ and why are they so determined to promote a potentially harmful agenda? Of course, the same ‘zealots’, after exerting so much influence over susceptible young minds, are usually nowhere to be seen when things go wrong or adulthood dawns and the magic money tree loses its leaves. For anyone who wishes to understand more fully the reasoning and motivations behind the individuals and organisations involved in the LBGTQ+ movement, the podcast Let’s talk Social Work – therapy in name only is an excellent resource to help draw one’s own conclusions.
One thing is clear, however, for those heavily involved in promoting gender and identity politics, the financial stakes are high. The availability of funding is significant and comes from all directions as Janice Davis pointed out in her article on this site. The TaxPayers’ Alliance has since revealed that the LGBT+ rights charity Stonewall continues to receive an annual £1,221,222 from public bodies. Indeed, the glossary in the Starting Guide is provided by Stonewall. The charity BBC Children in Need is currently funding 37 projects to the value of more than £2.6million specifically focused on young people affected by issues of sexual identity and gender identity.
This seemingly unstoppable movement is a money-generating bullet train. But as responsible adults, we must apply the brakes and some much-needed common sense. This is not about denying gender dysphoria or transphobia, it’s about ensuring the necessary checks and balances are put in place when managing a complex, multi-faceted issue. Remember, children under the age of 18, no matter whose care they are under, are deemed not to be the equivalent of ‘Gillick competent’ to buy alcohol or cigarettes.
Schools, Children’s Services and other organisations often use the term ‘vulnerable’ to describe a certain cohort of children. When defining a vulnerable child, the list is not exhaustive, but they are usually considered to be those most at risk of harm due to complex family or health issues. However, with the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent LBGTQ+ movement penetrating every aspect of children’s lives, this term might need to be redefined to include all children.
Tomorrow morning when Poppy’s parents wave her off to school, can they be confident the same child will return?
This article first appeared in The Conservative Women and relates to a case in England.
Young people are concerned about climate change – we need to teach hope
Alex Standish is a senior lecturer in geography education, UCL Institute of Education, and co-editor of What Should Schools Teach? Disciplines, Subjects and the Pursuit of Truth.
“You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us the future was something to look forward to.”
Greta Thunberg, leading climate change protester
How should teachers respond to strikes, protests and concerns raised by school students about climate change?
On the one hand we could welcome and encourage them as evidence that children and young people are engaging in politics and wanting to make a positive contribution to improving the condition of the planet. There is already a sizeable network of young people organising and campaigning, including the UK Student Climate Network.
On the other hand, we could be concerned that the messages coming from protestors are ones of alarmism and fear – they have taken literally the United Nation’s IPCC’s 2018 report to mean that we have only 8 years in which to save the world from the more serious effects of climate change.
Campaigners hope this deadline will galvanise politicians into action and inspire ordinary people to make drastic lifestyle changes in order to reduce carbon emissions, but it’s just as likely to create the paralysing sense that it’s too late to do anything.
Teachers will always have an important role to play for children in mediating messages about what is happening in society. So, what should they say to young people about climate change and projections for future global warming, especially if they themselves are very concerned?
Past lessons
One way to approach this is to think about how adults responded to children in times of past adversity. What would they have said to children during the world wars, when Germans were sending planes to bomb their homes?
During the 1980s, in my teenage years, I recall being very scared when I learnt about the possibility of nuclear war. Hearing that we would only get a four-minute warning before a missile wiped us out kept me awake for a few nights.
A more recent example would be terrorist attacks in UK cities and on the continent. As most parents and many teachers already know, the best way to respond when children are scared is to offer reassurance. Even in the most difficult of circumstances we need to give our students hope that things will be okay.
Teachers need to recognise that when the curriculum reflects the one-sidedly negative and misanthropic messages of today, children are left with a very negative interpretation of humanity’s potential to improve the world.
In geography in England for instance, exam specifications include leading headings such as ‘Environmental threats to our planet’ and ‘Biodiverse ecosystems under threat from human actions’ (OCR GCSE). In Scotland, the idea that there should be a balance when looking at global warming has also been dropped and there is no need to even ask the question whether there could be any benefits to a warmer climate.
In an era of ‘Fake News’, we should apply the same sceptical filter to environmental reports that we do in other areas of politics and point the factchecking finger when organisations such as the UN produce misleading and irresponsible reports which are designed to catch headlines and spread fear.
In 2019, for example, we were told that ‘one million species are threatened with extinction’ because of human action. Yet a recent empirical study found 571 plant extinctions over 250 years and the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List has 27,000 species listed as threatened.
Positive progress
While pupils do need to learn about the environmental, social and economic problems people face in different countries, such problems need to be put in the context of historical progress in quality of life and our environment.
Students need to learn: that global life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900 and is now approaching 70; how poverty has been reduced by more than half over the past two decades; that infant mortality has fallen dramatically and that much has been done to reduce deaths from tuberculosis, measles, malaria, AIDS and diarrhoea in less developed countries; that global food production of many grains and oilseed has more than doubled over the last 60 years; that access to medicine, education, clean water, contraception and welfare have all increased globally; and, that environmental quality is improving in many countries.
Hans Rosling’s book Factfulness and the website Gapminder are very helpful resources for this data.
Children need a narrative of progress over time so that they can see how much humanity has achieved to create countries with a good quality of life and a safe environment.
And they need to learn about how past adversity was overcome – whether this be economic crisis, war, social unrest, epidemics or environmental crisis such as the Dust Bowl, Irish potato famine, the hole in the ozone layer or acid rain.
My specific suggestions for the teaching of climate change are as follows:
Pupils need to understand climate change over different timescales – millions, hundreds of thousands and thousands of years, and that the climate is always changing due to natural cycles and changes in the sun’s activity. This will help pupils to contextualise the anthropogenic warming since the onset of industrialisation.
Teachers should explain how the climate has warmed and what changes this has caused over the past 150 years – sea level rise, migrations of flora and fauna and increased CO2. This way, pupils can see global warming as something gradual, real and lived rather than a scary event that will happen in the future.
Teachers should provide examples of how countries and people have already adapted to global warming: building flood defences, raising street levels, incorporating solar reflectivity and other cooling technologies in urban areas, expanding water storage, and planting heat resistant species. This shows pupils how we can address and prepare for future warming.
Teachers should discuss with pupils how countries have reduced emissions of greenhouse gases and their plans to continue to do so, while also improving quality of life.
Teachers do not need to shy away from or hide the many contemporary problems the world faces, including those to which we have contributed.
But, when addressed within a framework of historical progress, pupils can see that people have been a force for enormous positive change in the world – and they will be given hope that we are capable of managing global warming.
This article first appeared in teachwire.
News Round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks.
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/education/schools/4115785/scottish-union-for-education-dundee-lecturer/ Cheryl Peebles, Gender identity teaching in schools challenged by Dundee lecturer behind new campaign group. Dr Stuart Waiton says it is wrong that children are being taught 'as fact' that gender is fluid. 03/02/23
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/05/drag-queen-story-time-allowed-schools-teachers-union-neu/ Louisa Clarence-Smith, Invite drag queens into schools, says teachers’ union. Performers and LGBT+ authors challenge a ‘heteronormative culture that dominates education’, claim members in vote. 05/05/23
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/schools-must-support-drag-queen-story-time-says-teaching-union-ncxkrpztl Nicola Woolcock, Schools must support drag queen story time, says teaching union. 05/04/23
Claire Fox, Western civilisation is worth defending. Easter is an event of great importance to Western culture - and a good time to reflect on the gains we've made across society. 06/04/23
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/5593156/sex-education-james-mcenaney-opinion/ James McEnaney: Leave harmful social conservatism in the past where it belongs. If some are threatened by the notion of people feeling free to genuinely be themselves, then that’s their problem. 10/04/23
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