Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No133
Themes: Single sex toilets and the so-called ‘banned books’
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Following on from last week’s newsletter, campaigners working to change ‘trans’ guidance have had more good news. Sex Matters’s campaign The law is clear – so get on with it! succeeded in forcing the Scottish Government to issue new advice as part of its Trans and Non Binary Equality and Inclusion Policy, which had initially said: “Trans staff should choose to use the facilities they feel most comfortable with.”
Last week the Scottish Government’s lawyers confirmed that the paragraph has been removed. However, as noted by Dr Jenny Cunningham, failed government initiatives often have a strange afterlife, especially when changes are not widely advertised. Some people will unintentionally carry on working with the old policy; others will flout the law on purpose. According to The Times, the Leith branch of the PCS union briefed its members to act in defiance of the law and “use whichever bathroom makes sense to you”. This suggests that women who challenge biological men in women’s spaces could still be accused of “bullying and harassment” by union activists.
As citizens, we have the right to challenge bad laws and to make the political case for better ones. However, a government that is reluctant to operate in accordance with its own laws is a source of concern. School toilets may seem a trivial or even humorous issue to some people, but it’s serious for schools and for the principle of government accountability. There are clear child-safeguarding issues associated with allowing boys and men into girl’s toilets or changing rooms. There are also wider normative implications for how we live as a society. Are we encouraging pupils to think that the distinction between men and women is no longer relevant? The idea that biological sex no longer matters is very much a minority outlook, but some schools seem keen to promote it regardless of what parents think.
This week’s article is written by Dr Diane Rasmussen, journalist and commissioning editor for the independent media organisation UK Column. A former librarian and previously professor of social informatics at Edinburgh Napier University, she now serves on SUE’s editorial team, Common Knowledge Edinburgh’s executive committee, the World Library Association, and Academics for Academic Freedom’s executive board. In her article, she looks at the ways in which some American schools are running a campaign to defend “banned books” rejected by parents, when in truth the books are just not appropriate for young children to read.
This week, tickets are going on sale for the SUE Annual Conference which is taking place on Saturday 15 November in Glasgow. The conference is being organised with support from: Free Speech Union The Christian Institute St Andrew’s Orthodox Church School Common Knowledge Faces & Voices of Recovery UK LGB Alliance Don’t Divide Us (Scotland) Concerned Parents of Orkney Human Gay Male ScotPAG Women’s Rights Network.
If you would like to help promote the conference, we can send you leaflets to distribute to people who might be interested in attending. If you are interested in helping to run the conference on the day, especially catering, registration or filming, please let us know by contacting info@sue.scot.
Penny Lewis, Editor
Get your conference tickets via Eventbrite here before they sell out.
Claims of book banning in the USA turn reality on its head
Dr Diane Rasmussen explains how in the USA parental opposition to the use of inappropriate and ideologically-driven books for young children are being recast as acts of censorship.
Did you know that 5-11 October 2025 was Banned Books Week? Primarily organised by the American Library Association (ALA), its theme for this year was ‘Censorship is so 1984. Read for your rights’. The theme is a misnomer, however, because there are no banned books in America. However, there are books that parents and concerned citizens find objectionable for children to read due to the age-inappropriateness of the material. People who are ‘challenging’ books with age-inappropriate content that are written at reading levels for young children are not asking for books to be banned, but rather to have them moved to a place in the library where children cannot access them without supervision.
According to the ALA, the following are the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2024:
All Boys Aren’t Blue, by George M. Johnson
Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe
(TIE) The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
(TIE) The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Tricks, by Ellen Hopkins
(TIE) Looking for Alaska, by John Green
(TIE) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews
(TIE) Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
(TIE) Sold, by Patricia McCormick
Flamer, by Mike Curato
Regarding this list, the ALA stated that, ‘The most common justifications for censorship provided by complainants were false claims of illegal obscenity for minors; inclusion of LGBTQIA+ characters or themes; and covering topics of race, racism, equity, and social justice’. The statement that the complaints are ‘false claims of illegal obscenity for minors’ is questionable. For example, Gender Queer, an illustrated memoir aimed young people, has a page visually depicting a young person performing oral sex on a male; how is this not ‘obscenity for minors’?
My former professional body, the Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals in Scotland (CILIPS), has supported the Banned Books Week initiative by providing a template letter for your MSP. The template ends with a request for the MSP to express his or her ‘support for the freedom to read in Scotland and the pivotal part that librarians play in safeguarding equitable access to information for all’.
The concern to safeguard ‘equitable’ access is, of course, an inversion of reality. As someone who works in the fiction writing and publishing industry explained to me, literary agents are actively looking for ‘a lot of LGBT+ content’. He sent me a link to MSWishList, the ‘go-to resource for writers navigating the complex world of publishing’. The wish list from agents on this site at the time of writing had 1,635 requests for LGBT themed work.
It is clear that CILIPS are promoting the interests of certain groups, such as those who ‘identify’ as LGBT, over the safeguarding of young children whose parents may not yet want them to be exposed to graphic sexual content. Let’s look in depth at the coded messages in two picture books, Grandad’s Camper (2022) and Grandad’s Pride (2023), both by children’s author and illustrator Harry Woodgate (pronouns: they/them). I recently reported about Woodgate and these two books on UK Column News.
WorldCat, the ‘world’s largest library catalog’, states that Grandad’s Camper is in the LGBTQIA+ genre and its target audience is ‘preschool age’. Its sequel, Grandad’s Pride, is categorised in the ‘Early Years’ genre, and its target audience is ‘preschool’.
Grandad’s Camper received the following accolades, according to Harry Woodgate’s website: Winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize Best Illustrated Book 2022, Winner of the British Book Awards Children’s Illustrated Book of the Year 2023, Shortlisted for the Polari Children’s & YA Prize 2022, ALA Stonewall Book Awards Honour Book 2022, and Nominated for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Award 2022. Woodgate is from the UK and the book has been published in the United States, France, the Netherlands, and Germany; a Welsh language version is also available.
On the back cover of the UK English version, the synopsis reads as follows: ‘Years ago, Grandad and Gramps travelled the world together in their camper van. But Gramps isn’t around anymore and Grandad no longer wants to go on adventures...’ Also on the back cover, we see the camper van painted in the pink, blue, and white colours of the trans flag, with a Progress Pride flag on its roof.
What happens in the book is that the granddaughter, upon hearing about Grandad and Gramps’s camper van adventures and seeing the camper van, gets excited and suggests to Grandad, ‘Let’s fix it up and go to the seaside. Together!’ Grandad later says, ‘Your Gramps would be so happy to see this. It’s what he would have wanted. I think we should pack some snacks and hot chocolate and we can go and camp on the beach – just like we used to!’ The book ends abruptly with them on the beach.
Although all interpretations of literature are subjective, the story raises some areas for concern. Is the grandchild replacing Gramps in a parentified role, making up for the loss of Gramps? Is it promoting parentification, defined as what happens ‘when a child is forced to take on the role of a supportive adult within their family’? Or could it be even more sinister, suggesting the possibility that the grandchild is somehow taking on the role of a ‘partner’ for the lonely Grandad?
Although the plot is less than inspiring – and even leaving aside worries about child safeguarding represented in the story – there was apparently a market for a sequel. Grandad’s Pride received the following awards: Shortlisted for the 2024 Diverse Book Awards, Shortlisted for the 2024 Indie Book Awards, 2024 Lambda Literary ‘Lammy’ Awards Finalist, Shortlisted for the 2024 Little Rebels Award, and Book Award for Best Children’s Literature on Aging – Gerontological Society of America.
The back cover synopsis reads: ‘Grandad and Gramps once went to many Pride parades, but now Grandad says his partying days are over. Milly isn’t convinced. If Grandad won’t travel to Pride, then Pride will have come to him! Together they organise a fantastic day of celebrations. But just as the parade starts, Grandad is missing. Perhaps he’s not coming after all?’ Spoiler alert: the reason nobody can find Grandad is because, as Milly discovers by surprise, ‘Grandad is leading the parade!’ On the penultimate page of the text, Grandad says to Milly, ‘You and Gramps are so similar. He was always coming up with clever ideas. Just like you. You would have so loved each other.’
Grandad’s Pride is awash with coded illustrations; even the dog has a Pride bandana! But let’s start with some of the modern-day Pride festival slogans that appear on signs throughout the book:
LOVE IS LOVE IS LOVE, Be PROUD of who you ARE!, NO H8, LOVE WINS, LOVE IS A HUMAN RIGHT, It’s OK to say GAY, All we need is LOVE x, TRANS RIGHTS NOW, Trans is beautiful, HAPPY PRIDE, PROTECT TRANS KIDS, BREAK THE CIS-TEM, QUEER, DISABLED, FABULOUS, LGB WITH THE T, Read with PRIDE!, EVERYONE DESERVES A HAPPY EVER AFTER, Trans kids are magic, STAY FABULOUS etc.
In addition to the signs, which will not mean much to preschool-age children, the visual illustrations are alarming. The Daily Mail reported in 2023 that an earlier version of Grandad’s Pride showed ‘two men in leather fetish gear’ kissing. (The 2024 UK paperback version, which I own, does not have this illustration). According to the BBC, Genesis Pre-School in Hull, East Yorkshire, removed the book in 2023 after a parent removed his child from the school and the ‘school’s chair of trustees agreed the book was not age appropriate’. The book’s publisher, Andersen Press, stated that ‘Grandad’s Pride faithfully depicts Pride parades from the past and present, many of which are attended by children. We consider accusations of ‘‘hidden messages’’ to be baseless, deeply offensive and homophobic’.
On an objective level, the ‘hidden messages’ are really hidden. In addition to the text on the parade signs, the book is rife with semantically rich visual representation. The book contains numerous flags, in addition to the repeated use of the Pride flag and the Progress Pride flag. I noticed these in my copy of the book: Bisexual Pride (blue, pink, and purple), Trans Pride (blue, pink, and white), Non-binary Pride (yellow, white, purple, and black), Intersex Pride (purple, yellow, and blue) and Lesbian Pride (purple, white, and orange).
For examples of more Pride flags, see the page ‘LGBTQ+ Pride Flags and What They Stand For’ on the Volvo Group’s website. Other visual imagery in Grandad’s Pride must not be missed in an in-depth analysis of its content. For example, there is an illustration of whom we are led to believe is a trans man with ‘top surgery’ (mastectomy) scars in the parade. We can also see a bearded man wearing a dress.
When Milly and the dog ‘build a pirate fort in Grandad’s attic room and search for hidden treasure’, they find some noteworthy items. One is a pink t-shirt with an inverted pink triangle, the symbol that the Nazis forced gay men to wear. It correlates with Paragraph 175, an 1871 addition to the German criminal code that made it illegal for gay men to have sexual relations. ‘REPEAL PARAGRAPH 175’ appears on one of the signs in Woodgate’s visual depiction showing Grandad and Gramps’s Pride parades.
I hope this article has provided enough information about the misleading nature of ALA’s and CILIPS’ Banned Books Week to encourage concerned individuals to take action. Parents in America have so far been much more active than UK-based parents about challenging library books and librarians about age-inappropriate content.
What can you do? Here are a few ideas.
Find out where these books are shelved in the school and public libraries of children you care about. If you don’t have any close connections to children, you could simply investigate your local branch library. This could be done with a physical visit to the library, a browse of the library’s online catalogue, or an FoI request about what books containing sexual content are shelved in the children’s section.
Write to your MSP and/or local councillor to let them know what books are available to children in local libraries; I can almost assure you that age-inappropriate books are available in every Scottish library. I am working with a leading councillor in my own area who has requested a list of all the age-inappropriate books in the children’s sections of our council’s libraries so they can be investigated and moved elsewhere in the library. He believes that councillors anywhere do not know they are available to children so freely, and many may want to take similar action.
Give children classic books that were written in the past, before gender ideology and the sexualisation of children took over the Scottish education system and children’s publishing.
Seek out current authors who are writing non-ideological books, and buy their books. These are hard to find, sadly, because of the publishers’ expectations that I mentioned earlier in this article. They may be self-published, such as English author Tony Frais, who I met at the Wolsingham Show in County Durham, which I attended in September and covered in my role as UK Column correspondent for Scotland and the North of England. Tony’s book Noah’s Rocket, self-published in 2004 and described on the back cover as being appropriate for ‘ages 5-105’, is a light-hearted story that parents can read to their children without fear of ideological content. As I can attest after reading it myself, it is also enjoyable for adults. Tony was not aware of the ideological capture in children’s book publishing until I spoke with him at the show, and he was horrified to hear about it.
We must become more active in stopping sexualised content from appearing so freely in front of children. Images depicting topless people who have had ‘top surgery’, endless flags demonstrating ‘pride’ in any sexual preference, or a blizzard of gay rights protest signs add nothing to a child’s experience. In fact, it detracts from it, and it has the potential to confuse children before they are ready to explore sexuality – heterosexual, homosexual, or otherwise. This is not about hate, bigotry, any supposed ‘phobia’, or a push for ‘inclusivity’. It is about child safeguarding, and it falls on all of us to make sure it takes place.
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News round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks, by Simon Knight.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/10/08/slovakia-is-defying-the-eus-gender-diktats/?fbclid=IwdGRleANS34xleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHtcACg6HSG8471v3V_mEQrzTp8tomThNnxzbfJvd7xV1z9a32_cpuqviEcqt_aem_4JOgR8Memn9qW2P4H3EHIg Andrew Tettenborn, Slovakia is defying the EU’s gender diktats. Brussels will stop at nothing to impose its woke worldview on reluctant member states. 08/10/25
https://archive.is/fSk5i James McEnaney, A Scottish council has opened an investigation into complaints of ‘offensive and discriminatory’ comments by senior officials discussing proposed changes to additional support needs policies. 08/10/25
https://archive.is/GB2gk Sanchez Manning, Council refused feminists security after trans activists smashed venue. Organisers of a conference in Brighton applied for a protection order to shield them from protesters who later broke windows and sprayed paint on the building. 10/10/25
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/were-all-doomed-if-english-literature-students-cant-read-books/ Sam Leith, We’re all doomed if English literature students can’t read books. 06/1025
https://unherd.com/newsroom/why-are-fewer-young-people-identifying-as-trans/?fbclid=IwdGRleANbPuxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHoe6FXMTqJqftF-QsvEH7FiUgmtYd-4YUvYMRofR1REDKzcDqvmEy5kxQl7G_aem_nEUVtn3DeaQER48N48D6gg Eric Kaufmann, Why are fewer young people identifying as trans? 14/10/25
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