Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No76
Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No76
Newsletter Themes: the capturing of libraries, and an analysis of the transgender ideological takeover of Scottish schools
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The capturing of libraries!
Diane Rasmussen McAdie is a professor at an Edinburgh university and a presenter for the independent news organisation UK Column.
Parents: do you have children enrolled in schools with libraries? Do they visit public libraries or local bookstores? If so, please read this. They are likely being exposed to sexual content that is inappropriate for their age.
I have been a qualified librarian since December 2001, when I finished my postgraduate degree in library and information science at the University of North Texas. Back then, in the earlier days of the World Wide Web, we discussed what we would do about what was then called Internet filtering, meant to stop people from exposure to harmful material, such as pornography, online. Internet filters were mostly popular in children’s sections of public libraries and in school libraries. (They didn’t work well because a legitimate search, such as one for a ‘chicken breast recipe’, would be blocked by the filters based on detecting the word ‘breast’, potentially stopping children from accessing useful information.)
At the same time, we were trained to be against censorship or passing judgement. For example, when 9/11 happened, we agreed with our lecturers that if a man ‘looked Arab’ and wanted books about flying airplanes, we would certainly provide them to him without question, because we’re not supposed to judge people for what they read or to censor information from anyone.
In 2024, we now see the inversion of the library profession stance on these issues. I have recently resigned from our two main professional bodies: the UK’s Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). Why? Because they censored and disciplined me, one of their own members with leadership positions within the organisations, for sharing opinions that an anonymous group of other librarians didn’t like, including the opinion that young children shouldn’t be indoctrinated into learning LGBTQIA+ ideology in school and public libraries or in bookstores.
Librarians who follow the ‘woke’ agenda – and that is almost all of them – use the argument that we believe in ‘intellectual freedom, including freedom from censorship’, according to CILIP’s Ethical Principles, to allow children to access what many parents and educators would consider inappropriate content.
While being happy to promote age-inappropriate material to children, some of my colleagues appear to find it unacceptable that I, an adult, might dare to discuss controversial topics in public. The result has been a stream of, often anonymous, complaints against me. (Read more about that in my previous SUE article Academic intolerance).
In my professional life, I would try my best to avoid ‘inappropriate bias’ in providing materials to a library patron. However, at the same time, I have a right, if not a responsibility, to express my opinion as a member of the professoriate in my field and to protect intellectual freedom. So, I resigned from library associations.
While I have been essentially bullied out of the professional bodies that have meant so much to me for years, based on my traditional beliefs, we find that the current President of the American Library Association, Emily Drabinski, is a self-defined ‘Marxist lesbian’, a fact which has received national attention in the American press, with all sides of the political spectrum joining in the debate about her suitability for the role. Although I am not interested in deciding for or against a leader of the ALA based on her personal beliefs, I am interested in how her beliefs might influence the direction of the profession, which has been headed in a dangerous direction for the past few years. Let’s look at some examples.
CILIP’s LGBTQ+ Network links to a website called The Classroom, which according to its aims, ‘enables teachers to find a range of resources to make Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans people visible in education’. The resources start with the Early Years Foundation Stage, which tells teachers that they must avoid gender stereotypes and expose them to the ‘rainbow’ colours. By the final stage, teachers are pointed toward resources that tell them how to be an ally to LGBT students, and specifically for Scottish schools, to share ‘challenging homophobia’ propaganda from LGBT Youth Scotland.
LGBT Youth Scotland is an organisation frequently suggested and promoted to Scottish librarians via CILIP. GB News reported in April 2024 that LGBT Youth Scotland received almost £1 million in taxpayers’ money in 2023. Schools that adopt the LGBT Youth Scotland gender ideology propaganda are asked to install gender-neutral toilets, appoint children and staff to serve as ‘LGBT Champions’, and ask children as young as age four to state if they identify as LGBT.
The ALA’s Rainbow Round Table creates an annual Rainbow Book List, which consists of ‘books catering to LGBTQIA+ youth, spanning from birth to age 18’. An example of a book on this list is Grandad’s Pride. According to the BBC, this book ‘is about a man's memories of attending Pride events and was produced to help teach children as young as four about healthy relationships and the LGBT+ community’, and it includes illustrations such as a man wearing ‘leather fetish gear’.
In America, the number of books in libraries that are being questioned by the public has increased enormously – many of them are books related to transgender identities. Some of this could be said to reflect a desire to censor certain books for adults, but I would suggest that in the main, the concern is being raised by adults regarding books they see as inappropriate for children. Once again, we find the confused world of the ‘progressives’, where adult rights and freedoms are seen in terms of children, who in reality often need to be protected from the adult world. Note to the library association: ‘age appropriate’ is not the same as ‘censorship’!
Public libraries frequently sponsor Drag Queen Story Hour, which as the name suggests, features a drag queen reading a story to young children. The Drag Queen Story Hour UK website shows a photo of a drag queen with a group of young children in the library. It also incorporates a sample of local council libraries that work with this organisation, including Edinburgh City Council, as well as the British Library and CILIP. News reports and other videos can be found of protesters who enter libraries when these shows are occurring; an example is this report by USA Today covering a 2023 protest in Texas.
The hypocrisy is evident when we look at the other side of the argument, on the side of JK Rowling and other gender-critical people (those who believe that sex is binary, cannot be changed, and shouldn’t be erased in favour of ‘gender’ or ‘gender identity’). The Free Speech Union and the Times reported in May that Literary Alliance Scotland had written in a document for bookshops, ‘Don’t sell Terf books/platform Terf authors. Don’t expect trans booksellers to sell them. Trans people who see Terf books or “gender criticism” in a bookshop will understand that the bookshop doesn’t want them there’. CILIP and other library-related organisations recommend a policy from an LGBT library called Book 28, and follow professional guidance that has been produced to not provide gender-critical books, because these are considered ‘offensive’ by LGBT people.
A former George Watson’s School parent called ‘Rogdmum’ on X shared content available in the library at St George’s School for girls in Edinburgh. Rodgmum’s post has a photo of a comic book pages showing a hormonal transition about to begin: ‘Just in the nick of time before I start uni... I got the key... which I took to ma [sic] local nurse to inject into my butt with a 2-inch needle. The joys of transitioning. It’s like this whole time my life was on pause... and only now... was I about to press start’.
This article could be much longer, with many more examples of libraries promoting transgender ideology to children, but I will end them there for the sake of brevity. (I suggest following Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries on X for frequent updates on this concerning trend, which only seems to be continuing).
Although I am saddened and frustrated that my resignations from CILIP and IFLA have implications for my career and the many professional and personal connections that I have made in library professional bodies for almost 25 years, I am also relieved that I can speak openly about what has happened to me and what the professional bodies are supporting – from a librarian mob, to promoting organisations that encourage young people to explore or even change their sexuality before they have even reached puberty. As I said in an email to CILIP staff in relation to my resignation, I will remain a librarian for the rest of my life, and librarians do have the responsibility to provide access to information. We also, however, have a larger societal duty: to protect children and to promote education, not indoctrination – something that lies at the heart of the Scottish Union for Education.
Report review
For Women Scotland, What’s Happening in Your Child’s Classroom? Sex and Gender in Scottish Secondary Schools (For Women Scotland, 2024)
Reviewed by Rachael Hobbs. Rachael is a teaching assistant and mother.
Background
For Women Scotland (FWS) is a grassroots organisation set up in 2018 to campaign for equality and human rights matters affecting women and children.
Founded in response to concerns over SNP plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to effectively allow ‘self-declaration’ of sex – through a Bill passed by the Scottish parliament but thankfully blocked by the UK government from becoming law) – its subsequent work includes challenging ‘the ongoing push from Government-funded lobby groups to overwrite sex-based rights in legislation and public policy with the undefined and unscientific concept of “gender identity”’.
In explaining its aims, FWS takes the reasonable position that there are only two sexes, and that a person cannot change sex. It won a judicial review in 2022, by the Court of Session, which ruled that the Scottish government had exceeded its powers by including transwomen (i.e. men who identify as female) in the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018. The judges restated that the protected characteristic of sex refers to either a male or a female and that provisions in favour of women must ‘by definition exclude those who are biologically male’.
The report
In September 2023, FWS conducted a review, via freedom of information (FOI) request questionnaires, of the teaching of sex and gender in Scottish secondary schools. If you think England is meandering a little too long in the world according to Stonewall, when it comes to sex education and RSHE, Scotland is a different level of scandal altogether.
FWS highlights the increasing frequency with which Scottish schools find themselves in the headlines owing to various schools, often under the direction of their local authorities, providing only mixed-sex toilets or, almost unbelievably, facilitating pupils’ ‘social transition’ at school without parental knowledge.
Contrary to the dismissive governmental party line which deems such stories as anomalies, it is clear to FWS, simply through their findings, that schools are in an entangled (and dangerous) mess over policies regarding transgender-identifying children, with disastrous consequences.
Referrals of Scottish children to gender services
FWS highlights that the number of children presenting with confusion about wanting to ‘change gender’ has escalated substantially in the past 10 years. Referrals to the Young People’s Gender Service at Sandyford rose from just 37 children in 2013, to 218 in 2017, and 530 in 2022. The number on the waiting list for a first appointment was last counted at 1149 children (p. 5).
An alarming set of figures for a service which when it comes to children would have in the past struggled to reach annual double figures and happily so. Despite the data, however, there has been no reversal in ‘gender identity’ education or ‘gender affirmation’ policy within the Scottish government’s Supporting Transgender Pupils guidance for schools. Nor have figures resulted in independent review of government guidance by individual local authorities or schools themselves, who are directly liable for the consequences of following it.
For FWS, escalating referrals to clinics cannot be understood without a look at how teaching of sex and gender has been transformed by an unregulated (and often government-funded) set of lobby groups advising schools, at the same time as schools themselves are operating no safeguards (or common sense) over what these political interest groups tell them to put into curriculum materials.
FWS sent two FOI requests to the 32 local authorities who manage 359 secondary schools (excluding schools teaching children with additional support needs) to assess: (i) policy regarding gender-distressed children, and (ii) the extent to which policy impacts all children’s wellbeing in schools.
A total of 25 local authorities responded with information regarding their schools, and six with information sourced directly from individual schools (p. 9). The results are a catastrophe for Scotland’s pupils.
Summary of responses to FOI requests (p. 9)
95% of secondary schools operate policies of gender self-identification.
4% of secondary schools are informing parents as soon as a child discloses feelings of gender distress.
87% did not say they would inform a child protection lead or medical practitioner when a child disclosed gender distress.
15% would seek advice from third-sector organisations such as LGBT Youth Scotland but not inform parents or professionals.
60% are not maintaining single-sex toilets, and 55% are not maintaining single-sex changing rooms.
54% are allowing children to participate in sports for the opposite sex, with 16% offering mixed-sex sports only.
86% are requiring or encouraging other children to affirm a gender-distressed child’s new identity.
89% are teaching that people have a gender identity that may be different from their sex, and 7% that some people or children may be ‘born in the wrong body’.
37% are teaching that a person who ‘self-identifies’ as a man or a woman should be treated as such in all circumstances, even if this does not match their biological sex.
75% of schools use external providers for resources on gender identity; the most commonly cited are RSHP.scot, as well as the political interest groups, LGBT Youth Scotland and Time for Inclusive Education (TIE).
Distortion of the UN’s ‘Rights of the Child’
FWS considers the findings nothing short of a national scandal. Of critical importance is the revelation that only a tiny 4% of schools are informing parents of their children’s gender confusion.
That normal interactions and sharing of concerns and wellbeing issues between schools and parents has failed so spectacularly is due in no small part to the prominence of the Government’s transgender guidance. There is a constant refrain throughout the guidance that schools need not, and indeed sometimes absolutely should not, disclose to parents information about a pupil’s gender identity. (p. 12)
Further, it believes that government guidance referring to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) entirely misuses Article 16’s ‘Rights of the Child’ and omits Article 5’s ‘Rights of Parents’, effectively pitting them against each other – something TQ+ lobby groups have been only too happy to take advantage of.
As FWS urges, there should be no keeping of secrets from the parent. And confidentiality, under the most basic of child safeguarding principles, should never be promised to a child; away from the gender identity focus, this principle is widely accepted across professions which work with children.
Ignoring the findings of the Cass Review
FWS refers to recent recommendations set out within the Final Report of the Cass Review (the independent review, commissioned by NHS England, into gender identity services for children and young people). Cass is clear that gender affirmation and social transition constitute an active intervention that may have ‘significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning and longer-term outcomes’ (Final Report, p. 158). Furthermore, having emphasised that the ‘importance of what happens in school cannot be under-estimated’, she has stressed the need for ‘school guidance [...] to utilise some of the principles and evidence from the Review’ (Final Report, p. 158). Cass has recommended that the risks of social transition, based on the best available evidence, are explained to children and their parents by those with the appropriate clinical training – which cannot be happening in Scotland, where only 4% of schools would inform parents of their child’s gender distress or request to be considered as ‘trans’. It is ludicrous, and perilous, for school staff to go beyond their role as teachers to counsel gender-confused children or support their potentially harmful social transition without informing the parents.
The Cass Review, FWS reminds us, has laid bare the poor evidence base for the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in gender-distressed children, and the potential harms of the ‘affirmative’ approach to a child’s stated transgender identity (p. 5). Scotland’s NHS has suspended prescriptions for patients under the age of 18. Evidence has shown that a transgender identity, if not affirmed, is temporary in the majority of children. Furthermore, one of Cass’s key findings was that wider mental health issues are being overlooked when there is a singular focus on gender (p. 5).
FWS outlines that despite these key recommendations – or rather, warnings – none have been heeded by the Scottish government, who have decided against any changes to their guidance to schools regarding transgender-identifying pupils.
School and local authority liability
FWS points out that under the expediency of producing non-statutory guidance, the government knows it is relinquished from responsibility and liability. It has simply stated that local authorities can carry out their own reviews to check compliance with the law.
According to the FOI data received by FWS, 94% of the 32 councils have adopted the SNP guidance for schools, 78% did not conduct an equality impact assessment, and 66% did not seek legal advice. Notably, two councils sought legal advice only in relation to changing a person’s sex on the school recording system, SEEMIS (p. 8).
Among the responses received, feedback seemed to suggest that most authorities or schools felt they did not need to carry out their own assessment, relying instead on government guidance. This demonstrates a lack of awareness that they, and not the Scottish government, are liable.
TQ+ curriculum awards
FWS assesses the enormous role lobby groups play in writing ‘guidance’ for ‘transgender’ pupils in schools; they include Stonewall, TIE, and the notorious LGBT Youth Scotland. These groups influence policy for transgender-identifying pupils (including that governing ‘social transition’), as well as ‘anti-bullying’ programmes (often with transgender rights activist content which parents are never going to see), and offer reward awards through ‘charter’ schemes for schools to ensure that their policies align with the teaching of ‘gender identity’.
FWS tells us that the charter scheme operated by LGBT Youth Scotland charges local authority schools approximately £1250 every 3 years for them to obtain or renew a Gold, Silver or Bronze award for ‘LGBTQ+ inclusion’. As a registered lobby group generously funded by the Scottish government (£447,677) and local authorities (£345,893) in 2023, it is ‘quite the feat to take taxpayers money twice over for the same work’ (p. 12).
Achieving a ‘charter award’ involves ‘rewriting school policies in line with LGBT Youth Scotland’s partisan views and training teachers, the details of which remain largely unknown as the organisation is not subject to FOI legislation and requires schools to sign a confidentiality agreement’ (p. 12). FWS tell us, almost incredibly, that one request to a school for information revealed its accreditation with a Bronze award was ‘conditional on providing further evidence that school policy was “not to out LGBT young people to their parents”’ (p. 12).
Single-sex spaces and sports
One of the most staggering of FWS’s findings is that only 13% of schools uphold single-sex toilets. Even this does not tell the full story. When categorising the FOI responses, only schools that clearly stated children could use the toilets according to their gender identity, rather than their actual sex, were included in that category (p. 18).
The majority of schools are operating mixed-sex toilets. FWS finds this in violation of building regulations and School Premises Regulations 1967 (p. 18). Mixed-sex pupil toilets in schools is a great concern for FWS, and they are conducted a further FOI review.
When it comes to sports organised by sex (for considerations of safety and fairness), the government’s guidance explicitly states that pupils should be able to participate in the sport of their choice depending on their ‘gender identity’. Section 95 of the Equality Act 2010 specifies protection of single-sex sports where fairness and physical differences between the sexes matter. However, schools are choosing largely to offer only mixed-sex classes, FWS suspects, to avoid upset over the unfairness of a pupil of the opposite sex playing in girls’ sports or having to refuse a request made by a transgender-identifying pupil (p. 21).
In the longer term, this goes on to impact girls in particular, when 43% are dropping out of sport after primary school over fears of being judged, self-consciousness over bodies, and difficulties managing periods in a setting of mixed-sex classes (p. 22). Girls are stating this growing disdain for participation, as they deem boys to be staring at them (e.g. in swimming) and excluding them in ball games (see the quote on p. 22 from the Young Women Lead report).
Pronouns
FWS asked schools whether they require children to refer to classmates who have socially transitioned by their new name and preferred pronouns. The vast majority said preferred pronoun use was either required (63%) or encouraged (23%) (p. 23).
As FWS point out, in reality there is little difference between the two categories, as schools that encourage pronoun use also explained that they viewed it as a matter of respect. Hence, any pupil deliberately using the ‘wrong’ (i.e. correct-sex) pronouns may be disciplined under the school’s anti-bullying policy.
FWS outlines that several schools referenced the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. FWS highlights that these do not, in reality, include any requirement to treat a child as if they were the opposite sex, nor do they instruct how one child may speak about another:
The mention of the Equality Act by a small number of schools is equally irrelevant here. This Act protects a person with any of the nine protected characteristics against discrimination, for which it always treats a child as their biological sex and does not mention preferred names or pronouns. (p. 24)
FWS states that the majority of schools referenced the government’s Supporting Transgender Pupils guidance, which repeatedly stresses pronouns, including use of ‘zie’, ‘ey’ and ‘per’, and states that staff and young people should avoid misgendering a ‘transgender young person’ (p. 24): ‘Using the correct pronouns is the right and respectful approach to including transgender young people’ (Supporting Transgender Pupils, p. 25).
As FWS observes (p. 24), ‘It does not give any choice in the matter or recognise others may legitimately take a different position, instead claiming that deliberately using the wrong name and/or pronoun is transphobic bullying and prejudice [Supporting Transgender Pupils, p. 17]. Advice is then given on reporting hate incidents and hate crimes to Police Scotland.’
Gender identity and ‘self-ID’ ‘rights’ taught in school
Finally, FWS highlights that over a third of schools are teaching that a man or woman who identifies as the opposite sex must be treated as such in all circumstances. This is a misinterpretation of the Equalities Act 2010, facilitated through SNP government Supporting Transgender Pupils guidance for schools, which is really endorsing its own political position over ‘gender identity’ and ‘self-ID’ (both highly contested concepts) rather than the law. FWS clarify the law as follows.
Sex and gender reassignment are separate and distinct protected characteristics in the Act and should not be conflated. It is important for pupils to be educated accurately on their sex-based rights, and it is particularly important for girls to understand the protections afforded to them by law for upholding their privacy, dignity and safety. (p. 30)
Getting lobby groups out of schools
FWS surmises that ‘While England consults on Department of Education draft guidance for schools on gender-questioning children that reflects the Cass Review and biological reality, Scotland continues to suffer the consequences of partisan Supporting Transgender Pupils guidance for schools.’ (p. 7).
FWS are highly critical of schools for following controversial government guidance, despite it being clearly at odds with the law and the recommendations of the Cass Review, and when it endorses an almost religious-like adherence to gender identity, presented as fact (p. 4).
FWS also reminds us that the likes of controversial LGBT Youth Scotland, closely involved in education materials, are actively opposing implementation of the recommendations of the Cass review and continue to promote the use of cross-sex hormones for gender-distressed children (p. 39).
Crucially, FWS reminds us that activists have also actually succeeded in removing the need to report gender-distressed children as a child protection concern, and that this must be reversed (p. 42).
FWS demands that all lobby groups are immediately removed from having any continued influence over the schools. It is now imperative that Scottish schools are wrestled back from the clutches of highly contested transgender ideology, negatively impacting the young, so they can be restored to the real safe spaces that schools are supposed to be.
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