Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No91
Themes: taking the Cass Review seriously, and watch out for that librarian
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In this week’s newsletter, we provide a very useful update from Dr Jenny Cunningham on the response of Scottish government officials to the Cass Review on the provision of gender identity services for children and young people. As Jenny reminds us, the Cass Review – Implications for Scotland report, which was published in July, records the explosion in referrals to the Sandyford gender service since 2014–2015 but makes no attempt to interrogate why this increase in referrals occurred. These children came out of Scottish schools, and it should be noted that the rise in numbers coincided with the Scottish government’s implementation of its Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenting (RSHP) curriculum, which introduces gender identities and sexuality early in a child’s education and then asserts the idea of transgenderism in material for children of about 9–11 years.
This week, we’ve been talking to SUE parents about their children’s RSHP lessons. Some parents expressed relief that headteachers seem to have taken past criticism on board and are being more communicative, while others feel overwhelmed by the amount of material they are forced to go through to ensure that inappropriate material doesn’t get through.
Several parents have expressed concern that resources from the American company amaze.org are being used. These resources are heavily influenced by transgender ideology and use ‘gender neutral terms’ and push the idea of children being ‘LGBTQ+ identities’. Twinkl, the teacher resource, also has a section for RSHP resources which might be being used; let us know if you hear anything. Other parents have raised concern that schoolteachers are again going ‘off script’ in explaining sexual terms. Have you had a particular experience with your child’s RSHP programme? Get in touch! psg@sue.scot
Off the back of RSHP, the architect of the programme, Colin Morrison, recently delivered the results of his consultation ‘The Chat’. We are curious how many parents engaged with this process. To be statistically relevant, the project would have had to reach 7000 parents in Glasgow alone. His company is offering a further consultation for parents to find out about the results. Did you participate in The Chat? Will you attend the webinar? There is a Microsoft Teams chat on the study on 21 November; click here to sign up.
We have also heard reports that the new Scottish Assembly of Parents and Carers has started to send out surveys for its members. The first survey is on the Scottish Curriculum Review. For parents looking for more guidance regarding how to complete the survey, SUE has many resources to add to your understanding. For example, Stuart Baird has written about key elements of the review here.
Alongside Jenny’s update on Cass, Diane Rasmussen McAdie provides some important insights into some of the thinking driving the training of new librarians. Please let us know if you have concerns about any of the books in your children’s school libraries.
Last week, SUE met with a new parent’s group in Wales. If you are based in Wales and reading this newsletter, get in touch with Kate, our Parent and Supporters Coordinator: (kate.deeming@sue.scot).
Penny Lewis, SUE Editor
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Cass and the serious implications for Scotland
Dr Jenny Cunningham is a retired paediatrician who worked in Glasgow for 30 years.
The Cass Review – the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People was published in April 2024.[1] Most people will be aware that Hilary Cass found very weak evidence for all aspects of gender identity care, in particular the use of puberty-suppressing hormones (puberty blockers) and gender-affirming (i.e. cross-sex) hormones. The Review, commissioned by NHS England, also highlighted three other concerns.
First, the Tavistock gender identity service, the single specialist service for the whole of England, had experienced an exponential rise in referrals from 2014 to 2015; these were for predominantly teenagers, 70 per cent of whom were teenage girls.
Second, this new cohort had a very high incidence of mental health conditions, autism spectrum disorders and social difficulties, such as being in care or having experienced sexual or physical abuse. Many of them were same-sex attracted.
Third, the Tavistock’s practice of affirming children and adolescents’ self-declared gender incongruence (described as being an inner feeling of belonging to a different gender than that associated with their sex) ‘overshadowed’ all other diagnoses and led to many of them being fast-tracked into gender transitioning; this involved the use of puberty blockers and/or cross-sex hormones, which had significant long-term effects.
In Scotland, the single national gender service for children and young people, the Sandyford Clinic in Glasgow, mirrored these three features almost exactly.
The Scottish Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Gregor Smith, did eventually respond to the Cass Review, apparently in response to internal pressure from clinicians such as Medical Directors in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGG&C), responsible for the Sandyford gender service, and those working for NHS Lothian, a provider of paediatric endocrine services. In April, NHSGG&C and NHS Lothian took the decision to ‘pause’ the prescribing of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for under 18-year-olds (although young people already on hormonal treatments would continue to receive them). The Chief Medical Officer convened a multidisciplinary clinical team to examine the recommendations in the Cass Review, most of which applied to Scottish NHS services. Its report, Cass Review – Implications for Scotland, was published in July.[2] The multidisciplinary team accepted most of Cass’s recommendations. It suggested, as NHS England has done, moving away from a single specialist service to a regional model of services delivered in a paediatric setting. Its design and specifications are still to be worked out.
The need for the ‘holistic assessment’ of children and adolescents was agreed: ‘Each child or young person’s care plan must include a multidimensional assessment […] which considers [their] life, education, development […] mental health and medical conditions in parallel’[3] – in other words, in parallel with their gender incongruence. The idea that young peoples’ mental health problems, neurodevelopmental disorders, experience of social trauma, or ambivalence about their sexuality are parallel to or coexistent with their gender incongruence is wrong; they are the cause of gender confusion or questioning. They are what is making this present cohort of teenagers so susceptible to the suggestion that gender transitioning will solve their psychosocial difficulties or unhappiness – that, together with social contagion (i.e. strong peer group influences, which have led many female teenage friendship or year groups to seek gender transitioning).
In response to the Cass Review’s recommendation that NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) establish the academic and organisational infrastructure to support a programme of clinically based research, the multidisciplinary clinical team reported that the NHS in Scotland is ‘engaging actively with NIHR and NHS England regarding participation in the forthcoming research study on puberty-suppressing hormones’.[4] The prescribing of puberty blockers to children and adolescents (for which there is little evidence of efficacy yet proven evidence of harm in terms of bone development and potentially brain development and future fertility) in a research study is ethically questionable. This is also notwithstanding the danger that this will open the door to clinicians resuming the prescription of puberty blockers to those under 18 by signing them up in the study. It is what happens to children or early teenagers after the puberty-suppressing hormone treatment is ended that becomes an issue. Up until now, virtually all children or teenagers move on from puberty blockers to take up cross-sex hormones.
The Cass Review – Implications for Scotland report regards the explosion in referrals to the Sandyford gender service around 2014–2015, and the subsequent lengthy waiting times for assessments, as simply a question of capacity, reflecting the difficulty retaining and recruiting clinicians for the service. There is no attempt to interrogate why this increase in the rate and quantity of referrals occurred. Where did all these children and young people come from? They came out of Scottish schools. This coincided with the Scottish government’s implementation of its Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenting (RSHP) curriculum for pupils of all ages. RSHP introduced the ideas of gender identities and sexuality early on, and by 9–11 years, the concept of transgender individuals, who believe they are ‘in the wrong body’ and want to be treated as the opposite sex. A transgender man is a woman ‘living as’ a man, and a transgender woman, a man ‘living as’ a woman.
In August 2021, the government issued its Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools: Guidance for Scottish Schools. This was essentially a modified LGBT Youth Scotland document full of gender ideology. LGBT Youth Scotland is probably the most influential of the various transgender activist organisations which the Scottish government includes in its various policymaking or consultation groups. For example, the National Gender Identity Healthcare Reference Group has representatives from four third-party organisations). LGBT Youth Scotland has carte blanche to go into Scottish secondary schools to run lunchtime groups and promote its agenda.
Ironically, on the day in early September when Public Health Minister Jenni Minto announced to parliament that the government had accepted all the finding of Cass’s Final Report (meaning it had accepted the Cass Review – Implications for Scotland report), she got into a spat with SNP MSP Fergus Ewing. He asked Minto to remove all gender ideology references from teaching about RSHP and remove third-party activist groups from schools. Minto, somewhat disingenuously, said, ‘children and young people are not taught about their own gender identity in schools’. Subsequently, a government spokesperson said, ‘The Supporting Transgender Young People in Schools guidance does not recommend pupils are encouraged to socially transition, any claim otherwise is completely incorrect’.[5] They ought to read the guidance more closely. The guidance advises teachers that they should not question a child or young person’s expressed desire to transition to the opposite sex, and that they should allow them to socially transition (including changing their name and using their preferred pronouns, and changing their hair and clothes). They are advised that they should avoid ‘deadnaming’ young people (i.e. using their previous name), and what is more, that they should respect the pupils’ right to withhold information about their social transitioning from their parents. The Cass Final Report pointed out that the majority of children and young people referred to gender identity services have been socially transitioned.[6] Clearly, children and young people will continue to be at great risk from government-sanctioned transgender ideology in Scottish schools.
References
1. The Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People: Final Report. https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/.
2. Cass Review – Implications for Scotland. https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/progress-report/2024/07/cass-review-implications-scotland/documents/cass-review-implications-scotland/cass-review-implications-scotland/govscot%3Adocument/cass-review-implications-scotland.pdf.
3. Cass Review – Implications for Scotland, ‘Cass Review Summary’, recommendations 1 and 2.
4. Cass Review – Implications for Scotland, ‘Cass Review Summary’, recommendation 19.
5. Minister ‘misled parliament’ over gender ideology. The Sunday Post. 8 September 2024. https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/minister-misled-parliament-over-gender-ideology/.
6. The Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People: Final Report. https://cass.independent-review.uk/home/publications/final-report/. p. 32.
Book review
That Librarian: The fight against book banning in America by Amanda Jones (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024)
Reviewed by Diane Rasmussen McAdie. Diane is an Edinburgh-based professor, a librarian, and an editor and reporter for the independent news organisation UK Column.
Should books containing sexual instruction and LGBTQ+ themes be provided in children’s libraries? I do not think so, but Amanda Jones does.
I have been a librarian since 2001, when I earned my master’s degree in information science. I finished my information science PhD in 2006. Both degrees are from the University of North Texas, a programme fully accredited by the American Library Association (ALA). ALA has a reciprocal accreditation agreement with the UK’s Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), so I am qualified to practise and teach librarianship in the UK, and vice versa for librarians who train in CILIP-accredited MSc programmes.
I am the only librarian I know who has been subjected to a range of grievance and disciplinary procedures initiated by other librarians for my professional values and personal beliefs. These started in early 2023, and they continue now. I withdrew my CILIP membership this past summer to avoid further disciplinary action. As a member of the Scottish Union for Education’s Editorial Team, I believe in our tagline: ‘Education not Indoctrination’. I am at serious risk of losing the career in the field I once loved because our profession clearly no longer allows us to speak freely about our profession. This is why I am uniquely placed to review That librarian: The fight against book banning in America.
Amanda Jones is a school librarian in small-town Louisiana, providing services for students aged 11–14. Before she was the librarian, she was an English teacher in the school. To her credit, she wrote passionately about her beliefs in the ethical basis we are taught to uphold as librarians, which centres around meeting the needs of library patrons.
The strengths in her writing stop there. Her book is a polemic centred around the defamation lawsuit she raised against her ‘haters’ who sent her a threatening email following an anti-censorship speech she gave to her local library board in July 2022. Her life fell apart from there, and the lawsuit was dismissed, although she is still in the appeals process. Although it should be noted that there is no direct evidence of the email in the book, only the text pasted in-line; it would certainly be stressful to receive a message saying, ‘Continue with your LGBT agenda on our children cause we gunna put ur fat evil commie PEDO azz in the dirt very soon bitch’ (p. 1). There is no place in a polite society for that behaviour, although it seems that, bit by bit, we are losing our ability to be civil. Jones does provide screenshots of social media posts illustrating the campaign against her, and she received national media coverage in the States over the following year. Here, we find the reason behind the book’s title; those campaigning against her started referring to her as ‘that librarian’ online, after she initiated her lawsuit (p. 268).
Much of her ranting is dedicated to her lengthy and self-indulgent descriptions of how badly she was targeted, and how much the stress affected her mental and physical health. I know first hand how difficult it is to live through this experience, but descriptions of the conversations with her therapist, her anxiety medications, and her physical health conditions that resulted from the stress was not as useful as some semblance of logical, professional, referenced analysis of the situation would have been, especially to help non-librarians understand the complex issues surrounding censorship and the First Amendment of the US Constitution in depth.
No references from our professional literature were used in the book. She did, however, express confusion about her haters’ feelings towards her. Her question ‘Why was she angry at me’? (p. 156) reminded me of the BBC Radio 4 series Why Do You Hate Me? Marianna in Conspiracyland, in which Marianna Spring, the BBC’s social media/misinformation and disinformation correspondent, talks to supposedly hate-filled ‘trolls’ who do not believe every story that the BBC publishes. Jones uses the same language as Spring’s throughout, such as, ‘They are hyperfocused on me because it gives them some sort of power within the alt-right crowd of conspiracy theorists and the hateful’ (p. 169).
This does not match with the ‘libraries are for everyone’ message that Jones promotes; instead, it feels as though you can only enter her library if you are not ‘alt-right’. This aligns with the equity, diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) approach to ‘inclusivity’. You will not be censored, but that protection is only guaranteed if you agree with the EDI-approved set of opinions. The Free Speech Union has reported that gender-critical books have been censored by English libraries, and that Literary Alliance Scotland have advised Scottish booksellers to not sell ‘Terf’ books (i.e. books by trans-exclusive radical feminists – or, rather, people who know that sex is real and matters in life), because they promote ‘transphobia’.
America has recently seen Bible bans within schools in recent years; why are school librarians agreeing to these bans but labelling the removal of LGBTQ+ content as ‘censorship’? Universities and cultural institutions are also censoring content through decolonising (read, destroying) their collections and catalogues, as I have covered in a previous SUE article.
Consistently criticising what she interchangeably calls the ‘far-right’ and ‘alt-right’ groups and people who want to kill her, there are serious hypocrisies present in her work. Examples follow.
On page 24, she shared a social media post by one of her opponents containing a screenshot from Dating and sex: A guide for the 21st century teen boy, which explains in detail how to stimulate a clitoris and a vagina, although Jones maintains throughout the book that there is no sexually explicit content in children’s library collections.
On pages 45–46, she told the story of a Drag Queen Story Hour being held in her local area’s library in 2018. Then, on page 49, she cited an article opining that, ‘“a massive right-wing media ecosystem” has been promoting the notion that “there are people trying to take your kids to drag shows, there are trans people trying to ‘groom’ your children”’.
On page 55, Jones says, ‘I guess in some ways I can see why my community would be concerned […] pictures of cartoon characters engaging in sex from a book called Let’s talk about it: The teen’s guide to sex, relationships, and being human’. Her defence of the book was that ‘posting pictures out of context was not telling the whole story’, missing the point that parents might not believe that those pictures were not age-appropriate for their children.
Stating that there are no ‘sexually explicit’, ‘pornography’ or ‘erotica’ books in children’s library collections, as she does repeatedly, is disingenuous. The ALA’s Most Challenged Books Lists, while presented as a struggle against censorship, provides the evidence that there are reasons for parents to be concerned about what children’s books are available in libraries.
The question of age appropriateness deserves deeper consideration. The Boy Who Wanted to be a Deer is a picture book for ages 5–12. It uses simple language, but it tells the story of a boy ‘transitioning’ to become another species, placing the idea into young children’s minds that changing their ‘identity’ can make someone happy. Despite this and many other possible examples of bringing gender questions to young children, Jones dismissed parents’ concerns about ‘indoctrination’ regarding gender ideology as follows: ‘The word indoctrination is also used pretty broadly by alt-right extremists. Everywhere I turn, I hear people claiming that a teacher or school is indoctrinating children with critical race theory, the “gay agenda”, and social emotional learning’ (p. 179). She said that if officials ‘use words like woke and indoctrination […] gender ideology and sexually explicit material, chances are they are pro-censorship’ (p. 235).
The book reads like either a 271-page personal diary entry, or thousands of social media posts and texts. Her non-professional conversational approach, and the use of frequent Internet slang, does nothing for her individual credibility or for the dignity of our profession. She is a former English teacher and a librarian in her forties, yet she wrote the following.
‘I remember the first time a book ever made me ugly cry’ (p. 65)
‘I read an article in Psychology Today that said, “The human mind is shockingly good at filling in the gaps of perception”. I guess I get an A-plus-plus’ (p. 153)
‘So in spite of a year filled with turdtastic crappery, there were some very positive moments in my life’ (p. 232).
She also includes diversionary anecdotes that have nothing to do with the book’s thesis of the ‘haters’ and ‘pro-censors’ who have ruined her life:
‘There were collaborative lessons on the Titanic with my friend and coworker that I miss [about being an English teacher], like when her phone went off in the middle of a conference to the tune of “Baby Got Back”’ (p. 68)
‘Until this moment, I never realized that the two most prominent Black people in my life growing up were both named Freddie’ (p. 83).
While supposedly speaking up against censorship and telling her story of hate speech used against her, Jones herself uses hateful words to describe her opposition, furthering her hypocrisy problem. This is particularly problematic for garnering support in her favour, as she stated thusly: ‘Friends should stand up for each other, even if they hold different political beliefs’ (p. 153). Here are some more examples:
‘That doesn’t mean I am ashamed to be white or that I have white guilt. That’s the first thing the Whitey McWhites like to say when the term white privilege is brought up’ (p. 82)
‘Have you ever just wanted to punch someone in the face with all your might? Maybe someone has said something awful to you, and the thought crossed your mind that a good ass whipping would wipe the smirk off their face and teach them a lesson. I don’t advocate violence, but I have thought about how good it would feel to knee my haters in the groin’ (p. 123).
‘Nobody was asking to interview them [her ‘haters’] except whackadoo alt-right bloggers’ (p. 131)
‘Did you know you can send anonymous poop-grams to people you don’t like […] I’m not saying I’ve ever done that, but I’m not NOT saying it either’ (p. 148).
In reference to the US group Moms for Liberty, she wrote that ‘Groups like Moms for Liberty are popping up like zits all over the country’ (p. 186) and provided names for the group such as ‘Klanned Karenhood, Minivan Taliban, Assholes with Casseroles, and QAmoms’ (p. 184).
Ultimately, despite the potential for constructive discussion to be had on both sides of these highly contentious issues, if both sides of the aisle continue to use name-calling and divisive language to describe their opponents, they will never reach an agreement on how to best move forward in a way that makes sure everyone’s concerns are addressed. My professional training emphasised neutrality while opposing censorship, but also ensuring that materials and services meet the needs of the patrons. Not every parent will agree that their children should be exposed to drag shows, or any content related to sex or LGBTQ+ issues, regardless of whether it is written with age-appropriate language. In my opinion, the profession has taken on an inappropriate activist stance in recent years. As Jones wrote, ‘Haters gonna hate, I guess’ (p. 174), and I expect that I will receive more complaints against me from librarians after this review is published.
News round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks, by Simon Knight.
https://youngscot.net/news-database/what-i-need-to-learn-survey Young Scot, Pupils reveal sleep and supportive teachers as top priorities for quality learning. 25/09/24
https://archive.is/APzt6 Poppy Wood, Rising numbers of absent pupils risks ‘social disaster for years to come’. The latest national absence rate was 6.9 per cent, which is well above the pre-pandemic rate, figures show. 17/10/24
https://archive.is/mRrwk Daniel Sanderson, Bad teachers ‘being allowed to fail pupils’ as fewer than one per year sacked for incompetence. Powerful teaching unions accused of making it ‘nigh on impossible’ to dismiss underperforming staff. 27/10/24
https://archive.is/fa813 Lionel Shriver, The war against words. 28/01/23
Maia Poet, Is Jacob Lemay a ‘Trans’ Kid? Or a girl with undiagnosed autism? 04/11/24
Laura Dodsworth, Why Britons Fear Flying the Flag: National Pride, Partisan Politics, and the Rise of ‘Cuckoo Flags’. 04/11/24
https://archive.is/Q4q5B Poppy Wood, Boys’ interest in reading plummets as only a quarter enjoy books in their spare time. The ‘shocking and dispiriting’ figures should serve as a wake-up call over changing habits, says report. 05/11/24
https://archive.is/ftIiF Daniel Sanderson, ‘Landmark legal case’ may give daughter right to bring anxiety dog to school. Concerns that ruling to overturn Moray council decision could impact other students. 03/11/24
https://archive.is/kBENd Celia Walden, Why are the Scouts brainwashing our children with woke nonsense like Billy the Non-Binary Butterfly? Young people should be taught to respect others, but a new ‘pronoun’ game threatens their mental health. 04/11/24
https://archive.is/2024.10.24-191618/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/24/after-17-years-of-snp-rule-scots-life-expectancy-worst/ Alan Cochrane, After 17 years of SNP rule, Scots life expectancy is the worst in western Europe. The Scottish Government has fixated on gender identity and the constitution, while letting education and health slide. 24/10/24
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