Scottish Union for Education - Newsletter No12
Newsletter Themes: Immature Antifa, Conversion Therapy, and the need for Libraries
Counter demonstration outside the SUE meeting, ‘Are schools harming children by affirming their transgender ‘‘identity’’?’, Dundee. Photo: David Scott
In this week’s newsletter, Stuart Waiton reports on the Dundee event and the Antifa antics aimed at closing debate while defending the ‘agency’ of young children. Joanna Cook of the Christian Institute explains the imminent threat of the so called ‘conversion therapy’ ban, which could see parents being criminalised for not affirming their child’s gender identity. And Alex Cameron interviews a librarian about the consequences of closing down libraries across Scotland.
This week, as part of our national campaign, SUE will be hosting another public event, this time in Aberdeen, entitled, Let kids be kids! What’s wrong with the Scottish Government’s sex and gender education?
Our next online event will be Stuart Waiton in conversation with Jim Sillars discussing politics, parents and what can be done to revitalise Scotland as a place of Enlightenment. All welcome.
Tickets for this event are free to members (paid subscribers of SUE). If you’re not already a member, subscribe now to get the passcode. Members will receive an email with the passcode. If you are a new subscriber and have not received the email, contact us at info@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk
Finally, yesterday we sent a letter (see Campaign tab in Substack) to every primary school headteacher in Scotland asking them to drop the ‘Being Transgender’ lesson for 11 year olds.
Not in our Dundee
Stuart Waiton is an academic and Chairperson of SUE
Last week we had our first public meeting since SUE was formed. Seventy people turned up to the event, entitled, ‘Are schools harming children by affirming their transgender ‘identity’?’. You can read about it here. Last week we also heard about a nursery school in the Southside of Glasgow which has affirmed the gender identity of a young child. Meanwhile in East Renfrewshire, news has broken about a couple who were reported to social services for using ‘incorrect’ pronouns for their own autistic children in a family therapy session. Something that should be a national scandal, I suspect, will disappear into the ether, unless we all do something about it.
With that in mind, SUE is hoping to set up two subcommittees, for fund raising and social media, to assist with our campaigning efforts. If you think you could help, please get in touch: info@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk
Going back to the Dundee event. There was a peaceful protest outside of our venue; indeed the online organisers emphasized that the protest should be peaceful and I would like to acknowledge and thank those individuals and groups who demonstrated without disrupting or attempting to intimidate those who came to our event.
The police presence and private security we hired may have helped this situation and SUE would like to thank the police for facilitating the smooth running of our debate and ensuring it went ahead without disruption.
While the protest organisers stressed the need for the protest to be peaceful, others, like Anti-Fascist Action Dundee, used more threatening tactics. They emailed the church venue and demanded it close down the debate, noting the similarity between our event and past attempts by the ‘far-right’ to stoke up ‘fear for children in order to enact violent repression against minorities’. From this extreme position they explained that ‘we will not stand to see such tactics of hatred repeated in our city’.
Of note in this aggressive email was their concern about far-right censorship that has occurred in places like Florida where certain books about racism have been banned from schools. To clarify, SUE doesn’t support the banning of any book or the silencing of any position in schools, where these are discussed by older pupils as part of a debate. What we do oppose, however, is the adoption of things like Critical Race Theory as fact, and the uncritical incorporation of racialised ideas like ‘white privilege’ into the curriculum.
The Antifa email states that SUE, ‘rails against the idea that any education should promote social justice’. This is true. But the key word here is ‘promote’. We do not oppose discussion and debate, indeed the opposite is the case. We would be delighted to see older pupils arguing about the rights and wrongs of different theories and ideologies. Our question to our opponents is, do you support open debate? Because as it stands, the Scottish government and the education authorities have adopted your ‘radical’ position of promoting a social justice dogma to school children. This is indoctrination, not education.
Of course, Antifa show their own authoritarian hand when they try to intimidate the church to close a public discussion on the topic of transgender children. The word hypocrisy springs to mind.
Most troubling of all within Antifa’s position on transgender children is their argument that ‘the world they [SUE] are pushing for is one in which transgender and other minority children will be silenced and denied agency over their own identities’.
There is so much in this one sentence that is troubling, and if you haven’t already, you should read the powerful arguments made by Lionel Shriver about the problem with affirming ‘identity’ rather than developing a child’s character that we discussed in Newsletter No8.
But let’s focus on this question of the agency of children – something that multi-millionaire, privileged-progressive Harry Potter actor, Daniel Radcliffe, has recently promoted.
At what age should we talk about children having agency? From Radcliffe and Antifa there does not appear to be a particular age, just a rather immature and virtuous celebration of every child’s ‘truth’. So, what happens in the case of an early developing ten-year-old girl who wants to have a double mastectomy? Should we abandon any notion of childhood and adulthood and cheer on as the state provides this procedure?
Unfortunately, the infantile and consequent barbarity of this ‘progressive’ position is clear to see for most ordinary people. So too is the utter contempt shown by Antifa towards parents. One has to wonder if they would be happy to report parents to the authorities for refusing such operations or for using incorrect pronouns and whether they would cheer when children start being taken into care by state authorities. How the ‘left’ has fallen!
Like unpleasant school children, Antifa and many of their allies who run our institutions rely on name calling – bigot, far-right, fascist – to defend their authoritarian attitude towards the public and indeed towards the right of actual agents, adults, to even be allowed to discuss the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, there is a problem with a school system that has adopted a transgender dogma in our schools.
For the parents, grandparents, the Muslims, Christians and concerned citizens who attended the Dundee event, and for our fantastic speakers, Jim Sillars, Maggie Mellon, Ewan Gurr and Dr Jenny Cunningham, we all say, Not in Our Dundee.
Parental discussions on gender and sexuality could be criminalised under broad conversion therapy ban
Jane Carrielies, who works on the Let Us Pray campaign*
Parents must affirm their child’s gender identity or sexuality, or face being criminalised, under plans for a broad conversion therapy ban.
Some leading LGBT activists want to criminalise anything that does not affirm a person’s sexuality or gender identity, including simple conversations between parents and children.
An official report for the Scottish Government last year recommended the ‘withdrawal’ of parental rights if parents were perceived to have engaged in this kind of ‘conversion therapy’.
Such severe punishment would be understandable for abusive behaviour, but the definition provided by the Scottish Government’s Expert Advisory Group on Ending Conversion Practices is extremely broad.
The Group states that the definition of conversion therapy ‘must be wide enough to encompass all acts and practices that seek to change, suppress, or inhibit someone’s sexual orientation, expression of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression’.
As if that definition wasn’t wide enough, the group also makes clear that there should not have to be a specific intent to cause harm, malice or ill-will for a person to be convicted of ‘conversion therapy’. This means a loving parent, who shows nothing but care and concern for their child as they navigate these tricky waters, could end up being prosecuted and having their children taken away.
It sounds unbelievable so here it is in their own words. Under a section of the report titled ‘Children subject to conversion practices’, the Group states:
where the perpetrator of any of the criminalised acts has parental or guardianship rights in relation to the victim, the legal consequences may include the modification or withdrawal of such rights. Where parents or guardians have engaged in conversion practices, the modification or even withdrawal of their parental or guardianship rights is envisaged as an option.
A leading human rights lawyer, Aidan O’Neill KC, analysed these proposals and confirmed that they would indeed ‘criminalise parents who lovingly and in good faith and in accordance with their own best judgment and conscience seek to caution their children in relation to any stated intention to embark on… “gender transition”’.
He added: ‘The giving of such parental advice might result, were the [Scottish Government’s] Expert Group’s recommendation to be followed into law, in these parents being deprived of their parental rights and/or their children removed from their care’.
These proposals strike right at the heart of families and their freedoms.
Parents in the Australian state of Victoria are currently living with this reality, after a conversion therapy ban came into force last year.
A Daily Mail Australia article with the headline ‘Distraught parents now face prosecution if they don't accept gender transition of their vulnerable kids’ shows just how extreme the ban is.
The article states: ‘A new Victorian law which forces mothers and fathers to accept their children’s desire to change gender has left distraught parents fearing prosecution if they do anything to try to prevent potentially harmful and irreversible treatment.’
Victoria’s ‘Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021’ makes it illegal to engage in ‘change or suppression practices’. The penalty can be up to ten years in prison for aggravated offences and a maximum fine of nearly AU$10,000 for advertising such services.
Worryingly, the Victorian legislation is being held up as the ‘gold standard’ by activists here.
Official guidance from the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission lists as an ‘illegal’ practice ‘a parent … refusing to support their child’s request for medical treatment that will enable them to prevent physical changes from puberty that do not align with the child’s gender identity’.
The Mail reveals that parents in Victoria have ‘formed a clandestine network to exchange ideas on how to approach the legal minefield laid down by the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021.’
It mentions the story of Sarah whose teenage daughter has been caught in the ‘social contagion’ of gender dysphoria:
Sarah – and many other parents – now live in fear of being charged for simply trying to get mental health support for their vulnerable children, many of whom are affected by an array of conditions including autism spectrum disorder, trauma, family dysfunction and neurodiverse issues.
If [my daughter is] harming herself by binding and I stop her is that conversion therapy? Not being able to tell my child not to do this harmful practice is absolutely crazy.
Parents are so scared they aren’t even seeking each other out. You become a bit paranoid.
Another parent explained how taking her daughter out of a trans-affirming school could be considered ‘conversion therapy’ under the ban: ‘If we said we were pulling her out because their policies were going to put her on a path of lifelong destructive choices that would have irreversible consequences, we’d be at risk of breaking the law’.
A broad conversion therapy ban would be extremely damaging to families and an affront to the freedom of parents to bring up their children according to their own values and beliefs.
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights says: ‘Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence’.
Children do not belong to the state.
Many of us will remember the Scottish government’s controversial Named Person scheme which tried to appoint a state guardian to monitor the wellbeing of every child in Scotland.
The scheme was thankfully struck down by the UK Supreme Court in 2016 for breaching human rights law.
The judges warned: ‘The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get at the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ view of the world’.
The judgment made clear the importance of families being ‘left to bring up their children in their own way’.
Censoring family conversations and criminalising parents for saying ‘the wrong thing’ is dangerous and wrong.
Mums and dads must be free to speak with their children about matters of sexuality and gender, especially when their children are grappling with these issues.
Parents help guide their children in every aspect of their lives.
The idea that parents would be banned from helping and guiding their children on life-changing decisions to do with their identity and relationships is frightening.
The Let Us Pray campaign, spearheaded by The Christian Institute, was launched in September 2021 to oppose plans for a broad conversion therapy ban. The campaign is concerned that a far-reaching ban would damage parental freedoms and the ordinary work of churches. Join the campaign to stay informed about the latest developments.
*This article was originally accredited to Joanna Cook. Apologies, Ed'.
Closing school libraries is ‘educational vandalism’
Alex Cameron, SUE editorial board member, spoke to a librarian based in a West of Scotland school about the precarious position of librarians and libraries in state schools.
There is only one thing more shocking and dispiriting than the fact that 25% of Scottish primary school kids don’t have access to an on-site library, and that is that many of those that do exist are under increasing threat of closure. More worryingly still, such bean-counting attitudes towards the school library is a disheartening illustration of a more profound crisis in Scottish education. Read a tale from a school librarian in Newsletter No9.
Alex Cameron: It was recently reported that there are plans to remove school librarian posts in East Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire and Inverclyde as councils ‘look to cut costs’. What is going on in Scottish schools?
School Librarian: The problem in Scotland is a failure to understand the value of librarians in schools. Librarians are seen to be an ‘extra’ in state schools, a nice something you tack on and thus the first thing to go. I know of no private school who have gotten rid of their librarian, indeed I know of several who are hiring staff.
Our ‘wired’ world too demands more of school librarians, we are 30% reading for pleasure, reading for knowledge, 30% IT, research strategies, digital and critical literacy and 40% maintaining a library environment.
There is also a broader problem in the exam system in Scotland where you can pass your National 5 and Higher English without ever needing to read a book. Scottish exams are not really marked for grammar, punctuation, or spelling. Further, there is a problem with the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence. Librarians took heart when it was first introduced as it promised that pupils would have to undertake research projects - this is what we do! However, it’s now more a case FOFO (f-off and find out). Pupils are told to just ‘Google it’ – teachers don’t know how to research and don’t have time to work with us. Research is all about the journey – Scottish education is all about the exam results!
Alex Cameron: It is undeniable that funding cuts are putting enormous pressure on schools and staff. But is the crisis in Scottish schools more profound than a simple lack of resources?
School librarian: If Scotland truly wants to be a competitor in the world stage and if it truly has the well-being of its citizens at heart then the answer is 100% yes. If we look at the two nations (Saudi Arabia and South Korea) that are currently in the process of building more and higher specification libraries and creating national networks, some libraries are open 24/7 and free at the point of service. We can see countries who value education and are investing in libraries.
Supporting librarians requires ambition and creative thinking from those in government. It starts with EYS (early years setting) where every nursery should have a librarian and then every primary and secondary school, that work together to forge a fully literate and engaged population which in turn supports a mature democracy. Cutting librarians is a blow to democracy.
Alex Cameron: Why are libraries and librarians in schools so important?
School librarian: Libraries in schools are the only environment where pupils are not judged and can mix with any other year group. There are no exams, and all are welcomed, irrespective of academic ability. The librarian is not a teacher but a trusted adult and to some pupils that makes a huge difference. School libraries support personal, mental and educational growth. Having a well-stocked and integrated library with a professional librarian improves literacy scores and all-round attainment. Every exam is a reading exam before it is a knowledge exam and reading is a skill which needs to be regularly practised and finessed. If we value well rounded happy pupils who are able to leave school and play a positive and active part in society then we need to value libraries and the librarian.
What I do and my job description are two very different beasts. At its core a school librarian maintains and runs the library to a high standard, supports staff and students with research and provide suitable resources. All three strands are full time posts in themselves and how each school librarian chooses to spend their time is often down to their own skill set, passion and the needs and wants of the school.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we value the librarian. It is an isolated post within a school and whilst a professional role, it is very much personality driven and prone to the vicissitudes of the individual school. The soft skills that are learned in a school library plus the way we make our pupils feel about themselves are not valued. My job has been under threat for almost seven years now and not a single local authority councillor has ever come in to see me work, despite invitation. It seems it is easier to cut the nameless and faceless. It is educational vandalism.
News Round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks.
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/group-campaigning-against-indoctrination-scottish-29668141 David Walker, Group campaigning against indoctrination in Scottish schools forced to change Dundee venue TWICE due to protests. 10/04/23
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-does-the-census-say-there-are-more-trans-people-in-newham-than-brighton/ Michael Biggs, Why does the census say there are more trans people in Newham than Brighton? 09/04/23
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-parents-tell-horror-being-29705948 Sally Hind, Scots parents tell of horror at being reported to social services for misgendering their autistic child. 14/04/23
Jesse Singal, Here’s More Evidence That Youth Gender Medicine Researchers Might Be Hiding Unfavorable Data From The Public, 14/04/23
https://www.npfs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/edd/2017/07/Final-E-versionpdf.pdf National Parent Forum of Scotland, Review of the impact of the Scottish Schools (Parental Involvement) circa 2017
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ministers-will-pay-if-they-ignore-the-public-on-gender-reform-s3wnjqf79 Jamie Gillies, Ministers will pay if they ignore the public on gender reform. The Government must accept that the majority of Scots oppose the aims in the bill vetoed by Westminster. 14/04/23
Lisa Selin Davis, The Urgency of Detransition Care: What we need from gender medicine, and why. 17/04/23
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/04/17/why-the-trans-movement-is-so-intolerant/ Brendan O’Neill, Why the trans movement is so intolerant: Political self-pity is the new enemy of freedom. 17/04/23
https://www.inclusiveemployers.co.uk/blog/why-we-use-pronouns-in-signatures/ Steven Taylor, Why we use pronouns in our email signatures, retrieved. 18/04/23
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