Scottish Union for Education - Newsletter No23
Newsletter Themes: SUE’s ambitions, Glasgow Council, local accountability
Before Stuart Waiton, Chairperson of SUE, heads off to the library to do some research over the summer, we asked him to look back on what we have been doing since the beginning of the year. We reprint a letter sent to the Lord Provost of Glasgow by a group of parents and residents from the Southside of the city. The letter was written before the full council meeting which took place on 22 June. We have also included an update from parents following the meeting. This kind of activity is one of the many ways in which parents can hold the politicians overseeing education to account. The Substack will be running over the summer, but we won’t be sending out emails but will get back to you in August.
SUE’s future plans
Stuart Waiton, Chairperson of SUE
When we set up SUE in February as a union to challenge indoctrination in education, we were unsure how things would develop. The SUE Board, made up of academics, teachers and parents, felt that there was a problem with the nature of education, both in schools and universities, and we noted from the outset that education was being bogged down with a variety of concerns that had little or nothing to do with education itself.
Over the past five months, challenging the promotion of a transgender ideology in schools has taken up much of our time, partly in response to the feedback we have received from parents and teachers about what is going on in classrooms.
Discussing this issue during one of our online events, novelist Lionel Shriver made the point that the trans issue in schools is not simply a problem for children who are encouraged to think that they were ‘born in the wrong body’. The problem is more important than that because it reflects an education system that has become obsessed with the new etiquette of diversity.
Rather than working to help teachers ensure that schools function as beacons of enlightened thought, which can draw children out of themselves, Shriver argued that adults have abandoned their role as leaders and as a result can no longer help to develop the character of the next generation.
Running with this issue, we commissioned Dr Jenny Cunningham to write a pamphlet about transgender ideology in Scottish schools, and this has been sent to every headteacher, MSP and MP in Scotland. An e-copy of the pamphlet is available here, and we would urge you to read it and to send it to anyone you think should know about what is being taught to our children.
Emails keep coming in with horror stories about activist teachers who not only promote transgenderism to primary-aged children but also appear to have often lost any sense of distinction between adults and children. This age inappropriateness is not simply about unusual teachers, but as several SUE writers, perhaps most especially Colin Smith, have noted, sexualised education is now embedded in the curriculum.
We will continue to address these issues in the new term and have been delighted to find so many parents and teachers who want to write for us. But we always need more budding investigative writers, so if you haven’t been in touch yet and have something to say, email us with your ideas.
Emails from parents have also encouraged us to set up public events, or roadshows, across the country. Having had great success in Dundee, Aberdeen and Glasgow, we hope to branch out to cities and regions across Scotland. We’ve even had an invitation to fly to the Isle of Lewis to discuss what appears to be the education authority’s refusal to drop the RSHP curriculum despite the Western Isles Council having voted for this.
We have also hit the headlines over these past few months with articles about the obsessively therapeutic nature of schools, an approach that increasingly gives mental health labels to children and perhaps unsurprisingly, in the process, encourages more and more teenagers to think of themselves as being unwell.
Elsewhere we made the news when we highlighted the extremities of so-called ‘anti-racist’ policies, based on the highly contested principles of critical race theory, being introduced in universities (and schools). These policies promote a new type of divisive racial thinking, and their introduction and enforcement, without debate, undermines the very idea of academic freedom.
We have started to look at the dogmatic environmentalism that is, to some extent, taking over the academic subject of geography, and we want to pursue this further after the summer.
The point with all these issues is not that we are against efforts to tackle racism, promote respect for the environment, or indeed sex education; it is that these and several other issues are not taught in a fact-based, balanced or academic fashion. Instead, the approach to these issues is not about imparting accepted academic knowledge or about opening debate but rather about enforcing ‘correct’ ideas and values on to children: thou shalt use correct pronouns, recognise your white privilege, and accept that mankind is a virus eating away at Mother Earth.
As one of our new writers, Kate E. Deeming, has usefully observed, when you unpick many of these topics, what you discover is that schools are developing a form of disaster education where the gains of humanity over the past two centuries are lost in a sea of shame and stories of about how degraded and destructive we all are.
With more than a thousand subscribers and parents across the country contacting us daily about these issues, we hope to set up regional SUE Members and Parents (SUEMAP) Groups. These will be run online and aim to develop local and national support networks of people who can help one another and put pressure on schools, councils and education authorities to listen to the voice of ordinary people in Scotland.
We hope to develop international connections with parents and teachers abroad and are always on the lookout for educationalist and parents, like Julie Sandilands and Rachel Hobbs, who have helped us to carry out research about what is happening in schools.
The issues which we have covered are often highly controversial, but that’s not why we write about them; they are important in and of themselves but they are also becoming a barrier to a good education.
Education is about our own children, but it is also about the next generation and about the future progress of our communities, our country, and as John Stuart Mill noted, the future of mankind. Put like that, what we are trying to do looks like a very big task. But then again, the ‘progress of mankind’ is far more interesting and inspiring than the never-ending search for ‘identities’.
Watching the Council
A group of 19 residents and parents from Glasgow’s Southside got together to write a letter to challenge Glasgow City Council when they saw a council motion on LGBTQ+ and education put forward by Bailie Gallagher.
Dear Lord Provost McLaren, Dear Depute Lord Provost Mearns,
We are Glasgow residents in Ward 6 and try to follow the hard work our local authority is doing to make Glasgow a thriving place as set out in the City Charter and Plan and according to Glasgow’s values of fairness, equality, opportunity, and sustainability. We believe Webcast is an excellent way to keep abreast with what is discussed in different GCC committees, as well as the committee documents posted on the GCC webpage in advance.
We are writing to you today in your positions as Convener and Vice Convener of Glasgow City Council, in relation to one of the motions that will be discussed in this week’s Full Council meeting, as we have some questions from reading the agenda for the meeting on the 22 June 2023.
This relates to the motion tabled by Bailie Gallagher, which states the following (please allow us to group our question directly after each paragraph in this motion):
‘This Council welcomes Pride month as a celebration of LGBTQ+ visibility and unity. The Council recognises that Pride is the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the result of police oppression and injustice against LGBTQ+ people, in particular drag queens and other gender-nonconforming people. As such, the Council recognises that Pride is a protest against continuing injustice.’
Does Bailie Gallagher have a source that the Stonewall riots resulted in injustice in particular towards drag queens and gender-nonconforming people? What is the definition of gender-nonconforming people? What continuing injustices is Bailie Gallagher referring to? Is this meant for Scotland, the UK or world-wide?
‘The Council recognises the growing evidence that anti-drag-queen and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is the result of a small right-wing minority, not the general populace.’
What source does Bailie Gallagher give for this statement? What evidence is Bailie Gallagher referring to? Have any surveys been done on size and political leanings of people who have these sentiments? What is meant by ‘anti-drag-queen’ sentiment? Some of us believe that drag queens are adult entertainment and have their place, but for adults only. Does this make them a member of this right-wing minority?
‘The Council recognises that such sentiment is resulting in increasing threats to trans and gender-nonconforming people, the establishment of a hostile environment to LGBTQ+ people, and to violence against trans people encouraged by this hostile environment, resulting in multiple deaths each year including suicides that are attributable to harassment, and are commemorated on Trans Day of Remembrance.’
Again, where is the source for the statement? What have drag acts to do with trans or gender-nonconforming people? What violence is committed against trans people? When? Where? Do we have numbers and evidence of deaths caused by this alleged hostile environment? Do we know the numbers and evidence on suicides and if they are indeed attributable to harassment? Is this meant for Scotland, the UK or worldwide?
‘The Council recognises that such sentiment is equivalent to the sentiment that resulted in the Section 28 legislation, which caused severe harm to LGBTQ+ rights and individuals, and that such sentiment has become equivalent in some instances to a genocidal threat against trans people.’
Does Bailie Gallagher understand the meaning of Genocide? What genetic pool do trans people share with each other? Could Bailie Gallagher clarify if this means that being trans is a genetic condition? If so, is there a source for this?
‘The Council also recognises the expanding threat to women’s rights that anti-trans sentiment represents, with cisgender women now being victimised for wearing trousers or otherwise not appearing sufficiently female.’
What are cis-gender women? What women’s rights does Bailie Gallagher suggest are threatened through anti-trans sentiments? Who has been victimised for wearing trousers or not appearing sufficiently female? When? Where? How did this victimisation manifest? To what extent has the alleged threat to women expanded to? What is this statement based on? Is there actual data, or is this anecdotal?
‘Council further notes that protests against events involving drag or cross-dressing are counter to long-standing traditions such as pantomime, and such events are part of Glasgow’s culture and no threat to the morals of Glasgow’s children.’
What protests have there been in Glasgow against drag? I am aware that there have been some social media arguments about a particular drag queen doing Drag Queen Story Time in Moray, is this what Bailie Gallagher refers to? Is Bailie Gallagher aware that drag performers often show themselves as highly sexualised version of womanhood on their social media platforms? Would Bailie Gallagher agree that performances to children may encourage children to look up this social media content? Does Bailie Gallagher not see a difference between Drag Queen (potentially sexualised content) and pantomine (non-sexualised content)?
‘The Council resolves that such sentiment has no place in a democratic society. The Council deplores the intention of the current Westminster administration to focus on anti-trans and other such so-called “culture war” activities instead of addressing the needs of the nation with regard to corruption, greed and economic injustice.’
What does Bailie Gallagher mean by ‘anti-trans activities’ in this context? Why is a local authority asked to make a comment on UK politics?
‘The Council moves that it will not support such culture war activities and that the Council’s measures to ensure protection of equality and human rights will include protection of vulnerable LGBTQ+ people to the limit of its ability.’
Surely this is already the case? Is Bailie Gallagher aware that ‘gender re-assignment’ is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act, as well as sexual orientation? What is Bailie Gallagher’s definition of ‘culture war’? Does this include disagreements on self-ID for trans people? Does this include opinions whether Drag events are suitable for children or not?
‘The Council requests the relevant conveners review current LGBTQ+ equality measures with regard to protection of trans- and gender-nonconforming people, their effectiveness in reducing the impact of the culture war and hostile anti-LGBTQ+ environment, and their protection of trans identities and vulnerable trans people.’
Without any better definition of ‘culture war’ it is difficult to see what protection is needed. What does Bailie Gallagher exactly request in this motion? What is Bailie Gallagher’s evidence of ‘hostile anti-LGBTQ+ environment’ in Glasgow? And what is meant to be included into ‘trans identities’?
‘Council notes initial measures in schools to promote transgender-inclusive classrooms, as well as schools that have achieved Charter Status with LGBT Youth Scotland, and the support of the Time for Inclusion in Education (TIE) campaign in developing events such as Storytelling and Creative Workshops. The Council requests the relevant conveners and responsible officers further develop these measures and to roll them out to all schools in Glasgow.’
What is meant by transgender-inclusive classrooms? How are pupils who identify themselves as trans currently excluded? Does this mean, should the motion be passed in this form, that ALL Glasgow Schools have to aim to be chartered with LGBT Youth Scotland? Who did check the materials provided by LGBT Youth Scotland, or indeed the suitability of this organisation which is currently under criminal investigation? Who has fact-checked the content of TIE materials?
‘The Council will demonstrate its support for Pride and LGBTQ+ equality by amending the flag policy and procuring appropriate flags to fly in order to commemorate Pride, Trans and Bi days of visibility, Trans Day of Remembrance, etc. Council congratulates the organisers of the recent Pride Light event and proposes that as of 2024 an annual civic reception will be held in the City Chambers on the day of Pride in Glasgow to welcome the LGBTQ+ community.’
I believe the ‘progress flag’ is currently flown by GCC and I assume this is for Pride Month. GCC flag protocol already states that the rainbow flag will be flown for every year for International Day against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. What exactly does Bailie Gallagher request in this part of the motion?
Reading through this motion we would also like to ask more generally. What kind of fact checking is done by GCC following statements of any kind made by elected officials? What evidence on any statements that are part of motions is requested? In particular, I refer to Cllr Blair Anderson stating at the end of this month’s GCC Education Committee meeting and in various tweets that abuse has been received. Is there any evidence of this abuse? What is classed as abuse? I am worried that some disagreements by residents may be construed as abuse, and Cllr Anderson directly accuses people who do not agree with specific points made to be abusive. Also, surely, if abuse has been received by social media, this will have been reported and followed up by the police, do you have any information on this?
In one of his tweets, Cllr Anderson also states: ‘@glasgowgreens councillors have just secured a commitment to rollout training on creating trans-inclusive classrooms and tackling transphobic bullying across Glasgow’s schools While @Douglas4Moray& @ScotTories wage fascist culture wars, @scottishgreens are protecting kids’.
This is in relation to Douglas Ross acting on concerns of constituents he represents to question a drag event for young children. How is this a fascist culture war? Does Cllr Anderson understand the meaning of fascism? Does he insinuate that Douglas Ross does endanger children when he works as representative of his constituents and speaks out against a drag event? How would this endanger children? Would you agree that language like that is not suitable for GCC elected members?
Another of Cllr Anderson’s tweets states: ‘Westminster’s plans to misgender, stigmatise and out LGBTQ+ young people should make us all sick. Kids will die thanks to this.’
Would you agree that this is extreme language, without evidence concerning the potential death of children?
Dear Lord Provost, dear Depute Lord Provost, following from all these points we realise we are not clear on where and how residents can request clarifications on statements made by our elected members in all City committees. Of course, our hard-working representatives are in these committees due to Glasgow residents having voted for them, but is there any way to question expertise and experience of our elected members on specific issues that influence the day-to-day lives of Glasgow residents? How are elected members assigned to specific committees at all? Do they choose them themselves, without any proof of suitable qualifications? We thank you for a response to this lengthy letter in advance.
Council accountability
SUE caught up with the Southside parents to find out how the Council responded to their questions. The reaction from elected politicians was disappointing, but the campaigning activity was not wasted. It marks an important step forward in the movement to hold politicians to account on education.
In June a group of 19 parents from Ward 6 wrote a letter to the Lord Provost of Glasgow outlining the problems with the proposed motions in terms of hyperbole and language, asking for evidence (see above). On the eve of the June council meeting the Southsiders received a note from the Lord Provost which stated, ‘as the letter is regarding a motion raised by the Scottish Greens Party from Bailie Gallagher, it would not be appropriate for me as Lord Provost to comment on motions lodged by other elected members. Should you wish any clarification on any other issues raised within the motion, we would advise you redirect your enquiry to Bailie Gallagher’. The parents group also urged their Ward representative to get in touch with Bailie Gallagher, to consider clarifications and how to show underlying evidence of the motion in question.
Apparently, all motions tabled for 22 June were passed with no debate or interrogation.
Following the disappointing response from the Council and councillors, one parent expressed concern that accusations of ‘fascism’ and ‘genocide’ should only be used in evidenced circumstances and with extreme care (and, of course, correct meaning). The fact that this motion could be passed without debate makes you seriously wonder what our elected representative are doing with local democracy.
As one parent wrote, ‘While our letter went into detail about some of the statement made in Bailie Gallagher’s motion, the core was about accountability, and fact checking within the council. Who checks if any of the statement made in motions are true? What evidence is requested when statements are made in motions? What are the procedures to challenge statements made in motions for Glasgow residents, in cases when the local elected members will not do so? ... What is appropriate language for GCC councillors to use in social media accounts?’
SUE campaigners are often told that they are making a lot of fuss about a few maverick teachers and that they are being misinformed and led astray by a right-wing media and other dark forces. SUE was very pleased to see parents and residents taking an interest in the official policy of their local council. Often, we find that it’s not just maverick teachers but elected politicians who are attempting to push highly contested ideas and inaccurate claims through our democratic institutions. It’s time to take a closer look at the laws and policies that are being passed in our name, and to raise questions wherever we can. If you want to run a Council Watch campaign in your local area, please get in touch.
News Round-up
Here are some of the important articles and stories that have appeared in the press and social media this week.
Melanie Philips, Guidance for trans groomers. Astonishingly, the Chief Rabbi has been Stonewalled. 21/06/23
https://www.ebswa.org/post/ebswa-calls-on-care-inspectorate-scotland-to-withdraw-guidance?fbclid=IwAR2ZGYq82_JFOS7WcR-g9T3eEu_PHCAjgFdWZIXohfTrVLzbaaw7Ex77pdk_aem_th_Aeo28uexDlm2DxZof5FVdc0MAJ18bIK18S9tV48Modk2GMDdfknndLxMEFDJGRDvLmk Maggie Mellon, EBSWA calls on Care Inspectorate Scotland to withdraw Guidance. 12/06/23
https://archive.is/SdzBT Benedict Smith, Foster mother ‘nearly lost children after questioning school’s gender ideology class’. Teacher allegedly reports to social services woman who raised concerns about pupils being given lessons on non-binary gender. 10/06/23
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/snp-under-pressure-stop-child-30213748 Jessica North, SNP under pressure to stop child puberty blocker prescriptions after NHS England cite ‘gaps in research’. 12/06/23
Frank Furedi, ‘I identify as a cat’. The animalisation of humans and the humanisation of animals. If you erode the distinction between the biological sexes, sooner or later, the boundary between humans and animals is also called into question. 01/07/23
Joanna Williams, Freedom in an Age of Identity Politics. Self-expression now comes with its own strict rules. 01/07/23
https://www.gbnews.com/news/army-officer-lgbt-transgender-complaint Georgina Cutler, Army officer ‘forced out of army’ for simply stating ‘men cannot be women’. 30/06/23
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/06/23/philadelphia-museum-american-revolution-moms-for-liberty-controversy Torey Akers, Museum in Philadelphia under fire for hosting far-right group’s event. The Museum of the American Revolution is facing pushback for its decision to rent some of its spaces to Moms For Liberty, an ultra-conservative non-profit. 23/06/23
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/snp-ministers-go-hiding-over-30363215 Mary Wright, SNP Ministers go into hiding over ‘polyamory’ sex lessons in Scottish schools. Pupils at Alva Academy in Clackmannanshire are being taught about polyamorous lifestyles, which involves having multiple partners at the same time, as part of learning ‘under the LGBTQ+ umbrella’. 02/07/23
https://reformscotland.com/2023/04/ten-tasks-for-the-new-education-secretary-lindsay-paterson/ Lindsay Paterson, Ten tasks for the new education secretary. 19/04/23
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