The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has rejected calls to scrap the Church of England’s (CofE) transgender guidance which affirms children as young as five in gender confusion.
In an open letter to the Archbishop, Nigel and Sally Rowe had called on the CofE to scrap its “Valuing All God’s Children” (VAGC) guidance, which covers 4,700 CofE primary schools.
The letter was sent following the Rowes’ legal victory against the Department for Education (DfE) in September, which led to a £22,000 settlement for legal costs and a commitment from the Government to reform its transgender policies.
As part of the case, the parents presented international expert evidence to the DfE which revealed how transgender affirming policies lead to “catastrophic outcomes” for gender confused children.
The Rowes had taken legal action against the DfE after they and their six-year-old son were labelled “transphobic” by a CofE primary school on the Isle of Wight for refusing to “believe” in transgender affirming policies.
The Rowes made clear in their letter to Justin Welby that when they raised concern with the CofE’s Portsmouth Diocesan Board of Education in 2017, the VAGC guidance was used to dismiss and shut down their complaints.
The Rowes raised alarm that the CofE was continuing to endorse the VAGC guidance which they said says that children as young as five years old should be affirmed by Church of England schools if they wish to identify as the opposite sex.
This year, then Attorney General, Suella Braverman, stated that such a transgender affirming approach taken by the school and the Church of England, is not supported by law.
A petition calling for the guidance to be scrapped has since been signed by over 15,000 people.
In response to the Rowes’ open letter and subsequent national media attention, last month the CofE’s Chief Education Officer, Nigel Genders, published a contradictory statement on the CofE’s website claiming that VAGC in no way affirms primary school children in gender confusion.
However, on page 20 of VAGC, the guidance states:
In creating a school environment that promotes dignity for all and a call to live fulfilled lives as uniquely gifted individuals, pupils will be equipped to accept difference of all varieties and be supported to accept their own gender identity or sexual orientation and that of others. In order to do this it will be essential to provide curriculum opportunities where difference is explored, same-sex relationships, same-sex parenting and transgender issues may be mentioned as a fact in some people’s lives.
This statement is on a page specifically addressing issues for CofE primary schools, and therefore the treatment of pupils as young as five years old.
The paragraph states that children as young as five: “should be supported to accept their own gender identity”. It also states that transgender issues “may be mentioned as a fact in some people’s lives.” The next paragraph goes on to make this even clearer by saying: “Children should be at liberty to explore the possibilities of who they might be without judgement or derision.” This section cannot be read as anything other than advocating affirming children as young as five if they wish to identify as the opposite gender.
The VAGC guidance also states (on page 14):
Schools must not discriminate (either directly or indirectly) against gender variant pupils, pupils who are perceived to be gender variant or pupils with trans parents. In the context of a school, indirect discrimination could include an inflexible uniform policy that creates a particular difficulty for trans pupils.
Mr. Genders also claimed in his statement that VAGC has been in no way influenced by transgender charity, Mermaids, who are now under investigation by the Charity Commission, following links to the endorsement of ‘chest binders’ and links to paedophilia.
However, in 2019, Mermaids was providing extreme training in the CofE primary school where the Revd John Parker was governor in Essex.
The CofE Director of Education in the Chelmsford diocese refused to back Mr. Parker after he raised serious concerns about Mermaids’ involvement in the school, saying: “Our schools must comply with the legal requirements of the Equalities Act 2010. Additionally, the Church of England, through its policy Valuing All God’s Children, gives guidance for Church of England schools.”
Without any support from the CofE, Mr. Parker faced no alternative but to resign.
In response to his resignation, Mermaids said to the Mail on Sunday: “We are surprised to see that a Church of England rector is complaining about our training when we are included in the CofE guidance on support for transgender people.”
Mr. Genders has since said that the updated version of VAGC published in 2019 removed Mermaids from the guidance.
Despite the wealth of evidence that CofE schools guidance affirms young children in gender confusion and is being used against those who object, responding to the Rowes’ letter, Justin Welby has refused to meet to discuss the Rowes’ concerns and said that he is “in full agreement with Nigel’s recent statement”. He added that:
The policy document ‘Valuing All God’s Children’ is integral to our vision for education and the wisdom, hope and integrity it aspires to. The prevention of any form of bullying is essential to the dignity and respect we encourage in schools. I recognise that this can be quite complicated to live out in a school community where parents, staff and children may all have different views.
He concluded the letter by saying that: “We will continue to review our policies in light of updated legislation and Government guidance.”
Responding to the letter, the Rowes said:
We are very disappointed by the response. The Church of England has 4,700 primary schools under its care, which it is exposing to an ideology that promotes chest binders and affirming children as young as five in the opposite gender. The Church of England is repeatedly abandoning bible-believing Christians and their children on the altar of transgender affirmation. Referrals to gender identity clinics have gone through the roof in the past decade. In 2012 there were 250 referrals, compared to last year when there were 5,000 – this cannot be allowed to continue. As adults, we have a responsibility to look after children and protect them. Children don’t have the same capacity to think through the consequences of something like adults do. The CofE is manifestly failing in its duty of care.
Andrea Williams, Chief Executive of the Christian Legal Centre, who backed the Rowes’ case, said:
It is simply not plausible for the Church of England to claim that this guidance does not support the affirmation of children as young as five in a transgender identity. Not only do passages of VAGC clearly support it, but its citation against Christians who do not support transgender ideology demonstrate with undeniable clarity how it is received. If the Church of England wishes to make clear that it does not believe young children should be affirmed in a transgender identity it can do so simply – by withdrawing Valuing All God’s Children.
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There is no shortage of dishonest, low quality education on the topic of meteorology, including apparently deliberate confusion between climate and weather, even environmental issues. All of that is tangled with the concept of our ability to influence it, or what can be done to manage our capacity to adapt to it.
Some of us have been around long enough to remember some of the significant variations, such as the 1962/63 winter weather, the 1976 heatwave & drought and a few others, like the winter floods in 2014, and 2020. It seems to me that every year varies quite a lot when you are involved in the detail effects, in particular with gardening or farming.
And those who’ve been around long enough to remember significant weather ‘events’ are those that they need rid of.. pronto.. they stain the narrative.. Put that man on a drip asap… of midazolam/morphine..
Extreme Weather is not Climate Change
************************************
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Dishonest seems charitable. Seems more like evil to me. Part of the war being waged on humanity.
You know something’s going on when now they’ve got to give every two-bit depression crossing the Atlantic a name.. Storm whatever.. anyone?
Indeed and it really pfizzes me off.
Chris – thank you. Keep at it – we’re with your every word.
Fwiw, there is defo a hunger for data and hard numbers – I posted a colloquial explanation and then some quite technical language below a bug eating piece in today’s Daily Telegraph, along with the link to the peer reviewed paper, to explain why chitin was toxic to humans, and it was astonishingly well received.
People are sick of being taken for idiots and realise that they have to buck up and study a bit if they are to triumph in intellectual debate against the morons in the predator class.
Ah.. the “predator class” so much more apt than the elite..
They’re more parasites than predators.
Hi AEC can you post a link to the article? It’s the devil to find anything in that rag…could be under business, sport, food …heaven only knows! Thanks.
If it’s getting warmer, when am I going to notice it?
I’ve been keeping a nature diary since 2011. There is no evidence of warming but some that it has got drier.
The cold spell last winter killed three beautiful shrubs in my garden that had thrived for at least 18 years.
Scorchio
People are protesting, gluing themselves to roads, stopping traffic, climbing onto bridges etc etc, all based on what they see on TV News. You can put your TV on day after day and see claims made by all manner of people that extreme weather is increasing or there are more floods and droughts all they say is caused by humans. Every bit of extreme weather that occurs anywhere in the world is beamed directly to our TV screens and this might give the impression that everything in the world is getting worse, but that is all it is ———-An Impression? But is it true? The answer is NO. ——–There is no increase in the frequency or intensity of any type of weather event anywhere in the world. Virtually everything we hear on the issue of climate change is a smidgeon of the truth elevated into a planetary emergency for which no observational evidence exists.—- No politician dares to question any of this dogma, as the flak they get would be career ending. How extraordinary that asking questions about something that is only occurring in speculative climate models but not in the real world gets you booted out of wherever you are and never to be seen again. We have recently amended the Climate Change Act (2008 Miliband) to now go even further and we are apparently to be NET ZERO by 2050. No one knows how it can possibly be done, how many trillions it will cost or even if the technology required can even be invented. This is preposterous. The United Nations have manufactured a CRISIS and are now dictating the SOLUTION to it all based not on reality but on virtual reality from un-validated models and speculations motivated entirely by the Politics of “Sustainable Development, which means a world run by unaccountable technocrats who will control all of the worlds wealth and resources and every aspect of people’s lives, and not only do many of us fall for this, we actually march with banners to DEMAND it.
The trouble with net zero projections by 2050 is as you say; vague. There isn’t enough money, natural resources, industrial processing capability, infrastructure for supply, engineering or technical advancement, and the necessary man power to facilitate each function, etc. to achieve this target, anywhere in this world. This simple fact is missing from the driven agenda. In 2016 the UK committed by law, to achieve net zero by 2050. (34 years) and after 7 years, (20% of agenda time) nothing has been done, started, or developed. It is still a talking shop, producing fear, with nothing that will facilitate the net zero targets, we here on this site, understand the 8ollox of it, but there is a lot more who believe. As you say, the governments have moved from being for the benefits par se of the nation to the servants of the few. The rest of us are being sent to where ever we can do least damage. Surplus to requirement.
‘,,,we actually march with banners to DEMAND it.’
You touch very correctly on the key point here. People want it to be true. I recall the old House-of-Commons Speaker George Thomas commenting on how he recovered his religious faith after episodes of doubt: ‘I want to believe,’ he declared. So many people persist with the belief in disastrous man-made climate change despite the fact that they know it is rubbish. They want it to be true. Something has to be wrong to explain how they feel about their lives. This is something to get behind en masse. Therefore this is what is wrong. I don’t think anything can be done to stop it.
Sadly, similar to the UK met office, weather manipulation is denied. Geoengineering going on right in front of our eyes,every single day. Look up, you will see dozens of chem trails, a constant. Who is funding this. What government/company is being used to spray chemicals into the atmosphere. The UK now in its 4th month of gloom, little sunshine, windy every day. Humans, plants and animals all need sunshine. Without it our planet and its creatures would not exist.
Even Chat GPT is on board with climageddon. I asked it why the theory of AGW was wrong and it basically told me it wasn’t. There’s no hope for the sheeple masses.
I suspect that we are going to see increasingly extreme weather and a hostile climate but it has nothing to do with humanity. The powers that be have known for decades, possibly centuries, that we are due a magnetic pole reversal which occurs every 12,000 years with the passage of the galactic current sheet. As part of this process the magnetic field deteriorates rapidly and has been accelerating since 1997 when the magnetic poles also began migrating and look set to cross around Indonesia sometime in the next 10-20 years. This will expose the earth to space weather and solar storms which will have disastrous consequences in terms of extreme weather, lightning strikes, volcanic activity and earthquakes. The UK’s mobile phone emergency alert system has got nothing to do with war! The present grand solar maximum lasting the last 100 years has been ridden on by the elite as evidence of global warming as it fits nicely with increasing CO2 emissions, despite humans only being responsible for about 3% of global CO2 emissions (The rest are natural) and the fact that CO2 levels rise and fall in response to global temperatures not the other way round. The big fiery ball in the sky controls global temperatures and in turn CO2 levels which at 420 ppm are at historic lows and for the majority of earth’s history have been around 5,000 ppm. However, Mr Global has indoctrinated people into the anthropogenic climate change ruse in order to take total control over the population as the carrying capacity of the earth plummets over the middle part of the century. The absolute Zero UK Fires report done for the government is not about net zero but in fact details what will happen out of necessity as a result of this catastrophe. There is also evidence that this cycle culminates with a solar micronova which unlocks the crust from the mantle causing the earth to flip 90 degrees as the ice caps settle out on the equator. Humanity always survives these events but civilisations will not. Call it The Great Reset if you will. See more at Suspicious Observers on YouTube.
It’s about sensationalism, ideology and click-bait, leading to more jobs and money in the climate-change industry.