Schools will be told to presume that a child cannot change gender and that social transitioning should be “extremely rare” in the Government’s first guidance for teachers on trans issues. Gender-critical campaigners have welcomed the guidance, saying that it “sets the global standard for uprooting trans ideology from schools”. However, others including Liz Truss said it does not go far enough because it is not legally binding and does not ban social transitioning completely. The Telegraph has more.
Under the new ‘parent first’ approach, head teachers must tell parents if their child wants to change gender.
Teachers and other pupils will be told they do not have to use the preferred pronouns of children, and staff will not face sanctions if they choose not to do so.
The guidance, set to be published on Tuesday, has been promised since 2018 but delayed amid a disagreement within the Government over how to respond to the rise in the number of children who say they are trans.
The Government will urge schools to take a cautious approach to children who want to transition socially – where they adopt the pronouns and dress of the opposite gender.
A Whitehall source said: “This Government firmly believes parents should be involved in decisions about their children and much more caution should be taken, so this guidance means there should effectively now be a presumption against social transitioning in schools.”
The source said the guidance would provide “much-needed certainty and protection to teachers and pupils so they will no longer feel forced to use different pronouns for gender-questioning children, and won’t face a sanction for not doing so”.
He added: “It is a complex and sensitive issue, but we’ve taken the time to strike the right balance.”
Schools will also be told they have no obligation to provide gender-neutral facilities, including lavatories, changing rooms and dormitories. Single-sex schools will be told that they do not need to accommodate transgender pupils.
A Government source said: “It’s a cautious approach. It’s supportive of no action or slow action.”
Gender-critical campaigners welcomed the guidance, saying that it “sets the global standard for uprooting trans ideology from schools”. However, some activists said it does not go far enough because it does not ban social transitioning completely.
It has been drawn up by Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, and Kemi Badenoch, the Equalities Minister. It will apply to all state and independent schools in England and is not legally binding.
The guidance adds that social transitioning should be “extremely rare”, and that schools “should not accept all requests for social transition”.
Liz Truss has criticised the guidance for not going further, however. She said:
Today’s guidance does not go far enough. During the many months we have been waiting for its publication, it has become increasingly clear that non-statutory guidance will provide insufficient protection and clarity, and that a change in the law of the land is required.
That is why I am asking the Government to back my Private Members’ Bill, which would change the law in this area to ensure children are fully protected.
I fear that activists and others will be able to exploit loopholes in the guidance and the existing legal framework to pursue their agenda, leaving children at risk of making irreversible changes and with single-sex spaces not sufficiently protected.
Christian Concern CEO Andrea Williams broadly welcomed the guidance as a “big step forward” and a “vindication” of those her organisation has been supporting in the battle against gender ideology, including Nigel and Sally Rowe whose success in being granted a judicial review last year led directly to the new guidance. But she agreed with Liz Truss that the Government “must go further” by giving the guidance the “force of statute”.
We believe that the Government has listened to many of the problems we have been raising through legal cases and with the department over the last 10 years. Had this guidance been followed, many more children would have been protected and several Christians we are supporting would not have lost their jobs. Today, they are vindicated.
Without the bravery of many Christians like Nigel and Sally Rowe, whose judicial review directly led to this guidance, we would still be seeing the ideology of groups like Mermaids run rampant in schools.
The recognition that schools do not need to accept a child’s transition and protections for freedom of speech and conscience are most welcome.
However, the Government must go further to equip schools to resist damaging social transitions and to protect free speech by giving this guidance the force of statute.
Joshua Sutcliffe lost his job for saying “well done girls” to a group in his classroom, one of whom identified as male whilst being biologically female.
We are pleased to see the guidance state that “it should not prevent teachers from referring to children collectively as ‘girls’ or ‘boys’, even in the presence of a child that has been allowed to change their pronouns”. Joshua Sutcliffe was banned from teaching by the Teaching Regulation Agency earlier this year in a decision made on behalf of the Secretary of State.
He needs to be fully reinstated and an apology needs to be made to him.
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Let’s hope others follow her example. A Labour MP on World at One today was complaining that many of his constituents were having to use food banks and could not afford to pay more tax. As that is true we should not be handing over any money to foreign governments.
When Starmer told VP Vance that we have had free speech in the UK for a long time, I waited in vain for someone to ask Starmer if that was compatible with the very new concept of Non Crime Hate Incidents and if so, how?
I know the supine journalists failed to hold Starmer to account but I guess pissing off guests might not get them invited back.
When your own people are well cared for and happy, you can consider helping other countries if you have a surplus.
We borrow to give to others, and our own people suffer, just insane.
I assume that She, of the wild hair, will be persuading 40% of the Civil Service staff in that Ministry to leave as I presume they will be unnecessary.
The free speech remark by Starmer is a bit rich with Mr T Robinson in solitary confinement.
Also in the Telegraph from Stephen Pollard: “Good riddance to Anneliese Dodds, the minister without sense…”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2025/02/28/good-riddance-to-anneliese-dodds-the-invisible-minister/
“…In a Government of non-entities, Dodds was perhaps the most invisible of all. It is perhaps unfair to pose of Anneliese Dodds’ resignation the oft-cited philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
And a commenter adds, “It’s people like Dodds that give non-entities a bad name.”
Starmer is far right!
The Left will eat itself.
Only the plant-based left. Otherwise, they’d have to stop calling themselves vegan.
That was the most half hearted resignation I have ever seen. As International Development Minister it was down to her her to fall on her sword to placate the far left. She will be back in a top job before you know it. That International Man of Misery, Kier Starmer will find all the money for their stupid overseas spending projects from other departments, probably in a circular route back from defence.
“International Man of Misery” love it!
So will her trough money fall?
“Ultimately, these cuts will remove food and healthcare from desperate people…”
How perceptive of Ms Dodds. She wouldn’t by any chance be referring to the people of the UK by any chance would she?
Oh, silly me.
Who?
Astonishing to think that this idiot was Shadow Chancellor before Rachel from Accounts.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-scaremongers-weekly-roundup/
Here’s £100 billion of savings identified.
Paul Homewood at TCW.
And another £22bn in the pipeline for wholly pointless carbon capture.
Brief summary:
“Dear 2TK, I am really upset that I am being forced to take my snout out of this lovely trough. Why me, when I know you all still have your own? It’s just not fair”.
Yours Ms Gummidge
Could be the start of something beautiful. Perhaps the neocon rats all over the West will leave their sinking ship of their own volition. More or less the entire British political class is neocon including the dissident parties. Probably more likely that the Brits will try to go it alone as they do seem to like playing last man standing. It is a disgusting position, being the head of the ministry of regime change.
Frederick Edward rightly exposing Bozo for the despicable mass murderer that he is. This utterly corrupt piece of shytr is as Frederick Edward blodly states
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-unflushable-boris-johnson/
“Given his track record – with the blood of thousands on his hands – together with his central role in covid and his obsession with the civilisation-ending perversity of Net Zero, one can only wish that Boris Johnson would crawl into the nearest foxhole and never return.
As one of the unflushables, however, there is no doubt that he will keep coming back.”
A better idea would be to cut the so-called foreign aid budget by 100%. If people living in the UK want to support charitable causes in foreign countries, they can always contribute money voluntarily. We’re presently at the point where recipients of so-called foreign aid claim they’re owed ‘reparations’ for taking it. So, let’s take this burden away from them.
Utterly agree. Splot the saving between defence and care for the old. £8 billion for defence and £8 billion for Elderly Care, should make a big dent in that problem.
DOGE the rest of the civil service budgets, too.
Down with this state!
And for a more comical yet equally eviscerating look at the Uniparty’s attempts to ensure that thousands more lives are lost in Ukraine here’s John Ellwood at his best…
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/your-bunter-needs-you/
“The KemiKorps: Not wishing to miss the show and inspired by the impressive tactics of Rommel’s Afrika Korps in World War Two, the Tory leader hopes to boost the flagging fortunes of her once-great party by forming a fighting force of young men from her ancestral home, West Africa. Because of her party’s immigration policies there are tens of thousands of Nigerians, Ghanaians etc in the UK who are available to volunteer.”
I’m sure our new arrivals cannot wait to prove their allegiance to their new homeland especially with the new leader of the KemiKorps.
What an unbelievably stupid woman.
Having risen without trace, the only time she makes the headlines is when she flounced out in a huff.
She so obviously hates the British people…
I’m sure she will be sadly missed.
Oh, how she will be missed. Having identified a pressing need for aid I am sure she will resign nd go overseas to some god foresaken place to assist.
Or not.
It is sad for the Brits who don’t go along with the agenda and feel temperamentally opposed to it. Russia has said that it is happy to take western refugees from neoliberalism. There was a secret clause in that 100 year agreement and pledge from Starmer to Ukraine which involved mineral rights. At that point in time it was the perfect opportunity to pre-empt Trump. The deal included complete British control over the Black Sea ports. That is why the British media went crazy when Trump suggested that Zelensky might be a dictator.
Good riddance to another evil,
Communist feminist who thinks foreign men are more in need of our taxes than out own men and women.
Nasty, middle class A-hole
And who is such a traitress that she would put our people’s defence behind aid to lazy, workshy foreigners.
They do love to eat themselves don’t they?
Read the Futurist manifesto if you want to understand where women like this one are going to end up. It is a beautiful document and a huge influence on the German national socialists. On a spiritual level the Trump movement is essentially an antidote to the horror of the sacrifice carried out in broad daylight in November 1963 on a Friday morning. The plotters hoped that it would lead into terminal decline of America and the age of the Antichrist. But in a sense the opposite has happened given just how much this event opened minds to everything else. There are deep spiritual links between Trump and Kennedy.
I’m praying for Almighty God to divide Starmer’s house, for a house divided cannot stand.
This is the beginning.
We do need to beg for direct intervention. Even if he just creates a new enclave in the desert and calls it New England. With taverns and bawdy houses. Perhaps in such an environment the best will wake up. I suggest that we approach the American embassy within the next few weeks and try to come to some sort of arrangement. Because the reality of staying here is simply too grim to contemplate.
Who she ?
Cares only for people in far away places, while voting to impoverish the old and needy here. As she has failed to instigate audits on the money she’s happily sending to these places, how much of it does she think reaches its intended target.?
She’s no great loss…
Nil desperandum. It is rumoured the role might be filled with a v close friend of 2TK, who can share those long, lonely journies to foreign parts together.
The inability for these inept politicians to see around the next corner and assess the consequences is quite staggeringly stupid.
If these politicians want to really see what has gone wrong with governance in Western countries, then need just look in a mirror and stop pointing fingers elsewhere.
Maybe they should be made to prove where that £13 billion Foreign Aid goes to, probably not much goes to those who need it, or should receive it.
Someone once quoted that Foreign Aid is where you take money from the poor people of a Rich country (taxpayers) and give it to the rich people of a poor country – might have been Ron Paul.
They can always find a school they’ve built somewhere, and maybe a hospital – but what these poor countries need are debt forgiveness and access to cheap reliable energy.
Those would be a start!
I understand some Foreign Aid is used to grease the palms of certain people to facilitate trade deals and overseas orders, but like USAID, lets have a full audit.
Dodds and co are peas in the same pod. Left and woke. High tax and anti white. Open borders and endless wastage on illegals. Good riddance. 500+ more to go.
Dear Anneliese
Greed is the belief you are entitled to other people’s money to use for your own purposes.
With respect to your greedy self, you believe you can take my money without my consent using the coercive powers of the State, to disperse in foreign aid to people I don’t know, or I don’t care about, or I don’t like so that you can feel warm and fuzzy about being caring and compassionate.
It’s easy to be generous with other people’s money, innate in Socialists, but if you care so much for others, use your own, and now you have gone, don’t come back.
Your ever!
A Taxpayer.