After many struggles and changes of policy over trans issues, the Government has now published its draft for consultation of the ‘Non-statutory guidance for schools and colleges in England over Gender Questioning Children‘. “Draft”, “consultation”, “non-statutory” and “guidance” are all politicians’ words, indicating that the Government doesn’t really want to tackle trans issues. It is not only the Labour party that dare not say what a woman is: the same question resulted in Rishi Sunak sounding like an inarticulate fool. One must remember that only a few years ago, steered by Maria Miller, our Conservative Government was charging ahead with gender self-identification.
The muddle in Government over what it prefers to call ‘gender questioning’ is of particular relevance to schools, where the lives of headteachers are currently being made impossible by repeated conflict between two ideological groups with completely different views about what defines a man or a woman. On the one hand there is the quiet majority of staff, pupils and parents who take the traditional line that basic biology defines whether a child is a boy or a girl. This group would, for instance, require biological girls to be referred to as girls, expect girls’ schools to contain biological girls only and allow biological girls alone to make use of girls’ toilets, changing rooms and girls’ sports.
On the other hand there is a vociferous and aggressive minority with, in the words of the guidance, views of “gender identity ideology, the belief that a person can have a ‘gender’ that is different to their biological sex”. Such views are linked to “a significant increase in the number of children questioning the way they feel about being a boy or a girl”. In practice this ideology would allow children to make their own choice as to what sex, what mixture of sex, or what absence of sex they might wish to have and go to whichever sex of school, facility or activity they wished. Such children often request that they be treated as if they are of a different sex from their biology, a process “often referred to as social transitioning”. Such social transitioning has led along the pathway to puberty blockers, often followed by surgical intervention to make a girl’s body look like a boy’s, or vice versa.
The conflict of these two ideologies has led to chaos within schools. Teachers have been sacked for ‘misgendering’ pupils, i.e., calling a biological girl a girl. A teaching assistant was sacked for sharing two Facebook posts that raised concern about transgenderism. A Church of England primary school allowed a four-year-old boy to join a Church of England school as a girl, causing consternation among his friends when they found out and he waved his willy about. Such is the potential for conflict and censure that no headteacher dare make clear decisions over such issues: they do their best to duck responsibility knowing that, whatever side they take, they will be attacked by the other. The guidance is kind enough to say that it appreciates “how daunting this is for school and college staff”.
On the surface, the solution to this conflict is a simple and obvious function of management: if diametrically opposite views exist over an issue, those in charge need to make a clear ruling. Over the same transgender issue in the NHS, where there was equal conflict over treatment options, NHS England has recently decided that “puberty suppressing hormones… are not recommended to be available… for gender incongruence”. It would seem straightforward for the Department for Education to send out an edict endorsing the traditional view of sex or that of gender identity ideology.
Instead, like Rishi Sunak’s spluttering over the question, the DfE has ducked its responsibility. Its advice consists of five principles. Three are truisms about having legal duties and being kind to kids. The one positive statement is that “Parents should not be excluded from decisions” about their children. Who could demur? But on the key issue of whether a boy can ‘become’ a girl, or vice versa, all the DfE can state is: “There is no general duty to allow a child to ‘social transition’.”
This guidance is at the consultation stage. As usual with consultation, the questions are inane: “Does this guidance provide practical advice to support schools and colleges to meet their duties effectively?”
The admirable and sensible Transgender Trend, in its own consultation response, answers this question perfectly in a single word: “No.” It is absolutely right. Schools are left to set their own policy and, whatever line they take, are left alone to carry the can.
Why, we may ask, is the Government, or its arm in education, the DfE, so reluctant to rule against gender identity ideology? Again the answer is simple. The Equality Act 2010, so foolishly nodded through by Conservatives before the 2010 election, specifies that “gender reassignment” is a “protected characteristic” and that treating adversely in almost any way someone with gender reassignment, for instance a girl who wants to be treated as a boy, is defined by the Equality Act as an offence.
This Conservative Government has been hoist with its own petard. The foolishly ill-considered Equality Act, so apparently beneficial because it embodies sentiments of kindness to all mankind, is so vague that it could mean anything and an attempt to rule that children must not be treated as though they were able to change sex would be subject by special interest groups to legal challenges lasting for years. It means that only a politician braver than our Prime Minister would dare to define what a woman is, but no minister would dare to back a headteacher who attempted to implement such a decision.
And so we come to the attempts to define extremism. Here we will find that, in the same way that the Equality Act stands in the way of taking any sort of decision over the trans issue, it will make it just as difficult to decide what is an extremist. Many of those who strongly differ over U.K. policy on Palestine will be of non-European ethnicity, Muslim and believe in a different world order. Having the protected characteristics of race, religion and belief, they will be defended by the Equality Act. Small wonder that Michael Gove has called for the Equality Act to be “revisited”.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.