Two 14 year-old girls have written an open letter to the Education Secretary Gillian Keegan ahead of the forthcoming Department for Education draft transgender schools guidance. The girls have to remain anonymous for reasons that will become clear by reading their letter. The letter was first published on the website of the excellent Transgender Trend, whose motto is “No child is born in the wrong body”. You can donate here.
Dear Gillian Keegan
With the release of the Department for Education’s transgender guidance quickly approaching, we – two 14 year-old girls in separate secondary schools – want to contribute our thoughts to the discussion. There is a lack of student voices on this issue and it’s vital to have some perspective of what it’s like in a school environment where dissenting voices are stifled, extreme ideologies are presented as fact and girls are injured by boys in mixed-sex sport.
Schools are meant to be politically neutral; differences in thoughts and opinions should be encouraged and fostered, not shouted down and censored. There is a growing atmosphere of fear around this topic and many students, including us, are frightened to speak out openly due to the threat of ostracisation and bullying from students who adopt the authoritarian dogma of gender ideology. In our schools, opposition to this extreme theory is met with vitriol and restrictions on speech – in one of our schools, a student was discouraged from covering the topic of sport from a critical lens by a teacher and the discussion was branded too “triggering”, whilst a different student who was talking about the topic from a positive view was allowed.
It is vital that teachers present political topics in a neutral manner that allows differing viewpoints to be accepted. When controversial political ideologies are presented as absolute fact by teachers, whom students are meant to trust, this eliminates all chance of discussion, all chance of a nuanced debate. The concept of a ‘gender identity’ is a contested theory and it is not appropriate to present this ideology as absolute fact in classrooms. We urge the Education Secretary to construct an atmosphere of tolerance and respect by ensuring political neutrality is upheld in classrooms. By this, we ask for ‘gender identity’ not to be presented as unopposed fact. Teachers are required to be politically neutral in schools, so why is there a double standard when it comes to the transgender issue?
We’ve both – along with 72% of students from other schools across the U.K., according to Policy Exchange – had lessons on gender ideology in schools and every time it was presented as the complete truth. In schools across the country, kids like us are being told that girls can have penises, that humans can change sex, that there are seventy-two ‘genders’, that ‘gender identity’ is innate and unchangeable, despite NHS guidance stating that children who identity as ‘transgender’ may be going through a phase. This must stop, and if students are to be taught about ‘gender identity’, it must be presented in a neutral manner that specifies that this is a belief system, not fact.
As well as this, teachers must remain neutral when discussing this topic in lessons. We’ve also both experienced times when biased teachers attempt to implicate gender ideology in innocuous topics, for instance claiming that Zeus, the Greek god, was “non-binary”, or that Lady Macbeth was “gender-fluid”. Teachers also shouldn’t be asking students their pronouns, especially on the basis of non-conformity, or their sexuality or sexual preference, both of which raise major safeguarding concerns.
Some schools, including previously one of ours, feature ‘Pride flags’ in the corridors, with labels such as ‘genderqueer’, ‘non-binary’, ‘demiboy’, ‘polysexual’, among others, and include books in the library on inappropriate topics, such as Beyond Magenta, which includes a six year-old child engaging in sexual activity and fails to condemn this or mention the fact that this was unlawful due to the child being significantly underage. If schools are going to provide books promoting gender ideology they should also be required to feature books offering a different point of view, such as Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier, or Trans by Helen Joyce.
We also urge the DfE guidance to specify that students must not be punished for holding gender-critical views and that bullying and harassment on the basis of gender-critical beliefs shouldn’t be allowed. There is immense pressure among students our age to conform to the popularly-held views that trans women’ are women, and any opposition to this belief is considered ‘transphobic’ and unacceptable. There have been many cases of students being bullied and ostracised for disagreeing with gender ideology, where gender-critical pupils are punished by teachers, excluded by students and abandoned by friends.
A lot of us are too afraid to speak out due to fear of the consequences and this must change so that different opinions are allowed to be heard, even on divisive topics such as this one. We’ve been asked our pronouns countless times and it’s so exhausting to have to constantly play along and pretend to agree with this belief system out of fear, despite the fact we view it as regressive and harmful. In some schools, students are punished for referring to friends or classmates with biologically correct pronouns – this is insanely harmful, and it’s convincing students to ignore the evidence of our own eyes and ears, to place a single person’s feelings over objective reality, to indulge in an ideology we fundamentally disagree with.
We should not be coerced into using biologically incorrect pronouns for classmates and we must not be punished for refusing to do so. However, at this current time, according to Policy Exchange almost 70% of schools force other students to participate in a gender-distressed child’s ‘transition’ – this has to change and we are not going to stand for this destruction of our freedom of speech and belief.
We’ve also heard that the guidance will allow a “relaxed” approach to non-contact sport. We believe this is naïve and dangerously negligent. One of us has experienced mixed-sex sport at our school and after being deliberately targeted by the boys, she was hit in the face and breasts, breaking her glasses. Afterwards, all the girls in the changing room were complaining how unfair it was they’d been forced to participate against boys despite an obvious physical advantage. And this was meant to be a non-contact sport.
Accidents happen, and when they do it’s always a lot worse when it’s a boy hurting a girl due to the differences in strength, muscle mass etc. As well as this, we see no reason for a boy to be allowed to compete in girls’ sports, especially due to the physical differences, since members of the opposite sex are likely to be stronger, faster and have an obvious athletic advantage, even at a young age, and also due to the fact that having to participate with males can and will make many girls feel uncomfortable and afraid, particularly when at a vulnerable age when we’re going through puberty.
Thanks to the insight gained from Policy Exchange’s Asleep at the Wheel report, we now know that this is a much more widespread problem than we originally expected. For instance, one in five schools had absolutely no single-sex changing facilities, which places young schoolgirls at significant risk from being forced to undress in front of males for PE – an obvious and blatant safeguarding risk. We deserve privacy whilst in vulnerable positions, for instance while getting changed, and our rights are destroyed when you bring boys into the equation. For that reason, we are hopeful that all schools are required to have single-sex changing areas, and that boys are not allowed to enter female-only changing spaces even if they ‘identify as girls’.
The same goes for toilets – despite schools being legally required to have single-sex toilets, at least 28% are not maintaining this standard. It can be extremely uncomfortable for girls to have to use the same toilets as boys, especially when dealing with menstruation, and single-sex spaces are proven to be safer than their mixed-sex counterparts. Thankfully, it appears that boys will not be allowed to use female-only toilets, which will hopefully put an end to occurrences like hearing a male voice in what is supposed to be a female-only space, as one of us has experienced.
Mixed-sex toilets tend to be less clean, less private and less safe than single-sex facilities, therefore we think it’s unreasonable for schools to have both mixed-sex and single-sex toilets, when single-sex facilities alone are more convenient, safer and more dignified. If a boy does not feel comfortable using the male-only toilets, despite being male, he could potentially use the disabled toilets instead, but mixed-sex toilets help absolutely no-one and put all girls at a disadvantage.
Lastly, safeguarding should be valued above all. Frequently, teachers deceitfully hide a child’s ‘gender transition’ from his or her parents, which has happened and is still happening at our schools, as we’ve seen in our own experience. Honesty is fundamental in the relationship between parents and teachers and to conceal something as significant as ‘social transitioning’ from parents is an astonishing betrayal of trust. Schools must be required to be open and honest about whether or not a child ‘identifies as trans’, especially when the child is in a vulnerable position.
In some schools, students’ recorded sex is changed in the register due to the student’s or parent’s requests. This is misleading to both other students and teachers; important information such as sex should not be falsified. Honesty and integrity are key components in schools and to cloud the waters under the guise of ‘inclusivity’ does not make it better.
So we call upon the Education Secretary to value the dignity and safety of girls in secondary schools like us and to value the freedom of speech of all students. We request schools become politically neutral in encouraging a diverse range of opinions and thoughts and not to stifle students’ rights by presenting a highly contentious ideology as fact.
Yours sincerely
Two secondary school girls, aged 14
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So in this case… conspiracy or cock up?
Both.
Throw in “education” and almost religious belief of and acceptance of “Precautionary Principle”, useful idiots, ideology by many … Power used everywhere.
You have to remember that the precautionary principle is about ensuring that what you propose is no worse than what currently exists; it is not about doing something “as a precaution” and you seem to imply.
Yea, perhaps.
I have learned from speaking with many people of all ages over the last decade that people all seem to have a different understanding of the “Precautionary Principle”, but almost always their definition tends to support their view. I perhaps can be seen to be guilty of that assumption also.
I don’t know what is taught in schools anymore. Surely has changed since I last looked.
I now go with what the UK Government says which is currently is how they should be operating if they adhere to their own regulations:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/environmental-principles-policy-statement-published
Numerous points in the above document, but the most interesting one is:
“The precautionary principle states that where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, a lack of scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”
[my bold]
I am stumped to understand what “scientific certainty” is. No such thing in my world. Oh well.
The Precautionary Principle only works in one direction.
Most obviously, there is absolutely no precaution whatever needed, or even desired, before fossil fuel power generation is replaced by weather dependent Ruinables.
It is even unnecessary to be mindful of the old proverb – make sure you are happy with the new shoes before throwing away the old.
Blow up old infrastructure as fast as possible.
The “Precautionary Principle” though as regards the issue of climate is only ever used in one direction, It talks of the risks of using fossil fuels but never about the risks of NOT using them. Since almost 90% of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels then that risk is high. Particularly in poor countries where over one billion people still have no electricity and proper sanitation, and those people are being coerced into missing out on the fossil fuels that gave the western world the prosperity it now has and instead going directly to inefficient unreliable renewables like wind and sun. ———The precautionary Principle when used in this way gives carte blanch to government to go full steam ahead with political agenda’s like NET ZERO and Agenda 2030 with little regard for the consequences. —-The agenda comes first and people come last.
$cience, follow the £ – corruption, conspiracy, planned, cockup and graft on a grand scale, about U$1 Trillion a year…..with the usual fake data, fake costs, fake claims, fake $cience, fake expert$.
In the recent UK cold spell you heard on the fake news that wind/solar was down to 2% of our needed energy prod – you do remember hearing that shouted on the front page every day and Minister Moron admitting that failure….don’t you?
Conspiracy and cowardice.
Yes. From a bunch of brown envelope collectors.
While it’s just about plausible to view the Covid folly as cockup because it arrived “suddenly”, the climate change scam has to be a conspiracy because there was no sudden “emergency” to be dealt with
True, and there never has been!
Terrific piece. Perhaps someone can help get this message into the corporate media. Yes, know probably a futile task, but do it anyway. There are people who have the power and influence to do this.
Covid, climate! There a hell of a money maker!
This is exactly the two-pronged global business plan initiated by the Rockefellers here. That is: 1) global health, 2) climate and environment. Klaus Schwab joined them in 1967.
When you can build a windmill using the output from another windmill, then,and only then,it will be viable! Self sustainable profit is only possible if it can self replicate and still leave a surplus!
When you can build a windmill using the output from another windmill, then,and only then,it will be viable! Self sustainable profit is only possible if it can self replicate and still leave a surplus!
Oops!
Why not go for the hat trick ? Have a nice day.
Working on it
very sorry, not sure what happened there!
(I said) Oops upside your head…
Thank you gap band!
Strange how both identical posts have had upticks? There must be some deep psychology behind that!
Or depends which one read first!
have an uptick for being human….
Absolutely worth repeating!
Yes, wind is far more expensive than they make out. But if you want to be really horrified look at their plans for hydrogen. Another triumph of dodgy financial engineering and PR spin over the Law of Thermodynamics.
According to the Government’s modelling of hydrogen production costs, it will actually cost less than nothing to make if you use bio-gasification and carbon capture. The reason? The producer will receive carbon credits valued at nearly 10X the cost of storing CO2.
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/popping-the-hydrogen-bubble
I haven’t checked but if Blackrock, Gates etc are invested in such industries it tells you all you need to know, prepare to once more have any of your wealth remaining transferred to them.
Gates is invested in nuclear and sun blocking technology!
Gates absolutely needs slamming.
When you have $150 billion you are invested in pretty much every industry.
That includes the endowment of the Gates Foundation which is effectively still his, given he has 100% control of it. Its just a tax and PR efficient way of putting the money to work. It allows him to call his pursuit of global power and influence “philanthropy”.
In the case of Blackrock, it’s the same but in the trillions instead of billions. And their ass covering story is ESG.
This extract from the CCC’s press release announcing their new report confirms the role that we, the paying customer, will have to play…..
I’m happy to do my bit to help the resilience in the supply of electricity as I have no desire for an EV or a heat pump – but it seems inevitable that controlled usage or, to put it more bluntly, rationing, of electricity will become a normal part of our lives.
Yes. That’s what smart meters are about.
It depends on what they actually mean. After all, if you are on a “smartmeter” with 30 minute updates available to third parties, they might “offer” open market rate price variation as well, all the way to the individual customer. Look at how much it changes each day: https://grid.iamkate.com/ looking at the Price per MWh graph on the left of this page.
The biggest pseudo scientific fraud ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public. It is time that we had another sort of ” Great Global Warming Swindle” type of documentary featuring the likes of Andrew Montford, Ross Clark, Ross McKitrick, Christopher Essex, Richard Tol, Bjorn Lomborg, Michael Schellenberger as well as Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry and any manner of qualified people prepared to face the totalitarian might of Big Government and it’s pandering to the UN Sustainable Development Agenda, ably assisted by Mainstream Media who long ago ceased being Investigative Journalists and simply became Climate Activists. It is unlikely such a documentary would be allowed to appear on BBC or SKY and other bought and paid for media but why not on GB News eg ? Or if not on there some other format. It is long past the time when this NET ZERO and climate con trick masquerading as science is exposed for what it is. It is long past the time when climate is only in the hands of the Activists who refuse to debate and who refuse to allow any questions to be asked.
The one I really like is “pumped hydro”
You let water run down hill through a turbine and charge high prices for the energy produced, then you pump it back up using subsided cheap energy and do it all again! You can’t fail! Money for old rope.
Historically, the “pumped hydro” technique has been used to cross-balance demand and supply a bit, by pumping it uphill when it’s cheap, and selling it on when it isn’t (a cynic might say). If run well, it can assist short term variation as well. E.g. the underground one at Dinorwic (https://www.fhc.co.uk/en/power-stations/dinorwig-power-station/) can run up in less than a minute, when there is a short term peak in demand. Especially useful for power plant that really needs a steady load most of the time, such as Hinkley Point B.
But will it save the planet? or just pamper to our short term needs?
Short term monetary benefits do not make for a viable solution, seriously, pumping water uphill to let it run down again! God, a child could see through this one
Perhaps it could be a good option if we get to a point where we are able to generate lots more electricity than we need from wind, solar etc (taking into account the manufacturing and maintenance costs). It’s arguably more sustainable than mining lithium, exploding batteries etc. But you’d need to look at total cost including construction and maintenance.
Seriously, it’s a good idea. It helps with capacity.
It’s actually rather a good idea.
I posted a couple of links yesterday evening re the fraud of net zero. I’ll repost here as they’re pertinent.
First one is the business plan, infrastructure, workforce planning required to implement the plan by 2050: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/04/feasibility-for-achieving-a-net-zero-economy-for-the-u-s-by-2050/
Second one is a scientific challenge with actual science (I know, shock!) to “Net Zero”:
https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A4a52e6bf-f7f5-3d75-9f72-851010ab76c4&viewer%21megaVerb=group-discover
All the deception is interconnected. They are saying that ‘Climate Change’ will make viral pandemics more likely. The SARS-CoV-2 affair is not an isolated event. ‘Climate Change’ is not an isolated event. Everything that is currently going on is connected. The deception is vast.
The attached paper (published Feb 2022) is interesting as regards comparing costs of different technologies.
“Different electricity generating technologies are often compared using the Levelized Costs of Electricity (LCOE), which summarize different ratios of fixed to variable costs into a single cost metric. They have been criticized for ignoring the effects of intermittency and non-dispatchability. This paper introduces the Levelized Full System Costs of Electricity (LFSCOE), a novel cost evaluation metric that compares the costs of serving the entire market using just one source plus storage. Like LCOE, and in contrast to alternatives such as System LCOE, LFSCOE condense the cost for each technology into one number per market. The paper calculates LFSCOE for several technologies using data from two different markets.”
The table copied in below suggests that wind and solar (in combination) cost more than 10 times as much as natural gas in the German market and more than 5x in Texas.
Levelized Full System Costs of Electricity by Robert Idel :: SSRN
I’d like to agree with this piece but I fear I can’t get beyond the first paragraph. In my experience, the general public is not coming to terms with the shocking facts of lockdown; it’s easy to think that if you are part of a sceptical or questioning community, but my experience is completely the opposite; at best, people are shrugging and saying ‘time to move on’. At worst, there is a voluble group that argue lockdowns were too little, too late, and that masks and lockdowns should become the standard response for respiratory disease outbreaks. I have had this argument more than once with colleagues at my place of work – most science PhDs, who believe that masks were highly successful against Covid and should be used more generally.
Believing in something is not evidence that it’s any good (at least physically). Too much trust in that of other “specialists” seems to be a common mistake.
Our friend’s little daughter came home from school the other day crying. Turns out her teachers had been telling them that all of the fluffy white polar bears were dying because of ‘climate change’. Something that is demonstrable lie – polar bears are thriving.
These tax payer funded thick as mince Ayatollahs are literally teaching our children that their world’s ending and entrenching permanent despair. This is flat out child abuse.
“…the Government was willing to lie and mislead, and to scaremonger and manipulate the media, “
That is because our elected politicians are controlled by an unelected Civil Service that has contempt for the UK electorate. In addition external groups and organisations (also unelected) have captured many once sovereign nation’s governments and are bending them to their will.
Please see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mK-FMY1374&t=2126s
Stunning Short History – of Why the World has Gone Mad!
There are only two reasons anyone would believe in Climate Change.
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near Everyman Cinema & play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
I dunno.
Sure the recent “revelations” that we were scammed and manipulated for 2 years into lockdowns and nonsense liberty shredding policies by craven politicians is big.
However isn’t it more of a global crime to have pushed for, and still make excuses and lie about, injecting poisons into pregnant woman young children, indeed whole swathes of populations to the tune of billions potentially decimating the human population through disease, early death and lowered fertility?
This is a global genocide still happening.
I guess the equivalent Hancock-gate for these poisons hasn’t been allowed to filter through to our highly controlled MSM….
Focussing on the cost of Windpower, I am confused by these lines in Morton’s report here.https://www.netzerowatch.com/content/uploads/2023/03/True-cost-of-Wind-2023.pdf
“Industry bodies that have insisted for the last six years that offshore wind can deliver power at less than £50/MWh now expect us to believe that they cannot make a profit. This doesn’t so much strain belief as blow it to smithereens. Market prices have averaged over £130/MWh this year, so even if input prices had doubled, windfarms should still have operating margins of 25%, a extraordinary level of profitability”
Almost all Windpower is provided under a CfD contract which in essence means they get the same amount per MWh whatever the market price. For the recent Hornsea 3 contract the agreed price (which they bid at an auction) is inflation-indexed €37.35/MWh. They were obviously confident that actual costs would come down.
they have been made exempt from windfall taxes
Under a cfd contract the only way you can have a windfall is if the cost of renewables falls far below the contract price – right? i.e, renewables becomes extremely cheap.
“The Deception is even worse than Covid.”
From a financial/ economic standpoint, probably yes. But the cover up of deaths from the mRNA injection side effects is an unprecedented evil.
Just ignore folks. Hancock’s litany of WhatsApp messages have told us the way they “really” think in Eliteville.
It should be noted that, although written some years back, that Andrew Montford’s book “The Hockey Stick Illlusion” is still one of the best in pointing out the absolute nonsense of Michael Mann’s famous fraud, still influential with GangGreen promoters today.
Also outlining the blatant fraudulence of HMG’s three “Enquiries” into Climategate.
if the U.K. got all of its energy from wind turbines it would cost £49,000 per man, woman and child. There would be one 600ft behemoth wind turbine for every 180 people, 360,000 turbines total. The entire whale population would probably be belly up with all the sonic soundings. The £49,000 cost per man, woman and child would recur every 10 to 25 years (maintenance and replacement costs). The £49,000 per man, woman and child cost would not include necessary conversion to hydrogen as backup power (on calm days) and to power cars, boats, trains or planes. https://cutmyheatingbill.com/how-much-for-100percent-wind-energy
Yes maybe we should stop subsidising renewables but also oil and nuclear?