Carys Moseley comments on how the Government Equalities Office has been confronting transgender education since Liz Truss became Minister for Equalities.
Things seem to be changing at the Government Equalities Office now that Liz Truss is Minister for Equalities. I have previously looked at how she has set out priorities for the GEO that differ in important ways from its ethos up until very recently. Over the past week Truss has had to confront a major trans indoctrination programme affecting primary schools in London.
Primary schools’ anti-bullying programme challenged
On 1 May Caroline ffiske, a former adviser to the government of New Zealand, exposed a trans indoctrination programme called ‘Free To Be’ in an article published by the Conservative Woman website. ‘Free To Be’ is an LGBT equality and anti-homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying programme run by a group called EqualiTeach. EqualiTeach is a ‘not-for-profit equality and diversity training and consultancy organisation’. ‘Free To Be’ has been used in 27 primary schools in Greater London. The article reveals how this programme encouraged the schools to challenge ‘heteronormative and cisnormative models of families, identities and relationships’, and introduces the idea of ‘innate gender identity’, in other words the theory that some children are ‘born in the wrong body’.
Shortly after this revelation Liz Truss tweeted this statement:
“This document was not approved by government. It does not reflect government policy. The GEO logo should not be on it and I have asked for it to be removed.”
What does this really mean?
Is government policy changing?
Responding to the same revelation, the Government Equalities Office tweeted this:
“The LGBT guidance for primary schools published by EqualiTeach does not reflect government policy. GEO had no input into the document. The GEO logo has been removed.”
This is an extraordinary retreat from the GEO’s previous approach to this topic. In February 2019 the GEO announced that EqualiTeach was one of the LGBT groups that would get funding, as part of the government’s LGBT Action Plan published in July 2018. The funding was specifically for combating homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying, and would continue until March 2020.
“Barnardo’s, Diversity Role Models, Equaliteach, National Children’s Bureau, Stonewall and The Diana Award will split £1 million of the funding to extend work that protects children from homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. Currently the initiative, delivered by Barnardo’s and Stonewall, has supported 1200 schools in England, with the grant funding set to help that continue until March 2020.”
Is GEO policy on bullying now changing? Or was it already set to change before this funding ran out? For the Conservative party general election manifesto already made no mention of anti-transphobic bullying policies, mindful no doubt of the need to keep parents’ votes! This is unsurprising given that parents have been worried for a while now. Christian parents Nigel and Sally Rowe were accused of transphobia by their children’s Church of England primary school for questioning complete affirmation of a six-year old classmate identifying as a ‘girl’.
Removing GEO logo isn’t enough
Schools have been closed since March 2020 so the question here really is what did Liz Truss and the GEO mean by their statements. Removing the GEO logo does not mean the programme is no longer allowed into schools. More must be done here.
These statements were tweeted in May, two months after the funding came to an end. Does this dispute suggest that EqualiTeach material has been allowed to continue to be used by schools since March? This is where we really need to ask how LGBT indoctrination has been handled since the lockdown prohibited most children from going into school? Do we know what children are being sent online by schools or not?
Over on Twitter some respondents were calling for an investigation into the GEO and even an overhaul of it. This would require a radical spring-clean of the government at the highest level, as the GEO has so many civil servants dedicated to implementing the LGBT Action Plan, and is now safely ensconced in the Cabinet Office where it can insist on mainstreaming its ideology to all departments in Whitehall.
Time to tackle Mermaids meddling
Back in March, the Values Foundation tweeted that it had spoken to the Department for Education in England regarding concerns about material for schools produced by transgender charity and campaign group Mermaids, claiming that there is a ‘gender spectrum’. Here is what it said:
“Mermaids use this in their teacher training. TVF asked DfE senior staff for the scientific basis for this theory. They said there was none but we have to respect those who believe this and allow it to be taught in schools. Even though it is untrue.”
Senior civil servants were said to have admitted that this material had no scientific basis, but that they were obliged to ‘respect those who believe this and allow it to be taught in schools.’ This kind of nonsense is exactly what Mermaids was peddling at a training session for teachers at a Church of England primary school in Essex last year. This time a teacher complained. However, it isn’t good enough that only one teacher complained. For change to happen we must look higher.
Why is the Department for Education tolerating ‘gender spectrum’ nonsense?
It is just possible that there are civil servants in the Department for Education who deeply regret the requirement to allow belief in a ‘gender spectrum’ to be taught in schools. They would have very good reasons for doing so. First, it is unscientific and contrary to science. Second, it is harmful to children’s development. We already know that children can be confused and traumatised by lessons on transgenderism. However, civil service rules mean that civil servants are not free to speak out against government policy to the press, and can be sacked for doing so.
What this means is that the transgender ideologues are very much in charge at the Department for Education. The reason is infiltration by transgender activists, with the help of Stonewall especially. Stonewall is such a large charity that it has a whole section devoted to education, in other words, to infiltrating the education sector. The former head of education at Stonewall, Luke Tryl, became secretary at the Department for Education. He was later booted out by Dominic Cummings. The current permanent private secretary at the Department for Education is also a Stonewall activist.
If the civil servants of the Department for Education cannot be bothered to ban untruthful nonsense such as ‘gender is a spectrum’ from schools, they cannot be trusted with anything else regarding education about sex or human biology. By what authority then does the Department for Education preside over the development of the Biology curriculum? Why should any school register with it? Why should any students agree to undergo teacher training organised by and answerable to the Department for Education? Clearly the paper-trail of cowardice goes further, to the legal advice given to the government by its own lawyers.
The CPS hate crime and anti-bullying guidance pulled
Some teachers are prepared to make a stand, but what is truly significant is that two teenage girls have had the courage to challenge the introduction of so-called transgender toolkits for secondary schools. A teenage girl is bringing legal action against Oxfordshire County Council for its trans toolkit for secondary schools.
Another teenage girl initiated legal action against the Crown Prosecution Service for its anti-hate crime and homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying guidance aimed at secondary schools. She is being supported by Safe Schools Alliance and Fair Cop. On 30 April the CPS withdrew its guidance. This is really quite extraordinary given how stubborn the CPS can be in its promotion of menacing ideologies. However the statement from the CPS screenshotted by Safe Schools Alliance and shared on its Facebook page says this:
“After receiving legal representation, we have taken down the LGBT+ Bullying and Hate Crime Guidance for Schools from the CPS website pending a review.
“I want to assure you that the CPS is committed to tackling all forms of hate crime, but we would ask if you can refrain from using the guidance until further notice.”
Given that the teenage girl brought legal action because of concerns that the guidance was promoting transgender identity and thus eroding sex-based rights for girls in schools, the CPS statement about hate crime provides scant reassurance for her and indeed other girls. For sex is not covered under hate crime legislation whereas transgender identity is. What this shows is that the CPS is not really sorry at all about the problems the guidance has created. Can it be trusted with reviewing it?
The need to investigate Covid-19 link to sex
The fact that these teenage girls and their supporters are very concerned about the erosion of sex-based rights, such as privacy rights, leads us to consider once again the current crisis regarding the Coronavirus and Covid-19. The international evidence clearly shows that men are more likely than women to die of Covid-19. At present scientists do not understand why. As previously argued, this point is relevant to teenage girls and young women who practise ‘chest-binding’ in order to look more like men.
Now it is emerging that medical scientists have been researching the possible link between hormones and Covid-19. The New York Times reported at the end of last month that estrogen may protect women from the worst effects. Whilst scientists working in this area cautioned that estrogen might not be the only relevant factor, the question then is, is it wise to continue advocating for puberty blocking drugs and increase in testosterone for teenage girls who want to be ‘men’?
Department of Health speaks of ‘different genders’
The problem is that such advocacy has never been confronted by the Department of Health. Indeed the Department shows no signs of backtracking, quite the opposite. It put out a curious tweet a few days ago:
“There is emerging evidence to suggest that Coronavirus may be having a disproportionate impact on some ethnic groups, as well as certain genders”
as if there were more than two genders.
The purpose of the tweet was to draw attention to an announcement by Public Health England that it was working on a rapid review of the effect of different factors such ethnicity, age, gender and obesity on recovery from Covid-19.
The announcement then goes on to say this:
“The review will also match laboratory records of Covid-19 cases to existing health records to draw down accurate data such as ethnicity and describe the association with Covid-19 cases, alongside other factors such as sex, age and geographical location.”
Department of Health must tell the truth
On the face of it, it is good that this announcement mentions sex. However, the reality of the matter is that health statistics were compromised over twenty years ago when they began to record patients’ ‘preferred’ sex, in line with the European Court of Human Rights redefinition of sex as partly psychological.
The Department of Health and Public Health England must clarify immediately that they will indicate the biological sex at birth of all whose records are studied for this review and any future research on Covid-19. This also applies to any research on under-18s, given that in practice they are allowed to ‘identify’ as members of the opposite sex or gender.
The Coronavirus crisis has forced everybody to focus on the most basic physical aspects of our lives. In the middle of this is the truth that we have been created male and female. These things really matter with regard to health and well-being for all ages. Now is not the time to continue peddling gender ideology, otherwise the public will lose trust in the healthcare system and in the government’s handling of the crisis.
