The government has announced plans to introduce lessons on “transgender equality” in primary and secondary schools across the country.
The reforms, contained in a policy programme entitled ‘Advancing transgender equality – a plan for action’, will add transgender issues to the PSHE curriculum for children aged 5 and above in order to ensure that schools were ‘more inclusive for gender-variant children’.
Published by the Home Office, the programme claims that amendments were necessary to ‘address unacceptable behaviour and ensures that our society becomes more tolerant’, since ‘over 70 per cent of boys and girls who express gender variant behaviours are subject to bullying in schools.’
However, the proposals have attracted criticism on the basis that they permit young children to be exposed to adult issues too early in their lives.
Margaret Morrissey, founder of campaign group ‘Parents Outloud’, stated:
“These are adult issues and we should leave it until children are older or until they ask. The problem is we are overloading our children with issues that they should not have to consider at a young age. PSHE is already overloaded with other issues.
“We have given them sex education and teenage pregnancies have risen year on year. We have told children about drugs education and we have a serious problem with drugs. We have told them about drinking and cigarettes and we have more children with alcohol problems and smoking.”
Andrea Minichiello Williams, CEO of Christian Concern, said:
“This is not in the best interests of children. In a society that is already highly sexualised, why should children as young as five have to lose their childhood innocence and learn about these issues? Sadly, it is because a minority want to force their political and sexual ideology onto society.”
Other plans to advance equality for transgender people include extending prison sentences for murders motivated by hostility towards transgender people, and new rules to ensure equal treatment of transgender job applicants and NHS patients. The Home Office has also begun a consultation on whether to introduce passports in which the holder does not need to state their gender as male or female.
Links
Christian Concern: Consultation on PSHE