January 2024

Newsletter

The Gender Critical tide is coming in

While New Zealand has been in holiday mode, in the northern hemisphere a tide of caution, clarity, and common sense is beginning to undermine the pillars of gender extremism.

Draft Guidance for Schools in England

The much-anticipated Guidance on how schools should manage gender questioning children was released on 18 December and is open for consultation until 12 March. It makes it clear that schools have a duty of care to all children, that single-sex spaces should be retained, and that “there is no general duty that says schools and colleges must support a child to take steps that are part of a ‘social transition’ - such as agreeing to change their name and pronouns.”

While not banning social transition outright, the Guide strongly recommends caution and reinstates the right of parents to be consulted. “Teachers shouldn’t initiate or suggest to a child that they socially transition… Parents have a right to know and teachers should discuss the child’s request… They should also consider whether it’s in their best interest, considering the wider context, incuding whether it will have an impact on the wider school, and allow a good amount of time to think before rushing to a decision.”

Limitations of the Guidance are that it only applies to schools in England, as Scotland and Wales have independent education systems, and that the final recommendations will not be mandatory.

Within hours of publication, the biggest teaching union in England suggested that schools could flout the new guidance, and Labour MP, Kate Osborne, called on schools to “put their students’ needs ahead of the Government’s hate.”, saying “No young person should be outed to their parents by their teachers or school.”

Former UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss, was prompted to say the Guidance “does not go far enough” and a change in the law is needed. Truss has introduced a Private Members Bill to ban biological males from single-sex spaces and prevent under-18s from taking puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones. She urged the government to back her Bill, saying:

I fear 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.

Disengenuous denial in NZ

At the same time as the draft Guidance for schools in England was announced, in New Zealand, teacher unions and the former Minister of Education, Jan Tinetti, were denying the existence of any problem here and accusing the new government of being influenced by “conspiracy-based thinking.”

Erica Stanford, the new Minister of Education, has said the government plans to refocus the curriculum on “academic achievement and not ideology, including the removal and replacement of gender, sexuality, and relationship-based guidelines.” In the RNZ interview linked above, Tinetti ignored the word ‘replacement’ and accused the government of planning a wholesale removal of consent and relationships education. She claimed never to have heard of complaints about the teaching of gender ideology and said parental concerns are no more than an “imported culture war”.

This bad faith commentary prompted RGE to write on 10 January to Minister Stanford, to alert her to the inaccurate and disingenuous information that is being spread in the media.

We urged Ms Stanford to make a public statement that gives more detail about the proposed changes to the RSE Guide and that instructs NZ schools to immediately:
- cease teaching children that it is possible to change sex
- desist from social transitioning at school
- stop providing information about chest binders, puberty blockers, and other 'gender health care’
- engage with parents in all matters pertaining to their child, unless there are compelling reasons not to.

This email followed RGE’s Briefing Document to the new Minister that was sent on 15 December and that we will share in full in our next Substack.

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Complications in NZ schools

Schools and teachers in NZ are in just the same bind as those in England - there is an increasing number of children who are questioning their gender at school and an absence of official guidance on how schools should manage this phenomenon.

Many of the recommendations in the Guidance for schools in England could be adopted here without difficulty:

• Teachers should not initiate or suggest to a child that they socially transition.

• A student request to socially transition should not automatically be agreed to by teachers.

• Parents have a right to know if their child wishes to socially transition (unless there are exceptional circumstances).

• The impact on the wider school of social transition should be considered.

• Children and teachers should not be made to use ‘preferred pronouns’.

• Single-sex spaces and sports should be retained.

• There should be no mixed-sex accommodation on overnight trips.

However, our Ministry of Education could not make this straightforward statement: “In England, children can’t obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate so their legal sex will always be the same as their biological sex.” Under the NZ sex self-ID law, (BDMRR Act, Section 25), children under 16 who “understand the consequences” ( a laughable idea) can have their birth certificates changed to the opposite sex marker (or ‘non-binary’) and there is no requirement to inform a school of the change.

[Note that, for children under 16, the “letter of support from a suitably qualified third party” can simply be a letter from a family friend who has known the child for more than 12 months.]

We have evidence that some families do keep the true sex of their child hidden from other families in the school but what happens when they also keep it secret from the principal? How can a principal meet the needs of all the children on the roll when a fundamental fact about one or more is false?

This is a problem that RGE has flagged to Minister Stanford in our Briefing Document. We asked her to initiate an urgent investigation into the legal status of principals being in loco parentis yet potentially not being aware of a child’s biological sex, if the birth certificate has been altered before the child was enrolled in that school.

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Puberty blockers face more scrutiny

Professor Sallie Baxendale, a UK Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist, has written a review paper that discusses the detrimental effects puberty blockers may have on teenage brains.

In an article published on Transgender Trend, Baxendale highlights many compelling reasons for treating puberty blockers with extreme caution. One of them is the concept of “Windows of Opportunity”:

“These are the times when specific functions develop at an incredible rate. If children are deprived of the appropriate environment at these critical times, the window of opportunity closes and they are often left with lifelong difficulties in that area. It’s not possible to just ‘pause’ development. For example, the window of opportunity for sight is open from birth, but closes relatively early. If babies were blind-folded or brought up in the pitch dark for the first few years of their life they would not be able to develop normal sight even if the blind fold was removed or the lights were turned on when they were toddlers.

Adolescence has been described as the second window of opportunity in neurodevelopment. Puberty doesn’t just invlove the development of secondary sex characteristics. It’s a whole system change that has profound and irreversible effects on the brain as well as the body… At present, we just don’t know the impact of puberty blockers on this critical stage of neurodevelopment and subsequent lifelong brain function in adulthood.”

Watch this excellent 22 minute presentation from Professor Baxendale, where she also cites studies showing lower IQ scores for participants after taking puberty blockers.

How can we say that these things are reversible when nobody has bothered to look, and it is an outrage that nobody has bothered to look given what we know about brain development?

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WHO admits lack of evidence

In a statement on 15 January that extended the consultation period for forming a Guideline Development Group to write official WHO guidelines for transgender medicine, the WHO conceded that “The scope will cover adults only and not address the need of children and adolescents, because on review, the evidence base for children and adolsecents is limited and variable regarding the long-term outcomes of gender affirming care for children and adolescents.”

This admission by the WHO confirms what crtics of ‘gender-affirming care’ have been saying for years and will be hard for entrenched gender ideologues to dismiss (but watch them try!)

To read more about the WHO’s activist-led project go to Gender Clinic News here and here.

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RANZ College of Psychiatrists confirms reality

In a new position statement, the College not only uses common-sense definitions and recommends comprehensive evidence-informed care, but also recognises the existence of detransitioners and the need to alert TGD (trans and gender-diverse) patients to the possibility of regret. Key points from the statement are:

• Sex means male or female.

• Gender means “personal, social and cultural characteristics, rather than genetic, hormonal, or anatomical characteristics”.

• Psychotherapy is not conversion therapy.

• The benefits and potential harms of both medical and psychosocial interventions for TGD children and young people have limited evidence.

• Psychiatrists should consider the young person’s developmental stage, presence of developmental comorbidities (e.g., ASD), and capacity to give informed consent to treatment, in addition to considering the views of their parents/carers.

• Sufficient information should be provided to allow for informed consent for gender-affirming medical and surgical treatments. This should always involve thorough, open discussion of the possibility of disappointment, continued gender dysphoria, regret about irreversible effects of treatment, regret about reduced fertility, and shifts in gender identity or treatment wishes.  

The College also recommends: “Further research should be supported and funded in relation to wellbeing, quality of life, treatment and outcomes, especially for TGD children and adolescents.”

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Toddlers of three taken to gender clinic

“The transitioning of children is the biggest medical scandal for a generation”, says James Esses (Thoughtful Therapists) in this Spiked article, after it emerged that 382 children aged under six, of which 70 were aged three and four, were referred to the GIDS Tavistock Clinic in London over the past decade.

“The ‘trans’ three-year-olds of today could well become the irreversibly damaged teenagers and young adults of tomorrow. Their puberty blocked, fertility extinguished, perfectly healthy body parts chopped off.”

James wonders how these children came to be there: “Were they referred by a GP who believes that everyone has a unique gender identity? Did an activist charity scare the parents into believing their child might commit suicide if they do not transition? Was it a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, with the child’s parents seeking the positive attention and affirmation that comes with having a child who identifies as trans?”

These questions could equally be asked about any children in NZ whose parents use the sex-selfID law to facilitate a change in the sex marker on their birth certificates.

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Teacher sacked for questioning student’s secret transition

Ironically, on the same day that the draft Guidance for schools in England was released, recommending that parents should be informed if their child wishes to change gender at school, a UK teacher who had advocated for just that was permanently banned from teaching.

Kevin Lister was suspended from his school in February 2022 for ‘transphobia’ after he challenged the school policy to affirm a 17 year old girl as a boy without first speaking to her parents. What ensued was two years of villification for holding a view that is now recommended by the Department of Education. Lister was sacked from his teaching job for ‘gross misconduct’ in September 2022 and has now been barred from teaching altogether because of a ‘safeguarding violation.’

Kevin is suing his former employer for unfair dismissal and is initiating a judicial review. You can contribute to his legal costs via this GoFundMe page.