The new compulsory religion
A teacher in New Zealand has lost his right to teach because he refused to use opposite sex pronouns for a student.
Here is the Press statement released by RGE.
Press statement from Resist Gender Education 21 June 2023
re Teachers’ Disciplinary Tribunal decision to deregister a teacher for ‘misgendering’.
“The Teachers’ Disciplinary Tribunal decision to deregister a teacher (Mr X) for refusing to use opposite sex pronouns is unwarranted and sets a disturbing precedent that needs to be challenged,” said Margaret Curnow, spokesperson for Resist Gender Education, in a statement today.
Although Mr X has certainly made some errors of judgement and has inappropriately questioned a student’s beliefs, the school involved failed in its duty as an employer to permit the teacher his own freedom of belief.
“It is incontrovertible that humans cannot change sex and teachers are entitled to hold and express that view, including by not using opposite sex pronouns for students,” said Ms Curnow. “That the school did not already have a robust policy for how to deal with conflicting beliefs such as these, is an indictment of the school and Mr X should not have lost his profession as a result.”
There are many instances in schools where students are transferred from a class because of a dispute with a teacher, and on this occasion, that should have been the first option. If that was not possible, other compromises could have been explored but compelling a teacher to use language that is against his personal religious beliefs is not a compromise.
Resist Gender Education (RGE) recommends that schools allow students to use preferred names or nicknames, with parental knowledge, but that correct biological pronouns continue to be used for everyone. Asking other students and teachers to use opposite sex or neo pronouns is confusing for those with language or learning difficulties and is discriminatory to those who do not believe people can change sex by wishful thinking.
Unfortunately, Mr X did not help his case by representing himself at the Disciplinary Tribunal and expressing some extreme religious views. These views are not condoned in any way by RGE, but the Tribunal and RGE acknowledge that he is entitled to hold them.
“The correct response of the Tribunal was not to remove Mr X’s ability to teach altogether, but instead to instruct him to keep his religious views to himself at school or move to a school that holds the same values,” said Ms Curnow. “In addition, the Tribunal should instruct all schools to write policies to manage conflicts of opinions and protect the beliefs of staff as well as students.”
There is a 28-day period in which the Tribunal’s decision can be appealed. “Resist Gender Education encourages Mr X to appeal this decision because very important freedom of belief principles are at stake,” commented Ms Curnow.
(Press statement ends here)
The new religion
If you are in any doubt about whether a new religion has taken hold in our schools, consider the photo above taken at a large Auckland secondary school during Schools’ Pride Week. At what other times would the school library be so overtly decorated with devotional symbols?
What started as a desire to teach children to be accepting of diversity and inclusive of others’ differences has morphed into an authoritarian quasi-religion which allows no opposition. Students are being authorised to make unreasonable demands of other students and teachers and no questioning or critical evaluation of the doctrine is permitted.
Some of the things being demanded by the new religion are:
that gender identity ideology be taught as fact at all levels of the curriculum and in all subjects
that students can compel others to use their chosen pronouns and, if these change from day to day, everyone else must keep up
that students can use the changing rooms of the opposite sex and any discomfort felt by other students is to be ignored
that a student can change their name, pronouns, and clothing at school (social transition) and the school may collude to keep the transition a secret from their parents
that anyone - teacher or student - who does not agree with the belief that people can change their physical sex to match internal feelings of femininity or masculinity is to be shunned as unkind, ‘transphobic’, or bigotted.
The end result of forcing this doctrine onto people who do not believe it has been the de-registration of a teacher this week.
The teacher’s sins
Some people, upon reading the teacher’s (Mr X) tirade against homosexuality and abortion in his presentation to the Teachers’ Disciplinary Tribunal, may feel that he is not suitable to be a teacher and that de-registration is justified. However, according to the summary of events at the Tribunal, those views were not ones Mr X had expressed in the classroom.
What Mr X stands accused of is:
refusing to use a student’s chosen opposite sex first name and opposite sex pronouns
explaining his refusal to the student in private and saying “he didn’t want [the student] to go down the path of sin” or words to that effect.
Mr X is adamant that his motivation was to protect the student from an ideology that he knows is causing mental and physical harm to many of its young adherents. Surely his motivation is admirable, even if his methods were faulty?
It is unfortunate that, instead of engaging a lawyer, who would have argued his right to freedom of belief, Mr X represented himself and proffered extreme religious views in his defence. The Tribunal appears to have been swayed by this submission into viewing Mr X as reprehensible and lacking in “meaningful rehabilitative prospects”, leading to the cancellation of his teaching registraton and the permanent loss of his profession.
Without doubt, there are many hundreds of New Zealand teachers who also believe homosexuality and abortion are not the will of God. Hundreds of others hold similarly fundamentalist views on any number of subjects. As long as everyone keeps their political and religious views to themselves in the school setting, respect and trust can be established on common ground, as has been the practice for decades until gender identity ideology took root.
The punishment is not proportionate
What hapened in the case of Mr X is that a student did not keep her contentious beliefs to herself and demanded, with the support of the principal, that everyone around her should adhere to the doctrine’s dictates. This is equivalent to a religious person compelling everyone to complete each sentence with ‘amen’ or call each other ‘brother’ and ‘sister’.
The school had no policy for how to manage this conflict of beliefs and, not finding good advice from any other source, Mr X unfortunately became instransigent in his position and made some serious errors of judgment.
If the school had a policy that confirmed students could use a chosen opposite sex or nickname but that the correct sex pronouns would be used by everyone, Mr X would have found a ready compromise. Using an opposite sex name is not a social transition as long as everyone is clear that only the name has changed and the person is still (and always will be) their birth sex.
RGE believes that deregistering Mr X is a punishment out of proportion to his errors. De-registration puts Mr X into the same category as teachers who have downloaded child pornography and is at odds with this case where a teacher retained her registration after trying to recruit a gang member to assault her principal.
According to the Tribunal, Mr X’s refusal on principle to ‘misgender’ a student is a serious breach of the Code of Professional Responsibility that proscribes “emotional abuse that causes harm or is likely to cause harm to a child or young person”. The Tribunal is clearly using the spurious gender ideology definition of harm to inform its decision. This hyperbolic definition says that words are dangerous weapons and simply questioning gender ideas can make young people feel ‘unsafe’ and cause serious trauma.
Certainly, Mr X should have accepted the compromise offered by the student and he should not have expressed his views about sin to her. But are these offences really so grave that he brings the profession into disrepute and is not fit to teach ever again?
It is past time that all schools created policies to manage the inevitable clash between the beliefs and demands of gender ideologues and the wishes of the majority of staff, students, and parents who do not hold those beliefs.
RGE hopes this case will be a catalyst to that effect.