More than 95 per cent of Scottish secondary schools are telling children they can self-identify their gender, an investigation has found.
As reported by the Telegraph, research from campaign group For Women Scotland suggests that the “unscientific contested belief system” has become “deeply embedded” within classrooms as a result of controversial SNP government guidance and the influence of radical activist groups.
In findings based on freedom of information requests from hundreds of schools, the group discovered nine in 10 Scottish secondaries taught pupils that humans have a gender identity that may be different to their biological sex.
At least 95.4 per cent are operating gender self-ID policies, meaning schools consider the gender of the child to be whatever they declare it to be.
The situation means that biological males are being allowed to participate in female sport classes and share toilets and changing rooms with girls in a majority of high schools, the report warns.
For Women Scotland also found that only 4 per cent of schools always tell parents when a child discloses feelings of “gender distress” and 89 per cent teach people have a gender identity that may be different to their biological sex.
Trina Budge, a For Women Scotland director, said: “There is a misconception that the occasional headlines in the press about children socially transitioned without parents knowledge or boys causing upset by using the girls’ toilets represent isolated incidents.
“This report conclusively disproves that theory. Schools, by and large, unquestioningly follow [SNP government] advice, even when it is out of date, unlawful and supports an unscientific contested belief system that has more in common with religious studies than it does with biology lessons.”
For Women Scotland made six recommendations, including scrapping and replacing the current Scottish Government guidance, ending the involvement of LGBT Youth Scotland and other activist groups in schools, and allowing parents to view teaching materials.
The SNP government has kept controversial guidance, which calls on teachers to “be affirming” to children who say they are trans and endorses “social transition”, in place despite the recent findings of the Cass review.
When the Cass Review’s Final Report was published earlier this year it offered a strong – some would say unanswerable – challenge to the ‘affirmative’ approach to treating gender confusion, which ideologically driven clinicians have for many years sought to protect from empirical scrutiny while continuing to place children and young people on a medical pathway that can have lifelong, irreversible consequences.
Aspects of the review’s findings have been criticised by activist groups such as LGBT Youth Scotland, which runs a widely adopted charter scheme in Scottish schools and helped draw up the Scottish Government guidance.
During financial year 2022-23, LGBT Youth Scotland received almost £450,000 in taxpayer funding from the SNP government, a further £340,000 from local authorities, and £154,000 from NHS Scotland.
In a similar manner to Stonewall and its controversial Diversity Champions Scheme, LGBT Youth Scotland incentivises naïve yet performance-benchmarking-obsessed senior leaders in the education sector to engage with its programmes by running an ‘LGBT charter’, where joining fees range from £850 to £2,000.
The group boasts that over the past three years it has trained more than 5,000 teachers, while around 200 Scottish secondaries – more than half of the national total – and over 40 primary schools have joined its LGBT Charter scheme.
According to LGBT Youth Scotland, the programme enables schools, colleges and universities to “proactively include LGBTQ+ people in every aspect of [their] work”.
A key requirement of membership is that school staff must be trained by the organisation, which provides an online guide and letter templates for children wishing to change their gender at school.
In addition, each school that joins the scheme is told it must appoint at least two pupils and two staff members as “LGBT Champions”. Among the 10 annual events they are urged to “celebrate” are “National Coming Out Day” and “Transgender Day of Visibility”. The organisation’s posters must also be put up around the school, and school policies in areas such as transgender inclusion and school uniform need to be rewritten to ensure they are “inclusive”.
Schools wishing to attain “gold” status with the scheme must take a series of additional steps, including delivery of “at least one activity which specifically addresses the needs of transgender young people” such as “conducting a campaign that addresses trans rights”.
Consideration must also be given to conducting a survey of their infant pupils to ask them if they are “part of the LGBT community”.
Another indicator for schoolteachers hoping to secure a gold award – and thereby assist career-minded senior leaders in hitting their KPIs – is to provide evidence of “LGBT safe spaces” for pupils, such as gender-neutral lavatories and PE classes in which a child’s professed gender identity takes precedence over their biological sex.
