The content of the new SPHE Junior Cycle curriculum has sparked fresh protest outside Leinster House, with parents calling for changes to be made to the course, which will see pornography and gender ideology introduced to classrooms.
Organisers said that hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Dail holding signs which carried messages such as – “Don’t lose your children to this ideology” and “Mam: a human female who protects her kids from gender ideology”.
Great day today! pic.twitter.com/bWfmOCG9kG
— Founder, Natural Women’s Council (@Jklunden) July 12, 2023
The ‘Protect Children’ demonstration was led by the Natural Women’s Council and the Parents’ Rights Alliance, with Lawyers for Justice Ireland and the Irish Education Alliance, and heard calls for children to be protected from sexually explicit materials in both schools and libraries.
Organisers said they were uniting to show that they did not consent to the new SPHE sex education curriculum, which it said will “sexualise and indoctrinate” children in Irish classrooms.
They also said that the new curriculum would cause confusion about gender among children.
“The purpose of todays event is to communicate the changes to the new SPHE (sex education) curriculum so you can make the best informed choice for your child,” speaker Jana Lunden told the crowd.
“These changes are coming in this September for Junior Cycle but we still hold on to optimism that schools may refuse to teach this to our children. Gender dysphoria is listed as a psychiatric condition in the Diagnostic And Statistical Manual issued by the American Psychiatric Association. I agree that a very small minority may suffer from this condition and these boys and girls must get the one to one support from parents and experts. What we do not consent to is teaching all children, as stated in the new SPHE textbook that they can be “a boy, girl, neither, or both irrespective of the sex they were assigned at birth”,” she said.
“Teaching children that they choose a new gender, or be in the wrong body is pushing a psychiatric condition (gender dsyphoria) onto them. Why would anyone accept this? What will our mental health crisis look like in 5 years time?” she added.
As covered by Gript, the new SPHE curriculum states that children should learn that “Gender identity: a person’s felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex registered at birth.”
Speakers stressed that parents have rights in relation to their children’s education – and claimed not that parents had not been consulted or listened to regarding the new curriculum.
Primary school teacher, Lynda Kennedy, who is a co-founder of the Irish Education Alliance, said that primary school children were already being taught gender identity ideology – and that if it was also taught to younger children including junior infants, confusion could lead to such children thinking they were born in the wrong body.
This teacher from the Education alliance spelled it out at the rally at the Dáil to stop gender ideology being pushed on kids in schools. She is right – confusing children can have terrible, irreversible outcomes. pic.twitter.com/bVysV7sWq1
— Near to Far (@NeartoFar1) July 12, 2023
The Parents Rights Alliance, one of the organisers of yesterday’s event, have previously pointed out that the National Curriculum authority (NCCA) seems to have ignored that the “vast majority” of submissions from parents on the new Junior Cert SPHE course opposed the teaching of gender ideology in schools – with the new curriculum, aimed at 12 and 13-year-olds, failing to clarify that such ideology is ideology as opposed to fact.
Attending the protest were Independent TDs Mattie McGrath and Michael Collins, as crowds gathered before the Dáil breaks for summer recess. Carol Nolan TD and Michael Healy Rae TD were also supportive of the event.
Those in attendance heard that children are “our hope, our potential, our future” – and that children should be entitled to an education free from the “indoctrination” of gender ideology.
Ms Lunden, taking to Twitter following the event, said that over 5,000 flyers had been handed out, and that the protest had received positive feedback.
She also called on Minister Norma Foley to meet with parents and listen to their concerns.
A group of counter-protesters heckled the event, with Union of Students Ireland Vice President, Aoife Hines, telling Newstalk: “I’m a non-binary person myself, so it’s quite irritating to see people coming out and devaluing my entire identity,” she said.