Many parents in Ireland are justifiably concerned about some of the more radical material being promoted by the government’s official curriculum body.
As covered previously on Gript in great detail, the National Council For Curriculum and Assessment, or NCCA, promotes a range of books with materials that most people would view as highly inappropriate for certain recommended age groups.
For example, as outlined in this article, the NCCA promotes a book list which includes a book by the name of “Fred Gets Dressed.” This book is about a little boy crossdressing, wearing his mother’s lipstick and women’s clothes as a way of “expressing himself.” It says that the recommended age range for this book is 2 to 4.
An officially recommended reading list for schools, approved by Roderic O’Gorman, advises teaching boys as young as 2 that they can wear lipstick, makeup and girls’ clothes.#gripthttps://t.co/0K8uJMoITb
— gript (@griptmedia) July 20, 2022
The same list includes another book called “Julian Is A Mermaid,” all about a young boy who wants to be a mermaid, and so starts to wear a girl’s dress. It’s aimed at 3 to 8 year olds, and is described as “great for talking about gender identity, gender fluidity and gender as a spectrum.”
Under this book, the list includes a suggested class activity in which students are encouraged to “think about how gender might be expressed as a spectrum rather than a binary.” So essentially, children as young as 3 should consider that there may be more genders than just male and female.
Other books promoting crossdressing include “The Boy In The Dress,” “My Princess Boy,” “10,000 Dresses,” “Frockodile,” and more.
And so it’s in this context this week that I decided to ask Education Minister Norma Foley about such recommendations, and parents’ reaction to it.
"Encouraging young boys to wear lipstick and girls' clothes": Education Minister Norma Foley questioned on the radical materials recommended for Irish schools, which promote cross-dressing & gender ideology to primary school students.#gript pic.twitter.com/9n9LgczNLL
— gript (@griptmedia) February 22, 2023
Unfortunately, the Minister’s response left a lot to be desired, and may actually raise more questions for concerned parents across the country.
For example, I asked if she understood why parents were upset about such material. The Minister’s initial response was to spend around 30 seconds speaking about “inclusion” and making children feel “welcome” regardless of their gender or ethnicity.
While this is lovely (and obvious), it’s clearly not an answer to the question that was put to her.
However, when I repeated the question, the Minister got a little bit closer to an answer, saying that “We retain within our schools parental consent at all times.”
She added that it was “important” that parents had the right to “withdraw their students from anything that’s happening in the school environment.”
I finally asked if she thought it was appropriate for this material to be taught at all, and she essentially sidestepped the question and repeated what she had said before about “parental consent.”
While that’s still not an answer to the question really, it is welcome and encouraging to hear the Minister affirm parental rights in this way.
However, while it’s better than nothing, you have to wonder if this is really good enough. Is it acceptable that a parent should have to remove their child from a certain class to avoid them being taught inappropriate gender propaganda by the school system?
For example, when covering much of this material, you’d be amazed how many comments, messages and emails you get from shocked and horrified parents who say that they had no idea this was happening.
Many parents in Ireland are unaware of the fact that the NCCA recommends that primary school teachers don’t say “boys and girls,” and should instead use more gender-neutral language.
Irish teachers have been encouraged to learn about “crossdressing” for “erotic enjoyment,” as well as “drag,” and “gender-fluid” identities by the Department of Education when preparing RSE & SPHE lessons for primary students.#gripthttps://t.co/b93l3tPd2U
— gript (@griptmedia) July 6, 2022
Teachers are also encouraged to learn about “crossdressing” for “erotic enjoyment,” as well as “drag,” and “gender-fluid” identities when preparing RSE & SPHE lessons for primary students.
While most parents would clearly be horrified to know about this, many simply aren’t aware of it. And you can hardly take your child out of a class to avoid them being taught harmful material, if you don’t even know that said material is on the agenda.
Moreover, if your child is the only child in his or her class to be exempted from learning about these radical biological falsehoods, it stands to reason that they will stand out and could well come under negative scrutiny for that.
We all know that often in the modern era, anyone who questions gender theory is quickly branded as some sort of “-phobe” or “-ist” and promptly ostracised for their perceived “bigotry.” And so by making children voluntarily opt out, you’re asking them to risk damaging their social life and putting them under pressure to conform.
It’s also worth noting that if this material is being taught at school, it will automatically become part of the school culture, meaning a child will be exposed to it through osmosis.
For example, many schools now celebrate “Stand Up Awareness Week” as an annual tradition. While this is billed as an innocent anti-bullying awareness day, in many schools it amounts more to a school driven mini-Pride week.
A school in Meath has a tradition of asking its students to wear gender fluid, non-binary and polysexual pride colours for no-uniform day, with a competition to see whose colours are best.
For no uniform day, a secondary school in Meath has encouraged students to wear “pride” colours representing bisexual, transgender, non-binary, demisexual, & genderfluid identities, which some parents felt was "over-the-top."#gripthttps://t.co/SrKwB4S357
— gript (@griptmedia) November 29, 2021
So even if you’ve taken your child out of a particular class, they will still be exposed to radical ideas that are ambient in the school system regardless. This rot has consumed the Irish education system from top to bottom.
And one parent at that Meath school said that she felt “aggrieved,” “pressured,” and that there was a “sense of over-the-top indoctrination” being directed towards her children. She said that she had brought it up with other parents who felt the same way, but that they were afraid to say so publicly.
And really, the question needs to be asked: why should a parent have to go to the trouble of opting their children out of such extreme, unscientific propaganda? Should it not actually be taken as a given that children under 5 should not be taught about crossdressing, sexual confusion, and hundreds of fictional genders and orientations?
The question is not should a parent be allowed to say no to this radical nonsense – the question is why should they have to say no in the first place? Why is any child in Ireland being taught such inappropriate codswallop?
Ultimately, Foley’s response to this important issue was seriously lacking, and frankly raised even more concerning questions that Irish parents urgently deserve an answer to.
Loading ...