A conference on Safeguarding Children’s Education has heard that teaching gender ideology in schools contributes to “creating lifelong medical patients” – with organisers saying Irish parents are “mostly unaware” that “transgender ideology is now embedded in Irish schools, with books, textbooks and lessons being used in schools to teach children that they can choose their gender identity”.
The conference, which was held in a Dublin hotel after a campaign by left-wing activists forced a cancellation on the Johnstown Estate Hotel in Meath, also heard that one ‘activist’ teacher or parent could discourage other parents in the school who had concerns about what was being taught from speaking out – and said that parents needed to make safeguarding of children a priority.
The keynote speaker at the Saturday (April 5th) event, Stephanie Davies-Arai, is the founder of Transgender Trend, the first UK organisation to advocate for evidence-based healthcare for gender dysphoric children and young people, and fact-based teaching in schools. She was shortlisted for the John Maddox Prize 2018 for the schools guide and in 2022 she was awarded the British Empire Medal as Director of Transgender Trend for services to children, in the late Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours list.
Ms Davies-Arai told Gript that “schools are now teaching children the non-scientific concept of ‘gender identity’ as fact. This teaching should be subject to the normal level of scrutiny and not given a free pass just because it was written by trans lobby groups.”
“The harms of this ideology are clear from the increase in the number of children confused about their gender. Children set on this pathway are more likely to progress to hormones and later surgery. We are creating lifelong medical patients and so often this starts in schools,” she said.
“It is crucial to be able to discuss this openly, but many people feel afraid to do so as a result of the kind of bullying that nearly got this conference cancelled,” she said. “Luckily the organisers are made of sterner stuff and made sure it would go ahead. The high attendance and feedback from attendees showed how important this subject is to ordinary parents. Now it is time for the politicians to listen to their concerns.”
She said that it was “mystifying why anyone would want to stop people talking about safeguarding in education” – and pointed to the Cass Review in Britain which specifically addressed social transitioning in schools, where school children are permitted to change names and pronouns in school, and use different facilities than indicated by their biological sex.
The Cass Review found that social transitioning was not a neutral act but “an active intervention” that “may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning and longer-term outcomes.”
Describing the cohort of children who “say they are trans” as a “very vulnerable group”, Ms Davies-Arai told the conference that the Cass Review found that in regard to that cohort there is a “greater complexity of presentation with high levels of neurodiversity and/or co-occurring mental health issues and a higher prevalence than in the general population of adverse childhood experiences and looked after children.”
She also pointed to the difference in approaches in seeking to assist children – listing the “watchful waiting” versus “gender affirmative approach”, and asking “which is in the best interest of the child?”
Taking part in a panel at the event, Ms Davies-Arai said that one activist teacher or parent could discourage concerned parents from speaking out, but that parents should not allow themselves to be silenced, and that children should not be told they can change sex.
Other speakers at the sold-out conference included barrister and founder of The Countess, Laoise de Brún, who said that parents should know that they have “robust rights” under the Irish Constitution.
“You must invoke your robust rights as parents under an Bunreacht and the education act. We must say no. Enough is enough. We must protect our children, our families, our values, our future. We are on the right side of history,” she said.
“When I was training to be a broadcast journalist at the University of Westminster BJTC postgraduate course we were told that a free press was a pillar of a liberal democracy. The job of the media was to hold power to account, to shine a light and to ask difficult questions of elected persons on behalf of the people.”
“However what is happening in Ireland is in fact the opposite. The Irish Times and RTE actually prepare the ground for government policy. They manufacture consent and consensus where there is none,” she said.
“This is how they get away with these ultra-radical, deeply unpopular laws that are not for the betterment of the people and which damage the fabric of society,” she added.
Ms de Brún told Gript that much of what was now proposed for schools was age-inappropriate and sometimes amounted to the sexualisation of children at a young age.
Jana Lunden of the Natural Women’s Council, an organiser of the conference, said that child safeguarding “isn’t a culture war issue. It’s a human one. It’s about the fundamental right of every child to grow up free from harm, free from inappropriate influence, and free to develop in a way that is psychologically and emotionally safe.”
She had a “final word to those who tried to prevent this day from happening: we respond not with anger, but with clarity, unity, and purpose. I teach my children that attempts to shut down debate only affirm how important that debate is.”
She said that parents were “unaware” that “trans ideology is now embedded in Irish schools, with books, textbooks and lessons being used in schools to teach children that they can choose their gender identity”.
In 2023, Micheál Martin said that he supported including information about transgender identity in the new primary school curriculum, while the Irish National Teachers Organisation said it is essential that teachers are supported by school boards of management and the Department of Education “in educating about diversity and supporting those who may feel vulnerable within our school communities”