Education Minister, Norma Foley, has faced a storm of protest from thousands of parents regarding plans to change sex education in schools to include the unscientific theory that gender is fluid and biological sex isn’t the primary means of identifying whether we are male or female, men or women, boys or girls.
Contrary to much of the wild chatter in the media and online, most people who oppose transgender theory have no issue with a man or woman changing sex if they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and strongly feel they want to undergo a process which can and should involve professional and medical supports.
Instead, the problem that all logical-thinking people have with transgender ideology is that it denies biological reality – yet now Minister Foley has signed off on a curriculum that will teach this unscientific theory as fact.
Rather than acknowledging that a very small number of people suffer from gender dysphoria, this ideology seeks to tear up the established medical and scientific facts about chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics.
Instead it pretends, and it is a pretence, that we have all, for millennia apparently, got it completely wrong about the sexual binary – the biological reality that there are two sexes, female and male.
This reality is present not just in our genitalia or our appearance, but right down to our DNA and to what we are at a cellular level.
Yet, gender theory holds that your gender is what you choose it to be, on any given day perhaps, if you are gender-fluid, or you may believe yourself to be ‘something else’ – a sort of non-gendered person.
Instead of being a boy or a girl, whose sex is observed, transgender theory insists that that doctors are ‘assigning’ sex, and that children and adults then decide their gender identity for themselves.
They also insist that you can experience gender on a spectrum – and here is the nub: they claim this determination applies to everyone, not just to people who experience gender dysphoria.
This is patently nonsense, and has led, as documentary maker Matt Walsh showed, to the surreal situation where individuals who claim that gender is a matter of self-identification cannot define what a woman is.
However, the transgender movement has so quickly seized control of the narrative on this issue that anyone who seeks, however gently, to point to the obvious logical flaws in gender theory is now being shouted down by shrieks of ‘transphobia’ and ‘the far-right’.
The strident insistence that gender is something that is “assigned” to babies by doctors (as opposed to being observed), and can change at whim, has, almost overnight, now been accepted by policymakers and politicians, who seem terrified of the activists and bullies who will try to cancel anyone who disagrees with them.
HARMFUL IDEOLOGY
The Parents Rights Alliance have rightly pointed out that the National Curriculum authority (NCCA) appear 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.
I think many people agree that transgender ideology makes no real sense, but they feel the issue mostly concerns a fringe grouping, and has no bearing on their lives, or on the welfare of their children.
That’s a mistake. Gender ideology isn’t just some harmless, pie-in-the-sky notion, like people who believe the world is flat, or that the moon landing is fake. It has real-world repercussions and they can be incredibly harmful.
In relation to medical healthcare, for example, the distinction between men and women is mightily important.
As one response in the peer-reviewed journal, American Psychologist stated: “sex and gender are distinct variables that impact human health in critical ways both individually and interactively.”
In the life sciences, sex is defined by how an organism is organized with respect to reproduction. Among humans, reproduction requires the union of two distinct gametes. Hence, human sex, in contrast to gender, is an innate and immutable biologically binary trait that is not fundamentally determined or altered by psychosocial factors. The existence of congenital disorders of sex development, typically associated with reduced fertility, does not negate the human sexual binary as defined by the life sciences. Individuals who identify as transgender remain either biological males or females.
Diseases that affect both sexes often have different frequencies, presentations, and responses to treatments in males and females; therefore, different preventative, diagnostic, and treatment approaches may be required for males and females. For the sake of all people, especially those who identify as transgender, we must move forward in examining the gender binary without jettisoning the reality and importance of sexual dimorphism in psychology and medicine
That’s a powerful point, and one Irish anatomist has written on this issue pointing out that: “in mammals, sex is biologically determined, develops in utero and is thereafter immutable after birth, notwithstanding that a small number of individuals are born with challenging congenital conditions, requiring specialist investigation, diagnosis and support.”
But what about the impact of gender ideology on children and on secondary school students?
Parents need to wake up to the reality that kids in both primary and secondary schools are now about to be taught an unscientific theory which can cause them real harm.
The notion that your biological sex doesn’t almost always correspond to your gender isn’t just unscientific mumbo jumbo – it can set your child on a path that has been shown to cause lasting and terrible damage to children and teens.
Teaching children to question their gender identity, coupled with the nonsensical but harmful ‘gender affirmation’ approach of facilitating ‘social transitioning’ – changing a child’s name, sometimes without parental consent – has real and often calamitous consequences.
The alarming rise in the number of children who seek to change sex is hugely concerning – and the often-heartbreaking stories of young people who say their gender confusion was simply ‘affirmed’, and that they were rushed into undergoing medical treatments, including irreversible surgeries, should provide a stark warning not just to parents, but to schools and to both the health and education authorities.
The reality behind coy descriptions like ‘top surgery’ is grim. Detransitioners talk about undergoing painful double mastectomies and ovaries being surgically removed, or about being castrated and having their penis removed; all while on a cocktail of medications – and often while dealing with other co-morbidities such as anxiety or depression.
Descriptions of grafting skin, fat, veins and more from arms and elsewhere to make what are essentially fake orifices are horrifically graphic.
Neither do such treatments seem to guarantee the desired outcomes.
A 2011 study in Sweden, found that around ten years after surgery ‘is when a post-operative transsexual person’s mental health can begin to most rapidly deteriorate’ and that ‘post-operative transsexuals also appeared to be at a higher risk of killing themselves than comparable non-transgender peers,’ the Spectator found.
Experts have spoken out about “children being fast-tracked onto medical solutions for psychological problems” – warning that “when kids get on the medical conveyor belt, they don’t get off”.
The effect of puberty blockers on young people are now also becoming more apparent – with one surgeon who has performed thousands of sex change operations saying “every single [male] child or adolescent” who takes puberty blockers before puberty, in preparation for later changing their sex, will never have normal adult sexual function or experience orgasm.
Many of those who transitioned, especially those who feel they were rushed into the treatments, now also face hugely impaired fertility and the difficulties that can bring.
HUGE RISE IN TRANS TEENS
Historically, a tiny number of people – mostly boys and men – suffered from gender dysphoria or were biologically intersex. But for the vast majority of people, their biological sex correctly identified them as male or female.
It was also recognised that, in most cases, when gender dysphoria did present in childhood (and the distress and upset can, of course, be very real) most cases involving children resolved naturally and in time: with between 61% and 98% of children re-identifying with their biological sex during puberty.
However, as Genspect, the clinicians and parents group, have noted “the number of young people being referred to specialist clinics for gender dysphoria has increased dramatically.”
Public health researcher Lisa Littman coined the phrase ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria’ to describe this dramatic increase.
What we are now seeing is distinctively different than what had previously been described in research, she said because of the following factors:
- the distribution of cases occurring in friendship groups with multiple individuals identifying as transgender,
- the preponderance of adolescent (natal) females,
- the absence of childhood gender dysphoria,
- and the perceived suddenness of onset.”
Littman was attacked by transgender activists for pointing to the strong role of social influence in the growing cohort of children claiming they wished to change sex, but every parent will recognise the truth in her findings.
Critics of the rush to affirm gender change in children and teens also point to co-morbidities – to the high prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD diagnoses, and other issues amongst those presenting with gender dysphoria.
An investigation by journalist Hannah Barnes into the now-disgraced Tavistock clinic in the UK found that it “ignored evidence that 97.5 per cent of children seeking sex changes had autism, depression or other problems that might have explained their unhappiness”.
The “gender-affirming” approach was what drove clinicians – who should have known better – to put children on puberty blockers, and often then onto a drastic medical path involving irreversible, radical surgeries which left young adults infertile and traumatised.
The Tavistock scandal, compounded by the fact that a succession of whistleblowers were ignored even as transgender activists increasingly denounced any public calls for caution as ‘transphobia’, should at the very least sound an alarm bell for what is happening in schools in Ireland.
Dr Hilary Cass, who lead the inquiry into Tavistock’s treatment of children who expressed gender confusion, noted that “social transition” is not a neutral act – and others have described it as an active intervention. Teachers, obviously, are not counsellors or medical professionals, no should they be expected to be either.
What is evident from the Tavistock inquiry is that caution seemed to be thrown to the wind in regard to adopting an unquestioning, gender-affirming approach when it came to children and teenagers – and real and lasting suffering was visited on vulnerable children as a result.
CAUTION REQUIRED?
The rush to embrace gender ideology in Ireland led to the Gender Recognition Act being passed almost without any debate at all. But at least that unscientific piece of legislation applied to those over 18, whatever the inevitable consequences such as violent, biological male rapists being placed in women’s prisons.
But the focus switched to children very rapidly.
By 2020, Sinn Féin Senator, Fintan Warfield, was telling an event organised by taxpayer-funded groups, BeLong To and TENI, that parents could be brought to court to force them to allow their children (and he specified he meant under-16s) to change gender.
The Irish National Teacher’s Organisation produced a video about ‘facilitating a social transition’, and talked about children being “assigned gender at birth”. They also invited a British activist to speak at their annual conference who advised teachers not to inform parents of changes to the curriculum. “Don’t send a letter home,” she laughed. ”That’s the worst thing you can do… don’t hold a parents meeting.”
The INTO video “facilitating a social transition” is both “unfathomable” and “unforgiveable”.
Join the Countess in pushing back against this harmful ideology that teaches “boys can change into girls” and “girls can change into boys”.https://t.co/1rYE3d0xsW https://t.co/fBQFTY7HNv pic.twitter.com/fFVta2HsNA— The Countess (@TheCountessIE) February 25, 2023
The Parents Rights Alliance say that the process of changing the school curriculum here in Ireland has been hijacked by NGOs and activists and that parents, the actual guardians and primary educators of their children, are being ignored.
Documents attached to a NCCA toolkit explained that teachers in primary schools should not use the phrase ‘boys and girls’ when addressing very young children in school – and advised that children studied “were strongly gender non-conforming from the time they could communicate”.
Last month, a Kerry school only backed off from the proposed introduction of three floors of shared toilets at the new build for Gaelcholáiste Chiarraí because of a backlash from concerned parents.
Genspect cautions that : “while well-intentioned, affirming a student’s gender identity or publicly celebrating a transgender student’s courage are not neutral actions: they can unintentionally influence students’ identity formation.
“The role of the school is to foster a tolerant and caring approach to all students and to ensure that there is no bullying or hostility towards any student. It is not the role of the school to influence identity formation,” it says.
One mother pointed out to me that it will, of course, be the child’s parents who are left desperately trying to address any harm caused to those she feels are being encouraged or influenced by cultural factors – and by what they learn in school – into a possible gender identity crisis. That harm may only become evident after the child has left school, she said, as is the case with many detransitioners.
And she rightly observed that the establishment may be creating a problem that it is entirely unequipped to deal with – since the HSE is already utterly failing to provide mental health supports to young people, whatever the disorder, with waiting lists of thousands expanding by the day.
HARM CAUSED
So what is the potential for harm?
One British investigation recently found that “schools are increasingly becoming influenced by gender ideology, to the extent that fundamental safeguarding principles are being compromised by school’s approaches to children with gender distress and their peers.”
That’s an alarming conclusion. What was it based on?
“A set of contested beliefs have become embedded within many schools, operating in a way that compromises safeguarding principles and risks jeopardising the wellbeing of children,” the Policy Exchange report found.
Most disturbingly, only 28% of secondary schools surveyed are “reliably informing” parents as soon as a child discloses feelings of gender distress.
And four in ten British secondary schools operate policies of gender self-identification, the investigation found.
In addition, at least 28% of secondary schools were not maintaining single sex toilets – while 19% did not maintain single-sex changing rooms for their pupils.
Responding to the report, British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, said: “For me, the safety and wellbeing of our children is of paramount importance. I’ve also been clear that parents must be able to know what is being taught to their kids in school, especially on these sensitive areas.”
The British Department of Education is expected to consider the Cass report into the Tavistock clinic, as the NHS has done in relation to new guidelines for medical practitioners.
The new draft guidance for doctors has shifted sharply from what some described as an unquestioning “gender affirmative” stance to now advising doctors that most children may simply be going through a “transient phase” when they say they want to change sex.
Moreover, the guidelines caution medical practitioners to adopt a ‘watchful approach’ towards children and to be mindful of the possibility of autism and other mental health conditions.
And they are reminded that it is not a “neutral act” for healthcare practitioners to facilitate children who want to transition socially by using their preferred new names or pronouns without consideration of other factors.
“A significant proportion of children and young people who are concerned about or distressed by issues of gender incongruence, experience co-existing mental health, neurodevelopmental and/or family or social complexities in their lives,” it adds.
“Social transition should only be considered where the approach is necessary for the alleviation of, or prevention of, clinically significant distress or significant impairment in social functioning and the young person is able to fully comprehend the implications of affirming a social transition,” the draft guidelines read.
Why isn’t this advice being followed in Ireland?
NORMA FOLEY AND THE NCCA
So why is the NCCA persisting in presenting a curriculum which seeks to teach children, as established fact, that gender is fluid and can change at whim. And why did Norma Foley sign off on this?
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.”
And the draft SPHE schoolbooks – aimed at first years, children aged 12 and 13 – are very insistent on pushing this unscientific ideology.
Children are asked to affirm gender theory in activities – with the “correct” answer describing gender identity as when a pupil identifies as “female, male, both or neither, regardless of sex registered at birth.” Other activities include writing a presentation on a famous ‘non-binary’ person.
There is no clarification anywhere that gender ideology is an increasingly disputed theory and that for most people, and for most of history, one’s biological sex corresponds perfectly to gender.
And its worth pointing out again, that the Minister and the NCCA have ignored the views of thousands of parents and of educators in groups like the Irish Education Alliance, Genspect, the Countess and others who are warning of potential harm and of safeguarding risks.
PARENTS SEEK TO PROTECT THEIR CHILDREN
British broadcaster, Jo-Anne Nadler, has described the intrusion of transgender ideologies into schools as happening “largely by stealth”.
Her research found that 32% cent of the pupils contacted by the investigation “told us that had been taught or had discussed in school the idea that ‘a woman can have a penis’, and 20 per cent said they had been told at school that ‘a man can get pregnant’.
“It may not be completely surprising then, but no less concerning, that, of the young people we surveyed, one in 10 (10 per cent) said that they want to change their gender or had already done so,” she found.
“Just as alarmingly for an educational setting, as many as 46 per cent of pupils surveyed said they would not feel comfortable contributing their opinion on gender and sexuality within school,” she added.
That absolutely rings true. Who wants to be the child who gets called a transphobe by your fellow students for failing to agree that gender is whatever you feel like today?
So kids would rather stay quiet, or change their opinions, when they are being told that there are 82 genders, or that biological males can compete against women.
A great many parents have shared anecdotal evidence of their children having the same experiences in Irish schools.
None of these parents have anything but sympathy for children and teens who experience gender dysphoria, and support anti-bullying efforts in schools. That’s not the issue.
What is at issue is that the Minister, the NCCA, and a cohort of NGOs are effectively bullying parents – and their children – into accepting as fact an absurd theory that has no scientific basis.
In the UK, a succession of court cases are now underway where parents and detransistioners are suing the authorities for failing to protect children from harm in relation to gender ideology.
If Norma Foley persists with this course, then it will only be a matter of time before the same happens here.
In the meantime, parents need to tell the Minister and the schools – in a clear, uncompromising, and entirely reasonable fashion – that this unscientific, potentially harmful, theory must not be taught to children.
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