Book explaining gender diversity to primary school children sparks furore
by Sally Weale, Guardian:
“My name is Kit and I’m 12 years old. I live in a house with my mum and dad, and our dog, Pickle. When I was born, the doctors told my mum and dad that they had a baby girl, and so for the first few years of my life that’s how my parents raised me. This is called being assigned female at birth. I wasn’t ever very happy that way.”
These are the opening lines of a controversial new book called Can I Tell You About Gender Diversity? which is being introduced into some primary schools as a resource for children, parents and teachers, and claims to be the first book to explain “medical transitioning” to children as young as seven.
It is not published until later this month, but the slim volume has already prompted fury from the Mail on Sunday, former Tory party chairman Lord Tebbit and one-time Conservative Home Office minister Ann Widdecombe, as well as Mail columnist Sarah Vine who complained that the target audience was children not even ready to choose their A-levels, “let alone challenge their own biology”.
The book is written by LGBT activist CJ Atkinson. Speaking to the Guardian in their first ever interview, Atkinson condemned the media coverage as misleading, inaccurate and potentially harmful for young people who identify as transgender.
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