After Cass, let’s kick trans ideology out of the classroom

Remember Murray Allan? Back in 2019, the then 17-year-old Scot got into trouble at school for saying ‘there are only two genders’. In a later conversation that Allan recorded, his teacher told him that he should keep his ‘opinion to [his] own house’, because ‘saying there’s no such thing other than male or female is not inclusive’. Allan was suspended for two weeks, a punishment which was extended by a further fortnight after the video of his conversation with the teacher went viral. He was then told not to return to school after the holidays, severely disrupting his education and delaying his plans for university.

Or what about the 13-year-old girl from East Sussex who, just last year, got into trouble for questioning whether someone could identify as the opposite sex? In a recorded conversation, her clearly angry teacher told her it was ‘despicable’ to say there are only two genders: ‘There are lots of genders. There is transgender, there is agender – people that don’t believe they have a gender at all.’ The teacher even threatened to report the girl to senior members of staff.

In her review of England’s gender-identity services for children, published last week, Dr Hilary Cass makes clear that ‘polarisation and stifling of debate do nothing to help the young people caught in the middle of a stormy social discourse’. Yet stifling debate is exactly what too many teachers have been doing for far too long. They have been punishing children for stating biological facts and abusing their position as teachers to promote a contested ideology.

Worse still, activist teachers have encouraged vulnerable children to question their gender identity.

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