Parents’ victory over school that backed ‘gender-change’ pupils, aged six
by Tim Dieppe, TCW:
FIVE years ago, Nigel and Sally Rowe raised concerns after two six-year-old boys in their son’s classes at a Church of England primary school were allowed to attend while identifying as girls.
Pupils were told they should refer to the boys as ‘her’ and use the female names the two had adopted.
Understandably, the Rowes’ sons were disturbed and the couple complained that the school should not be allowing six-year-old children to ‘transition’.
It might also have been expected that a C of E school would respect basic Christian teaching that we are all created male and female. Scientifically speaking, you can’t change your biological sex. Furthermore, in UK law you can’t alter your legal gender until you are 18. So why was the school indulging six-year-olds?
The school had no sympathy with the points raised by the Rowes or the disturbing effect on their sons. In fact, no sympathy for truth, science, Christian teaching, or even the law.
Instead, the couple were told one of their sons would be deemed to be demonstrating ‘transphobic behaviour’ if he refused to ‘acknowledge a transgendered person’s true gender, e.g. by failing to use their adopted name or using gender inappropriate pronouns’.
The irony of a person’s ‘true gender’ being ‘adopted’ was obviously lost on the school. The Rowe children merely wanted to refer to their friends by their true gender.
This guidance, which cites the LGBT campaign group Stonewall more than 20 times, is used by the Church’s 4,700 primary schools. It says children as young as five should be affirmed if they want to identify as the opposite gender.