– Could you clarify what fields exactly the Family Education Trust's work covers, and what are its main activities?
– We're primarily a research organization and we've conducted studies on the causes of family breakdown. We've been doing so for more than 50 years now.
Unfortunately, one of our current main focuses is inappropriate relationship and sex education at schools, because this completely disregards parents' wishes and their rights to educate their child as they see fit.
What we see is the state completely inserting itself into families and trying to separate children from families. So that's one of the reasons that it's such a big focus for the moment.
– And how's the situation in general in UK schools now? What's the root cause? Are NGOs given a free pass to expose children to gender ideology?
– The problem is that the current conservative government introduced mandatory relationship and sex education in schools in 2019. The white paper released by the government on this issue included not just mandatory attendance, but also that children had to be taught about LGBT, which had to be on the curriculum. So when this was brought in, teachers were under a lot of pressure to cram many things into the curriculum. So what happened when that requirement was brought in was a lot of schools offloaded to third-party organizations that have no regulation whatsoever. We can't allow this. So a whole new industry emerged, with various groups saying „well, you're too busy to do that, so we will do your relationship and sex education for you.”
So these third-party providers, there's so many of them. I couldn't even tell you how many there are. It has been described as the Wild West and it really is. Anybody can set themselves up as an expert in this without having to have any qualifications. And some of them actually go into schools and do lessons for the kids.
It is just a completely bonkers situation. You, as a parent, can still have the right to withdraw your child from sex education, but schools do make it quite hard. In fact, on the government's website, there is advice for teachers is to have to talk parents out of it because the government wants all children to take part in this curriculum. And the problem is that it isn't possible to withdraw your child from the relationship aspect of it. So while you might get them out of the specific lessons on the set, you're not getting them out of the lessons about relationships. So, what happens is that all this crazy stuff that we've seen gets inserted at any point in the Personal, Social and Health (PHSE) curriculum, covering personal health and sex education. So that means anything from talking about drugs and staying safe online right through to health and sex and relationship education. It's a very broad curriculum and you can't opt your child out of the whole thing.
– What did you identify as major threats in kids being exposed to gender ideology?
– There have been quite a few reports over here in the past year on this topic. There was a report done by Lottie Moore from Policy Exchange. She conducted some large-scale research involving quite a large number of schools. It revealed that a big percentage of schools will socially transition children without their parent's knowledge or consent. They keep it secret at school. So your daughter could be going to school and a girl's uniform and then getting to school and getting changed to a boy's uniform and all the teachers are using male pronouns and a new male name for your daughter and you've got no idea that that's happening. They're keeping that a secret from parents.
What's happening is that many more vulnerable children, i.e. kids with special educational needs – such as autistic children who are particularly vulnerable to this kind of gender ideology – together with the children who are more socially awkward or a bit isolated, find it difficult to make friends. They're being taught this ideology and are being told that „well, if you're struggling, if you've got anxiety, you're struggling to make friends, then you could have been born in the wrong body.” A lot of these children are thinking, oh, well, that's the reason for my problems. „The reason why I'm unhappy, is because I'm not really a girl. I'm a boy.”
Or the other way around, the boys think that they're girls. And unfortunately, the pathway for these children is that they're socially transitioned and they're affirmed by adults at school as saying yes, you are born in the wrong body. The next step for them is to start taking puberty blockers to stop them from developing adult sex characteristics. And then the next stage after that, as we already know from the scandal with the gender identity services on the National Health Service (NHS), is that the majority of children take puberty blockers go on to opposite sex hormones, cross-sex hormones, and these carry several irreversible health risks. Infertility, the inability to ever experience sexual pleasure, all kinds of health risks... Risks to the bone not developing properly, higher risks of cancer and heart problems, and all kinds of things that can go wrong with this type of medical affirmation. So this is a "perfect storm," a bad situation that is particularly harmful.
– Hungary is implementing a large-scale conservative agenda on issues such as child protection and restricting exposition to gender propaganda in protecting the parents' right to education. Has Hungary ever appeared on your horizon?
– One of my former colleagues has been looking more into what was happening in Hungary. We often have talks about the policies that the Hungarian government implemented in pursuit of reversing these tendencies.
Yeah, I mean we're admiring what's happening in Hungary.
We could only wish and hope that our own government would remember that they're actually supposed to be conservative.
There are not many conservatives in the conservative party at the moment. They just seem hellbent on pleasing the LGBT lobby. Some government departments also seem to be captive to such influence, including the Department of Education, which is completely ruled by Stonewall, the big LGBT rights activist movement.
There are a few, dissenting voices and some excellent MPs who do stand up and take on the opposing side, such as Miriam Cates, who is one of the leading voices to speak out against gender ideology and safeguarding children from inappropriate sex education. She was the MP who managed to get a review of the relationships and sex education. That's happening at the moment. But we need more people who are prepared to actually stand up for this, and more MPs to speak out.
– How committed is the UK government on this issue?
– The government has promised to bring out some guidance to schools on dealing with transgender children. Well, to be honest, even having a report that states that some children are „transgender” is a problem these days, in terms of the wording. But there are several MPs, including Miriam Cates and others, who are standing up publicly against it. They've been calling for a blanket ban on gender ideology in schools saying that no child should be allowed to socially transition to living with the opposite sex at school. And that gender ideology mustn't be taught.
However, the leaked guidance from the government's report is going to include that they will allow „some children to socially transition under some circumstances.” We don't know as yet what these circumstances will be. But in my opinion, it's going to be impossible to carry this out safely.
Because even if they allow one student, what does that mean for all the other kids? Do all other kids need be subjected to compelled speech where they've got to refer to a girl as a boy using the „he” pronoun? What about the bathrooms and changing rooms and sports, and what about the teachers? Do teachers get to be compelled to refer to these children as the kids request? It's just going to be impossible to make it work, in reality. This still allows teachers who are either LGBTQ activists, or provide floor to these LGBTQ activists, to continue promoting their agenda. So what we need is for our government to take a page out of the Hungarian government's book and show courage in protecting children.
Cover photo: Artificial intelligence generated image
