Category: Schools & Gender Ideology

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Free To Speak Against Gender Ideology

I found an important site in the UK. It’s called “Free To Speak“. They just got started.

It’s a place where Parents, Teachers, and Staff submit testimonials about how Gender Ideology has infiltrated their schools. Check it out. Below are 3 testimonials.

Here is a parent who made a difference. Unfortunately, it may not help her daughter.

Secondary School Parent, England

My daughter “came out” as trans when she was 13, about to start Year 9. I found out later, by accident, that this announcement had been two weeks after a school presentation by a trans adult via Diversity Role Models. This was kept secret from parents, meaning we didn’t discuss or debate the topic, something we like to do as a family over dinner.

When she informed the school she was a boy, they changed her name and pronouns without any discussion with us. We began to receive communications from this single-sex school about our son. Six months after we asked for a meeting, we finally got one…and were told this change was “just like a nickname”.

I later found out that gender identity theory was being taught across lessons – from Spanish to PE. One child at least was punished for saying that humans can’t change sex.

By this time, my daughter was wearing a binder, demanding puberty blockers and threatening suicide (she had been taught that 48% of trans-identified children attempt suicide, and sent me the Stonewall link). The school refused to help with my concerns, even correcting me when I referred to her in legal name.

Eventually, a member of the senior leadership team was convinced by the reams of information I had sent to overhaul the curriculum, remove all the Stonewall and Mermaids 1Stonewall and Mermaids are the two most prominent UK organizations promoting Gender Ideology posters from around the building, and stop paying the Stonewall Champions programme.

I hope that these changes will stop what has happened to us from harming other children and families. But it may be too late for us.

Queer Theory for a 5 year old.

Primary School Parent, London

My five-year old’s school had an Equality policy that described “gender neutral” as a legal protected characteristic. It took nine months for them to be convinced that this was a misrepresentation of the Equality Act.

Then, she completed homework about a man wearing hotpants and a pink wig, which I pointed out sounded sexualised (while acknowledging that these words made sense phonics-wise). I also complained about this.

After that, a child in her class said that his parents had told him that people can choose whether to be a man or a woman when they grow up. The teacher said this was true.

I have yet to complain, because it is exhausting, and I really like the teacher. It’s on the to-do list.

What hope do these kids have, with queer theory introduced at such a young age?

Co-Morbitities Ignored

Online Secondary School Parent, Scotland

My 14 year old autistic daughter attended this online school this academic year. She had been anxious and depressed and was unable to attend her old school. I informed the school that she has gender dysphoria at the beginning of the year. In consultation with her psychiatrist we decided to follow a watchful waiting approach. I told the school that we were not affirming her so we call her by a gender nickname and avoid using pronouns as she found female pronouns upsetting. Our goal was to neither affirm nor deny. We wanted to find out why she was feeling this way. The school accepted this but then stated that if my daughter asked her teachers to use male pronouns they would do so as they had to listen to the voice of the child. I sent them two statements from 2 psychiatrists recommending no male pronouns, that her situation was complex. They completely disregarded medical recommendations as well as the wishes of us the parents. I started a formal complaints procedure against the school however the process was halted by the school as they said I did not have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria for my daughter. They would not accept the 2 psychiatric statements as evidence. Their primary concern was responding to her belief that she is transgender whilst completely disregarding that her autism, depression and anxiety could play any role.

The school also refused to acknowledge that using male pronouns on my daughter was social transitioning. Their outlook was completely ideologically and I had no other way to complain. It seems online schools cannot be held accountable for their actions.

The school celebrates Pride month and as far as I know there is no explicit teaching of gender ideology in the classroom. However, it is shocking that the school believes it can dismiss medical advice in conjunction with the wishes of parents in a complex situation.

Much of this was “under the radar” until the Pandemic brought remote learning. An eye-opening experience for multiple reasons.

Parents, get involved with your schools. And calmly add your voice. Now, in the U.K. they have a practical – private way of doing so.

Free To Speak puts it this way:

Help us show how widespread the problems are.

We need your testimony to demonstrate that teaching of contentious gender theory isn’t just a problem created by a few activist schools and teachers, but one of a wider culture within education that overrides facts and evidence in favour of an ideological agenda. 

If you are a concerned parent, teacher, pupil or staff member, we want you to add your anonymous testimony to our growing body of evidence.

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Love Refuses to Affirm Confusion

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Curriculum Not Suitable For Children

School curriculum in the UK under the mandate of teaching “Relationships and Sex Education in Schools (RSE)” is clearly not suitable for children.

External providers are offering seminars and classroom materials which include instruction on a variety of topics that would horrify the vast majority of parents.

Governors and Legislators in the U.S. are also becoming aware of this kind of instruction in our public schools and are introducing legislation to stop it if it is happening or before it does.

British MP(member of Parliament) Miriam Cates tells us what is happening in UK schools.

What about ours?

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Yeshiva U. Sued By LGBTQ+ Student Organization

Today I’m on the religious liberty/persecution beat.

The New York County Supreme Court has ruled that Yeshiva University in Manhattan must allow a LGBTQ student club on campus. The court cited the school’s status as “a non-religious organization.”

Yep. Sure did.

However a brief look at their web-site says otherwise.

Yeshiva is a private Modern Orthodox Jewish University. But, according to this court, because Yeshiva is a “place or provider of public accommodation” it has violated the New York City Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations in the city.

It must allow student clubs, organization on campus even if those clubs and organizations have views, beliefs, or practices that are diametrically opposed to Orthodox Jewish teaching.

“Any ruling that Yeshiva is not religious is obviously wrong,” said Hanan Eisenman, a university spokesman, in a statement. “As our name indicates, Yeshiva University was founded to instill Torah values in its students while providing a stellar education, allowing them to live with religious conviction as noble citizens and committed Jews.”

The court’s decision, he said, “violates the religious liberty upon which this country was founded” and “permits courts to interfere in the internal affairs of religious schools, hospitals and other charitable organizations.” (While many non-Orthodox Jewish congregations are supportive of L.G.B.T.Q. rights, Orthodox leaders tend to interpret the Torah as promoting more traditional ideas of gender and sexuality.)

Plaintiffs (Club) seek an order restraining the defendants (School) from continuing their refusal to officially recognize the YU Pride Alliance as a student organization because of the members sexual orientation or gender and/or YU Pride Alliance's status, mission, and/or activities on behalf of LGBTQ students.  Plaintiffs further seek an order granting YU Pride Alliance "the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of Yeshiva University, because of the actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender of the YU Pride Alliance's members, and/or the YU Pride Alliance's status, mission and/or activities on behalf of LGBTQ students."  [emphasis added]

Source

Approximately 80% of its 6400 undergraduates live on campus. This ruling would allow members of YU Pride Alliance to live on campus with a status based on that member’s “perceived…gender.” Pride Alliance Members possessing anatomically ‘male members’ but who identify as female will be allowed to live in female dormitory space. Yeshiva would need to provide full and equal accommodations to any biologically male student who self-identifies as a female or woman.

Why? Judge Lynn Kotler asserted that Yeshiva’s educational purpose took precedence over its religious purpose. 

“Yeshiva is a university which provides educational instruction, first and foremost. Yeshiva’s religious character evidenced by required religious studies, observation of Orthodox Jewish law, students’ participation in religious services, etc. are all secondary to Yeshiva’s primary purpose,” Kotler ruled.

Source:  New York County Clerk 06/24/2022

The school’s Religious Liberty constitutional claims were denied. The school is appealing.

A senior at Yeshiva, Natan Ehrenreich, writing in a June 20 National Review piece disputed Judge Kotler’s primary/secondary purpose argument:

It is immediately apparent from the moment one steps foot on campus that YU is a 'religious corporation.'  Pictures of rabbis are plastered on every wall and elevator door.  Study halls are filled with eager men and women who spend many hours each day probing the depths of the Bible and Talmud.  Walk into any YU building at around 8:00am and you'll find at least ten men gathered together to pray, donning their tefillin (ritual phylacteries) as God commanded.  These men are religious.  Their institution is religious.

Similar “place or provider of public accommodation” laws are changing around the country with “perceived gender” or “gender identity” language being added to these statutes.

Religious Liberty claims will be tested.

Religious Schools, Hospitals, Charitable Organizations, Churches. etc., in certain jurisdictions had better get their legal team together. Claims based on religious autonomy, the Free Exercise Clause, the Free Speech Clause and the Assembly Clause of the U.S. Constitution will be adjudicated.

This case probably ends up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

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