Mick Hartley

On the government's proposed trans guidance for schools:

Schools will be told to help parents protect their children in new government guidance on trans issues being published next week. Downing Street is set to issue the advice to schools to provide clarity on how they should respond to the growing number of children saying they are transgender.

The Telegraph understands the guidance advises teachers that any pupil who wants to self-identify as a different gender should first undergo a period of reflection.

The idea is being supported by ministers as a way to make sure parents are fully informed…

A senior government source told The Telegraph: “The guidance is all about parents being able to protect their kids, for kids to be protected and for teachers to have clarity.”…

The advice will make it clear that schools will have to tell parents if their child wants to identify as a different gender or start using a new name, ensuring that families are kept informed.

All schools will also be told that they should have single-sex lavatories, changing rooms and boarding rooms, meaning none should have only gender-neutral toilets.

Advice on sports is expected to say that a boy who self-identifies as a girl should not be able to compete in contact sports with girls, and vice-versa. However, advice on non-contact sports is expected to be less strict.

It's obviously good that parents are kept informed, and – if true – that schools should be told to keep single-sex lavatories and changing rooms. But this is all still based on the confused idea that there are trans children, ie, that some children are born in the wrong body. It ain't so. This is not a case of society suddenly realising that people have these magic gender identities that may not correspond to their "sex assigned at birth", but a world that's been overtaken by a ridiculous social contagion that has no basis in reality and is ruining the lives of vulnerable children.

It's as though the government were producing guidelines for dealing with anorexic children: whereas teachers, say, used to validate the children's anorexic beliefs without telling the parents by agreeing that yes, they really are too fat and should skip lunch, now it's being recommended that OK, that's fine – no lunch, yes that skeletal look really suits you – as long as the parents are informed. It's better, yes, but the problem isn't parental consent so much as the whole irrational belief system that drives anorexia.

Same with trans. It's outrageous that chldren on the cusp of puberty should be encouraged to think that growing up can be avoided, and medical mutilation can be the answer to their problems.

An excellent comment:

No one states the obvious, that the massive increase in children who claim to be trans does not mean that they ARE trans. This incredible rise in numbers surely shows that something is wrong.

Children are not informed enough or wise enough to make such claims, simply because they are children! Children copy others, follow fashions, want to fit in or want attention.

They have been betrayed by the adults who teach them scientifically incorrect material, provided by organisations who should not be let anywhere near schools.

They are betrayed when those adults are too afraid to speak the truth because certain parts of society eg councils, universities etc are in thrall to a ridiculous conspiracy.

They are betrayed when adults at clinics like the Tavistock immediately accept the claims, offer medication without in-depth psychological counselling that genuinely seeks to help the children.

They are betrayed when these clinics and universities do not allow research to take place because it upsets activists.

Young people like Keira Bell , who had surgery but then realised she had been deceived and wrongly advised and had to detransition, tell us the depth of that betrayal.