Wednesday 10 August 2022 02:28 PM Four-year-old's should NOT be told people can change sex or gender, says ... trends now
Schools should not be teaching eight-year-old's 'key words' such as transgender, pansexual, intersex, gender fluid or gender dysphoria, the Government's top legal adviser has said.
Attorney General Suella Braverman today warned 'well-intentioned but misinformed' teachers they could be 'indoctrinating children into a one-sided and controversial view of gender' in classrooms.
The Cabinet minister, who recently ran for the Tory leadership before being knocked out the contest to replace Boris Johnson, also insisted it was not 'age-appropriate' to teach four-year-olds that people can change sex or gender.
In a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank, the Cabinet minister attempted to offer 'legal clarity to schools and parents' on transgender issues.
Officials at the Department for Education are set to issue new guidance for schools, teachers and parents, with Mrs Braverman saying she was 'setting out the legal breadth' for the approach to what pupils are taught.
The Attorney General said a 'lack of clarity and confusion' had left some teachers 'petrified of doing the wrong thing' and feeling 'cornered into accepting the dogma they are provided, accepting the materials they are presented with'.
'They feel they have no option but to teach something they fundamentally disagree with, they think is harmful and they know to be wrong,' she added.
'We can't be living in a climate like that, we can't be living in a country where teachers, and parents and young people feel gagged.'
In a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank, Suella Braverman attempted to offer 'legal clarity to schools and parents' on transgender issues
The Attorney General said a 'lack of clarity and confusion' had left teachers 'petrified of doing the wrong thing'
Mrs Braverman's views on transgender issues in classrooms, and the legal arguments around them, came as she spoke more widely about equality and human rights law.
She urged Conservatives to reject a 'quasi-religious narrative' from 'the Left' that rights are 'an inevitable march of progress towards ultimate liberation'.
'All rights, however noble, impose limits and obligations on other people, some with tricky trade-offs,' Mrs Braverman said.
Offering her stance on trans issues in schools, the Attorney General - who is now backing Liz Truss for the Tory leadership - said:
it is lawful for a single-sex school to refuse to admit a child of the opposite biological sex who identifies as transgender; it is lawful for a mixed school to refuse to allow a biologically and legally male child, who identifies as a trans-girl, from using the girls’ toilets; it is lawful for a mixed school to refuse a biologically and legally male child who identifies as a trans
