Remove or Rewrite the Current Government Guidance on Relationships and Sexuality Education

Current guidance about teaching of transgenderism, including the characterisation of transgender children in schools, is illogical. It promotes the concept that children can already be transgender...

// Children & Education

By Hugh McCarthy - 29th May 2025

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It is time for the education authorities to remove or amend guidance relating to gender dysphoria.

A Northern Ireland parent said recently, “Sadly, our schoolgirls here are still having to change with biological boys, and I can’t see it changing”. As The Telegraph reported in March 2025, a toddler was kicked out of a nursery for being “transphobic”. In April 2025, The Telegraph also reported that a mother had been banned from her daughter’s primary school after complaining about transgender identity lessons: “She criticised teachers at Sunnyside Spencer Academy in Beeston, Nottingham, for affirming the trans identities of children as young as nine”. Is this the world we want for our children?

The focus of this article is the need to completely remove or rewrite the current Department of Education’s and the Education Authority’s (EA's) Guidance relating to the Relationships and Sexuality Education component of the school curriculum in Northern Ireland. I argue that the Guidance has been rendered illogical, unscientific, unsupported by evidence, harmful to children, and quite possibly unlawful after recent Government announcements. The article will attempt to place the Guidance in a wider government policy framework.

I contend that the UK Supreme Court judgement articulated by Lord Hodge, “the unanimous decision of this court is that the definition of the terms 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex”, when considered with recent medical advice relating to “affirmation” and transition such as the NHS-commissioned Cass Review warning that allowing children to socially transition could "have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning … better information was needed about outcomes [emphasis added]", completely changes the context and rules for school guidance.

The position in the UK now mirrors the position in the US. An Executive Order issued by President Trump on 20 January 2025, named ‘Defending Women from Gender Ideology and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government’, states: “It is the policy of the United States to recognise two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality”.

This article considers three main issues: the wrongful characterisation of children as ‘transgender’, the basing of the policy framework set in the context of ‘affirming’, and the framing of a curriculum based on the ability of a child to transition from one gender to another. It sets out how the current Guidance contravenes the regulations and medical advice. The article will further make the case that this is a health issue, not an education one, and that therefore this material should be removed from schools’ Guidance altogether.

Schools should primarily be places for learning that enable children to acquire knowledge and gain the ability to think critically and make up for ground lost due to the disastrous school closures. Guidance promoting gender ideology should now be replaced by up-to-date, scientifically accurate, and morally and spiritually appropriate Guidance in line with the UK Supreme Court’s ruling and medical advice. The scientific evidence is available in this article I wrote for UK Column. An overwhelming 73% of the public rejected the proposed amendments to the RSE programme in the Department of Education’s own public consultation. The entire Guidance appears to follow the misguided policy of affirmation, which appears to be based on the World Health Organization’s guidelines: “Sexuality education is firmly based on self-determination and the acceptance of diversity [emphasis added]”. Affirmation is the process whereby a child who expresses a desire to change gender or who expresses a belief they are in the wrong body is “affirmed” in that belief, i.e., that it is accepted.

How does gender ideology end up everywhere? It is worth looking at the UK Government’s Diversity Strategy 2018 to 2025 to find out.

Objective 1: All of our leaders and teams will behave inclusively by instinct … Effective and skilled leaders taking individual responsibility will be key to delivering our ambition. Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) will be woven through all of our management and leadership programmes. Everyone must role model and engage with the D&I agenda for us to make real progress … We will measure this through … perceptions of visible leadership as indicated in people surveys … holding our leaders to account for inclusion … Empower leaders by embedding D&I objectives into all business areas and include an inclusion standard within our performance and capability frameworks.

Objective 2 says, “We will achieve a positive shift in our workplace culture … We will measure progress through … diversity data declaration rates”.

Under Objective 3, Stephanie Aitken, Member of the Spectrum Network, is quoted as saying, “As the LGBTi+ Champion for the Home Office I am passionate about creating an inclusive environment at work”. This will be achieved by, for example,“Collecting data on gender identity/trans status [emphasis added]”.

This policy can be seen outworking in the Department of Education Guidance and the new school inspection framework; note the overlap of the wording. Northern Ireland’s Department of Education Guidance states that schools should “increase the visibility of transgender young people by supporting pupils in setting up a Gender and Sexual Orientation Alliance or introducing transgender role models". How will Northern Ireland’s Education Inspectorate interpret the indicator “Leaders value and promote an inclusive ethos, embrace diversity” in the new Framework for Inspection?

Professor Sullivan said the Office for National Statistics had “radically changed” how it viewed sex in terms of data collection. It is understood that the review has been circulated to all UK Government departments. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) states that: "Gender identity is a personal, internal perception of oneself and so the gender category someone identifies with may not match the sex they were assigned at birth ... where an individual may see themselves as a man, a woman, as having no gender, or as having a non-binary gender [emphasis added]".

The Basis of Education Policy

The basis of the policy appears to be to teach children about the existence of many genders and to promote discussions which may lead them to believe that they may be born in the wrong body. This is called “gender dysphoria”. For example, in Northern Ireland, the Department of Education Guidance states that education for “all children and young people should be provided in an inclusive environment that is nurtured within the whole community. This environment should be positively welcoming to all, whatever their identity [emphasis added]”.

The approach is then to affirm children—for example, see the extensive Guidance from Northern Ireland's Education Authority (EA)—affirming their belief that they are born in the wrong body in line with the WHO’s statement regarding self-determination and the ONS statement regarding the internal perception of oneself. They are then taught to question their biological sex and to do so from an early age when they are very impressionable, as per the WHO guidelines.

In Northern Ireland, the Department of Education commissions the Curriculum, Examination and Assessment Council (CCEA) to write Guidance which is then used by schools. Its commissioning letter directed the Council to “Review and/or develop resources to support teachers, e.g., contraception, puberty, teenage pregnancy, consent, abortion, domestic violence, sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation, LGBTQ+, sexual identity, and gender identity”. Schools are thereby being directed to affirm transition and the existence of multiple genders. This Guidance makes it clear that if a child says they are born in the wrong body, they should be affirmed in that belief that their gender can be changed through a process called “transition”, and a support plan should be put into place to facilitate the transition.

What is the Status of Transitioning for School-Age Children?

There are three methods by which children can transition: puberty blockers, surgery, and social transition.

Puberty Blockers

The Government has announced that the existing emergency measures banning the sale and supply of puberty suppressing hormones for the treatment of gender dysphoria or incongruence in under-18s have been made indefinite. An article by Dr David Bell, a retired consultant psychiatrist and was a Governor of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation, has sounded the alarm on what he calls the “next puberty blockers scandal”.

The UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) issued NHS Guidance for GPs on 12 April 2025, addressing unsafe prescribing of puberty blockers to children, following the Cass Review's finding of "remarkably weak" evidence for such treatments, and the Commission on Human Medicines label of them an "unacceptable safety risk".

Surgical Transition

Surgeries have never been available to under 18s in England, so no systematic reviews of surgeries have been conducted, and no additional changes to the policy for youth under 18 are needed.

The US position is similar. President Trump’s Executive Order entitled Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation from January 2025 states:

Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.

Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called “transition” of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.

The order applies to children up to the age of 18.

Social Transition

The clear advice in the NHS-commissioned Cass Review warned that allowing children to socially transition could "have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning … better information was needed about outcomes [emphasis added]".

This renders the current Guidance about teaching of transgender and the characterisation of children as transgender in schools illogical because it promotes the concept that children can already be transgender when they cannot have transitioned, and that they can transition when they cannot. It is also based on the concept that affirming improves mental health when this is unsupported by the evidence.

Schools are thereby promoting the concept of gender fluidity through the teaching. It means that teachers and schools are complicit in a process of affirmation which the evidence shows is harmful to children and for which the authorities themselves admit the evidence is weak. Teachers are not trained in such matters. In addition, why are the authorities still promoting this concept before they have the evidence that it is safe and that the programmes are effective? Social transition for younger children remains controversial largely due to the lack of empirical evidence around the long-term impact, and it is in the EA Guidance. School authorities should now act quickly to remove such flawed and harmful guidance from their policy forums and issue accurate guidance.

The Policy of Affirmation

The situation described by the parent in the opening line of this article has come as a result of a school following the current Guidance from the authorities and with a clear policy of affirmation. The Department of Education's Guidance states that education for “all children and young people should be provided in an inclusive environment that is nurtured within the whole community. This environment should be positively welcoming to all, whatever their identity [emphasis added]”. It goes on to say that schools should “increase the visibility of transgender young people by supporting pupils in setting up a Gender and Sexual Orientation Alliance or introducing transgender role models”. This is tantamount to affirmation.

The EA, which manages all the schools in Northern Ireland, has Guidance that is based on a policy of affirmation. “While social transition for younger children remains controversial largely due to the lack of empirical evidence around the long-term impact”, the Guidance goes on to support transition by offering guidance on preparing a support plan to facilitate a young person’s transition. It isn’t “controversial”, it is medically unsound, as Dr Cass highlighted.

Regardless, the support plan affirms transition:

Where a pupil wishes to transition at school, it is good practice for a designated person to set up an initial meeting with them, and (where appropriate) their parents and relevant health professionals to establish what help or support they need ... The support plan should include consideration of the following points (where appropriate):

Timing of the transition;

Name and pronoun changes including the circumstances around use (e.g. if they would prefer to use their birth name in front of one or both of their parents);

Change of uniform;

Plan for access to toilets, changing rooms and taking part in activities.

This advice runs counter to the advice given in the Cass Review, which warned that allowing children to socially transition could "have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning … better information was needed about outcomes [emphasis added]".

The Guidance goes on to give advice to schools and teachers regarding treatment of transgender pupils:

Where requested, staff should give a transgender pupil access to toilets which match their gender identity, unless there is a good reason not to do so.

In relation to changing, transgender young people often prefer to use gender neutral facilities. However, if a young person requests to use changing facilities consistent with their gender identity, this should be assessed on a case by case basis.

A transgender young person’s presence in a bathroom or changing room does not necessarily infringe a young person’s right to privacy more than the presence of other young people who are not transgender.

Reasonable efforts should be made to allow a transgender pupil access to changing and other facilities which correspond to their gender identity.

This runs counter to the UK Supreme Court’s ruling as well as the statements by the Education Minister and the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Changing rooms must also “be based on biological sex” and Baroness Kishwer Falkner, Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), has already pledged to pursue organisations that fail to enforce women-only spaces. And the Education Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson welcomed the ruling, saying trans women should use male toilets, adding that "services should be accessed on the basis of biological sex”.

And the Equality and Human Rights Commission states the following:

Schools must provide separate single-sex toilets for boys and girls over the age of 8. It is also compulsory for them to provide single-sex changing facilities for boys and girls over the age of 11”. Pupils who identify as trans girls (biological boys) should not be permitted to use the girls’ toilet or changing facilities, and pupils who identify as trans boys (biological girls) should not be permitted to use the boys’ toilet or changing facilities.

The EA Guidance continues:

Names and pronouns: Teachers and other staff working with young people should respect a young person’s wishes and use their preferred name/pronoun in everyday interactions. This is tantamount to affirmation.

Uniform: Generally, if the school has a specific dress code for boys and girls, a transgender pupil should be allowed to wear the clothing that corresponds to their gender identity, regardless of their sex assigned at birth.

Sport: Schools and other educational settings should not have a blanket policy of always excluding transgender young people from participating in a single sex sporting activity.

The Guidance on sport runs counter to the UK Supreme Court’s ruling stating that transgender women are no longer legally women, meaning they will not be allowed to take part in women’s sport. It brings the UK into line with the US. President Trump’s Executive Order ‘Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports’ excludes biological men who act as women after transitioning from women’s sports competitions and changing rooms. Martina Navratilova, possibly the greatest tennis player of all time and a leading gay/lesbian rights campaigner, agrees: “Trump is right, women’s sport should be for women only”. The implications for those who take school sport teams to the US are clear. The Guidance states, ”If a young person has not informed their parents that they are questioning their gender identity or identify as transgender, it is important that staff do not do so without the young person’s consent”. This statement is clear affirmation.

Affirmation

I have already referred to EA Guidance regarding affirmation and to the Cass Report’s rebuttal of it on medical grounds. The Guidance appears to rest heavily on the mental health benefits of transition; however, this runs counter to all available evidence. There is a wealth of evidence supporting the Cass Report’s position regarding affirmation.

In October 2023, Dr Kaltiala, a pioneer of "affirmation", completely reversed her position, citing biased and flawed scientific data as the basis for her original position in her article titled, 'Gender Affirming Care Is Dangerous. I Know Because I Helped Pioneer It'. She goes on to say that it is her conviction that patients were being harmed by their treatment, which she says was based on "outright fraudulent statements about the evidence for the new radical treatment model".

According to Paul McHugh, Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University in the US, "affirming children in a false gender can cause real damage", whereas the evidence with regard to what happens if one does not affirm trans identity is clear. Every systematic review of the evidence to date, including one published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, has found something similar to this statement made in an opinion piece published by The Wall Street Journal in July 2023: “The evidence for mental health benefits of hormonal interventions for minors to be of low or very low certainty. By contrast, the risks are significant and include sterility, lifelong dependence on medication and the anguish of regret [emphasis added]”.

Research published in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics and accessed via the National Library of Medicine in the US concluded:

Transgender conversion practices neither fulfil a legitimate clinical purpose nor respect trans communities’ understanding of transitude as a desirable form of human diversity … the evidence suggests if not altogether proves that trans conversion practices are harmful, shedding considerable doubt as to whether future evidence could plausibly justify them.

Claims that gender transition reduces suicides is contradicted by every systematic review. Research carried out in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland is revealing. It shows that suicide, the apparent reason for advocating transition, is very rare, and data from the world’s largest clinic for transgender youth over 11 years yields an estimated annual suicide rate of 13 per 100,000. This rate was 5.5 times greater than the overall suicide rate of adolescents of similar age. The illogicality of this Guidance following the UK Supreme Court’s decision and the Cass Review is breathtaking.

Watch the Libraries

Before I conclude, may I recommend you check your school library. In April 2025, Family Education Trust (FET) published a report called ‘Losing Our Libraries’, which explained how Britain’s libraries became trans indoctrination hubs. Lucy Marsh at FET can provide more information.

Collins sells a three-book series for use with children in Key Stage 3 (ages 11 to 14). These books cover topics such as “Find out more about bringing your child up as gender neutral” and “Deep feelings can lead a young person wanting to change their gender identity”.

Cathy Mudge is a Devon-based founding member of Protect & Teach, which is committed to “protecting education from indoctrination, teaching children the truth”. The Protect & Teach website states:

We propose to protect children in education. We intend to keep our children, our children and grandchildren safe from gender ideology which is sweeping unchecked through educational establishments, children’s services, children’s clubs and associations, children’s television programs, children’s books and children’s entertainment.

Cathy has listed books which you should look for in your school library in this interview with UK Column’s Dr Diane Rasmussen McAdie, a former librarian and a former professor within the library field who was pushed out of the profession, in part, for opposing gender ideology in libraries.

Kim Isherwood leads the resistance in Wales. She is Chair of Public Child Protection Wales, which campaigns to ensure a wholesome approach to all aspects of education.

In Scotland, Dr Jenny Cunningham, a retired paediatrician and a Board Member of the Scottish Union for Education, has reported on the Scottish Government’s 2024 Guidance on LGBT Inclusive Education (LGBT-IE) and Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools: Guidance for Scottish Schools (2021). She showed how thoroughly some of its education policies are being dictated by LGBT activists.

Other useful sources include ‘Stopping Pedophilia, Pornography and Child Sexual Abuse’ by Dr Tess Lawrie and ‘Sexual Exploitation of Children’ by Dr Trozzi. This article shows how children are being sexualized under UN and WHO direction, and that the same global predatorial institutions are also after our kids to sexualize them and normalize paedophilia.

Concluding Remarks

In terms of the three main issues raised at the start, I covered the wrongful characterisation of children as “transgender”, the basing of the policy framework set in the context of “affirming”, and the framing of a curriculum based on the ability of a child to transition from one gender to another.

The characterisation of children as transgender children and transgender Guidance in schools is demonstrably ill-conceived. There can be no transgender children because the three means for children to transition are not open to them. Puberty blockers and surgery are banned, whilst social transition has been declared harmful.

Secondly, the publication of Guidance is de facto affirmation and leads to transition; this has been ruled out by government and health authorities. The NHS-commissioned Cass Review warned that allowing children to socially transition could "have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning … better information was needed about outcomes".

And thirdly, the capacity of a child to change gender and the teaching of multiple genders has been ruled out by the UK Supreme Court which ruled sex as binary. Lord Hodge said it was the court’s unanimous view that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex, not acquired gender. The court added that the “concept of sex is binary” under the Equality Act 2010.

All school Guidance regarding toilets, pronouns, changing rooms, sport, names, and the teaching of transgenderism is now obselete. The current Guidance is Illogical and runs counter to medical advice, scientific evidence, UK law, parental wishes, and spirituality. This has no place in a school, and it is not the role of teachers to teach it. It is a medical health issue. Teachers should not be involved in teaching the concept, and children expressing concerns should be referred to the health authorities.

Dr Hilary Cass provided the key evidence within the UK. The English National Health Service redrafted its guidelines to remind doctors that children may simply be going through a "transient phase" when they say they want to change sex. The guidelines recommended a clinical management approach to explore all developmentally appropriate options for children and young people who are experiencing gender incongruence, being mindful that this may be a transient phase, particularly for prepubertal children.

And just to confirm what is already known, the NIMH study added that young people, whose brains are still maturing, lack the ability to make decisions with which they will have to live for the rest of their lives.

The White House has rescinded a whole raft of Guidance and toolkits published by the Department of Education in Section C of the Presidential Executive Order noted above.

We should follow suit.

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Originally published on UKColumn.org by Hugh McCarthy - 28th May 2025

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