Students will no longer be taught that gender is on a spectrum
Ireland is routinely cited as a beacon of best practice on all matters transgender. Over the water, self-identification of legal gender was introduced in 2015. The Scottish Government — when pursuing their own ill-fated Gender Recognition Reform Bill — described it as a “well established system”. Now it seems the Irish are having second thoughts.
The context this time is not women’s rights — Limerick women’s prison still houses two trans women serving time for sexual offences — but schools. The impact of transgender ideology on children is perhaps even more worrying than the effect on women. Youngsters have been taught all sorts of nonsense about gender; there was even a BBC programme aimed at 9- to 12-year olds that asserted that there “are over 100 genders”.
Now it seems that the Irish National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has dropped a proposal to help junior pupils “appreciate that sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression are core parts of human identity and that each is experienced along a spectrum”. Following objections from parents, the curriculum will no longer teach that gender identity and expression are on a spectrum.
As a teacher, I’d say that is a good start — but scope remains for further improvement. The problem is gender identity. Coined in 1964 by an American psychoanalyst, gender identity is now accepted by too many people as some innate human characteristic: Andrew Doyle described it for UnHerd as a gendered soul.
As a transsexual, I’d point out that I don’t need to claim any gender identity to explain the distress I experienced about my sex. But children continue to be taught this quasi-religious concept. Some may be led into thinking that they have a gender identity that differs from their ”gender assigned at birth” — to use the jargon — and hence are not the boy or girl that reality knows them to be. Those children are at risk of psychological trauma, and worse.
This is happening in these islands in 2023. Yesterday*, it was reported that sex education has been suspended in Isle of Man schools after a drag queen allegedly told 11-year-olds that there are 73 genders. When one child quite rightly pointed out that there are only two [sexes], the drag queen allegedly responded, “You’ve upset me,” and made the pupil leave the class.
False and harmful teaching does not become true and wholesome just by wrapping it in a rainbow flag and sprinkling it with sparkles. Children need to be taught the truth about sex and gender. There are two sexes, and we are all stuck with the one that was determined the moment we were conceived. But — at the same time — our sex should not constrain and restrict our personalities. If gender expression is a way in which we exhibit that personality, then of course there is a spectrum of gender expression. It has as many points on the way as there are people in the world.
Governments and administrations need to dump the ideology and promote the truth — in schools and elsewhere. Everyone is different, and we can celebrate that without abandoning the reality that there are but two sexes.
Debbie Hayton
* This article was first published by Unherd on 28 February 2023: Ireland backtracks on gender identity curriculum in schools.
Debbie Hayton 
4 replies on “Ireland backtracks on gender identity curriculum in schools”
“There are two sexes, and we are all stuck with the one that was determined the moment we were conceived. But — at the same time — our sex should not constrain and restrict our personalities. If gender expression is a way in which we exhibit that personality, then of course there is a spectrum of gender expression.”
You are very good at putting things in plain language.
My opinion is that gender and sexuality should not be taught to pre-adolescents. The reason is that the prejudices of the teachers cannot be controlled. The idea that gender is some huge spectrum, and that people get to choose their gender, has probably been ingrained in the minds of so many liberal do-gooders that many teachers would keep pushing it. When kids do receive sex education later on, it should be sex-based only: Two sexes (or genders, as I prefer to say), no choice as to which one you are. We all like to tell our kids that “you can be anything you want to be”, but sometimes that just isn’t true.
Someone needs to ask these people who say there are “100” genders or “73” genders to describe them. They wouldn’t have anything to say.
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Ah, my comment has been deleted. You might be surprised to learn that Jordan Peterson also holds the opinion that body dysmorphia/dysphoria (a mental health issue) in the young becomes a non-issue if left alone, and, if not, translates, often, into autogynephilia (in males) after puberty. Ergo, repeating (by mature men) that one has had ‘trans’ feelings at two or three years of age has been used to justify the mutilation of children who might well have recovered. I was not having a go; I was merely pointing out that even transsexuals, who may or may not be autogynephilic, have played a part in the social contagion that is ‘trans’.
If no one can actually change sex, there can be no ‘trans’, only dysphoric/autogynephilic men, who still pose a threat to women’s rights and spaces through self-ID, and to young girls and children through insisting that body dysphoria/dysmorphia is ‘trans’ when it is patently a mental health issue that requires psychological treatment, not surgery. If surgery becomes the only option – and I agree that may be the case for some – even after psychological treatment, then it should be done discreetly in adulthood, and with no reference to ‘trans’ at all. If there is no ‘trans’, there is no impetus to try and invade female spaces, sports, opportunities, etc.
There is nothing ‘trans’ about it because no man can become a woman and no woman can become a man, and only deluded individuals could believe such erroneous nonsense. This is what has led to this social contagion gripping the West, driven, of course, by individuals with very dark motives. That has to be understood if we are to save a whole generation of youth.
You have always admitted your autogynephilia. You are the exception. Most never do, and that is why they are an ever-present danger to females: their fetishistic behaviour is objectionable and demeaning to females, even when they are not physically dangerous. Most females, I believe, are in a permanent state of trauma because of the sexually unpredictable behaviour of some men – too many – and it is getting worse.
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It wasn’t deleted – somehow it ended up in a SPAM filter. I can recover it if you want.
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Then I apologise, DH, for my hasty conclusion. No, no need to recover now. Thank you.
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