Ministers are warned new trans guidance must be made LAW after activist schools immediately vow to ignore pleas to tell parents when children want to switch gender

• Education department set to publish new gender guidance for schools today 
• It will call for a ‘presumption against’ allowing children to change genders
• Have you experienced a school’s handling of child gender identity? Contact [email protected] 

Ministers are facing calls to make new trans guidance law today after schools immediately vowed to ignore pleas to inform parents when children want to switch gender.

Long-awaited advice from the Department for Education has been published calling for a ‘presumption against’ allowing children to change gender at school.

A new ‘parents first’ approach to address rising concerns about radical gender ideology calls for them to be told at the first opportunity if children ask to change their pronouns at school. It makes clear that there needs to be exceptional circumstances for this not to happen.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: ‘This guidance puts the best interests of all children first, removing any confusion about the protections that must be in place for biological sex and single-sex spaces, and making clear that safety and safeguarding for all children must always be schools’ primary concern. 

‘Parents’ views must also be at the heart of all decisions made about their children – and nowhere is that more important than with decisions that can have significant effects on a child’s life for years to come.’ 

However, some schools are already saying they will shun the guidelines – which are only advisory rather than having legal force.

Kevin Sexton, executive headteacher of Chesterfield High School in Liverpool told Sky News: ‘I’m not going to change what has worked for our school for the last 10 years.’ 

Critics including former PM Liz Truss warned that the advice ‘does not go far enough’. 

Gillian Keegan (pictured) is releasing long-awaited gender identity guidance for schools today

Kevin Sexton, executive headteacher of Chesterfield High School in Liverpool told Sky News : ‘I’m not going to change what has worked for our school for the last 10 years.’

The guidance has been delayed by government infighting for months and stops short of the total ban on social transitioning at school favoured by some Tory MPs.

It makes clear that teachers and pupils should not be pressured to adopt a child’s chosen pronouns and should not be punished if they get them wrong.

What is in the new guidance? 

• Underlines the ‘fundamental principle that parents should be involved in decisions about their children’s lives’. 
• Clarifies that schools and colleges do not have to, and should not, accept all requests for social transition.
• Social transition ‘should be extremely rare’ with appropriate safeguards in place and the child’s best interests taken into account. 
• Schools and colleges ‘should not compel teachers or pupils to use new pronouns’, although there is a caveat where it is ‘necessary to safeguard and all other options have been exhausted, such as addressing the child by their first name’. 
• Safety must never be compromised by allowing a child of the opposite sex to use single-sex spaces such as toilets. 
• Schools should make sure competitive sport is fair. This will ‘almost always’ mean separate sports for boys and girls – especially in older age groups. 

Schools are being told to protect single-sex spaces, like toilets and changing rooms, and to keep boys out of girls’ sport. 

Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch said the gender issue had been ‘hijacked by activists’.

‘This guidance is intended to give teachers and school leaders greater confidence when dealing with an issue that has been hijacked by activists misrepresenting the law,’ she said. 

‘It makes clear that schools do not have to accept a child’s request to socially transition, and that teachers or pupils should not be pressured into using different pronouns. 

‘We are also clear how vital it is that parents are informed and involved in the decisions that impact their children’s lives.’ 

However, former PM Liz Truss said the draft guidance – which will now go out for consultation until March – ‘does not go far enough’. 

‘During the many months we have been waiting for its publication, it has become increasingly clear that non-statutory guidance will provide insufficient protection and clarity, and that a change in the law of the land is required,’ she said.

‘That is why I am today asking the Government to back my Private Members’ Bill which would change the law in this area to ensure children are fully protected.

‘I fear that activists and others will be able to exploit loopholes in the guidance and the existing legal framework to pursue their agenda, leaving children at risk of making irreversible changes and with single-sex spaces not sufficiently protected.’

Chesterfield is a mixed comprehensive with 1,600 pupils – about 30 of them identifying as transgender, non-binary or genderfluid. It has gender neutral toilets and uniforms.

Before the formal publication of the advice, Mr Sexton said it has made up its own policy while waiting for the government.

Challenged on how parents might feel about not being informed about their child exploring a different gender identity, Mr Sexton said: ‘Children come to our school and hopefully we have a positive experience.

‘If we don’t create a positive experience, they won’t come to school, and they will be more unsafe, and more likely to make bad choices.’

The school insists parents should only be notified if there is a safeguarding risk.

Penni Allen, Chesterfield’s director of wellbeing, told Sky News: ‘If I picked up the phone and had to tell a parent… your child has just asked this question today. Your child is feeling like this today. We’d never be off the phone. We would have a hotline.’

Maya Forstater, of the campaign group Sex Matters, said last night that she hoped the guidance could restore some ‘sanity’ to schools.

‘After years in which the trans lobby has dictated practice in too many schools, parents will be able to use this guidance to demand a return to sanity in the classroom,’ she said.

An official source said: ‘This Government firmly believes parents should be involved in decisions about their children and much more caution should be taken, so this guidance means there should effectively now be a presumption against social transitioning in schools. 

‘Alongside this we’re giving much-needed certainty and protection to teachers and pupils so they will no longer feel forced to use different pronouns for gender-questioning children, and won’t face a sanction for not doing so.

‘It is a complex and sensitive issue but we’ve taken the time to strike the right balance.’ 

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden hinted at the new approach at the weekend, saying it was important to adopt an ‘appropriate scepticism about social transitioning whilst of course respecting children in that situation’.

One parent, named as ‘Rachel’, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme how her 16-year-old was allowed to ‘socially transition’ at school without the family’s knowledge.

‘She asked that she could be called by a different name and pronouns at school,’ the mother said.

‘The school went along with it, apparently with no questions asked but they didn’t tell the family – they didn’t tell me – and they actively hid it from me for about four months despite me being in touch with the school and expressing concerns about my daughter’s wellbeing. They kept it hidden from me.’

The parent said they became ‘very concerned about things that were going on, her dress and behaviour’. 

‘I reached out to the school, and they told me to wait until she felt ready to talk to me. I had several conversations with them over the course of a few months. At no point did they tell me what was actually going on…

‘She had said nothing to us at home, she had given no indication that she felt that way. After talking to the school I was trying to give her opportunity to open up and talk to me.

‘But it didn’t happen and the school just kept telling me to wait. They did say they were encouraging her to talk to me but it just didn’t happen and they weren’t honest at all.’

The mother said the guidance must ‘make sure that parents are included in whatever is going on with their children’. 

‘At the end of the day she is still a child, I have parental responsibility, it is up to me to care for her, her wellbeing physical and mental,’ she said.

‘I have to say I am completely horrified that the school did this and kept me in the dark.’

When the school were challenged about refusing to inform family, they apparently ‘claimed that their lawyers had implied that they could be sued by my 16-year-old daughter’

‘I find it completely ridiculous, but that is the excuse they gave,’ she said.

The parent added that her daughter had now reverted to her original pronouns and seemed ‘happier’.

‘I just think it was all a big mistake on how the school handled this,’ she added.

The guidance, and the reaction of schools, has already sparked a furious debate on sites such as Mumsnet. 

One parent said: ‘Lots of teachers are very young and therefore cheap. It should come as no surprise given what universities are indoctrinating their students with, that teachers fresh out the oven are spouting the same bulls**t. 

‘It’s not that they think they get to decide everything, is that they think identity IS truth.’ 

School leaders have been calling for guidance for months to clear up what one called ‘a public minefield of strongly held and opposing views’.

Ministers have been alarmed by the approach taken by some schools in pandering to pupils who claim to have changed gender.

Maths teacher Joshua Sutcliffe was banned from the profession this year after misgendering a trans pupil and sharing his Christian beliefs in the classroom.

Today’s guidance is likely to disappoint Tory MPs who wanted a total school ban on social transitioning – when boys adopt girls’ names, pronouns, uniforms and hairstyles, and vice versa.

Rishi Sunak was said to have been sympathetic to such calls but the legal advice was that this would need a rewriting of the Equality Act.

Maya Forstater, of the campaign group Sex Matters, (pictured) said: ‘After years in which the trans lobby has dictated practice in too many schools, parents will be able to use this guidance to demand a return to sanity in the classroom’

It comes as couples getting married will be asked if they want to be called ‘husband and wife’ under woke church guidelines.

It is part of new ‘inclusive language’ advice published by the Methodist Church. Old-fashioned terminology ‘makes assumptions about a family or personal life that is not the reality for many people’, it warns.

The guide advises ministers to use gender-neutral language such as ‘folks’ to avoid ‘subconsciously using phrases that may be misinterpreted as us favouring one sex over another’.

A spokesman for LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall said: ‘This guidance, which we have not yet seen in full, needs to first and foremost make sure that trans and gender-diverse youth are supported to be themselves and have an environment where they can learn and thrive.

‘There is considerable evidence that social transition improves the mental health of trans children and young people and from what we are hearing about this guidance their needs have not been properly considered.’

Teachers who have been sacked over pupils’ pronouns

Joshua Sutcliffe 

Maths teacher Joshua Sutcliffe was banned from the profession this year after misgendering a trans pupil and sharing his Christian beliefs in the classroom. 

The 33-year-old who taught at The Cherwell School in Oxford, was found to have failed to treat the pupil ‘with dignity and respect’ by addressing them by a female pronoun when they identified as male.

In what was believed to be the first case of its kind in the UK, the married father of one was prohibited from teaching indefinitely by the Teaching Regulation Authority (TRA).

Maths teacher Joshua Sutcliffe (pictured) was banned from the profession this year after misgendering a trans pupil and sharing his Christian beliefs in the classroom

He told the Telegraph in May: ‘The TRA has said, you don’t feel enough remorse for not going on with the pronouns.

‘Well, I’m sorry, but that’s the Christian position. I wasn’t going to say: ”I’m going along with this’. I’d rather die to be honest. Obviously that’s quite extreme but that’s how I feel.’

‘Hannah’ 

A teacher reportedly faced having to remortgage her home to cover legal costs after losing a dispute over a transgender pupil earlier this year.

The woman, who could be named as a result of a court order, was suspended by a primary school after she refused to use a student’s preferred pronouns and name.

The pupil, who was born female, had been placed in her year 4 class and used male pronouns and had a male name.

After arguing that it could be harmful to encourage the child’s belief that they were ‘in the wrong body’, the teacher was sacked last year when she continued to challenge the school’s policies. 

Speaking to The Times in June, the teacher, referred to as ‘Hannah’, said: ‘Teachers are being bullied not to question trans-affirming policies when evidence shows that the actual result of the approach is to put the welfare of children at serious risk.’

Kevin Lister

A teacher at a further education college in Swindon had enjoyed an unblemished 18-year teaching career before he was dismissed for ‘gross misconduct’ in September last year.

Kevin Lister, a maths teacher, refused to refer to a biologically female student, aged 17, by their preferred male name and he/him pronouns in A-level lessons.

He told The Mail on Sunday he was concerned the ‘out-of-the-blue’ request amounted to social transition, which could put the teen on a pathway to irreversible medical treatments.

‘I wanted at least to make sure that my student had parental support and was making an informed decision,’ he said.

‘As a parent myself, I would have been furious if my child had taken this step and I hadn’t been told anything.’

Kevin Lister, a maths teacher, refused to refer to a biologically female student, aged 17, by their preferred male name and he/him pronouns in A-level lessons

Mr Lister said he was ‘gobsmacked’ when he approached the safeguarding officers and was told the parents would not be informed about the student’s wish to identify as male in the classroom.

The school’s guide to supporting transitioning students states that staff should ‘maintain confidentiality and only tell others about the person’s trans status with their permission’.

The 60-year-old father-of-two later found some students had made accusations of transphobia against him and he was suspended, pending an inquiry, and escorted off the school grounds. 

A disciplinary hearing subsequently upheld three complaints, namely that he had ‘subjected a gender-transitioning student’ to ‘transphobic discrimination’ and ‘harassment’ and ‘refused to use’ their preferred name and he/him pronouns. 

Mr Lister took legal action against the school for unfair dismissal, and blamed ‘weak’ heads who are being influenced by ‘trans activist teachers’.

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