Schools are experiencing an “epidemic” of children being told that they are transgender, the equalities minister Kemi Badenoch has said, as the row over long-delayed trans guidance for schools rumbles on, The Times reports.
Badenoch made a Commons statement yesterday (Dec 06) saying that a school allowing a child to socially transition was “not a neutral act” as it would have “formative effects on a child’s future development”.
Badenoch told MPs: “We are seeing, I would say, almost an epidemic of young gay children being told that they are trans and being put on a medical pathway for irreversible decisions and they are regretting it.”
She said that at primary school, children should be banned from socially transitioning “except in the most extreme safeguarding cases, and I expect that to include clinical advice”.
Kemi Badenoch called for primary-age pupils who are questioning their gender to be banned from socially transitioning at school unless clinical advice dictated otherwise.
She said she was “traumatised by what is happening to young children” but faced a backlash from some Conservative MPs who accused her of “nasty anti-LGBT+ rhetoric”.
Education secretary Gillian Keegan and Badenoch have been struggling for some time to sign off non-statutory guidance for schools regarding pupils questioning their gender.
The Guardian reported recently that the new guidance is likely to take “a presumption against” children transitioning to a different gender at school but is likely to allow them to change their preferred names, pronouns or uniforms.
It marks a climbdown from reports that some ministers were seeking to ban social transitioning within schools entirely.
Ministers ruled out a ban on social transitioning after concluding it would require primary legislation to avoid conflicts with existing equality and discrimination law, and could prove to be unworkable.