Boarding school teachers are being told to use ‘gender neutral’ vocabulary in order to cater for transsexual pupils.
Guidance issued by the Boarding Schools’ Association instructs teachers to address transsexual pupils as ‘zie’, ‘zir’ and ‘zem’ to avoid causing offence.
It also endorses new ‘gender identities’ such as “genderqueer,” where a person says they are neither male or female, and “pansexual”, where a person says they are attracted to men, women and transsexuals.
Beyond binary
The Telegraph reports that schools including Eton and Westminster are among those being given the new guidance, and are being asked to display an ‘equality pledge’ for visitors to sign at reception.
Elly Barnes, author of the guidelines and founder of LGBT activist group Educate & Celebrate, said the new language is necessary, but admitted that there are “restrictions within the English language”.
While Alex Thompson, Deputy Chief Executive of the Boarding Schools’ Association, claimed that there is something “beyond the binary system” of biological sex.
“Adults for the first time are meeting a pupil who says ‘My name is Bill but I wear a dress. One day I could be male, or female or right in the middle,'” he said.
Don’t call girls ‘girls’
Last month it emerged that teachers in the Girls’ Schools Association are being advised to avoid using the word “girls.”
Staff are being encouraged to say “pupils” or “students” instead of “girls” in assemblies because of children who are “posing questions around their gender identity.”
Speaking last week, The Christian Institute’s Simon Calvert slammed a “relentless” campaign in favor of transsexualism, saying it would only harm young people.
“After a relentless media campaign to promote the idea that you can change sex, it is no surprise that there is an increase in the number of people reporting confusion over their ‘gender identity.’
Harm
“In 2016, if a kid questions their gender, they are not likely to get common sense advice. Instead they may get a one-way ticket to gender reassignment courtesy of radical transgender politics.”
The number of people who have been issued with a full Gender Recognition Certificate since the 2004 Act to change their legal birth sex is under 4,500—around 0.007 per cent of the UK population.
Writing in The Guardian earlier this year, a mother said she is scared for her little girl’s future in a society where pressure to endorse transsexualism is on the rise.
She described her fear that because her little girl dislikes “girls’ stuff,” she will be vulnerable to transsexual campaigners telling her she is trapped in the wrong body.
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