LGBTIQA+ Greens Condemn Education Minister On Outing Trans And Non-Binary Children To Parents By Teachers

The LGTIQA+ Greens have condemned the Education Minister, Nadhim Zahawi that teachers should out trans and non-binary primary school children to their parents. 

During the education select committee on Wednesday (20 April), Conservative MP Miriam Cates suggested children need safeguarding due to their identity. She went on to say “That is a huge safeguarding fail, cutting parents out from a decision that’s really important about children’s life”.

Conservative MP Dr Caroline Johnson told Mr Zahawi she had been approached by parents concerned that their teenage daughters were in a boarding house with a male student who is trans.

She continued: “You have got pre-pubescent, pubescent children who don’t have a settled idea of sexuality or gender. They are children in a discovery phase and they are being told by adults that they trust that if they don’t conform to certain gender norms they may be the opposite sex or they may be non-binary or they may need to go away and explore more.

Mr Zahawi said he is working with the EHRC on issues such as this because they have the “capacity and expertise” to deal with it. 

Dr Johnson said: “And they go away and they look on the internet and they engage in platforms like Reddit and TikTok and Discord where they meet adults who tell them how to obtain testosterone, how to go down a route of surgery…they are going down a route of transition…and this is an enormous safeguarding risk because they are leading to permanent changes.

“Then they go back to school and tell the school ‘I am trans’, and they are then being excluded from normal safeguarding procedures.”

Mr Zahawi also said parents must be “front and centre” of discussions about gender and sex, saying: “That’s my message to the frontline, is to say you have to involve parents in this. You have a duty to safeguard those children. Parents are very much part of that.”

LGBTIQA+ Greens Co-Chair, Ria Patel: “The Education Ministers’ comments, as well as the suggestion by Mr Zahawi for the EHRC legitimacy to this, are dangerous. Outing trans children to families, who may be unaccepting and hostile, is the real safeguarding issue here. 

With the government's refusal to rule out trans conversion therapy, the consequences will be horrific if this is unchallenged. As well, the suggestion that mentioning that trans people exist will make kids trans is the logic of Section 28.”

Suggestions made by other Conservative MPs are unfounded, untrue and will put trans children in a dangerous place.