Back in April of last year, I wrote an article for the
Scottish Review about the Adverse Childhood Experiences 'movement' (ACEs) and how the ACE 'movement' had failed to address the issue of informed consent and/or consultation with parents with regards any school/social policy implementation. This issue of consent has not been addressed by the ACE 'movement', and there are plans to spread the ACE ideology into forms of 'routine enquiry' which was what those who had misgivings about ACE ideology have long feared.
Exposing children or adults to a spurious ideology based on dubious scientific methods is a form of abuse or adversity if consent is not obtained. The ACE 'movement's' cry for ACE aware schools for example, is effectively a psycho-educational treatment based on theoretical facets of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT); i.e. resilience indoctrination in schools under RSHE (relationships, sex, health education). This programme is nothing more than inappropriate focussing of a child's mind on their own mind, creating issues where none are, creating distress in children who do not have the maturity to introspect to such a degree, and manufacturing 'mental health' difficulties due to the iatrogenic effects of the 'treatment'.
And yet, despite their cries of the importance of child welfare, there is no concern from the ACE 'movement' that such programmes may be harmful. Furthermore, tampering with the 'mental health' of children with spurious ACE ideology should not be conducted by teachers who are unqualified to administer it, and certainly should not be implemented without consent and/or consultation with parents. The bottom line is: the school is not a mental health clinic, and neither is it a suitable place to disseminate information on sexual behaviour or lifestyle, especially in the manner the Scottish Government intend to do.
This brings me to another area where consent and/or consultation with parents are being disregarded even further with plans to roll out LGBT inclusive education in Scottish schools. Supposedly the driving force behind this policy drive in Scotland (supposedly, as it is argued that it is in fact a United Nations driven agenda) is the TIE Campaign (Time for Inclusive Education) in Scotland. TIE, along with the Scottish Government and their LGBT Inclusive Education policy working group are proposing that every aspect of the school curriculum, from nursery/primary one upwards, is to include LGBT focussed materials. What is the drive behind this?
According to TIE and the Scottish Government, it is to combat LGBT-linked bullying. This is a fair argument, all bullying is wrong and should be tackled, but when you consider that only approximately 7% of bullying is related to somebody's sexuality and that 52% of bullying is attributed to someone's appearance, why is there not a 'Appearance Inclusive Education' drive for Scottish schools?
Another argument for LGBT inclusive education comes from the idea that children should know that LGBT people exist, and different families exist, and if they know that such people exist, more tolerance will be facilitated. This same argument was put forward by Mr Andrew Moffat of the controversial 'No Outsiders' programme which was implemented in several primary schools in Birmingham. The No Outsiders programme was protested by parents of children in schools in Birmingham (mostly Muslim, but also Jewish and Christian parents). The reason the parents protested was that they had not been consulted on the materials or the implementation of the No Outsiders programme. There was also the issue of faith and/or other beliefs; people of various faiths or beliefs do not agree with the need to educate their children with adult LGBT issues.
Predictably, of course, in the current climate of political correctness, these parents (predominately Muslim) have been labelled as bigots, fascists, and homophobes, by people right across the political spectrum, right and left. A clash of social justice values if ever there were one; a clash that is still ongoing and no doubt will be continued and perhaps escalate as the parents still feel they are not being listened to. The fact is, the consent of the children, the consent/consultation with the parents, and their faith-based beliefs, have been disregarded as unimportant in the educational policy proposals.
The blatant disregard for the consent of the children and/or consultation with parents on issues such as these (the LGBT education and the ACE issue) is strikingly clear. This disregard has also been highlighted by a series of YouTube videos produced by the Scottish Family Party which outlined the materials and content to be used in sex education in Scottish schools. In one video, Richard Lucas of the Scottish Family Party was shut down at a meeting (a Q&A session with John Swinney of the Scottish Government) when he mentioned some of the content and materials that were being proposed. These materials include discussions on pornography, masturbation and various adult sexual practices that I will not go into here.
Suffice to say the people who set up this meeting felt it inappropriate that Richard Lucas was discussing the material and content of the proposed sex education (i.e., at one point the roaming microphone was taken from Richard Lucas, the facilitator of the meeting strongly objected to the sexual language used relating to the curriculum content and other people tried to shout Richard Lucas down). This begs the question: if adults at a meeting to discuss educational issues cannot discuss freely the material and contents of an educational curriculum for children, are they suitable for children?
Getting back to the LGBT Inclusive Education working group and the TIE Campaign, I think it is important (for parents, especially parents of faith) to be aware of several issues. Back in 2016, the TIE Campaign (Jordan Daly and Liam Stevenson) spoke at the Scottish Secular Society. In this speech (which is available on YouTube) Jordan Daly outlined that the goal of TIE and LGBT education was to 'sink' the religious ship and that people of religious faith had to relegate their religious faith to LGBT education.
Further,
Liam Stevenson of TIE was interviewed and the resulting article describes how he pitched the idea of a queer theory informed education curriculum to the Scottish Catholic Education Service. These mentions of the relegation of religious beliefs in favour of LGBT ideology should raise alarm bells.
In a series of essays
Dr EM (an academic) outlines how queer theory as an university academic discipline, which challenges boundaries and transgressing boundaries (e.g., norms regarding sex, sexuality and sexual practices) has close links with the ideas of affirming child sexuality, lowering the age of sexual consent and even paedophilia.
The transgender aspect of LGBT is also heavily influenced by queer theory in a number of ways; hence you have the normalisation and explosion of Drag Time Story Time (e.g. drag artists telling stories to children), child drag queens (e.g. the Amazing Desmond), referrals of children (80% increase of 4-10 year olds in Scotland), Gender Identity Clinics, the use of harmful puberty blockers/cross sex hormones, sex reassignment surgery on children, and groups like transgender charity Mermaids going into schools to train and inform teachers and pupils.
Within the Scottish LGBT Inclusive Education curriculum, the idea that if one is a boy, one can be a girl and vice versa is happily entertained and promoted as a positive thing to children. These ideas inexorably linked with queer theory/LGBT inclusive education are not rooted in science but a questionable philosophy/activism which has no place with schools, especially nursery or primary school. As an academic discipline, in the context of adult undergraduate and postgraduate study, it is perhaps understandable how queer theory might be a topic of interest, but as part of educating school children and informing a school curriculum for children it is highly inappropriate.
Having become concerned with the developments in Scottish education, I contacted the Scottish Government via Freedom of Information requests. I enquired if queer theory would be used as a philosophical basis for the proposed LGBT Inclusive Education curriculum. I did not receive a satisfactory answer. I also enquired what faith groups had been consulted as part of their working group/implementation group (e.g., Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, etc). So far, it seems that the wide variety of faith groups in Scotland have not been consulted on the Scottish Government's LGBT Inclusive Education proposals.
One thing I have gleamed from my inquiries is that contrary to some reports, the LGBT Inclusive Education in Scotland is not mandatory; parents are within their rights to withdraw their children if they wish. Further, all schools have to implement the LGBT Inclusive Education curriculum in consultation with parents of children at the school and tailor it to their needs. This is not common knowledge. But, and it is a big but, as the LGBT focus is going to be disseminated throughout all aspects of the curriculum, the only option for parents who object to this curriculum would be withdraw their child from the school completely; a
fait accompli on the part of the Scottish Government. I predict they will come for those who decide to home school next.
In light of these issues of consent and/or consultation with parents (or lack of) with not just the LGBT Inclusive Education issue, but also with the RSHE (i.e., sex education, 'Resilience', etc), I think it would do us well to meditate on the words of the cultural Marxist psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who was for the destruction of the family and the deconstruction of the norms regarding sexual behaviour and practices, for purely political ends; a so-called liberated society, but whereby the sexual liberation becomes a form of political control:
'In contrast, a child whose motor activity is completely free, and whose natural sexuality has been liberated in sexual play, will oppose strictly authoritarian, ascetic influences. Political reaction can always compete with revolutionary education in the authoritarian, superficial influencing of children. But it can never do so in the realm of sexual education. No reactionary ideology or political orientation can ever accomplish for children what a social revolution can with respect to their sexual life. In terms of processions, marches, songs, banners, and uniforms, however, reaction undoubtedly has more to offer. We thus see the revolutionary structuring of the child must involve the freeing of his biological motility. This is indisputable.' (W Reich, 1936,
The Sexual Revolution.)
It seems to be quite clear that to 'target' children with 'educational' programmes focussed on LGB with a heavy focus on the T, sex-education (with a focus on blatantly pornographic content/ideas/ideology/queer theory) and 'mental health' is an attempt in 'freeing the sexual motility' (and cognitive motility re 'mental health' towards victimhood) of children which will have knock on effects; a questioning and confusion regarding gender, sexuality and sexual behaviour, and inappropriate exposure to sexual ideas before appropriate developmental milestones have been reached. The reality of biological sex, the importance of biological families (e.g. mum, dad), and the reality that human suffering (e.g. low mood, anxiety, fear, etc) is not a pathology (and needed to be corrected by 'resilience' indoctrination) are all being undermined by the current Scottish education policies.
More importantly, the consent of children is being dismissed as unimportant, consultation with parents is given lip service and the issue of religious faith regarding many of these issues is considered as just an obstacle to be overcome. The Scottish Government are pushing these educational reforms through in a totalitarian manner. In 2020, Scottish parents, like the Muslim parents in Birmingham, have to start waking up to what is happening to their children and their children's schools.
One thing I like to bear in mind amongst all this; it is adults, adult activists and adult politicians who are pushing these educational reforms, not the majority of parents of the children. On a recent radio programme on LBC, a representative from Beat Eating Disorders (an eating disorders charity) described how the information disseminated about eating disorders and healthy eating and health was misinterpreted and not understood properly by children under nine years of age as they were not mature enough to fully understand the information. Such information, when one is not fully able to understand it, may be argued to cause worry, distress and misunderstanding (e.g. children might wrongly think they are overweight, had an eating disorder when they did not, were not eating enough and were eating unhealthily, etc).
The same principle and effects can be applied to introducing 'mental health' education, inappropriate sex education and sexualities and gender education; such education for children is likely to create iatrogenic effects that will be difficult to undo.
Children are precious and vulnerable. We must get this right now, rather than realising in 10 or 20 years from now that we have harmed children. No doubt due to reports in the media of psychologists resigning from the Tavistock Gender Clinic in London over worries of pressuring children into gender transition, and the skyrocketing of referrals of 4-10-year olds to gender identity clinics, it may be that the tide is turning, and people are waking up.
More people need to wake up, especially parents. If parents do not fight for their children, who will? Chief Mammy and the Scottish Government? I don't think so.
Dr Bruce Scott is a psychoanalyst based in Edinburgh
