Parents in Portland, Maine will be overruled if they do not wish the school to affirm their child’s gender confusion, following the publication of controversial new guidelines.
The policy, written by the Portland Board of Education, is now the most expansive pro-transsexualism policy for schools in the state.
It allows students to use the toilets and changing facilities of their choice and play on sports teams for the opposite sex.
’Life altering decisions’
The policy also requires staff to use children’s preferred pronouns, attend transsexualism training, and side with the children if they say they are born in the wrong body – even when parents object.
US columnist Timothy Meads criticised the policy, saying that while in theory it “sounds noble”, it is not practicable.
He said: “The problem is that it strips away parental control and allows children to make serious, life altering decisions about their identity.”
Absurd
He added that the guidelines leave schools open to absurd situations being played out in classrooms.
Under the new guidelines, he explained, an imaginative seven-year-old who wanted to be called ‘King Tut’ after learning about Egypt would have to be affirmed by teachers.
“it strips away parental control”
Meads added that in LGBT advocates’ desire to make a welcoming society, “they have opened a Pandora’s box stripped of any logical or reasoned thinking”.
’De-medicalisation’
In the UK, the Westminster and Edinburgh parliaments are considering making it easier to ‘change sex’.
Both governments have declared their intent to ‘de-medicalise’ the process by allowing people to self-declare their gender.
Ministers in Holyrood are already consulting on changing the law.
