Pupils as young as eleven years old in Scotland have been bullied for not referring to classmates by their ‘preferred pronouns’, it has been reported.
Campaign group Safeguarding Our Schools Scotland (SOSS) said multiple parents had been in contact about such incidents.
Earlier this year, the Scottish Government tabled legislation to allow Scots as young as 16 years old to change their legal sex merely by self-declaration.
‘Hostility’
One parent said their child was “ostracised in the playground” and reprimanded for not calling their classmate by their latest preferred pronoun, after it had changed several times.
Another parent told SOSS: “I also have first-hand experience with my daughter — bullied and intimidated into affirming gender ideology in the name of inclusion. She may be suffering anxiety over this and has even missed school, but she knows her truth.”
A mother of a dyslexic teenager said when her son could not remember the changing name and pronoun of a pupil, “he had to deal with hostility from that pupil and disapproval from the teacher”.
Bullying
But when Lucie Phillips of SOSS reported the incidents to Scotland’s anti-bullying service RespectMe, it dismissed the concerns, saying, “a meeting would fail to advance the discourse in the direction you desire”.
Phillips commented: “We have heard from parents of children in primary school who have been vilified, excluded from friendships and ostracised in the playground because they’re not willing to use language that they don’t agree with.
“Surely this prejudice-based bullying should be a matter of concern for our national anti-bullying service?”
RespectMe is fully funded by the Scottish Government and co-managed by LGBT Youth Scotland.
Social havoc
Earlier this year, a call for views revealed that fewer than four in ten of the Scottish public support the Government’s radical gender reform plans.
Of the 10,800 legitimate submissions to the Scottish Parliament’s equalities committee, 59 per cent opposed the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, with only 38 per cent in favour, while three per cent did not know.
The Attorney General for England and Wales, Suella Braverman, has warned that the legislation is unworkable, “whereby north of the border, you may be able to self-identify but a bit south of the border that might not be recognised”.
She said that turning the “basics of biology” upside down is causing social havoc.
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