This report by Policy Exchange reveals that schools are increasingly becoming influenced by gender ideology, to the extent that fundamental safeguarding principles are being compromised by school’s approaches to children with gender distress and their peers.
The report demonstrates that many schools are failing to routinely inform parents when a child discloses gender distress, compromising single-sex spaces, and many are teaching gender identity beliefs within Relationships, Sex & Health Education (RSHE) as if they are facts. Gender affirmative care is prevalent within the school system, despite this being at odds with safeguarding principles that have been enshrined in law for decades.
The research reveals there to be a safeguarding blind spot when it comes to the issue of sex and gender. Safeguarding principles are being routinely disregarded in many secondary schools, which are neglecting their safeguarding responsibilities and principles in favour of a set of contested beliefs, in ways that risk jeopardising child wellbeing and safety.
In doing so, schools are compromising both the law and statutory safeguarding guidance. Many schools are also disregarding published guidance in the teaching of the Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) teaching
curriculum, and their legal requirements to remain politically impartial.
This report focuses on the conflict between the application of gender identity beliefs in school, and the safeguarding principles they are required to adhere to.