After Milly Molly Mandy, The Famous Five and The Hobbit, which book would you most like to read with your 7-year-old? How about, Can I Tell You About Gender Diversity? This book, on offer to British schools, concerns a child called Kit who was "assigned female gender at birth" but was "not happy that way." Kit informs young readers that "the best thing about hormone blockers is that if I change my mind then they won't hurt my body," reports the Telegraph (London).
If this transgender primer is definitely not what you want in your own child's classroom, it may be some comfort to know that a senior British academic thinks it's dangerous too. Susan Matthews, an honorary senior research fellow at Roehampton University, says that transgender guidance books (there are more than one) put primary school children at risk by misrepresenting medical knowledge about puberty blockers and "fail child safeguarding". Ms Matthews rightly observes "there is no evidence to demonstrate that puberty blockers are fully reversible, or if they cause permanent harm."
However, Andrew Jame, commissioning editor for the book, claims the information is "not inaccurate and does not misrepresent medical guidance." He says it "is also very clear about the age at which young people can access hormones and surgery, as well as the strict procedures for doing so."
If he thinks that 7-year-olds are capable of grasping legal information couched in the language beloved of bureaucrats he clearly knows nothing about children. At seven, children have just about managed to work out the difference between male and female, based on dress but also physical characteristics. Now they are to be told that they might be wrong – that the doctor who "assigned someone's gender at birth" might have been wrong. If they feel unhappy they may think it is because they were "born into the wrong body," and they will likely feel terrified at the thought of invisible things called hormones raging round their bodies when something called puberty happens.
What more effective and efficient way to mess up their heads than by attempting to insert ideas that are too big for their brains – and what better way to recruit more 'trans' volunteers than by offering them a way of avoiding such traumas?
Jame would do better to produce books of real fairy tales – tales of a beggar becoming a prince, or a scullery maid becoming a princess – which used to take children out of their own heads only to restore them safely to reality – and with a new appreciation of reality. Now they are being taught that a beggar can become a princess and a scullery maid can become a prince – although if they marry they will not be able to produce royal heirs without the help of reproductive technology.
A real princess, such as Princess Charlotte, starting school today, will most likely get on very well, because she will not be fed such dangerous nonsense but will be able to "access" real fairy tales – unless these are banned by the same ideologues who are promoting this new tale of sexual diversity, in which anyone can be what they want to be, regardless of scientific facts and observable reality.
Mr Jame maintained: "The advice given in the book, especially referring to puberty blockers, is in line with NHS guidance." If this is so, NHS guidance should be changed, since "genderology" is a political issue with no basis in science.
However, he also admitted that it was in line with "numerous LGBT charities and organisations." Not surprisingly, it was written by a transgender activist, who is an ambassador for Educate & Celebrate, which has developed an Ofsted-recognised programme to support LGBTQ inclusion in schools with the help of £200,000 funding from the Department for Education.
It is evident that the issue is increasingly being used as an ideological weapon to blow apart normal human relationships and bully us into total submission, out of fear of being accused of intolerance; and all under the aegis of a Conservative Government.
Needless to say, diversity ideologues have avoided asking the public's opinion through the usual democratic channels. They know what answer the public would give to an existential attack on democracy that may involve the effective and irreversible sterilisation of their offspring.
The ideologues have given up trying to change adult minds and instead are seeking to change the future by promoting to children the idea that they can change their gender. The best "gender advice" anyone could give to children – or anyone for that matter – is to ignore it.