Policy - Victorian State
In Australia and around the world, education policies and programs have been introduced that undermine the safety of students, the rights of parents and the dignity of the teaching profession. Advocates insist that these changes are in the best interests of children. But parents and teachers know that encouraging children to reject their own bodies is wrong, that eroticising and sexualising a child’s learning environment is wrong, and that schools should never, ever lie to parents about their children.
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The programs teach children that if they’re uncomfortable with sexist stereotypes, their biological sex might be ‘wrong’, that homosexuality and heterosexuality are transphobic, and akin to racism, that people who believe that humans cannot change sex are to blame for transgender suicides, that divulging personal, intimate sexual details in front of classmates and teachers is appropriate, that graphic, erotic lessons about sexual acts in early childhood classrooms is appropriate and that parents who don’t support a child’s adopted transgender identity are committing child abuse.
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The policies usurp parents’ rights by allowing school staff to decide whether or not under-aged children are mature enough to ‘consent’ to social transitioning, and to facilitate doctor's appointments where puberty blockers and other treatments may be prescribed - and to hide that information from the parents if school staff think they won’t be 'supportive'!
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These policies & programs undermine the trustworthiness of the teaching profession, by forcing teachers to lie to parents about their own children, by forcing teachers to portray disagreement as hate, by eroding professional boundaries between students and teachers with graphic, age-inappropriate, intrusive, erotic curricula and by removing physical supervision rules designed to protect children from harm and staff from false accusations of harm. The Government has threatened to take children from parents and jobs from teachers if they tell the truth about these policies and programs.
EXAMPLE ONE: VICTORIAN SCHOOL POLICIES AROUND TRANSITIONING MINORS:
Under "LGBTIQ Student Support" page under the summary it states:
"Schools must work with students affirming their gender identity to prepare and implement a student support plan.”
Schools therefore are not given the discretion to take a neutral stance, or to allow parents to take the lead in the matter of their child's gender expression, they must affirm the student's chosen identity and prepare and implement a support plan:
"The plan should be developed in consultation with the student and their parents or carers, where possible, and should be reviewed periodically to ensure that it reflects the needs of the student at the different stages of their transition, and at the different stages of their education."
What does this ‘transition’ entail?
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catering to the students’ affirmed gender identity
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the referencing of and recording of student’s affirmed name, gender identity, and pronouns (he, she, they etc.)
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the use of toilets, showers and change rooms that meet the needs of the student. This should be based on the student’s gender identity and whichever facilities they will feel most comfortable using. Students without a disability should not be required to use disabled toilets or facilities.
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the appropriate uniform that reflects the gender identity of the student and meets the school’s dress or uniform code
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developing a communications plan that includes what information staff members and other students need to know to best support the student
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make plans to address potential community concerns, ensuring students’ right to privacy is maintained
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providing support to staff through professional learning and briefings on the arrangements for the student where appropriate
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consider scheduling regular Student Support Groups to support, guide and monitor the student’s progress
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Note: a letter from a gender identity specialist may be requested by the school to support them in developing the plan. This letter is not a conditional requirement for the school in providing support to the student, but it may help to ensure that schools can adequately discharge their duty of care to a student by planning appropriately. Gender identity specialists are available through Royal Children's Hospital and Monash Medical Centre.
What you are looking at above are those behaviours associated with social transitioning, it’s the first stage of the Gender Affirmation Model. The end stage results in permanent irreversible changes to the body, sterilisation and life-long dependences on drugs and cross-sex hormones. The following stages in this model are puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical body modification.
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So, the question must be asked, what of parental consent or involvement in their child’s medical and psycho-social care?
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Parental consent, knowledge or involvement can be ignored if the parents do not consent to their child’s new ‘gender identity’ and the schools therefore can determine that the children may be “mature minors” for the purposes of transitioning with the support of controversial gender clinics like the Royal Children’s Hospital who perform the medical and surgical transitioning.
i.e.,
“If a student is considered a mature minor, they can make decisions for themselves without parental consent and should be affirmed in their gender identity at school without a family representative/carer participating in formulating the school management plan.”
Is there a specific age? No.
“Where a student under the age of 18 asks to make a decision instead of their parent or carer, principals or others working with students in schools can decide that the student is capable of making their own decision i.e., that they are a mature minor for the purpose of making a particular decision.”
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For the ‘particular decision’ of transitioning, parental consent is not required. Indeed the parent might not even be informed by the school of the child’s desire/intention to “transition”/identify as “transgender”. The parent/s might instead be completely cut out of the equation.
As a parent you will need to sign a letter of consent for a child to go on a school excursion, to camp, or play in certain sports for example. However no parental consent is required to prepare your child to change their gender and identity?
There is no explanation for how this can be so - why is parental consent required in other instances, but not when it comes to this issue? School aged children, both secondary and primary, can decide to change their gender, and the school must support this transition and neither inform or require parental consent. The policy is written in such a way as though parental consent is advantageous, it is not necessary.
Recently, the court case around the removal of a young girl from her WA parents was in The Australian. It's a chilling warning to us all. A girl on the autistic spectrum, with a history of depression, who was uprooted to a new State, having difficulty making friends, got online and discovered a community that informed her; her troubles would be over if she transitioned to a boy. Online she stated she would commit suicide if she wasn't allowed a double mastectomy. Several days later police showed up at the parents' door and removed the child. They haven't seen her in 3 years.
In Australia, parental rights of care are being removed in the names of policies pushing gender identity ideology and the pharmaceutical driven agenda of gender affirmation.
Please be informed on what policies your school follows, please read the links provided and stand up against a state sanctioned ideology that is breaking the bonds of parent and child.
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APPENDIX:
Fast Facts on Gender Identity and children
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One study showed that when a teen announces a transgender identity to their peer group, the number of friends who also became transgender-identified was 3.5 per group.
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In just seven years, there has been a nearly 4,000% increase in children seeking treatment for sexual identity confusion in the United Kingdom.
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Between 61-98% of children who struggle with their sex as a boy or a girl, come to accept their sex by adulthood.
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Identifying as transgender or nonbinary may be linked to autism spectrum disorders. Children with autism spectrum disorders are 7 times more likely to want to be the opposite sex than the general population.
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After sex reassignment surgery, adult transgender- identified people are nearly 20 times more likely to die from suicide than the general population matched for age and sex.
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Studies show that 100% of children who use puberty blockers will go on to use cross-sex hormones, leaving them permanently sterile.
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The long-term effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on children and adolescents have not been studied.
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Girls as young as 13 are undergoing double mastectomies and boys as young as 17 are undergoing full genital sex reassignment surgeries. The long-term effects of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones have not been studied.
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Science demonstrates that there are two sex chromosomes—two X chromosomes in females and an X and a Y in males—in nearly every single cell in our bodies.
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Some transgender-identified patients are being prescribed cross-sex hormones on their very first visit to a clinic.
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