Department warns principals of 'false information' as new group emerges to oppose trans and abortion teaching in schools

The departmental letter to school principals, dated Monday this week, says “I appreciate that schools are currently closed for the summer, but that you may be receiving communications from a false information campaign that is circulating to parents in relation to RSE”.

This comes after the emergence in recent weeks of a group calling itself 'Truth Behind RSE–NI' (or TBRNI for short).

TBRNI is hosting a string of public meetings across Northern Ireland, aimed largely at two things: opposing the teaching of transgenderism in schools, and opposing pending changes to the curriculum which will instruct teachers to include abortion rights.

The Tories have said from 2024 NI schools need to provide sex education “covering prevention of early pregnancy and access to abortion”.

​As for transgender matters, the Education Authority has been telling both primary and secondary schools since 2019 that teachers “should give a transgender pupil access to toilets which match their gender identity, unless there is a good reason not to” – with the same applying to changing rooms and sports teams.

There is little information about the new organisation on the TBRNI website, such as who is running it.

When the News Letter insisted on finding out, the group responded that “Mervyn Coulson is taking the lead”.

Mr Coulson is a 76-year-old engineer by trade, and former director of the since-liquidated firm Mercol.

His Facebook page describes him as a Portadown man living in Holywood: “A sinner saved by God's grace”.

​TBRNI is an informal group, as opposed to being a registered charity or a not-for-profit company.

A leaflet distributed online by the group says: "RSE is one of the greatest assaults on the health and innocence of children...

“The ultimate goal of RSE is to change the sexual and gender norms of society, which is why RSE could be more accurately called 'abortion, promiscuity, and LGBTQIA+ rights education'."

TBRNI tells the News Letter it wants "a halt to all RSE teaching” and “an urgent, independent review with a consultation involving parents, schools and churches”.

● WHAT ARE THE COMING ABORTION CURRICULUM CHANGES? ●

It’s an awfully long story, but here’s the short version.

Back in 1981, the UK signed up to something called the ‘Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women’ at the UN.

Despite the fact this 1981 convention did not mention abortion, complaints were made to the UN in 2010 by feminists who said that “Northern Ireland has committed grave and systematic violations of rights under the convention owing to the restrictive access to abortion”.

A UN committee investigated, and in 2018 issued its findings.

The committee’s findings complained of “the prevalence of discriminatory gender stereotypes portraying a woman’s primary role as that of mother” in Northern Ireland and said the government’s “failure to combat stereotypes depicting women primarily as mothers” was a breach of the 1981 convention.

Crucially, it also demanded that Northern Ireland needs “age-appropriate, comprehensive and scientifically accurate education on sexual and reproductive health and rights [as] a compulsory component of curriculum for adolescents, covering prevention of early pregnancy and access to abortion”.

In 2019, Tory government made a legally-binding pledge to enforce these recommendations – and in June this year it announced it would make good on this pledge by the end of the 2023.

● AND WHAT ARE SCHOOLS TOLD ABOUT TRANSGENDERISM? ●

CCEA – an arms-length government body – issued guidance to NI primary schools in 2019 (drawn up with help from transgender campaign group the Rainbow Project).

It said "recent research” showed children can be aware they are transgender from the age of three-years-old, and insisted that teachers should not view it as “a passing phase".

In secondary schools, a report this summer by the NI Human Rights Commission found that 99% of such schools already include "reference to sexual orientation, and related terms (LGBT, queer, lesbian, asexuality, homophobia) in their RSE policies", and 58% “made reference to gender identity”.

The commission said this is not good enough, and that schools must go further in promoting "gender diversity" (meaning acceptance of the idea that children can swap gender or belong to some new gender like "non-binary gender-queer" or "neutrois").

Separately, the Education Authority – another arms-length public body – issued guidance in 2019 to both primary and secondary schools.

It said “staff should give a transgender pupil access to toilets which match their gender identity, unless there is a good reason not to do so” – with the same applying to changing rooms and sports teams.

It also indicated that parents should be kept in the dark about a child’s declared new gender, unless that pupil agrees to telling them.

“While some staff or parents may wish to know the pupil’s transgender status, this information is confidential,” it said.

“Staff should not disclose a pupil’s preferred name, pronoun, or other confidential information relating to their transgender status to another parent or third party without the pupil’s permission and where appropriate, the agreement of their parents.”