Transgenderism: Edwin Poots likens puberty blockers to child abuse as he says schools should not be 'encouraging' children to switch gender

Mr Poots’ remarks come in the wake of a report from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission which called for “comprehensive and scientifically accurate RSE” (relationships and sex education).

The report criticised schools for not doing enough to promote acceptance of transgenderism, voicing concern that schools were protecting pupils’ rights to hold differing viewpoints on the subject.

It also lambasted teachers for promoting “heteronormativity”.

(TeenVogue, a major international magazine aimed at school-age youth, describes “heteronormativity” as “the assumption that most or all people are straight and cisgender unless stated otherwise” – adding that this causes “a lot of damage”.)

Among the NI Human Rights Commission’s findings was that “there was a significant gapin the inclusion of LGBTQ+ content in schools’ RSE curricula, as well as an affirmative and positive approach to sexual and gender diversity”.

(Gender diversity is the idea that there are many genders, not two, and that people can move from one to another.)

Here is the News Letter breaking the story this week (other media covered it, but none reported on the actual details of what the commission was demanding):

• Transgenderism in Northern Ireland: Campaigner warns against 'indoctrination' of children after report criticises schools for defending pupils' right to hold different views

– ‘THIS IS NOT NORMAL’ –

Mr Poots told the News Letter: "Scientifically, your chromosomes and your internal make-up will have you as a man or a woman.

"Encouraging young people and teaching young people you can assign your gender is unscientific, and the Human Rights Commission is wishing to press schools to teach something which is against science.

"We all did biology in school. We all know the issue about chromosomes.

"We all know that the internal make-up of a man and the internal make-up of a woman are different.

"We know the bone density of a man and woman are different.

"And a lot of the stuff they're actually doing on children, puberty blockers and all that, is nothing short of child abuse. We saw that with the Tavistock Clinic.

"This whole encouragement of young people that it's entirely normal to reassign your gender: it is not.

"It is not good for the young person, and they shouldn't be receiving encouragement in schools to go down that route."

The reference to Tavistock is the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London, the main NHS gender-switching centre for children.

Whistleblowers there had voiced concern at least as far back as 2019 that transgender activists were influencing the operation of the clinic, which gave puberty blocking drugs to children – a process which can lead to full surgery from age 18 to remove breasts, genitals, and so on.

A probe into the clinic found that it was adopting an "unquestioning affirmative approach" to children’s claims about being transgender, amid a tsunami of children identifying as such, and last year, the centre was ordered to shut.

Mr Poots’ comments were put to the NI Human Rights Commission.

It responded: “The Commission's role is to uphold international human rights standards.

"The reports’ content and recommendations reflect these standards.”

– ‘SCHOOLS MUST BE ALLOWED TO CALL RAINBOW PROJECT IN’ –

Mr Poots’ full comments were put to two major publicly-funded trans lobby groups: The Rainbow Project (headquartered in Northern Ireland) and Stonewall (headquartered in England).

The latter did not respond.

The former did respond, and said: “The Rainbow Project are disappointed to read in the Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) report that schools are still actively using the tactics of shame, stigma and discrimination around RSE Education including the news that some schools even outline their beliefs that ‘homosexuality’ is wrong in their policies.

"The Department of Education's research in 2017 on post-primary school experiences of 16-21-year-old people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender has shown that the majority of young LGBTQIA+ people in Northern Ireland don’t feel welcomed or valued in their school, and nearly 50% have experienced bullying because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

"Young people who have engaged with the Rainbow Project have left education due to issues they have experienced as trans students, with some schools singling out young people by refusing to respect their gender identity, names, and pronouns, and even punishing them for wishing to express that identity in terms of uniform."

It also included this comment from Aisling Playford, the organisation’s head of advocacy (who states that her pronouns are she/her).

“Our politicians and government should be committed to enabling all young people including trans to reach their full learning potential, recognising the importance of their identities, health and wellbeing.

"Schools, educators and politicians in Northern Ireland have a duty not to act in a way which is incompatible with human rights or equality legislation.

"Teachers and their unions such as NAWUT have supported the teaching of LGBTQIA+ issues in classrooms.

"Children and young people want to see LGBTQIA+ issues talked about in classrooms.

"There is overwhelming support for providing high-quality RSE and including discussions around sexual orientation and gender identity makes a difference to the physical and mental health of children and young people, both now and in the future.

“The Rainbow Project believe that there should be the statutory mandatory teaching of high quality and evidence-based, age-appropriate relationships and sex education in all schools in Northern Ireland.

"Any improved RSE curriculum should be backed up by flexibility for schools in how they deliver that curriculum, whether that is through investing in additional training for teachers or by bringing in external providers such as Rainbow Project alongside our partners Nexus and Relate, who currently deliver RSE programmes across Northern Ireland.

"We want to work with school leadership, teachers, students, and their families, to develop an RSE inclusive curriculum policy which supports LGBTQIA+ students.”

More from this reporter:

• Transgender campaigner Peter Tatchell says 'we should not be having these discussions' when asked on BBC Northern Ireland if men have wombs and get pregnant

• Campaigners object to elevation of biological man to management role in Women's Institute while Northern Irish wing refuses to comment