Attorney General: schools don't have to use pupils' preferred pronouns
Freedom of Speech
The Attorney General, Suella Braverman has said schools are under no legal obligation to comply with gender pronouns of their pupils.
Writing in the Telegraph, she said schools should only affirm the gender preference of a child "upon the advice of an independent medical practitioner."
She went on to say:
Many schools and teachers believe - incorrectly - that they are under an absolute legal obligation to treat children who are gender questioning according to the preference of the child.
I want to make it clear that it is possible, within the law, for schools to refuse to use the preferred opposite-sex pronouns of a child.
Wide Ranging Speech
In a wide ranging speech, Braverman also questionned the content of relationship education in primary schools. saying:
In my view, a primary school where they are teaching Year 4 pupils, aged eight and nine, ‘key words’ such as transgender, pansexual, asexual, gender expression, intersex, gender fluid, gender dysphoria, questioning or queer, would be falling foul of government guidance. Nor is it not age-appropriate to teach 4 year olds that people can change sex or gender. In line with Department for Education Guidance, primary schools do not need to set exercises relating to children's’ ‘self-identified gender’.
She also said she'd been 'dismayed' by the 'expense and resource spent on...Equality and Diversity Training within the civil service.' This sort of approach 'does nothing to create solidarity and encourage support but rather keeps emphasising difference, creates a sense of 'otherness' and pits different groups against each other'.
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Attorney General: schools don't have to use pupils' preferred pronouns