The Scottish government is determined to advance trans ideology – and it’s our children who will suffer
The cynical would suggest that it’s not often that a politician or government keeps their promises. But sometimes they do. In 2018 the Scottish Government Deputy First Minister John Swinney announced that Scotland would become the first country in the world to have LGBT inclusive education embedded in the curriculum. He was following up on the priority stated in 2014 by his boss Nicola Sturgeon who declared that “it is trans issues that are the next big challenge”.
Sturgeon has been determined to follow the trans ideology – even getting rid of one of her more competent ministers, Joanna Cherry, simply because she dared to stand up for women’s rights. No one should be surprised at the trajectory that Scotland has been going. The SNP promised it and they have kept this promise.
“children as young as four will be able to change their name and gender at school without their parents’ consent under new LGBT inclusivity guidelines drawn up by the Scottish Government.”
This week it was reported by The Telegraph that “children as young as four will be able to change their name and gender at school without their parents’ consent under new LGBT inclusivity guidelines drawn up by the Scottish Government.”
You have to stop, take a breath and re-read that sentence again. Many people just simply don’t believe it. As someone said to me, it’s so mad that it cannot be true. Four-year-olds sometimes think they are animals or Thomas the Tank Engine – they are certainly not capable of determining that they are a different gender from their body.
When my children were at primary school they were not even allowed to have sun cream put on them by a teacher without written permission from a parent. Now a four-year-old can change their gender without their parents even being told! Following that logic, there is no reason why a child should not also determine that they want to be sexually active! One atheist contacted me to say that if this were true he would be on the streets protesting – but of course it can’t be true. But such denial doesn’t help. This is happening in Scotland today.
The guidance states that pupils should be allowed to use whatever toilet or changing room they want, have gender neutral uniforms, and transgender characters and history should be included. Of course all this comes from Stonewall – who are funded by the Scottish government to tell the schools what they should be doing.
Women’s groups are rightly concerned. Again to quote from the article: “This is really, really worrying,” said Marion Calder, co-director of the For Women Scotland campaign group. “The bottom line is that this is a dangerous ideology that the Scottish Government is pushing.
“It shows a failure in safeguarding and a removal of parental rights. It used to be commonly understood that children should be able to play and experiment with gender roles, with clothing, their likes and dislikes.
“Those children are now being encouraged on to a medical pathway, potentially for the rest of their lives. We should not be teaching children, and especially primary school children, that you can change sex, because you cannot change sex.”
I have a great deal of personal experience of this. I could tell you so many stories. The-7-year old returning home from school in tears because the teacher said that she had to choose whether she was a boy or girl; the 14-year-old teenage boy advised by a guidance teacher that his depression might be because he was a girl trapped in the wrong body (the school was after a Stonewall award and as they had no trans pupils that was difficult); the posters in a classroom for six-year-olds telling them to ‘respect others’ pronouns’ (are you not impressed that six-year-olds know what pronouns are?); the angry young woman in tears because after detransitioning she wanted to know why no one in authority discouraged her from taking such a damaging path; and so many more. A trail of damaged young lives all because our leaders are enslaved to this harmful ideology.
The Scottish government has now gone down this damaging route. What Abigail Shirer calls ‘Irreversible Damage’ in her insightful and disturbing book of the same name, is now official State doctrine in Scotland. The extraordinary thing in this is not just that the government is encouraging this – but that it is also displaying its utter contempt for parents in doing so.
A few years ago, because of my writing on the subject, I was asked by the Scottish government to meet with their civil servants who were drawing up the legislation. They asked me if I could ever see my way to support the proposed gender recognition act and the changes in the law. I said no – but that I would ask for compromise on three things. Firstly, women would be guaranteed women-only spaces in jails, hospitals, refuges and sport. Secondly, I would not go to jail for saying that a man could not become a woman or vice versa. And thirdly, that this queer theory ideology should not be taught to children. At the end of our discussions, it became clear that none of these things would be given. Even then the Scottish government was set on this abusive and destructive path.
A month later I was summoned to meet Shirley-Anne Somerville, who is now the SNP education secretary, and who has stated that the new government guidance for schools does not promote transitioning. When we had what is often called a ‘full and frank discussion’ I suggested to her that this was a suicidal route for the SNP to go down (I didn’t fully realise what a stranglehold the SNP has over the Scottish press and the civic institutions) and that if she and I had a debate on this issue in front of any group of parents in Scotland, she would overwhelmingly lose, not because of my brilliance but purely and simply because most parents have far more knowledge and common sense than our civic elites.
“That’s because most parents are ignorant.”
I have never forgotten her chilling reply: “That’s because most parents are ignorant.” In that one phrase the contempt of the Scottish government for parents and the family was exemplified. So this week’s announcement that four-year-olds can transition under the influence of teachers, but not parents, was not a surprise to me.
What can be done about this? You would hope that politicians, teachers’ unions and medics would all speak out. But the truth is that the civic institutions have either been indoctrinated into this insanity, or people within them are too scared to speak out because it could be career ending. This will be even more so now that the SNP are to go into a formal government with the Greens – who under their leader, Patrick Harvie, are the foremost advocates of Queer theory and will insist on even more indoctrination.
You would hope that the Church leaders would speak out. But I suspect that whilst they will have no qualms about making proclamations about racism in America, or Brexit, or climate change, it will be a hot day in Scotland before they say a word on this issue. Perhaps an odd mix of women’s groups, left wing social conservatives, evangelical Christians and parents can be mobilised to work together to oppose this evil. Because it must be opposed.
‘You’re upset,’ I’ve been told. Absolutely! This is not about cultural wars. This is not about politics. This is not about oppressing those who suffer from gender dysphoria and need proper help. This is about the abuse of children. This is about my grandchildren and many others. This is about Scotland heading down into Hellish depths.
I share the upset of Jesus. “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).
This is Code Red for Scotland’s children. Enough.
Shake on It -Engaging with Transgender People
The Eye of the Storm – The Transgender Backlash and the Timing of the Lord
When I was about 10 years old I read CS Lewis’s ‘ The Screwtape Letters ‘ and I was recently reminded of a quote from that book :
” The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint … But it is conceived and ordered ( moved , seconded , carried and minuted ) in clean , carpeted , warmed and well – lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth – shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”
Well, I hate to say “told you so”. Many Christians warned against voting SNP during the madness of the independence debates and referendum but were laughed at as they warned against the tyranny of the SNP! The chickens are coming home to roost yet many Christians still vote SNP over an obsession with independence; seems the kingdom of Scotland is more important than the kingdom of God? How any true believer can now support this wicked party and ALL it stands for is beyond me. The church does not recognise it’s authority on earth and when we vote/support something it is powerful and holds weight, hence SNP are in power, in part due to support and prayers of many Christians. We are the salt and the light but if we lose that saltiness, we are good for nothing but to be trampled on by men and that is exactly what is and will happen to the church in Scotland if we do not repent and cry out for revival!
Its not just the SNP…look at all the other parties too.
Indeed but it’s about the lesser of the evils; they are all evil in their own degree and way but it’s about voting for the lesser of the evils. To vote SNP or green is to vote for the evil of evils in my opinion anyway
Revival begins in our heart,for God to revive us first, then we need to preach the gospel in the highways and byways,we have to bible believing Christians,not TV believing charismatic health,wealth,live your best life now false christianity.true Bible believing Christians,like the barean believers.
To be reposted on my own blog, and sent out to my own mailing list. Thank you.
I am glad you have publicised this. I can relate to your frustration that others are not doing so. Imagine then how I must feel!
I am glad that you hope for a “coalition”. I’ve been saying that for a long time myself. You will see on Twitter how hard I have tried to reach out to the sort of women who belong to women’s groups.
However, I must level a criticism at you when you lament, “You would hope that the Church leaders would speak out.” Thou art the man, David.
“They asked me if I could ever see my way to support the proposed gender recognition act and the changes in the law. I said no – but that I would ask for compromise on three things. Firstly, women would be guaranteed women-only spaces in jails, hospitals, refuges and sport. Secondly, I would not go to jail for saying that a man could not become a woman or vice versa. And thirdly, that this queer theory ideology should not be taught to children.”
The loss of women-only spaces in jails, hospitals, refuges and sport, the loss of free speech and the abuse of children by teachers behind the backs of parents are examples of evil fruit that you – yes you, David – have allowed to grow. I say this because, in 2004 and 2005, when the root of the tree was being laid down, you didn’t support the opposition there was then, to the Gender Recognition Bill and the Gender Recognition Act (GRA).
You are not now, and have never been, sufficiently willing to oppose radically the fundamental evil of the GRA. At most, and only recently, you have taken potshots at the fruit of that tree. But never have I heard you attack the root of the tree on which this fruit has grown. Instead, you would merely “ask for compromise on three things”.
It is not as though I have never drawn to your attention the need to oppose transgenderism radically rather than merely superficially. I have pointed out to you the evils of trans dogma that are fundamental and of the essence of that creed. You have shown little interest in opposing those evils, the root evils of trans dogma. You are focused on attacking the fruit, not the root. I’ve had more success with the women on Twitter than I’ve had with you.
In 2004 and 2005, when I was attacking the root, perhaps you were unaware of the GRA as an issue. But 16 years on, you seem still to be unaware of the root cause of the fruit you are attacking. You have been slow to learn from the mistakes of 2004 and 2005. You do not have the excuse of blindness, that you are bound in dogma that teaches that transgenderism is a mischief of “The Patriarchy”, crafted to oppress women. Some of the so-called TERFs have started to have their eyes opened. Please try to catch up with them.
John – your response is both bizarre and wrong. What gender recognition bill was there in 2004 and 2005? To claim that I have shown little interest in opposing Trans ideology is a lie – as anyone who just clicks Transgender into the search facility on this blog can see. I have paid a price for my opposition to Trans which you know nothing about. I would suggest you do not lie about me in the future..
“John – your response is both bizarre and wrong. What gender recognition bill was there in 2004 and 2005?”
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 was enacted in 2004, with provision for an implementation date set by the Secretary of State. In the event, the Act was implemented in 2005.
When I and others (be they Christians, feminists, or neither) use the hashtag #RepealTheGRA, this is the Act of Parliament to which we are referring, calling for its repeal. Here is a link to the Act.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/contents
There was litigation challenging the decision to implement the Act in 2005. I have lost count of the number of occasions on which I have tried, unsuccessfully, to educate you about this litigation. The court papers of that litigation are published here:
https://johnallmanuk.wordpress.com/2017/07/08/gra/
“To claim that I have shown little interest in opposing Trans ideology is a lie. I would suggest you do not lie about me in the future.”
You have shown late and limited interest in opposing certain ill-effects (which I call the “fruit”) of trans ideology in your writing, especially as expressed your proposed three “compromises”, I have praised you for this often. However, you obviously haven’t opposed trans ideology *radically*. You didn’t even notice that the GRA had been enacted back in 2005, when I was taking the British government to court to try to prevent implementation of the Act and standing for Parliament, in part to bring this to the public’s attention. I have never read any expression on your part of opposition to transgenderism *itself*, its *root*, its core doctrine, as opposed to its fruit, certain horrid side effects of the core doctrine that became inevitable once the British state had surrendered to Trans ideology in the enactment of the GRA you’ve never heard of.
If you can point to a denunciation of gender fraud itself on your part, I shall owe you a partial apology. In any case, you owe me a very big apology for calling me a liar.
“I have paid a price for my opposition to Trans which you know nothing about.”
Me too, vice versa. I doubt the price you have paid comes anywhere close to the price I have paid, for opposing Trans *radically*, ever since the year 2000, when I first realized what agenda was afoot, including in the Gender Recognition Bill 2004, a Bill of which you appear still to be ignorant.
These are dark and darkening times. Not a day goes by without more evidence that we are losing our minds. As a grandfather in Scotland, I am absolutely horrified that this distorted and abusive ideology is being indoctrinated into our children. We need more voices in the wilderness like yours, David – especially from Church leadership. It’s got to stop!
More on Code Red :
https://worldtruthvideos.website/watch/scotland-has-a-serious-problem_QLrxiwtKuZhUNog.html
What is Kate Forbes doing about this? Admirable as she is in her witness as a Christian, she and other Christians like her must take a stand against this policy and accept the consequences.
With you.
Part of the fight back must be to speak up when there are consultations for new laws etc. I keep missing these opportunities, annoyingly.
How now, can we mobilise against this? March? Write? Remove our kids from school?
I know folks who are homeschooling their children – which immediately makes me feel exhausted. My two oldest are in secondary, but youngest is about to go into nursery. I do wonder.
Two useful sites are Forwomen.Scot and Transgender Trend, no doubt others will know of others.
Thanks for your clear stand on this. Many of us in Scotland are speaking out and lobbying our MPs and MSPs, but we just get ‘cut and paste’ platitudes of responses. I have today, again, written to my SNP MSP and MP and also, in different words, to Kate Forbes asking how she can continue to be identified with and give succour to this evil. If every believer in Scotland spoke out…..
David…I can’t thank you enough for writing publicly on this. Praying for you…that you are truly kept in His perfect peace, knowing that it is the Lord who knows the truth of our hearts, and indeed our motives. We all so need His wisdom.
Thank you.
I was intrigued by David’s statement about the SNP going into a ‘formal government’ with the Greens. I wanted to see if Greens MSPs are to be given government positions. So I did a search on the internet. Amazingly I came across an article in The Scotsman, dated 24 June 2021 with the headline, “Green members urge party not to deal with ‘transphobic’ SNP”.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/green-members-urge-party-not-to-deal-with-transphobic-snp-3284120
Thanks David for a helpful article.
John
A quote attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer is interesting: ‘No man in the whole world can change the truth. One can only look for the truth, find it and serve it. The truth is in all places’.
I can only assume that the political elites are not particularly interested in the welfare of trans people (or whoever the next hot-topic group will be) but more in socially engineering the population so that the younger generations’ loyalty will be first and foremost to the state rather than to their family or their friends or to an independently arrived at set of principles or to God. They want blindly obedient serfs with no capacity for independent thought or for forming any kind of organised resistance.
That “nsr” is exactly what I think can be shown now and from history what the governments of our type are doing. In the UK as well as NZ where I live. Thank you for your comment
And still Christians vote for them. Bizarre.
A Conservative gain last week from the SNP at Scottish Local Government level is a small step towards throwing the SNP out :
https://www.north-ayrshire.gov.uk/news/Dalry-and-West-Kilbride-By-Election-declaration.aspx
Thank you David for your lengthy and extremely well written and informative post.
Keeping homosexual behaviour above the age of consent must surely be a Christian desideratum.
That renowned RC novelist , Evelyn Waugh , based his famous Brideshead Revisited novel on the family of an esteemed member of the Christian Social Union , the notorious homosexual, Earl Beauchamp.
Beauchamp , when outed , fled abroad and received a letter from his brother – in -law ( whose sister had no understanding as to the existence of Christian homosexual conduct ), the Duke of Westminster :
“Dear Bugger – in – Law , you got what you deserved”.
Thanks, David, for this Code Red Alert, because no doubt the same will happen here in England before long. So who can we find who has a voice strong enough to be heard above the cacophany of trans ideology?
And take no notice of JohnAllman.UK, he’s only playing a game of oneupmanship. So he knew about and campaigned against the Gender Recognition Act before you did. So what? Bully for him, but that’s no reason to condemn you for not doing so! His own website clearly shows how much he thinks of himself.
I haven’t condemned David for not campaigning against the GRA, though I thought it was unkind of him to call me a liar for saying that the Act existed, something of which he was apparently unaware.
Rather, I have offered David (and others who have begun to realise what is happening at last) both praise and the constructive criticism, which I offer to everybody who attacks the fruit of the tree as David does, that the root of the tree also needs to be attacked. David seems not to have understood yet what, at root, is wrong with trans doctrine. It is of no credit to me that I was able to see this clearly in 2004-5. If I leave David and others wallowing in ignorance of this until I go to my grave, I shall not have discharged my duty to God.
It is good that others are beginning to speak out against trans doctrine at last, but I don’t think that that alone will be enough. It is courageous of you to dismiss me as one who is playing a game of oneupmanship, with a blog you find self-opinionated, urging David to take no notice of me.
The apostle Paul urges us not to treat prophecies with contempt, but rather to test everything and hold on to the good. David could, if he wanted to, read and test my blog post about the 2004-5 litigation and is free to discard my thoughts on the subject if he doesn’t think them good and worth holding on to. If he’d already done so, he’d not have ridiculed me for mentioning the Gender recognition Bill that was debated and enacted in 2004, of which he was still unaware. You have advised David not to bother with any of that courtesy, in an ad hominem attack on my character the like of which I’ve never published myself, about anybody. That is a rather brave thing for you to have done. You’d better be right, and I’d better be wrong, for your sake, if your heroic dismissal of my testimony is to be vindicated.
John – enough. I didn’t accuse you of being a liar for saying the GRA existed. Please feel free to push yourself on your own blog. But no more here.
David, some of your readers might be willing to sign this petition about this very issue. https://www.change.org/p/the-scottish-government-scotland-says-no-to-transgender-guidelines-being-introduced-in-scottish-schools?signed=true
Signed, despite the reference to “not being against Stonewall” – I’m pretty sure I identify as being very much against Stonewall!
How is this compatible with Section 28 of Education Scotland Act 1980 where it states: “In the exercise and performance of their powers and duties under this Act, the Secretary of State and education authorities shall have regard to the general principle that, so far as is compatible with the provision of suitable instruction and training and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure, pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents.”. ?
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/44/section/28
@Tim Crymble
“How is this compatible with Section 28 of Education Scotland Act 1980 …?”
You cannot have watched enough Yes Minister episodes, often enough, to ask such an optimistic question.
I imagine the Secretary of State would say that he/she *did* have “regard” to the “general” principle mentioned in the Act, but discovered *special* circumstances, such that a different and even more important principle must prevail over the first principle to which he must have due regard.
Don’t forget that the most-chanted slogan on the part of the 4th defendant in Birmingham v Afsar & Others [2019], was our “Our children, our choice”. They and the 5th defendant *won* their cases, though you’d never know this from most of the mainstream press coverage. The council’s eventual defeat didn’t discourage the Times Education Supplement from declaring the headteacher to be Teacher of the Year, because they made this selection of the Wicked Witch of the West Midlands *before* the final judgment was handed down showing that the council had failed to get the prohibition of protests she’d had wanted.
We are up against a “hideous strength”, as others have pointed out. Normal rules of fairness and reason no longer apply. They are the state’s children nowadays, not the parents’. The state, not parents, will in future choose how they are educated, as well as what jabs they get, before long, I wouldn’t be surprised.
David says, “Perhaps an odd mix of women’s groups, left wing social conservatives, evangelical Christians and parents can be mobilised to work together to oppose this evil.” I’m sure he didn’t omit Catholics from that list deliberately. The Bishop of Arlington in the USA, for example, just released a statement, “A Catechesis on the Human Person and Gender Ideology”, which sets out a Catholic case against gender ideology.
https://www.arlingtondiocese.org/bishop/public-messages/2021/a-catechesis-on-the-human-person-and-gender-ideology/