Guidance on preventing the bullying of LGBT pupils in Church of England schools ‘to offer the Christian message of love, joy and the celebration of our humanity without exception or exclusion’, was issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 13 November.
Valuing All God’s Children: Guidance for Church of England schools on challenging homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying, is an update on 2014 guidance. At the time of writing, following links to it were problematic, as the CofE website reported ‘pages have been moved’ since a site relaunch.
Bullying is damaging
In a foreword to the guidance, Archbishop Welby writes: ‘All bullying, including homophobic, biphobic and transphobic [HBT] bullying causes profound damage, leading to higher levels of mental health disorders, self-harm, depression and suicide… . We must avoid, at all costs, diminishing the dignity of any individual to a stereotype or a problem.’
All of this is true and helpful. But putting these right sentiments into practice is where the document shows that it has been held hostage to the ideology of the age.
Old news
For example, the guidance states: ‘A child may choose the tutu, princess’s tiara and heels and/or the fireman’s helmet, tool belt and superhero cloak, without expectation of comment.’ The CofE has a Victorian view of school staff if it thinks this is news to a teacher. Early years teachers, people teaching children up to age 7, are absolutely certain that boys and girls dressing up in different clothes is an expected part of child development. (Interestingly though boys in past centuries were almost indistinguishable from girls in their given clothing as many a painting at a gallery will attest.) Anyone who has mixed gender children will likely at some point have had their daughters in their brother’s super-hero costume, and sons requesting bows and hairclips to be put into their hair.
The troubling aspect to the new guidance isn’t that ‘boys wear tutus’, but that this is being equated with some kind of possible early expression of gender dysphoria. A feature of most children’s early development has been hijacked.
And that is the fundamental problem with the document. Bullying of any kind can be tackled without compromising on biblical teaching on gender or sexuality. This writer always disciplined children for calling someone or something ‘gay’ in the classroom: using any words as a form of abuse to abuse someone is wrong. But this is so far removed from where the CofE guidance is leading.
This came in the same week that a teacher has claimed that after using the incorrect pronoun to describe a child in his class, and then apologising for it, he was dismissed. It is claimed that this is one of a ‘flood’ of similar cases that one Christian organisation is receiving.
Scotland also issued guidance to schools that, in a sinister phrase, suggested that teachers of children whose parents are struggling to come to terms with their child’s expression of gender, could ‘approach the local authority for additional guidance’.
