DON'T ASK, DON'T TEACH

2024-05-15

POLITICS AND PUNDITS

The UK's Conservative government, having realised that their mandate is
worthless, seems to be in a panicked rush to try to get the voters to ignore
any of the real issues. Instead, they say, we should be focussed on things
like ludicrously-expensive and ineffective ways to handle asylum seekers and
making life as hard as possible for their second-favourite scapegoat: trans
and queer people.

The latest move in that second category seems likely to be a plan to, among
other things, discourage teachers from talking about gender identity in
schools, with children of any age. From the article I linked:
> The BBC has not seen the new guidelines but a government source said they
included plans to ban any children being taught about gender identity.
>
> If asked, teachers will have to be clear gender ideology is contested.
Needless to say, such guidance is not likely to be well-received by teachers:
> Pepe Di'Iasio, headteacher at a school in Rotherham, told Today that he
believes pupils are being used "as a political football".
>
> Teachers "want well informed and evidence-based decisions", he said, and not
"politicised" guidance.

PEOPLE AND PUPILS

This shit isn't harmless. Regardless of how strongly these kinds of
regulations are enforced, they can have a devastating chilling effect in
schools.

I speak from experience.

Most of my school years were under the shadow of Section 28. Like I predict
for the new Conservative proposals, Section 28 superficially didn't appear to
have a major impact: nobody was ever successfully prosecuted under it, for
example. But examining its effects in that way completely overlooks the effect
it had on how teachers felt they had to work.

For example...

In around 1994, I witnessed a teacher turn a blind eye to homophobic bullying
of a pupil by their peer, during a sex education class. Simultaneously, the
teacher coolly dismissed the slurs of the bully, saying that we weren't
"talking about that in this class" and that the boy should "save his chatter
for the playground". I didn't know about the regulations at the time: only in
hindsight could I see that this might have been a result of Section 28. All I
got to see at the time was a child who felt that his homophobic harassment of
his classmate had the tacit endorsement of the teachers, so long as it didn't
take place in the classroom.

A gay friend, who will have been present but not involved in the above event,
struggled with self-identity and relationships throughout his teenage years,
only "coming out" as an adult. I'm confident that he could have found a
happier, healthier life had he felt supported - or at the very least
not-unwelcome - at school. I firmly believe that the long-running third-degree
side-effects of Section 28 effectively robbed him of a decade of
self-actualisation about his identity.

The long tail of those 1980s rules were felt long-after they were repealed.
And for a while, it felt like things were getting better. But increasingly it
feels like we're moving backwards.

With general elections coming up later this year, it'll soon be time to start
quizzing your candidates on the issues that matter to you. Even (perhaps
especially) if your favourite isn't the one who wins, it can be easiest to get
a politicians' ear when they and their teams are canvassing for your vote; so
be sure to ask pointed questions about the things you care about.

I hope that you'll agree that not telling teachers to conceal from teenagers
the diversity of human identity and experience is something worth caring about.

Update: Only a couple of hours after I posted this, the awesome folks (whom
I've mentioned before) at the Vagina Museum tooted a thread about the long
tail of Section 28. It's well-worth a read.

LINKS

Article in The Guardian about Tory panic following the Conservatives' wipeout in the local elections this year.

Opinion piece in The Scotsman about the inefficacy and cost of Rishi Sunak's Rwanda plan.

BBC News article from this morning about the government's plan to prevent sex education for children under 9 years old and prevent discussion of gender identity in schools for children of any age..

BBC News retrospective from 2000 looking at the impact of Section 28 of the Local Governments Act 1988.

My blog post celebrating the Vagina Museum after they sent me a letter on the new printer I helped recommend to them.

@vagina_museum@masto.ai's thread about the long tail of Section 28.