Trans and queer children will be in a tough sport in Australia starting next year if a bill proposed by Mark Latham, an Australian politician, sails through and becomes a law.
The bill, Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) bill 2020, that was introduced to the New South Wales (NSW) upper house earlier this year seeks to assert the importance of “parental primacy” in matters of “core values” that includes the teaching of gender fluidity from kindergarten to year 12. The bill will be introduced to the lower house next year, where it is expected to stir up controversy as the debate on the matter rages on.
Trans and queer children sidelined by the bill
The bill, if passed will be bad news for trans and queer children in Australia, since it seeks to ban any mention of gender fluidity in classes. In the case of this bill, it makes it clear that everything that deviates from cisgender, endosex and heterosexual studies will be prohibited from being discussed in classrooms.
The bill ignores the science of gender fluidity and fails to recognize that gender diverse young people exist. The bill assumes these young people can be easily reprogrammed, converted, or gender suppressed, failing to take into account their struggles with their identities and the discrimination they already go through.
Parental primacy and core values outlined in the bill are where a lot of controversies come from. The idea that parents share the same ideals in raising their kids, that is assumed by the bill, and that those ideals are that gender fluidity should not be taught at school is a complete dismissal of the science behind the concept and how ideologically diverse parents are.
The role that parents play in their children’s lives is invaluable and for trans and queer children, parental guidance and support are highly needed. While some parents might have an issue with gender fluidity studies, others accept their children the way they are and are, which the bill seeks to vilify as being detrimental to their children’s well-being highlights just how deeply ingrained the distaste for gender fluidity in the bill is.
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