Rejecting WHO’s Advice on Sex Education

Guest Post by Hugh McCarthy

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe, ‘A child is understood to be a sexual being from the beginning’ (p. 34).

The sexualisation of our children appears to be proceeding apace, with the WHO-driven agenda having reached Northern Ireland. Despite the fact that 74% of the public opposed changes to the Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) curriculum in the official consultation, and there has been opposition from the churches, and several political parties, our leaders seem determined to press ahead. The recent Eurovision song contest and the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games should tell you where we are.

Last year, in the absence of the devolved government, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland introduced secondary legislation imposing amendments to the RSE curriculum.

Following this, the process is the Department of Education (NI) issues a directive to our Council for the Curriculum, Examinations & Assessment, setting out the broad content of the amendments, and the Northern Ireland Executive, at the instigation of the Alliance Party, recently voted to extend the teaching of the amended RSE curriculum without a Bill. The Department of Education appears to be pressing ahead, despite assuring school principals (or headteachers) that the changes would not apply to primary schools here.

We are expending huge amounts of time, resources and energy on this issue at a time of falling educational standards in literacy and numeracy. Every year, it is estimated that 200,000 children leave primary school unable to read or write to the required level; 413,000 children do not own a single book, and one in five children struggles to read and write at all. The percentage reaching the expected standard in reading fell from 75% to 67% between 2019 and 2022, then fell again from 69% to 58% in 2023. In Northern Ireland, the observations of Ruth Sedgewick, the head of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT), support these findings. She says, ​“A growing number of young children in Northern Ireland are experiencing significant communication problems following the Covid–19 lockdowns. We’re seeing children who can’t talk at all: they grunt or they point at things they want. They don’t know how to speak to the other children and if they want a toy, they will push the other child out of the way or snatch a toy from them.”

The WHO Guidance is contained in two documents: Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe and International technical guidance on sexuality education: An evidence-informed approach. WHO’s approach to gender is encapsulated by two statements ‘(WHO) responds to contemporary global challenges through education with a special focus on gender equality’ (front matter, International technical guidance) and ‘Sexuality education is firmly based on self-determination and the acceptance of diversity’.

The guidance normalises attitudes and beliefs with which many people would disagree, and which are not part of the WHO remit and represent a wholly inappropriate intrusion into individuals’ belief systems. The guidance for ages 6–9 recommends a curriculum content which includes: Sexual intercourse, gender orientation, sexual behaviour of young people and the differences between gender identity and biological sex. For ages 9–12, the recommended curriculum content includes: Gender identity and sexual orientation, including coming out and homosexuality. Meanwhile, the publication entitled Standards for Sexuality Education, using slightly different age groups, the learning objectives for 5- to 8-year-olds are for learners to: define gender and biological sex and describe how they are different and reflect on how they feel about their biological sex and gender.

The documents indicate that the material must be appropriate for the ‘social and cultural norms of the society’, but this appears in the small print when set alongside the 80-plus pages promoting the same ideology which is largely ignored by the authorities. WHO’s approach to sexuality education is summed up by the statement: ‘a child is understood to be a sexual being from the beginning’ (p. 34, Standards for Sexuality Education).

The basis for this statement is explained in the section entitled ‘Psychosexual development of children’ (p. 22, Standards for Sexuality Education), which argues for an early start of sexuality education. Psychology, especially developmental psychology, the authors claim, show that children are born as sexual beings. This thinking is then transferred into school, education and the classroom.

The guidance given for ages 6–9 recommends a curriculum content which includes: Sexual intercourse, gender orientation, sexual behaviour of young people, enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s own body (masturbation/self-stimulation, orgasm). For ages 9–12, the curriculum content includes: How to enjoy sexuality in an appropriate way, first sexual experience, pleasure, masturbation, orgasm.

Even if this approach was morally right, it is important to understand that young brains are still maturing at this age and “children lack the ability to properly assess the consequences of making decisions they will have to live with for the rest of their lives.”’

Rev. McMullen, a former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, comments: ‘The distinction between the sexes is increasingly being undermined especially in schools, where the concept of gender fluidity is often promoted’. Vaughan Roberts, the author of the church’s book on the transgender issue speaks of the ‘profound insecurity’ and anxiety of many young people as they are being asked now to consider their gender.

The dangers of confusing our children at such an early stage in their development are obvious, and surely these are matters for parents. Why are schools getting involved at all? The Northern Ireland curriculum is only lawful if it meets ‘the spiritual and moral’ needs of the children (Education Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 1989), but this provision is being ignored. Much has been said about the need to provide ‘scientifically accurate and age-appropriate information’; actually, I wish ‘they’ would follow the science. Those countries which led us this way are now leading us out – having discovered that their original evidence base was flawed.

Earlier this year, NHS England guidelines were redrafted to remind doctors that children may simply be going through a ‘transient phase’ when they say they want to change sex. The guidelines recommended a clinical management approach to explore all developmentally appropriate options for children and young people who are experiencing gender incongruence, being mindful that this may be a transient phase. particularly for prepubertal children.

The final report of the NHS-commissioned review by Dr Hilary Cass warned that allowing children to ‘socially transition’ could ‘have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning’ (p. 158) and that better information was needed about outcomes. The Cass report also highlights the uncertainty around the evidence relating to the use of puberty blockers. She was unable to provide definitive advice on the use of puberty blockers and feminising or masculinising hormones at this stage, due to gaps in the evidence base; the report states that the ‘evidence base is weak’ (p. 229).

Professor McHugh, Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, argues that there are significant gaps in the research and evidence base. He reports that affirming children in a false gender can cause real damage and goes on to report that if one does not affirm a ‘trans’ identity, ‘98 percent of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty’.

Dr McHugh also states that multiple studies have yielded similar results. According to large study in 2021, when following up cases after an average of 20 years, only 12 percent of boys had persistent gender confusion. All these studies show that at least 80% of children lose their gender distress over time (in line with the findings of the Cass review).

In Scotland, government seems to be following the same agenda as that of Northern Ireland, so the experience of other countries is instructive. What have they learned from their experience? It seems that the countries which had moved furthest and fastest along this road have reached a point of reflection and are now pulling back.

Finland’s National Medical Body (COHERE) reported that studies touting the success of the gender-affirming model were biased and unreliable (and almost 70% of those counted as ‘transgender’ in the 2021 census for England and Wales could have been miscategorised, according to research findings published on April 19 by the University of Oxford. COHERE now recommend that ‘gender transition should be postponed until adulthood’. Denmark is thinking twice about paediatric gender transition, as stated in a recent article by Gender Clinic News. Denmark is now ‘offering a form of counselling rather than medical treatments to the main patient group of teenagers with no childhood history of distress in their birth sex’. The change in policy was given by the Health Minister Sophie Løhde.

The Minister guaranteed a stop on ‘gender reassignment’ for children. Interestingly, Denmark’s call for an end to the medical transition of minors is being spearheaded by a mainstream LGBT group, the Danish Rainbow Council. Other reports also highlight the lack of research evidence. In 2021, the Danish Sexology Clinic consultant Dr Mette Haahr gave an interview to Dagbladet Information in which she acknowledged ‘a lack of research’ relevant to today’s mostly teenage female patients, and expressed concerns regarding the reasons why these teenage girls wanted to change gender. ‘We see that treatment helps young people in the short term. But we lack knowledge about what happens in ten and 20 years. Or when they want to have children. What happens when they fall in love and start to have an active sex life? [...] Transgender young people assigned female have, for the most part, no active sex life.’ Systematic reviews of the evidence base, undertaken in Finland and Sweden, showed it to be weak (as did reviews in the UK). Several Northern European countries cited a supposedly sound Dutch protocol in support of their earlier laxity on puberty blocking and transgender surgery for minors; the Netherlands itself is now coming to terms with the unlawfulness of that protocol, while health authorities in Norway are under pressure after the country’s independent healthcare investigation agency declared in March that medicalised gender change for young people was ‘experimental’.

In my view, it is morally and scientifically wrong to promote these concepts in schools at a time when young people are at their most impressionable. Who decides when is age-appropriate and what is appropriate – the WHO, the state or you?

It is therefore vitally important that parents establish their rights and enforce them. Who manages the school, how is the headteacher accountable, what is the curriculum, what are your rights to withdraw your child? In Northern Ireland, parent and governor rights are enshrined in the Education Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 1989. Indeed, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland stated, ‘it is at the school’s discretion to implement the contents of the curriculum according to its values and ethos’.

I would also advise parents to make themselves familiar with the two WHO documents mentioned above. And to bear in mind that the guidance being used by schools empowers parents; it states that ‘Sexuality education establishes a close cooperation with parents and community in order to build a supportive environment. Parents are involved in sexuality education at school, which means they will be informed before sexuality education takes place and they have the opportunity to express their wishes and reservations.’

To paraphrase Kate Deeming (Scottish Union for Education’s parent and supporters organiser) in Belfast, we must stop this attempt to groom, and the indoctrination and desensitising of our children, and restore dignity to the classroom. If we are not going to stand up for our children now, when?