Educating our Young People

The Women’s Rights Party calls for the Ministry of Education’s Relationships and Sexuality Education Guidelines to be replaced with guidelines that recognise the reality of biological sex and removes references to the imprecise concept of “gender”.

We support age appropriate and scientifically accurate education about sexuality, relationships, and consent.

Schools should provide full disclosure to parents and caregivers of what is being taught in the relationships and sexuality curriculum. Schools should not use resources that conflate the words, “sex” and “gender” or confuse sexual orientation and gender. Outside agencies such as Inside Out and Qtopia should not be providing resources or instruction in schools, especially if the teacher is not present.

Children who don’t conform to sex-based stereotypes or who could grow up to be attracted to the same sex, should be supported in this. It needs to be clear that changing sex is not biologically possible.
The Women’s Rights Party agrees with Resist Gender Education that New Zealand’s education system currently reinforces “social transition” (changing appearance to align with stereotypes of the opposite sex (or no sex), using inappropriate pronouns, and allowing use of opposite sex toilets and changing facilities), often without parents’ knowledge.

The Women’s Rights Party says teachers should not be supporting social transitioning in schools. Supporting social transition is a clinical intervention that often leads to medical
transitioning and affects all students.

Teachers can refer concerns about children who show signs of distress about their sex to appropriate professionals in line with the recommendations of the Cass Report, and all such discussions must involve parents.

The Coalition Government is intending to remove and replace the Ministry of Education’s Relationships and Sexuality Education Guidelines. Although we agree with this, it is important that age appropriate and truthful sex education is provided, so that children and young people understand biological facts.

Relationship education is important to promote healthy respectful relationships. Consent education is important to promote an understanding in both sexes about the importance of consent, and of what it is. This will help reduce the sexual exploitation and/or violation of girls, women and young people, which occurs in our society and is linked to increased access to pornography from an early age.

Sexuality education is important to understand what sexuality involves, and to promote respect for all sexual orientations.

The Cass Report  acknowledged the role of social influences on young people, including on-line pornography, social media, and peer pressure. The Report points out that “social contagion” may explain, at least in part, the exponential rise in the number of teenage girls being referred to gender services. This phenomenon has also been reported in New Zealand.