Friday 20 January 2023
By Lucy Ashton
The Scottish Conservatives have renewed calls for the SNP Government to withdraw their controversial ‘health and well-being’ survey from schools in the wake of a council questioning children as young as seven about their gender identity.
Today’s Scottish Daily Mail reports that an Aberdeen City Council questionnaire asks primary four pupils whether they identify as transgender or non-binary.
Shadow minister for children and young people Meghan Gallacher has urged the SNP-Liberal Democrat-run authority to ditch the “deeply inappropriate” survey immediately and carry out an investigation as to why it was given the go-ahead in the first place.
She has also reiterated her call for the SNP Government to withdraw their controversial Health and Well-being Census, which asks older pupils “intrusive” questions about their sexual history.
The Aberdeen survey coincides with Scottish Green MSP Maggie Chapman suggesting that children as young as eight might be allowed to change gender.
Meghan Gallacher MSP, right, said: “I’m astonished that this deeply inappropriate survey ever saw the light of day.
“Aberdeen City Council should withdraw it immediately, apologise to the parents and children concerned and launch an investigation as to who gave it the go-ahead and why.
“Primary Four pupils are far too young to be asked questions of this nature and parents will rightly consider it an invasion of their children’s privacy and of their role.
“Everyone wants to make life better for trans people but it’s wrong for young children to be asked complex question about gender identity when their minds and bodies are nowhere near fully developed.
“The SNP Government have paved the way for insidious questions of this type, by continuing to push councils to issue their intrusive health and well-being survey, which asks questions that many pupils and parents feel uncomfortable with.
“It’s time for ministers and councils to stop pushing their own ideological agendas in schools and drop these unnecessary surveys now.”
Today’s Scottish Daily Mail story: https://www.mailplus.co.uk/scottish-edition/news/251370/pupils-aged-just-seven-quizzed-on-gender-identity?collection=13997&&contentLayout=Your%20Scotland
The SNP have been urged by an academic to stop the sexualisation of pupils by scrapping scrap the health and well-being survey. Dr Stuart Waiton called on the Government to scrap the health and well-being survey and said: ‘The result appears to be a complete loss of any sense of distinction between childhood and adulthood, and an increasingly unhinged sexualisation of children’. (Scottish Daily Express, 29 June 2022, link).
The Health and well-being census asks pupils deeply inappropriate questions about their sexual experience. The Health and wellbeing survey asks questions to pupils as young as 14 about their sexual experiences including what type of sexual experiences they have had, when they first had sex and how many sexual partners they have had. (The Herald, 10 January 2022, link).
Maggie Chapman claimed that we should be looking at allowing eight year olds to change their sex legally. After being asked if an eight-year-old should be able to change their sex, Chapman responded: ‘I think in principle we should be exploring that.’ (LBC, 16 January 2023).