At a briefing from the Education Matters advocacy group in the AV Room of Leinster House last week, former mental health nurse and mother Sam Poynter maintained that the issue of gender identity policy in Irish schools must not “be brushed aside as a culture war when, in fact, it is a safeguarding issue.”
Welcoming Education Matters to Leinster House, Independent Ireland TD Ken O’Flynn described the purpose of the briefing as an opportunity “to hear directly from the group and their concerns as parents, raised around educational content, and the views in ensuring appropriate content is there.” Also present at the briefing were psychotherapist and Genspect founder Dr Stella O’Malley, CEO of Detransition Pathway UK Michael Kerr, TD Carol Nolan, and members of the advocacy group.
Dr O’Malley, in her talk, spoke about “the incredible harm that is pushed into children’s minds by allowing concepts that have been driven by an ideological approach” into schools. “To put that within the educational establishment in Ireland, without any sort of evidence, without any sort of reliable supported evidence, shows that people are not watching, they’re not doing their homework, they don’t quite know what they’re supporting,” she continued.
Instead, she said, there needs to be an understanding that “some people fall into psychological issues, and we need care and compassion for them.”
Mr Kerr, who is a self-proclaimed “detransitioner” and has since founded Detransition Pathway UK, demanded that we “drop the LGBT agenda from schools.”
“If we teach about transitioning we must also teach about detransitioning,” he said, after sharing his own experience of transitioning and detransitioning in his 20s.
Referencing the medical and psychological side effects that detransitioners such as Mr Kerr have reported, Ms Poynter spoke about the dangers of introducing gender identity theory to young children in schools. “This is not kind. This is not inclusivity. This is not tolerance. This is not cultural,” said the former mental health nurse. “All these words are now in our lexicon, and bangle around the school curriculum…This is willful blindness.”