The BFD | We Can Do Better

Zero point eight per cent. That’s the percentage of New Zealand’s population that was transgender or non-binary when measured by Statistics New Zealand in 2020. Yet this microscopic minority and its ideals are continuously being prioritised and enforced by the New Zealand Government through funding, access, and very soon, curriculum. But it appears this isn’t what Kiwi parents really want.

Joanna Williams, in her book The Corrosive Impact of Transgender Ideology, writes:

In less than two decades, ‘transgender’ has gone from a term representing individuals and little used outside of specialist communities to signifying a powerful political ideology driving significant social change.

Just over a year ago Family First surveyed 1200 New Zealanders, asking whether primary-age children should be taught that they can choose their “gender” and that it can be changed through hormone treatment and surgery if they want it to be. Almost 70% opposed it, and 15% said they were unsure. Only 15% said yes – not even remotely close to a majority. Yet here we are, with the New Zealand Ministry of Education refreshing the Relationships and Sexuality Education in 2020 with Guides for Years 1–8 and Years 9–13.

Suppose New Zealand parents aren’t the ones who want this curriculum for their children, and the transgender population in New Zealand is so minute. Why has this very targeted curriculum been written into the mainstream, and to what end?

Joanna Williams continues to explain:

At the level of the individual, this shift has occurred through the separation of gender from sex, before bringing biology back in via a brain-based sense of ‘gender-identity’.

This return to biology allows for the formation of a distinct identity group, one that can stake a claim to being persecuted, and depends upon continual validation and confirmation from an external audience.

All critical discussion is a threat to this public validation and it is often effectively curtailed.

In 2015, the Ministry of Education published The Sexuality Education Guide for principals, boards of trustees, and teachers, stating, “The New Zealand Curriculum sets the direction for relationship and sexuality education across all levels of schooling from years 1–13”. The guide says, “Sexuality is an element of hauora. Students supported with their sexuality are more likely to have better overall health, reinforcing their success at school and strengthening relationships with whanau and friends.”

There is no argument that healthy sexuality is inextricably linked to healthy relationships and a strong sense of self, and the Ministry of Education is correct to acknowledge this. But the guide extends its remit further: “Schools are encouraged to question gender stereotypes, and assumptions about sexuality” – an endeavour that clearly takes aim at the child’s core beliefs.

School is the wrong place for such conversations. Most Kiwis would agree it is appropriate for schools to impart facts to our tamariki (children), and leave polarising ideologies or minority opinions aside. The topic of sexuality in particular has enduring ties to a person’s most closely held values – their personal morals, relational values, whanau values, religious and spiritual beliefs. It involves the most intimate parts of us and the beliefs that make us unique as people. An attempt by the government to “mainstream” what are often deeply held and individual core values – especially when they go against the majority’s position, is ambitious at best and a hijack at worst.

Not just that, our kids aren’t even getting the core subject basics delivered to them at school, so the prioritisation of extreme sexuality ideology to suit a handful is poorly timed.

When you strip schooling back to its simplest function, most would agree it exists to educate children and young people to become literate, numerate and academically competent so they can achieve in their chosen careers and contribute to a growing and high-performing community. The Ministry of Education (2007), states that the purpose of New Zealand’s education system is “to start with visions of young people who will develop the competencies” such as thinking; using language, symbols, and texts; managing self; relating to others; and participating and contributing in ways that they need to “…study, work, pursue lifelong learning and go on to realise their potential” (p. 6).

However studies in recent years show New Zealand children are desperately lagging in basic academic milestones. Only a third of New Zealand Year 8 students meet curriculum expectations in writing (The National Monitoring Survey of Student Achievement), less than half meet the expectations for mathematics and just over half meet expectations for reading.

Several marked declines correlate with the introduction of the new Sexuality Education Guide in 2015. From 2015 to 2019, New Zealand’s Year 9 students’ PISA results revealed a sharp decline in student performance – falling an average of 14 and 11 points in both science and maths – despite having improved in the years prior to 2015. The same increase then sudden decline was also reflected in Year 5 maths and science.

Additionally, the NZ Initiative in its report Educational Performance and Funding in New Zealand: Are our children getting the education they deserve? (2021) showed a declining academic standard of New Zealand students in recent years. Of note was a sharp decline in academic performance across key subjects: reading, maths and science.

While not necessarily the only cause, it only highlights the distraction and inefficacy of the Sexuality Education Guide rollout in helping our students achieve holistic hauora (a Maori philosophy of health) and schooling success at a fundamental level.

At home with parents is the more appropriate place for sexuality ideologies about transgenderism and gender to be discussed. The Ministry of Justice defines parents as “natural guardians of their children” and guardian as “an adult who’s responsible for a child’s care, development, and upbringing…helping the child develop as a person – their mental, emotional, physical, social, cultural, and other development…making decisions for them about things like:…what their culture, language, and religion will be”.

In this context, it would then be a natural fit for these conversations to be held by parents so they can align with the child’s cultural, social, and religious environment and, ultimately, their feeling of safety, security, and belonging.

It is imperative that Kiwi parents retain the autonomy and freedom to teach their children the values around sexuality that align with their whanau (family), culture, and religion and that these are not conflicted by a school curriculum teaching non-mainstream ideologies parents haven’t asked for and don’t want.

And it is even more critical that our Kiwi kids are safe in a schooling system where their core values about sexuality are not hijacked by an overly confident yet temporary government at the expense of their academic health.