A feisty row broke out on GB News between Ben Leo and Amy Nickell-Turner after a new report appeared to expose a culture of leniency in British schools towards children wanting to change gender.
Draft Government guidance published in December states schools should not accept all requests for social transitions and should involve parents in any decision.
But analysis of more than 600 school equality and trans policies compiled by Protect and Teach showed that up to three-quarters of schools are continuing to misrepresent laws protecting sex and gender.
Nickell-Turner accused GB News presenter Ben Leo of pedalling ‘homophobic tropes’ during a heated debate where she said children should be allowed to socially transition without their parents being made aware in 'extremely rare' circumstances.
Ben Leo clashed with Amy Nickell-Turner on GB News
GB NEWS
“I was a little bit suspicious of the research to start with”, she said.
“But if we take it at face value, it is concerning because this is about primary schools and they think they have information on 600 of them which seemed to be not involving parents on the decision taken by children to socially transition.
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“There are very rare circumstances where maybe this is a reasonable idea. Children need to have confidence in their teachers. If you object to this, you are assuming all children are coming from perfectly safe families. This is not the case.
“If this is happening in primary schools, there’s more cause for concern but there will be very rare circumstances where it is the correct decision to not tell the parents.”
GB News presenter Bev Turner waded in on the discussion to argue there is an “absolutely fundamental tenet of safeguarding”.
“A teacher and a pupil should never have a secret from a parent”, she added.
A feisty row broke out on GB News
GB NEWS
“This is outrageous”, Ben Leo commented. He questioned Nickell-Turner: “Can five-year-olds show signs of gender dysphoria?”
She insisted they can, adding: “Yes. The symptoms would be confusion, distress. They don’t explicitly say they are a boy or a girl, they display confusion within themselves.”
Ben said that his son claims he is ‘Batman’ and asked whether that can be likened to gender dysphoria, which Nickell-Turner branded a ‘stupid argument’.
She asserted: “We do have activist groups on both sides of this argument. You talk about the trans activist side, I would talk about the anti-trans activist side.”
Teachers will have to call pupils by their preferred name and pronoun once the their parents have consented, according to new guidancePABen hit back: “No one is anti-trans. People are anti men playing in women’s sport and anti chopping off the genitals of young people.”
“No one cares what trans people get up to”, he added. “Do what the hell you want.
“I’m a libertarian. Do what the hell you want if it is within the law and you’re not harming other people.
“The problem people have is when you start coming after kids, coming after women and destroying the integrity of sports.”
Nickell-Turner went on to accuse Ben of pedalling ‘homophobic tropes’ before the GB News presenter contended that the trans movement is ‘deeply homophobic’ as he snapped back during the tense row.
“They’re telling young gay kids they’re in the wrong body”, he said.
“They take young gay kids and say you’ve been born in the wrong body, let’s put you on puberty blockers and take you down this dark pathway.”
Speaking on the research, a Department for Education spokesman said: “We are absolutely clear about the importance of biological sex, particularly in the context of safeguarding, and the role parents must play in decisions about their children.
“Schools and colleges are expected to follow all guidance issued by the Government, whether it is statutory or not.
“Our guidance is clear that in nearly every case schools should not support the social transition of primary aged children, including not using pronouns that do not align with the child’s sex.”