TRANSGENDER STUDENTS IN NSW

INTRO:
New South Wales has begun to make a bill, removing rights from transgender students in public schools. The
bill states that all teachers must call students by their birthname and must not tell students what being
transgender is. The reason of this bill is to ‘stop children from getting confused with their gender’, but is
obviously just a way for the NSW government to remove rights from transgender people, as students should
be allowed to experiment with their own personalities, traits, and gender.
Parental Rights Education Bill.

ARGUMENTS:
- The bill disallows school staff from recognising the idea of ‘gender fluidity’ and will no longer be able to
teach students about the separations between sex and gender. This includes non-teaching staff, such
as counsellors. Bring up the topic of suicide in trans youth, infamously high. The bill is also
incompatible with current anti-discrimination laws, and schools would then fail to meet their obligation
to educate students in a way which encourages respect to transgender youth. (Rebuttal: ‘This stops
students from getting confused about their gender’ = A student changing their gender is not stuck with
their new gender. Assuming the student is under 18, they will not be allowed to make any irreversible
changes to their body to match their gender identity, other than hormone blockers, which are able to be
reversed.)
- The bill itself comes from a hateful place. Mark Latham (One Nation MP) cites in his reasoning for the
bill, an article from a homophobic, independent ‘news’ website, which states many teachers during
Wear it Purple day received ‘penis-tucking guides and other material that sexualises children’ from the
War it Purple Foundation. This is obviously not true and is a propagandic piece put out to vilify LGBT
people, labelling them akin to paedophiles, a historic technique for homophobes. Latham also
describes gender fluidity as ‘radical gender ideology’. (rebuttal:
- This isn’t the beginning: NSW government has previously, in 2017, replaced the ‘safe schools’ anti-
bullying program, a program which seeks to prevent homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools,
with a broader anti-bullying program which does not teach students about these things.
- Media coverage has been significantly low, leaving this issue unknown to the majority of Australians.

VARIOUS FACTS:
Protests are being shut down quickly by police, and protestors are being fined upwards of $1,000. Media
coverage is extremely low.

Draft
The New South Wales government of education has begun the process of creating the ‘Parental Rights
Education Bill’, which will remove rights from transgender students in a way that is based solely on
transphobia and homophobia. Media coverage of this event has been extremely little, due to the overwhelming
coverage of COVID, giving the NSW education authorities a perfect time to strike against transgender
students.

The Parental Rights Education Bill would disallow school staff from recognising the notion of ‘genderfluidity’
and will no longer be able to teach students that sex and gender are separate ideas: something that has been
proven many times by biologists. This bill would stop all school staff from recognising genderfluidity, including
counsellors, which are one of the many measures that help reduce the rate of suicide in transgender youth,
which is infamously high. This bill is also incompatible with current anti-discrimination laws, making schools fail
their obligation to educate students in a way which promotes respect to all individuals. Some people may
believe that this bill would ‘stop students from getting confused about their gender’. This is, however, a moot
point, as any trans youth is unable to undergo any permanent surgeries. This means that if a child wrongfully
assumes they are transgender, they can easily and painlessly transition back into the gender they were
assigned at birth.

The bill itself is from a hateful and misogynistic place. Mark Latham, the MP for One Nation and the creator of
the Parental Rights Education bill, cites within his reasoning an article from an independent ‘news’ website,
which propagates that during Wear it Purple day, a day dedicated to raising money for LGBTQ+ youth, many
teachers were sent ‘penis-tucking guides and other material that sexualises children’. Any person with even an
iota of common sense will be able to make out that this is a false statement and plays into a narrative which is
historically popular for homophobes: that narrative being labelling LGBTQ+ people as akin to paedophiles.
Latham also believes this bill will protect students from ‘radical gender ideology’, which is his phrasing for the
scientifically proven notion of genderfluidity.

This isn’t the first time that the NSW education government has endangered LGBTQ+ students. In 2017, the
NSW government of education replaced the ‘safe schools’ anti-bullying program, a program which seeks to
prevent homophobic and transphobic bullying within schools, with a broader anti-bullying program which does
not educate students on these topics.

This bill is an endangerment to LGBTQ+ students across New South Wales, and if this bill is enforced, other
states in Australia may follow, endangering LGBTQ+ students not only across New South Wales, but across
the entirety of Australia.