I recently wrote that the imposition of the “Safe Schools” gender indoctrination program has not been correlated with a reduction in school bullying – its purported raison d’etre. In fact, the opposite may well be true. The statistics are of dubious provenance, but there are claims that bullying has actually worsened.
This should surprise no one. The program is openly acknowledged even by its creators as a Marxist indoctrination program, first and foremost. Worse, as parents have been trying to point out all along, its content is deeply disturbing, pseudo-scientific drivel.
Late last week, I opened my email to an excerpt from a Safe Schools brochure (you can find it on page 24), a quote showing how a supportive father responded to his bisexual son: “Scott, you like boys and girls, I like Asian women. Neither of us can help that, it’s just who we are.”
Racialised objectification of women is just so progressive. This from the same crowd who tell us it’s “homophobic” for straight guys not to want to go near a transgender’s penis.
Disturbing though this comparison may be, I am no longer surprised. After my initial questioning of the evidential underpinning Safe Schools last year, I have received a steady flow of feedback from concerned parents and others.
Through its content developer and collaborator Minus18, Safe Schools links students to guides on binding breasts, tucking penises, online “dating” services, even links to BDSM, a hardcore porn site and sex shop (which was quickly deleted after the initial parliamentary criticism).
Like the rest of the groaning mausoleum of Marxist theory, “Safe Schools” is pseudo-scientific nonsense in high heels.
The program has been repeatedly touted as “evidence based” and “world leading,” yet any actual evidence of how this particular content will reduce bullying is yet to be seen. In fact, far from challenging bullying, the mocking of other students appears to be a core tenet of the program – with students encouraged to print out Safe Schools posters touting slogans such as “GROSS! BEING STRAIGHT IS JUST A PHASE” and “YOU’RE CIS? SO WHAT DO YOU HAVE DOWN THERE?”
…Not only is the tone and content matter of the program deeply concerning, but the entire basis underpinning Safe Schools is highly debatable.
You can brush up on the Queer Theory primer we posted on Whaleoil… or you can have a root canal, if you’d rather.
The core premise underlying Safe Schools is “queer theory.” If this term is unfamiliar, there is a good reason: queer theory is a highly contested and relatively recent development in the sociology academy…Queer theory confuses and divides academics, even those in the LGBT community, and emerged from the obtuse world of post-structuralist philosophy. If all of this doesn’t sound much like a child-friendly anti-bullying framework, that’s because it isn’t.
Of course it isn’t. It’s all about browbeating children with creepy Marxist child-grooming.
This is precisely why Safe Schools needs to be under review. If a new school program is to be funded and rolled out nationally, it must be based on solid evidence. Teaching children to accept a highly contested theory as factual is no less than indoctrination, and the idea that this is somehow linked to anti-bullying remains hypothetical at best.
abc.net.au
Safe Schools doesn’t need to be reviewed. It needs to be thrown into the dustbin of history. Its proponents need to be kept far away from having anything to do with education bureaucracy, ever again.