This week NSW Parliament saw the introduction of the most damaging & hateful legislative attack on the LGBTI community, & especially on trans kids, this century:
Mark Latham's Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020. #auslaw #nswpol 1/
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/bills/Pages/bill-details.aspx?pk=3776

This Bill seeks nothing less than the total erasure of any and all trans and gender diverse content, inclusion programs and counselling from every classroom and schoolyard across NSW.
In doing so, it seeks to completely erase trans and gender diverse kids. Period. #nswpol 2/

It prohibits any 'teaching, instruction, counselling & advice' about 'gender fluidity', defined as:
'a belief there is a difference between biological sex and human gender and that human gender is socially constructed rather than being equivalent to a person's biological sex'. 3/

In practice, teachers, principals, counsellors, other staff and even school volunteers (aka parents) must pretend that any diversity of gender identity does not exist. At all.
Not in health & physical education. Not in society. Not in literature. Not anywhere. 4/

This will mean school teachers, principals, counsellors and volunteers will be forced to pretend that the trans and gender diverse students in their classrooms and schoolyards do not exist, either.
Because acknowledging they are real would mean acknowledging sex is not gender. 5/

Inevitably, even sympathetic teachers and staff will feel pressured under this law to misgender and deadname trans and gender diverse kids - because to do otherwise would leave them at risk of being dismissed, and losing their accreditation. 6/

Tragically, this *will* lead to trans and gender diverse kids killing themselves.
Mark Latham's proposed Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 implies that it is better for children to be dead, than to be happy and trans or gender diverse. 7/

This Bill is an attack on the rest of the LGBTI community, too.
It defines 'matters of parental primacy' to include 'matters of personal wellbeing and identity including gender and sexuality.' 8/

It will allow parents to withdraw children from any class which teaches them anything about 'sexuality'.
And it compels all schools to consult with parents at the start of each year about any class on sexuality, and to seek consistency with the 'social values of parents.' 9/

Even where a class is allowed to discuss 'sexuality' at all, it must be 'non-ideological', which is 'to be taken to include general teaching about matters of parental primacy as distinct from advocating or promoting dogmatic or polemical ideology' (s17B). 10/

This is in effect a 'section 28' style provision, which operated in the UK from 1988 to 2003 - and which prevented teachers, counsellors and others from discussing same-sex attraction, and from telling LGB students that they are okay - because that was considered 'promotion'. 11/

#Section28 damaged a generation of same-sex attracted UK kids - leaving them alone, scared and confused, and without access to things like safe sex education.
Mark Latham's proposed Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 would do the same to kids in NSW. 12/

Latham's Bill even manages to stigmatise students with intersex variations of sex characteristics - because the definition of 'gender fluidity' includes this:
'including ppl who are, by their chromosomes, male or female but are born with disorders of sexual differentiation'. 13/

Intersex variations of sex characteristics are not *disorders* - and language which seeks to categorise them in this way will only lead to further unnecessary and harmful medical and surgical interventions on children born with such variations. 14/

The Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 is an attack on all of the LGBTI community, especially young LGBTI people, and most of all young trans & gender diverse kids.
It must be rejected immediately by all other political parties in the NSW Parliament. 15/

#IStandWithTransKids
#IStandWithLGBTIKids
Do you @GladysB, @JodiMcKayMP, @JohnBarilaroMP, @GreensNSW, @sffAustralia, @AJPNSW?
#nswpol 16/