A Christian couple from the Isle of Wight have filed a case against the British government, seeking a judicial review over the Department for Education's refusal to intervene in their case and the promotion of what is described as "politically partisan" Transgender Guidelines of the Cornwall Schools, which is a a Church of England primary school.
According to the Christian Legal Centre, 48 year old Nigel Rowe and his 46 year old wife Sally are accusing the British government of failing to protect their children from transgender guidelines being implemented at schools across the country. These guidelines include allowing students access to any bathroom of their preference and teaching children at a young age to affirm cross-dressing and trasngenderism.
These transgender guidelines, which were first published in 2015 by campaigners for transgenderism, aimed to ensure that educators dealt with trans matters "inclusively" and promoting "inclusion for all within education by improving services for trans children and students," among other objectives. Christian Legal Center said in a statement that the guidelines have been used as best practice by other schools and local authorities since 2018.
In 2017, the Rowes received a letter from the Church of England, demanding that they either affirm transgenderism or be labeled as "transphobic." The Christian couple "they felt unable to approve of the trans-affirming approach," so they left the school. This has led them to homeschool their two children for the past four years and made them "believe they have been vindicated as the damaging impact of trans ideology in education continues to be exposed."
According to the Christian Post, the Christian parents had, in 2015, exposed that there was one boy in their son's class who wanted to identify and dress as girl, and the school affirmed his gender identity. This was done with "no consultation with other parents," Sally said. She added that her son was "struggling" with both school life and the suggestion that kids can change gender. They were then forced to discontinue letting their son go to that school.
Nigel shared that the incident happened again when their youngest son was just six. He had a classmate who "would come to school one day as a boy, and on another day as a girl." The Christian couple spoke to school administration over their son's confusion about his classmate coming to school as a boy or girl some days.
"The suggestion that gender is fluid, conflicts sharply with our Christian beliefs as a family," Nigel admitted. "At 6 years of age children are exploring all sorts of new ideas and feelings. They do not have the emotional stability or maturity to make any life-changing decision, even if there was one to be made. This time we really felt that we had to challenge the school."
Church of England however, stood by its policies that tackled "transphobic behavior" and cracked down on those who rejected someone's chosen pronouns or what it believed was "gender inappropriate pronouns."
