Emeritus Professors endorse our Guidelines for schools

Two NZ Emeritus Professors have endorsed RGE's School Guidelines.

RGE’s Independent Guidelines challenge the evidence base of the ‘sex, gender and identity’ component of the Ministry of Education’s 2020 Guidelines for Relationships and Sexuality Education. Referencing recent research and the UK’s Cass Report, RGE reject the Ministry’s endorsement of an ‘affirmation’ model, which is often a pathway to lifelong medicalisation. A school should create space for students to hold options open. And it “should project the attitude that there is no right or wrong way to be a boy or a girl.” 

Sue Middleton, PhD (Emeritus Professor), Faculty of Education, University of Waikato.

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As a retired academic physician, but more importantly as a parent and grandparent, I add my strong endorsement to the opinions of the group, Resist Gender Education. Today, more than ever, our shared responsibility to nurture young minds and bodies must be informed by evidence-based, scientific fact.

The Relationships and Sexual Education (RSE) Guide as currently taught in the school curriculum contains inaccurate misinformation with incontrovertible potential for harm to young consumers. This is no place to peddle subjective, confusing ideology.

I respectfully urge Ministers to be guided by objectivity in matters of gender education in an urgent review of the existing RSE Guide.

Emeritus Professor David Gerrard

CNZM OBE MB ChB(Otago) FACSEP FFSEM(Hon)

University of Otago Medical School