Manual for Parents

We have prepared this resource for parents who are concerned about the way that gender identity ideology is being taught in the Relationships and Sexuality Education in their child’s school.

In this material we outline what you need to know, your parental rights, school responsibilities, the relevant laws, and we offer ideas for how to best challenge this ideology. Get informed – get together – get activated!

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if we can be of any assistance to you. info@resistgendereducation.nz

Get Informed

Scroll down to the FAQs link for the detailed information you need about the RSE curriculum, NZ law, your parental rights, and how to engage in consultation with your school Board. Letter templates are here.

Get Together

It is vital that you are very well informed before you approach the school, and that you have formed a group of concerned parents, to avoid being easily fobbed off.

Steps to take:

1.     Talk to your child’s teacher and ask for all the resources they are using in RSE, including worksheets, videos, and any visitors who will speak to the children.

2.     Read our critique of the RSE Guide and of resources from InsideOut and Family Planning (Navigating the Journey) in the Q&A below (scroll down).

3.     Request the school policy documents on diversity, equity, and inclusion and child safeguarding. Ask if they have a policy about social transitioning and whether students have access to facilities of the opposite sex. Does the school have a policy for managing questions of a sensitive or sexual nature? 

4.     Talk to other parents and gather a group who are all concerned by the content of the school curriculum. (It is much easier for the school to discount the concerns of a single parent.) Consider circulating a petition.

5.     Hold a community public information meeting. This is to inform other parents and to create an action group. Board of Trustees members should be invited to hear your concerns.

6.     From the public meeting, select 3-5 parents who will represent your group at a formal BOT meeting.

Get Activated

Find out when your next BOT meeting is and request to speak to the Board to share your concerns and to ask for change.

Prepare well for the meeting as described in the Q&A below.

The BOT has the statutory authority to determine the school's RSE curriculum and your best chance of persuading them not to authorise the teaching of gender identity ideology is to provide reputable evidence that it is not scientifically accurate, age appropriate, or beneficial for children's health and safety.

Conclusion

Teachers normally keep their religious and political beliefs to themselves and the same should apply to any beliefs they have about gender identity. It is not possible for humans to change sex and children should not be confused by being taught anything else. We recommend Boards of Trustees remove gender politics from the classroom and ensure schools are not centres of gender activism and children are not being used as foot soldiers for an activist agenda. 

Gender identity activism is not a school’s purpose and teaching gender identity ideology by disguising it as fact is not education.