Playgrounds are no place for Pride parades
Parents standing at the school gate have all kinds of hopes and expectations. They want their children to be happy, well looked-after and to learn something. Thankfully, most teachers agree. But for some classroom activists, education is less about the three Rs and more about LGBTQ+. Rather than geography and history, they teach gender identity and sexuality. Instead of team sports, they might encourage ten-year-old girls who bind their chest to do something less energetic. And rather than Easter bonnet parades there are Pride marches. That’s right. Playground Pride Parades. For four year-olds.
Back in 2018, the head teacher of Heavers Farm Primary School in south east London decided to line her tiny charges up for an LGBT pride march. A letter sent home to parents explained the drill was about ‘celebrating the differences that make you and your child’s family special’.
Everyone loves rainbows and flags and celebrations and being special. But you don’t need a degree in Queer Theory to work out what’s really going on here. Tiny children, barely more than toddlers, are being taught that some families have two mums, or two dads, or a parent who was once a daddy but is now a mummy. It isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine them being told that they too might have been born in the wrong body and, even though they were told by wicked doctors they were a boy, are really a girl. And all this is perfectly normal. Something to celebrate, in fact.