A 13-year-old girl and her friend were reportedly called “despicable” by one of their schoolteachers last week after one of them challenged their classmates about “how she identifies as a cat" after a lesson about gender ideology.
The 13-year-old girl and her friend are reportedly students at Rye College in the United Kingdom. The school is affiliated with the Church of England, according to the New York Post. The students were in their end-of-year lesson on “life education” where they were told they can”be who you want to be and how you identify is up to you.”
After the lesson, one of the students asked her classmate: “How can you identify as a cat when you’re a girl?”
As a result, the schoolteacher reprimanded the student and her friend and said that they were being reported to school officials. And, the teacher reportedly said that they would no longer be welcome at the school if they “continued to express the view that only boys and girls exist” (via The Telegraph):
The Telegraph has heard a recording of the heated exchange taken by one of the pupils, in which the teacher starts by saying “how dare you – you’ve just really upset someone” by “questioning their identity”.
The pupil responded: “If they want to identify as a cat or something then they are genuinely unwell – crazy.”
The teacher then asks the girls “where did you get this idea from that there are only two genders”, adding: “It is not an opinion.”
The teacher said that “gender is not linked to the parts that you were born with, gender is about how you identify, which is what I said right from the very beginning of the lesson.”
She added that “there is actually three biological sexes because you can be born with male and female body parts or hormones” and “there are lots of genders – there is transgender, there is ‘agender’ who are people who don’t believe that they have a gender at all”.
The girls said they “don’t agree with that” and that you “can’t have” an agender identity “if you have a vagina you’re a girl and if you have a penis you’re a boy – that’s it”.
The teacher interjected in a raised voice: “What do you mean you can’t have it? It’s not a law ... Cisgender is not necessarily the way to be – you are talking about the fact that cisgender is the norm, that you identify with the sexual organ you were born with, that’s basically what you’re saying, which is really despicable.”
The girls informed the teacher that their parents would agree with their views on gender ideology, that someone's gender is not different than their biological sex.
“Well that’s very sad as well then,” the teacher reportedly said in response, adding that “if you don’t like it you need to go to a different school.”
A parent of another student at the school told The Telegraph that “what bothers me is the shutting down of debate in such a threatening and aggressive manner, which I don’t believe is appropriate in an educational setting.”
“Regardless of the subject, education should serve to build awareness of differing points of view to widen the understanding of a subject. It shouldn’t be a case of indoctrination,” the parent added.