Massey University pushes “a thoroughly ideological viewpoint that is entirely out of place in a primary school.”

“Most primary school principals and school communities.. do not see it as age appropriate to be promoting policies of gender & sexuality at a primary school level.” – Primary School Principal

We’ve been sent a survey which has been sent to primary school principals around NZ.

It’s from an “Educational Psychologist and Senior Lecturer” at Massey University.

It’s been sent to Principals who are already dealing with significant challenges around staffing, curriculum issues with Math and English, behavioural, stress & mental health issues amongst students, buildings – but Massey University thinks that the biggest issue facing schools and Principals is… gender diversity.

Primary schools.

Here’s what the introductory email says:

Welcome to the Gender Diversity in Primary Schools Survey 

Ko [Name] ahau. I am an Educational Psychologist and Senior Lecturer at Massey University. I am undertaking research about the views and experiences of Primary School Principals and leadership staff with the inclusion of children who identify as gender diverse. You do not have to have experience of gender diverse students in your school in order to complete the survey. 

As an increasing number of children are identifying as gender diverse schools are drawing on a range of guidance and strategies to develop their practice in this area. This survey aims to explore the complexities around including gender diverse students in primary schools in New Zealand and to offer Principals and Senior Leaders the opportunity to share your views. 

The survey will begin with demographic questions aimed at gaining an understanding of you and your role in school. It will then move on to ask about your views and experiences of including gender diverse students. 

…. we are just interested in your views and experiences. 

So here’s the questions. Now there’s the expected:

Q1. Consent to do this research (well, it’s anonymous so it shouldn’t matter)

Q2. Type of school

Q3. Location of the school

Q4. Leadership status (it’s been sent to the Principal)

Q5. Ethnicity

Q6. Age

Q7. Then it gets fun. “Gender identity”.

Most Principals know their biological sex. But anyway, they’re asked

Female, male, non binary, transgender, intersex, gender non conforming, other, blank, prefer not to say

Should be able to find an option there.

Then it gets real funny.

After introducing all these options for “gender identity”, they ask about

Q8. The “gender of your school roll”. With binary options!

Co-ed, single sex girls, single sex boys, other

So transphobic and binary.

Although I am trying to figure out what might qualify as “other”?

Q9. “Do you now or have you ever had students at your school who identified as gender diverse or non binary?” “Do you now or have you ever had students at your school who have identified as transitioning gender?”

Remember these are primary schools.

And then in a condescending manner – knowing that these principals are dealing with students with various backgrounds, needs, social issues, they ask;

Q10. “How confident do you feel about supporting the inclusion of gender diverse students in school?”

And then why do they have that confidence.

I was tempted to write here “We will support them just as we support all students” – but hey, I bet every principal would write that. They care for all their students.

And then the real agenda comes in.

Has the Principal been indoctrinated yet?

They ask

Q11. “Are you aware of any of the following guidance / documents to provide guidance in relation to the inclusion of gender diverse students in schools?”

Here’s the options. Three documents from InsideOUT – you know, the group that are ramming down 112 genders and 200+ sexualities and explicit sexual material.

Then two more documents from the Ministry of Education including the one that calls for schools to keep a child’s gender identity issues secret from their parents if that’s what the child wants!

And then two more from InsideOUT.

Did they include resources from Family First like the Parent Guide which enables parents to engage with the school on this issue?

Or our Fact Sheet outlining parental concerns about what’s in the InsideOUT material?

No – of course not.

Did they include the new policy guide for NZ schools titled ‘Students and Social Transition: A gender identity policy guide’. The guide was created by the Ethos Alliance. It runs counter to all the garbage coming out of InsideOUT which for most Principals, they put the InsideOUT stuff in the garbage.

But Massey University doesn’t want schools to know about this.

The Ethos Alliance says:

“We were also concerned that immediate affirmation is promoted in guidelines and resources offered to all schools when there’s mounting international concern and evidence against this approach. Studies show social transition is an active intervention that might cause gender questioning to persist and this can even lead to medical interventions like puberty blockers, and gender reassignment surgery later in life.

“We think it’s important schools know ‘watchful waiting’ is a legitimate and legal policy to care for their students and keep them safe, and that more considered and developmentally-informed approaches like this are now best practice in countries like Sweden, Finland and England.

“Our policy guide has been reviewed by senior medical and legal experts, including a King’s Counsel, and we are confident it is accurate and robust and will lead to better long-term health outcomes for children.”

Emeritus professor Charlotte Paul of Otago University says, “The policy advice produced by Ethos shows schools how they can follow a respectful and watchful waiting approach to children with gender related distress or gender incongruence.  This allows them to take a cautious approach to social transition, fitting with the findings of the Cass Review.” Professor Paul is a medical epidemiologist with a research background in sexual and reproductive health, the safety of medicines, and in the methods and ethics of research.  

But Massey University doesn’t want schools to know about this.

Or what about this one

The group Resist Gender Education published and sent to schools this document - ‘Independent NZ Guidelines on Sex and Gender in Schools’. They say;

We present research-based evidence and a compassionate roadmap to support schools to develop a respectful school climate that meets the needs of their diverse communities and is in alignment with globally-recognised best practice and pedagogy. Our guidelines are endorsed by Emeritus Professor Sue Middleton and Emeritus Professor David Gerrard.

Sue Middleton is Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Education, at the University of Waikato, and says of the report:

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.” 

Emeritus Professor David Gerrard of the University of Otago Medical School says:

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.

But Massey University doesn’t want schools to know about this.

And just to reinforce the direction that Massey University wants to push schools towards, they ask

Q14. Which if any of these supports or interventions have been implemented in your school?

Is it anti-bullying programmes, life-skills for anger management, dare I say… Bible in schools!?

Don’t be silly.

And remember, these options are for primary schools. Up to 11 years old.

Queer Straight Alliance / Diversity Group
Rainbow / queer resources in the library
Pride week activities
Specific policies to support gender diverse students & policies
Amending the gender of a student on the official records
Unisex toilets
Transgender girls (biological boys) playing in girls teams

I’m just amazed they didn’t have “drag queens running the school library” as an option.

And finally, some quick questions:

Q15. What do you think would help you to include gender diverse students in your school? What would be the challenges. How could other staff include gender diverse students. And the wider community.

I bet that virtually every great principal in New Zealand would respond to those questions with a statement basically saying that they will care for every child in their school community and their families – and that they will always act in their best interests with respect for the child – but that they will never deliberately set out to confuse a child, tell them they can choose their sex and have personal pronouns, or that they have the choice of 200+ sexualities, or that they will demand that their staff tell biological lies in relation to their students’ pronouns, or send a child down a path of chemicalising and damaging their body in the name of gender ideology.

But Massey University are focused on pushing gender ideology.

What’s worse is that Massey receives $117m each year from your tax money.

Perhaps we should do a survey on whether that should continue.

Just to finish, I contacted a couple of principals to ask them whether they had received the survey, and whether they had any comments.

One replied:

“As primary school principals we are constantly being asked for our opinions on a huge range of educational issues. The Inside-Out survey in my opinion seemed less of a request for our opinion and more of an inspection that we were meeting the expectations of a tiny and wholly unaccountable special interest group. 

In my experience most primary school principals and school communities, if asked off the record, do not see it as age appropriate to be promoting policies of gender & sexuality at a primary school level.  In my opinion the gender debate is not a separate issue to sex education, gender and sexuality are one closely interconnected and only separated in an education context to get around community consultation legislation.

I am concerned that the premise of gender policy in New Zealand is being driven by activists who are detached from the latest international medical research that is increasingly questioning the premise that children are able to make sound decisions about issues that will have lifelong consequences, several recent international studies show that the majority children who wish to change gender in fact reverse this desire within 5 years. 

This is a logical outcome to trained professionals like myself who work with children, they change their mind frequently and are highly persuadable and at risk of being influenced by whatever social contagion is in vogue.”

And another:

“As I completed it I was not surprised to find that it had certain ideological assumptions built into the questions, many of which were difficult to answer if you were not on board with these assumptions. After the initial demographic questions (including scrolling to the bottom of a long list of ethnicities to find NZ European, and wading through seven gender options), I found the questions were mostly about my confidence in implementing their preferred course of action.

It was very clear that those on the right track were using guidance materials produced or influenced by lobby groups like Inside Out. I also saw that my school lacked, to its great shame, many other supports, such a queer section in the library (next to Dr Seuss??), a celebration of Pride Week (only one flag on our pole I'm afraid), a Diversity Group, and engaging in fraudulent activities like changing a child's gender on the government's student management system, ENROL.

Fortunately there were some open field questions where I could point out the biased nature of the survey design and suggest that the supports they recommended by implication were steeped in a thoroughly ideological viewpoint that is entirely out of place in a primary school.”

Be thankful that this is what actual Principals are saying, and that your children are not in the care of Massey University academics.