When peddling a lie causes psychological harm
- Administrator
- Sep 21
- 6 min read
How gender identity ideology in our schools is a danger to children
The Scottish Government has at this time of writing (September 2025), failed to withdraw its guidance, Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools. (STPS) As a result, For Women Scotland have initiated formal proceedings against the Scottish Government for failing to withdraw its self-id policies for schools and prisons. It is clear that the current guidance for schools is unlawful but arguably, and even more importantly, the schools guidance risks causing psychological harm potentially to all children and their families, because it is peddling a lie. Here is why.
Helen Joyce has stated on various occasions that when a lie is imported into any organisation, the organisation becomes corrupted.
Not only that, but the lie breaks the organisation at the very point of its purpose. So a safeguarding organisation becomes an anti-safeguarding organisation; schools stop being places of education and become places of indoctrination. We are already witnessing this across nearly all our public services.
STPS is guidance which states as fact and as a certainty, that gender identity exists. But all definitions of gender identity are circular. For example, a common explanation is, ‘Gender identity describes how a person feels about their gender’.There is no evidence whatsoever for the existence of this concept. No human can change sex. No child is ‘born in the wrong body’. There are plenty of children and adults who do not conform to sex stereotypes, and some of these individuals do indeed experience psychological issues.
Gender affirming ‘care’ via affirmation, social transitioning, hormonal treatment and surgery is a particularly odd and dangerous way of treating a child's anxiety and emotional disturbance. We must ask ourselves how did the child come to fixate on issues of the sexed body, in some cases appearing rapidly with no previous history of such concerns? Is it not the case, as reported by Cass, and supported by the psychoanalyst David Bell, that children with certain histories and characteristics will always be more susceptible to being affected by certain adult discourses? These are children that see the world through a complex prism of life experience, influenced, for example, by autism, childhood neglect, previous childhood sexual abuse, and, for adolescents, confusion over their sexuality.
We must also ask, what of the equal susceptibility of those children who do not attend doctors for such an anxiety, but are swept up in the pretence of their peers changing sex in an adult world that seems determined to promote precocious sexual matters? And what if the medical profession, with their disingenuous diagnosis of 'gender dysphoria' are wrong, and have mistakenly placed the roots of such an anxiety around sex, solely within the child, as though he or she had had an autonomous psychological revelation about 'being in the wrong body' and in desperate need to change to the 'right' body? From our perspective, it seems clear that a situation that bases itself on unreality and the idealised illusion of sex change, is created within adult discourse, and has brought about an environment where, quite naturally, children not only learn from it, but also participate in it.
Unfortunately, instead of listening to best evidence and expert findings, politicians and public service leaders have, like susceptible children, become confused about what reality is, and what it is not. This is arguably a particularly damaging intervention to have unleashed on our schools, children, and their families. The problem for our schools is that for at least the last five years, our Scottish Government has been invested in our pupils being in receipt of a huge pedagogical lie. That is the lie that gender identity ideology exists. ‘Trans’ children, in any real or accurate sense, do not exist, except in the minds of those with vested interests for such an existence.
Gender identity ideology has become embedded in the systems and processes of nearly every Scottish primary and secondary school. A study conducted in 2024 by WRNScotland and ScotPAG, 'How captured are our Councils and public services?' found that all councils referred their education services to the Scottish Government guidance Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools. The For Women Scotland report 'What’s Happening in your child’s Classroom?' (2024) found that 95% schools supported self-id; 89% schools supported teaching gender identity; and 75% of schools used a 3rd sector group such as LGBTYS or TIE for professional development for staff and advice regarding school planning and projects. Education Scotland, the regulatory body for Scottish education states on the TIE website that all schools must use TIE materials.
There is good evidence (H.Barnes, 2023, Time to Think) that many gender questioning children who state they are ‘transgender’ will develop into adults who are gay or lesbian. Barnes noted that at the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) many of the children identifying as “transgender” had internalised homophobic responses from family and immediate social contexts. Unfortunately, the Scottish Government schools ‘trans’ guidance supports affirming and social transitioning for children who state they are ‘trans’ despite the fact that pupils would be much better supported by professional input which explored the reasons for their anxiety and distress.
As has been indicated earlier, there are also many documented situations in which a child or teenager might state that they are 'trans', including evidence of autism, anxiety, abuse, bullying, trauma, bodily hatred, and social contagion. These are the issues which should be addressed via effective psychological assessment, appropriate care and safe, evidenced-based interventions. The Scottish Government’s ‘trans’ school guidance does none of that.
School-based Psychological Harm is everyone’s problem
Given that STPS is the reference guidance provided for all Scottish schools and supported by all our councils and public services, schools have used the guidance to plan arrangements for toilets and changing rooms and for what goes on in the classroom, school corridors, the playground, and extra curricular activities. Third sector activist organisations such as LGBTYS, Stonewall and TIE, encourage schools to embed gender identity ideology across curricular subjects; they invite pupils to access youth groups run by them, and they encourage schools to celebrate gender ideological events such as Pride month and Pride community events. Such an approach is in effect, encouraging children to collude in a fantasy; this is unhelpful preparation for adult living. This is education, in effect, seeking to manipulate children and their families into accepting an alternative world which is counterfactual to reality.
One primary harm resulting from the imposition of such a context, is the erosion of trust between teachers, children and their families. When adults lie to children, they risk damaging their credibility as reliable sources of information. Children, who initially view teachers as authoritative, may begin to question the veracity of all statements made in that educational context. The problem with gender identity ideology is that because it is an idea which is not based in reality it directly leads to disbelief and mistrust. If for example a school has agreed to socially transition a boy who now claims to be a girl, children in that context are being required to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes.
Such a situation will not only impact on the level of trust between pupils and a teacher but it is more than likely to cause confusion and anxiety for many children in that teacher’s class. In turn, this confusion and anxiety is likely to find its way into the home situation. There are parents all over Scotland who have reported that they have been, in effect, gaslit by their child’s school, with the effect of trust being eroded between home and school and increased suspicion on the parents’ part regarding their view of their child’s school.
Enforcing a lie in an educational context also fosters a worldview for children where deception is normalised. This is not a well-balanced cognitive framework to be providing for children. There is little doubt that where schools are promoting gender ideology as fact, they are creating an environment which will cause ongoing exposure to spurious claims. Such an environment displaces opportunities for honest communication and may limit children's ability to develop negotiation and problem-solving skills. In extreme cases, this may contribute to antisocial behaviours because children have learned that manipulation is an acceptable interpersonal strategy. The result is likely to be a strained dynamic where children feel less emotionally secure. There is the real potential, particularly in a longterm and persistent educational context, that children may carry forward this insecurity into their own relationships as adults.
It is also the case regarding children’s social learning, that authority figures such as teachers influence children’s moral development. Deception as part of the educational process, teaches children that lying is an acceptable tool for control or avoidance. Studies have demonstrated that children exposed to adult deception, including teachers, are more prone to cheat and lie themselves, especially in school-age groups.
Arguably, the deception perpetrated by gender identity ideology, its activists, and those who are complicit, has visited a major harm across the entire Scottish education system. It is likely that it is a major contributor to the general malaise commented on currently by many teachers. There are various signs of our Scottish education system in distress: a rise in home schooling; a significant decrease in school attendance; concerns about increasing behavioural issues; falling attainment figures; poor teacher morale to name a few.
Educators need to prioritise transparency to foster resilient, honest learners and strengthen school bonds with families. By committing to truthfulness, teachers can mitigate some of harms already caused by gender identity ideology in our schools. But our Scottish Government and all our public services need to embrace reality, not to mention finding a way of rectifying its errant safeguarding procedures, as a matter of urgency.
Carolyn Brown Retired Depute Principal Educational Psychologist & ScotPAG Convenor
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