Catholic education chief warns against ‘crowbarring’ gender theory into schools

30th January 2023

A radical theory of sex and gender should not be crowbarred into Catholic schools under any guise, according to a leading Catholic education figure.

The head of the Catholic Education Partnership, Alan Hynes, made the comments on ‘The Week that Really Was’ podcast.

He said that Catholic schools have already been supporting pupils with gender dysphoria, but that pastoral outreach does not mean the Government can or should force schools to accept and teach a transgender view of sexuality as fact.

The Catholic body for primary schools, the CPSMA, sought professional advice from doctors who deal with transgender people and believe in gender dysphoria and wrote to the Ministers for Children and for Education to say that even medics working in the area deny there is any consensus or any easy way to understand and communicate the theory.

Alan Hynes added: “Furthermore, it is still a matter of contested public debate, and to suddenly bring that contested public debate within schools is to invite conflict within schools that doesn’t belong in schools.

“Adults will have this debate, it might take us several years, but to simply try to crowbar it into schools, and thereby bring a matter of heated public contestation into the fora of schools, we just don’t see that as prudent”.