British Christian parents have sent an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, asking him “to withdraw the Valuing All God’s Children guidance”, which allows students from the age of 5 to self-identify as the opposite sex.

The guidance covers 4,700 Church of England’s primary schools, and states that “trans young people may require specific support in order to feel comfortable”, so that, “schools may need to make changes to toilet facilities or a trans young person might require support to change their name or the pronoun by which they are referred to by staff and classmates".

Nigel and Sally Rowe called on Welby to “urgently review the Church of England’s position on this. It is clear that the guidance should be scrapped. The position of Church of England schools in affirming gender transition of young pupils and forcing students to comply with this is now untenable”.

They also quoted former UK Attorney General Suella Braverman, who said that “many schools believe – incorrectly – that they are under a legal obligation to treat children who are gender questioning according to their preference [..] sometimes without informing their parents. In my view, this approach is not supported by the law”.

A long process

The Rowes had already expressed their concerns about the guidance years ago, when two 6-year-old boys in their sons' classes were allowed to identify as girls. But the school rejected the complaint and said that their son “would be deemed to be demonstrating transphobic behaviour”, they recalled in the letter.

They fist brought the complain to the local Church of England diocese, which supported the school; and then wrote to the Department for Education (DfE) calling on the Secretary of State to intervene, but it was rejected.

That is why the Christian parents filed a judicial review of this decision in the High Court. After that, the DfE agreed to settle the case, committed to reform the guidance for schools on transgender issues and awarded them £22,000 (25,245€) to cover legal costs.

Hundreds of UK families have sued transgender clinic Tavistock  for medical negligence with their children. In July 2022, the English National Health System announced it would close that clinic because of safety concerns.