Gender Ideology | Harriet Connor

Why I’m meeting with my federal MP

On 24/05/2024

…about proposed legislation affecting ‘religious’ schools.

When your phone rings and it’s the school’s number, you always pay attention. And when it’s the Principal on the other end of the line, you know it must be serious. When that happened to me last week, I braced myself for the worst.

But the serious issue that our Principal was calling me about was not concerning my children specifically. It was about something much broader that could affect every child in every Christian, church or ‘religious’ school across Australia.

The Principal of our children’s school was calling to invite me to join a small group of parents meeting with our federal Member of Parliament in a couple of weeks’ time to voice our views on some proposed changes to legislation concerning ‘religious educational institutions’. Knowing the profound significance of these proposed changes, I immediately agreed. Although I find the thought of speaking face-to-face with an MP extremely daunting, this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

What are the proposed changes?

Under Australian law, ‘religious educational institutions’ are currently exempt from the Sex Discrimination Act (1984) (SDA), which prohibits individuals and organisations from discriminating against a person based on that person’s sex, marital or relationship status, pregnancy or, since 2013, their sexual orientation or gender identity.

These exemptions were put in place ‘in order to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of that religion or creed’.¹ In 2013, when sexual orientation and gender identity were added to the list of protected attributes, there was bipartisan support for keeping the exemptions in order to ‘protect the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief in respect of the new grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity’.

The current Federal Government has now committed to removing these exemptions to make it unlawful for religious educational institutions to ‘discriminate’ against students or staff based on their sex, marital or relationship status, pregnancy, sexual orientation or gender identity. At the same time, the Government wants to ensure that these institutions ‘can continue to build a community of faith by giving preference, in good faith, to persons of the same religion … in the selection of staff’.²

In some jurisdictions, such as Victoria, these kind of exemptions have already been removed, making it illegal in that state for a Christian school to fire—or refuse to employ—a person based on their sexual practice, gender identity or marital status. Queensland is proposing to prohibit a school from discriminating against an even wider group, including those doing ‘sex work activity’.

In order to bring Australian law into line with this, the Federal Government asked the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) to investigate whether their commitments were consistent with international human rights law. The ALRC delivered its recommendations in December, which, if implemented, would write the Government’s commitments into law.

The ALRC report admits that in seeking to ‘maximise’ the right of some teachers to work in religious schools, its recommended reforms ‘may limit, for some people, the freedom to manifest religion or belief in community with others, and the parental liberty to “ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions”’.³

Why I am writing this letter to my local MP

By Harriet Connor

On 11/11/2023

In Articles

… about the proposed ‘conversion therapy’ legislation in NSW.

In November, the NSW State Parliament is set to consider two bills prohibiting ‘change or suppression’ practices relating to sexual orientation and gender identity.

The precise wording of the bill to be proposed by the NSW Government has not been made public. However, a Consultation Paper was recently released by a working group from the Department of Communities and Justice and the Department of Health. Contrary to the pre-election commitments made by the NSW Labor Party, this proposal is largely based on the ‘change or suppression’ legislation that is already in force in the state of Victoria.

As a Christian mother, I find the proposed legislation deeply concerning. It undermines my right to talk about the Christian view of sex and gender with my own children. It sees the Christian sexual ethics I want to pass on to them as inherently ‘harmful’, rather than something that is good and life-giving.

That’s why I am going to write to my local MP this week.

What’s the problem in Victoria?

The Victorian laws, which have been helpfully summarised by Freedom for Faith, go far beyond banning coercive and genuinely harmful ‘gay conversion’ practices. They consider anything that is not full, unqualified, immediate support for a person’s sexual desires to be ‘suppression’ of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The context doesn’t matter. The proposed legislation would apply to conversations between family members, children and parents and married couples. Praying a prayer where we ask God to help someone manage their sexual desires would be a criminal offence.

Alarmingly, the Victorian legislation applies even if a person consents to this kind of conversation or prayer. The Victorian legislation also treats sexual orientation and gender identity the same way, even though they are two very different issues.

Basically, in Victoria, it is now illegal to encourage anyone to exercise self-control over their sexual urges. Such encouragement, in any form, is considered to cause ‘serious and ongoing harm’.

How does this affect parents and children?

If a Victorian child expresses a feeling of gender incongruence—discomfort with the male or female body they were born with—then the only legal response from parents and clinicians is one of unquestioning affirmation of their chosen gender identity.

Victorian parents are therefore understandably frightened that if they question their child’s sudden claim to be ‘trans’, that child might be removed from their care. Some Victorian clinicians are refusing to treat children with gender dysphoria because they are frightened about falling foul of the law if they take a wholistic approach, such as ‘watchful waiting’ (see below).

And just to close up any loopholes, it also illegal to take a Victorian child out of the state to receive any treatment that is not fully ‘affirming’ of the child’s chosen gender identity.

Why is ‘affirmation only’ problematic?

To gain a more detailed understanding of gender dysphoria, I recommend the book The Gender Revolution: a Biblical, Biological and Compassionate Response by Patricia Weerakoon with Robert Smith and Kamal Weerakoon.

Victoria’s ‘affirmation only’ approach to gender dysphoria is not supported by science. Firstly, study after study has shown that when parents and clinicians practise an approach of ‘watchful waiting’—that is, supporting a child without encouraging transition—around 85% of children grow out of their gender dysphoria by the time they are adults. Many of them end up identifying as homosexual.

However, if children are ‘affirmed’ in their gender dysphoria—if they are encouraged to change their name, pronouns and appearance—then almost 100% of them will proceed down a medicalised pathway towards puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and potentially even surgery (The Gender Revolution, Chapter 6, Location 1674–83). This sets children up for a lifetime of dependence on experimental medical interventions and the consequent health risks (many of which are still unknown).

The ‘affirmation’ pathway is not harmless …

Keep reading this article (and my letter to my local MP) over at Growing Faith, a Christian online magazine for parents. Find out more about Growing Faith and subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter here.

A healthy gender identity starts now … with you!

By Harriet Connor

On 12/08/2023

In Articles

Do you have a pre-teen or ‘tween’ living in your house? Are you worried about how to deal with adolescence? Don’t panic! While puberty can be a confusing time, your loving guidance will help your child to grow into the man or woman God made them to be. You have an opportunity now to help them build a healthy gender identity before puberty hits.

(I wrote this article based on an interview with Patricia Weerakoon, c0-author of The Gender Revolution and author of Growing Up by the Book.)

Why are pre-teens vulnerable to gender ideology?

Children who are about to start puberty (ages 10–12) are particularly vulnerable to gender ideology: the belief that you can be ‘born in the wrong body’ and should change your body to match your innate inner feeling of ‘gender identity’.

To begin with, pre-teens have a rapidly developing brain and are sensitive to what is happening within and around them. At this age, children have a normal, natural ‘body angst’ about how their body compares to others and how it is going to change during puberty.

On top of that, many pre-teens are immersed in the world of social media, which encourages them to be discontented with their bodies and to question their gender. Spending a lot of time online, whether on Tiktok, Instagram and Youtube or playing video games, can also condition children, especially those who are uncomfortable with their bodies, into seeing their bodies not as a good gift from God, but as something that can be created and recreated however they like; the line between fantasy and reality is blurred.

What are pre-teens hearing about gender, sex and puberty?

Today’s pre-teens are being told that if you don’t conform to narrow gender stereotypes, then you must actually be the other gender, trapped in the wrong body. If you’re a boy who dislikes rough-and-tumble play and likes tea parties and dancing, then you must really be a girl. If you’re a girl who doesn’t like pink or Barbies, but likes climbing trees then you must really be a boy.

Pre-teens are also hearing that puberty—a normal, natural stage of life—is an optional inconvenience that can be paused at will. (Medically speaking, this is completely untrue. Artificially blocking a child’s puberty has serious side-effects; puberty cannot simply resume where it left off.)

Sadly, pre-teens are also living in a pornified culture where girls think women are expected to look like porn stars and tolerate pornified behaviour from men. Many boys are following online influencers who promote ‘macho’ and misogynistic expressions of masculinity.

Into this fraught environment comes transgender ideology promising a way to relieve your body angst, fix your gender non-conformity, avoid puberty and escape the negative visions of womanhood or manhood that frighten you. It’s no wonder that some children (especially girls) find this offer attractive.

What role do parents play?

Keep reading over at Growing Faith, a Christian online magazine for parents. Find out more about Growing Faith and subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter here.

Harriet Connor

Author of Big Picture Parents

Tag: Gender Ideology