Foster mother ‘nearly lost children after questioning school’s gender ideology class’

A deputy headteacher attempted to have a foster mother’s children taken away when she questioned the school’s teaching of the “genderbread person”, it has been claimed.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was reported to social services because the teacher was “concerned” that the children were encountering “exceptionally bigoted” views.

In an email seen by The Telegraph, the teacher said the children are “looked after physically”, but that there was a danger that they could “expound similar bigoted viewpoints” to their mother.

The woman is now seeking an unqualified apology from the school, which she said has so far claimed its deputy headteacher was right to raise concerns.

The row was sparked by the mother questioning the school’s relationships teaching, which apparently included a video lecture of a non-binary 12-year-old saying gender is “dynamic” and that toilets are “just another way to categorise people”.

Students are also said to have been taught the “genderbread person”, a controversial diagram defining biological sex as a spectrum of “male-ness” and “female-ness”, with sex is “assigned” at birth. Critics have condemned it as “unscientific nonsense”.

The foster mother criticised the lesson plan in a “strongly worded” email to the school, arguing they were teaching ideology as fact and that it should be balanced with material from gender-critical voices.

In response, the teacher is alleged to have sent an email to social services that read: “I am very concerned about the environment these girls are growing up in if the views she gives in her email and the views she is giving at home.

“The girls are well presented, well fed, looked after physically and loved, but how are they going to grow up in terms of their views if these are the views they are hearing from their carer?

“Do we want children in care who are already traumatised to expound similar bigoted viewpoints?”

A meeting then reportedly took place between social services and members of the school to discuss the woman’s suitability as a foster mother, who said she was “shocked” by the response.

‘The first steps to fascism’

She told The Telegraph: “It’s inevitable that if [the teacher] had been successful, my kids would have been split up and the damage would have been phenomenal.

“The fact that I was ever deemed to be a risk to my children, and that… they would meet together to discuss it horrified me and made me feel incredibly vulnerable.

“Although you’re given children that initially you don’t know, by raising them and having them in your family you grow to love them as your own. And they are precious to me.

“It’s not OK for her to judge or police my tone or thinking. That’s overstretching her remit, and compelled speech is one of the first steps to fascism.”

‘Good track record saved mother’

The woman believed that she could have lost her children if not for several “exemplary years” that she has spent as a carer.

She is now one of the litigants in a class action case that is being prepared against the Government on gender ideology.

The group, made up of parents and teachers, claimed that the ministers have been “wilfully negligent” in allowing material from groups such as Stonewall to take root in schools.