The 100-Year Life Health Education and Government
The catalyst for last week’s new guidelines on sex education in English schools was a complaint from Miriam Cates MP, a Conservative backbencher, that “disturbing” materials were being used in lessons – including a claim children were being taught there were “72 gender identities”. Is that true? In February 2023, complaints were made about a relationships and sex education (RSE) lesson at Queen Elizabeth II High School on the Isle of Man, where the Telegraph and Daily Mail said the school had suspended sex education after a drag queen “told 11 year-olds there are 73 genders”. An independent review by the island’s Department of Education, Sport and Culture found no one was dressed in drag and the guest speaker did not deliver a sex education talk. They did find, however, that when a pupil asked the speaker how many genders there were, the speaker replied that there “could be as many as 72” – an idea that appears to go back to 2014, when Facebook allowed users to choose from one of 71 gender “options”.
