NSW Children’s Advocate wants teachers to ‘keep secrets’ about students’ gender talk

A new call by the NSW children’s advocate for school teachers to keep quiet about students wanting to change genders has been condemned as a ‘slur’ against parents.

Teachers should keep parents in the dark if a student wants to change sex, while all residents could change the gender on their birth certificate without undergoing surgery, the state’s peak children’s advocate says.

But critics have slammed the advice, saying it would be “dangerous” to keep secrets from parents.

NSW Advocate for Children and Young People Zoe Robinson recommends the state government make policy changes in response to her report, which was based on interviewing 233 LGBTQIA+ people aged between 12 and 24.

“Staff should be encouraged to maintain confidentiality when a student chooses to disclose their sexuality or gender to teachers, wellbeing staff and school leaders,” the report states. “This will protect students’ wellbeing in that it may not be safe for the student if the staff member were to mention their disclosed identity to parents or carers.”

NSW MP Mark Latham.

Children and Young People Advocate Zoe Robinson.

One Nation MP Mark Latham, who has advocated for a parental rights bill in NSW parliament, said “no good ever comes from keeping parents in the dark”.

“To say it’s unsafe to tell the parents about the sexuality and gender of students is just a disgusting slur against parents,” he said.

The report, The Voices of LGBTQIA+ Young People in NSW, also calls for “all-gender bathrooms” in addition to boys’ and girls’ toilets in all NSW schools; more content on diverse gender and sexuality in the PDHPE syllabus; and says the government should pass new laws to protect LGBTQIA+ students’ rights, which would override existing laws allowing religious exemptions.

Save Women’s Sport co-founder and lawyer Katherine Deves said the report was “promoting an ideology to children” and would “lock” them into an identity that could lead to irreversible medical and surgical interventions.

“Children should not be able to alter their sex on their birth certificate, nor should they be able to change their name without parental consent,” she said.

Christian Schools Australia public policy director Mark Spencer said it was a “massive overreach” to exclude parents from their children’s care.

“To take the unfiltered, unexamined, unverified claims of a tiny sample — 233 young people when there are more than 1.2 million students in NSW schools — that has all the biases inherent in the methodology used to produce the document, as the basis of public policy recommendations is … extraordinary,” Mr Spencer said.

Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said it was important students could speak to someone they trusted, like a teacher.

“It is my expectation that a school would discuss any potential disclosure with a student before disclosing this information to a parent or carer,” she said.

The Children’s Advocate was contacted for comment.

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