Kemi Badenoch, the British head of Equality, has angered her own conservative ranks in the Westminster Parliament by warning against the “epidemic” that drags non-binary students down the “irreversible path” of gender transition.
The minister, who also heads the Business and Commerce portfolio, wants to prohibit the so-called “social transition” during the primary school cycle, among the recommendations of the new guidance guide on behavior and school management, whose publication has been pending since the summer.
“We are seeing, I would say, almost an epidemic of gay children being told they are trans and being sent on a medical path of irreversible decisions, which they later regret,” he declared in the House of Commons.
The minister opposes directors and teachers allowing their pupils to adopt a form of pronoun other than their biological gender. And she denounces that giving the green light to social transition in the school sphere “is not a neutral act” since it will have “formative effects on the future development of the child.”
Badenoch would only admit initiatives in support of children who do not identify with their biological sex in extreme cases and with clinical endorsement. An absolute veto on social transition in schools would be contrary to Equality legislation, as previously stated by the Government’s attorney general, Victoria Prentis.
The tone and scope of the incumbent’s intervention on parity issues bothered the most liberal wing of conservative deputies. Elliot Colburn regretted that the Government “indulged in a horrible anti-LGBT debate” when the “priorities of the British people” are the cost of living, the public health service, immigration and climate change. “Really depressing,” he wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter) along with a graph of the evolution of the national pulse.
Badenoch and the rest of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet celebrated this Friday the decision of the Scottish high court, which recognizes the competence of the central government to repeal the autonomous law on gender self-identification approved by the Holyrood Parliament last year.
The minister announced the day before that the United Kingdom will not accept certificates of recognition of a person’s gender issued by countries with similar laws to the one processed in Scotland.