How ideologues indoctrinate your children with the connivance of the state
BRUCE NEWSOME
CHILDREN, a new report finds, are still being bombarded with transgender propaganda, with the idea that gender is fluid and is something which can be chosen. Children are being subjected to this indoctrination at their most impressionable age – from as young as three years – through the nefarious medium of children’s ‘literature’.
The recent SEEN in Publishing report, called Through the Looking Glass, reveals how prevalent such literature has become in the last 10 years; how dogma about gender and sexuality became routine in children’s literature. Over 99 pages it documents and analyses the last decade’s trend for trans-activist narratives in children’s publishing from picture books to young adult fiction. The contributors explain how the ideological concepts of the ‘trans child’ and ‘gender affirmative care’ have elbowed their way on to publishers’ lists and into the family home, libraries and schools ‘becoming normalised and acquiring moral heft’.
Now that we have a clear understanding of the biology of sex and its immutable nature, and we also understand that the ‘trans child’ is a biologically illiterate fiction, promulgated through propagandist books that masquerade as ‘kind’ and ‘inclusive’, let’s take a deeper dive into the documented physical and psychological harms of ‘gender affirmative care’. Has publishing merely been ‘kind’ and ‘inclusive’ or has it harmed children?
The report contains content from nine named contributors sponsored by three organisations, some with unambiguous leftist politics. However it has to be commended exposing the irresponsibility of publishers in deciding to ride and exploit this woke fashion wave, for drawing attention to these books and for recognising their inherent dangers.
It finds the normalisation of the following themes in children’s literature:
· Children discover their ‘true gender’
· Adults affirm a child’s self-declared gender identity
· Social transition is straightforward and beneficial
· Perfect conformity with biological sex is negative or rare
· Scepticism about gender identity is harmful
· Heterosexuality is unenlightened
Perhaps, more importantly, books that push the above themes do not admit alternative developmental factors, alternative therapeutic approaches, co-occurring mental-health conditions and the increased psychological risks after transition, or the temporary nature of gender-dysphoria and the strong possibility it will resolve itself, or that the alleged cure of transition is far more damaging than the temporary distress.
For instance, The Pronoun Book (2022) and Being Me in Penguin Land (2015), which is published by the Gender Identity Research and Education Society, promote ideas of being ‘born in the wrong body’, ally-ship, and gender neutrality – and depict whites as the minority.
Grandad’s Pride (2023) depicts grandads in leather fetish clothing snogging in public during a Pride march (note that granddad is white but his greatest champion is his brown granddaughter).
The graphic novel, Homebody (2024), which won a Carnegie medal for illustration, depicts a girl exposing her mastectomy scars with a smile on her face. The scars represent ‘radical self-love’, we are assured.
The authors are not alone to blame. The report criticises educators, librarians and their respective professional associations for actively promoting such ideological content through reading lists, awards, displays, and educational programming.
Some authors, illustrators, editors, publishing professionals and sellers did very well out of jumping on the bandwagon but others saw their careers ruined when they questioned gender-identity ideology or defended sex-based definitions.
For instance, Rachel Rooney was cancelled by her publisher and most professional colleagues when My Body Is Me (2019) was coded as ‘transphobic’ by some fetid online discussion which went viral. Her sin was unintentional: she meant to push against normative body images and shapes.
Fortunately, Rooney’s book sold well independently, but her outcome is not typical. Gillian Philip (who contributed two chapters to the report) lost her court battle, despite help from the Free Speech Union, against the publisher who cancelled a contract as a reprisal for her social media posts in defence of women’s rights.
Beyond questions of ideology, the report raises concerns about literary standards. Publishers sometimes selected books just because they advanced leftist social justice. Publishers made these choices despite the commercial risks. For instance, Homebody sold only about 2,000 copies – a minimum print run.
The report is an impressive insight into an under-reported industry with huge implications for our social future. Its sponsors (SEEN in Publishing, Biology in Medicine, Transgender Trend) deserve credit for the effort and the risks.
In one respect, the report disappoints me.
The report does not comment on the way these book inhabit school library shelves, or the failure of woke-driven schools, local authorities, librarians and educational psychologists to raise the alarm bells and remove them. Consequently, the report has no advice for parents on how to prevent exposure to their children or how they should complain to the authorities.
My humble experience is instructive. I came across transgender propaganda, She’s My Dad!, in a classroom upon my son’s first entry. He was only four years old at the time. And the occasion was his introduction to school, a couple months before he started. I complained to the school, and I specified what sort of subjects I did not want exposed to my son without parental permission. While the school admitted one mistake, it dodged commitments against repeating the exposure. It claimed the book had been mistakenly left over from the outgoing cohort, as if the content is appropriate for outgoing six-year-olds, even though the school admitted it is not appropriate for incoming five-year-olds. The school resisted my repeated requests for a clear commitment to follow parents’ wishes. ‘Your views are important to us . . . our policy is posted online,’ I kept being told. Letters to the local authority elicited the same dodge and spin. Years later, I am still fighting for transparency and consultation.
These authorities sometimes don’t stop at frustrating parents, they also punish parents, even criminally. Proactive parents might find themselves the subjects of fake safeguarding concerns.
Don’t expect national government to help. Remember, national guidance permits teachers to push transgenderism without parental permission and to hide a child’s gender dysphoria from parents with the school’s support of that dysphoria if the school judges parental knowledge to be ‘harmful’ (undefined) to the child.
So alas, this report is silent about how parents can overcome the huge institutional and legal hurdles to parental influence posed by woke education.
Worse, the report’s recommendations could mislead parents into over-optimism. For instance, three of the report’s recommendations refer to statutory obligations in Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) and Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE).
KCSIE is the Government’s guidance for all schools and colleges in England and Wales on child safeguarding and protection. A new version came into force in September 2025.
RSHE is the guidance for how to teach and handle child relationships, sex, and health. The latest version must be implemented by September 2026.
Yet in the case of my son’s school, a pro forma document into which parents are supposed to type our comments on the school’s proposed RSHE policy allows no anonymity. So critics won’t comment (lest they be flagged by the school for a safeguarding concern). Compliant or equally woke parents will say it’s the best policy ever, and the school will be able to report to everyone that its policy has been ‘approved by parents’.
Although the KCSIE and RSHE can be useful to parents, in specifying their rights and the school’s obligations, there remain many loopholes by which institutions can justify ignoring parents.
The report’s recommendations directed at publishers, librarians, educators, and policymakers rather than parents are useful but are still tame and remote to parents.
To hold authorities to good practices and, most importantly, to protect their children, parents need real legal help, perhaps something like a Free Speech Union for Parents or a Parents Rights Union. Is there a philanthropist who would fund that? Elon Musk, are you listening?
