In this post in the Evening newspaper Peter Risholm and Brynjar Østrem (Foreldre.net) point out the avoidance of responsibility shown by the school principals in Stavanger and Sandnes, and clarify exactly what they are criticizing. You can also read the post here:
The school principals are not responding to the gender criticism from Foreldre.net. We get the impression that Jørn Pedersen, the school principal in Stavanger, either does not fully understand what it is we are criticizing, or that he is trying to deflect the criticism.
School principal Jørn Pedersen in Stavanger says: “It's about the students being able to live in today's society and be good classmates. Therefore, gender identity obviously has a place in the textbooks.” When teaching about gender, it must be rooted in biology. Gender is a biological mechanism for reproduction, and the fact that this has consequences in the form of secondary sex characteristics, gender roles and gender stereotypes does not change what is female and male.
We can of course provide information about gender dysphoria, taking into account the age of the students, but telling children that they are assigned a gender at birth, or that the gender you are assigned may be wrong because the doctor does not know what you feel like, simply does not make sense.
School textbooks portray hormone use and medical procedures as completely trivial. Where are the stories of those who regret their gender reassignment?
Pedersen also interprets the curriculum quite freely when he believes it provides grounds for claiming that doctors guess the gender of newborn children. But what does the curriculum actually say about gender identity? The term is mentioned twice: once in the competence objectives for science in the fourth grade, and once in Sámi science. The point is the same in both places and states the following: The goal of the education is that the student should be able to talk about similarities and differences between the sexes, about gender identity and about human reproduction.
The term is not defined, but the curriculum does not give the impression that it means that doctors guess the gender of newborns, or that you can be multiple genders. So how is this followed up in school textbooks? They claim that you cannot know what gender others have, because you cannot see this on the body. This is what we criticize – not that there are people who struggle with their gender identity, but that gender is presented as a feeling that you can choose.
When gender is classified, it must be done according to biology, because what else should determine whether you are female or male? The head of school in Sandnes, Hege Egaas Røen, refers to the school's social mission, which states that students should learn to think critically, as well as be given the competence to make their own choices. We support this, but then the school books cannot present hormone use and medical interventions as something completely trivial.
Where are the stories of those who regret their sex change? Where are the stories that tell of brittle bones and possibly impaired cognitive abilities in girls who have taken puberty blockers? The Health and Care Services Commission warns against this form of medical treatment of children, and in the former pioneer countries of Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, they have discontinued it.
If children are to make informed choices, they must be given information that is true – which they are not in the new textbooks. The new textbooks' communication about gender, based on norm-critical gender theory, is very problematic. It shapes students' views on gender in such a way that the physiological differences between women and men are no longer relevant.
We believe that while we challenge gender roles and stereotypes, we must also acknowledge biology. In order for the distinction between the sexes not to be an obstacle, it must also be maintained. We therefore have the following questions for Pedersen and Røen: If we agree that man and woman are two distinct categories, what physiological differences or objective criteria, if any, determine whether you belong to one category or the other? This is not so easy to answer based on the new textbooks.
