The state has assumed total control over our children
In France, courts have ruled that parents have no right to protect their kids from gender ideology.
Should it be parents or state officials who decide what children learn about sex, sexuality and relationships? At what age is it appropriate to introduce children to gender ideology? It is not just Britain that is grappling with these questions. In recent weeks, courts in both France and the US have passed judgement on the right of parents to remove children from school classes that run counter to their values. Yet they reached very different conclusions.
Schools in France have been legally obliged to teach ‘sexuality education’ since 2001. In February, allegedly in response to concern that not all children received full instruction, the French Ministry of Education then published an updated curriculum on ‘emotional, relational and sexual life’ (EVARS). From September, all schools in receipt of state funding must teach this new programme designed to ‘impart fundamental values, such as respect for oneself and others’, ‘prevent discrimination’, promote gender equality and combat stereotypes. These lessons will be mandatory for pupils across France.
The new classes are promoted as being ideologically neutral, but in reality they are nothing of the sort. In second grade (typically aged seven to eight), children will be introduced to the unscientific and highly contested idea that some people are transgender. By fifth grade (10 to 11 years old), they will be taught that there is no automatic connection between sex and gender, and that gender identity is a feeling. In their final year of high school (aged 17 to 18), students will be expected to ‘understand LGBTQ+ struggles and the history of Pride marches’. As one critic writing in Le Journal du Dimanche notes, the expectation that students will demonstrate understanding suggests a far greater degree of acceptance than a goal of ‘examining’ or ‘discussing’ those issues.
Unsurprisingly, many parents and pro-family campaign groups have expressed dismay at aspects of the new curriculum. Last month, eight associations and 300 parents took their complaints to the Council of State – France’s highest court on administrative matters, and the final arbiter of cases relating to executive power. They argued that the EVARS curriculum should be cancelled because it denies the rights of parents, fails to protect children’s privacy and paves the way for activist organisations to enter schools and promote controversial ideas about gender and sexuality to a captive audience of children.
Shockingly, the Council of State found against the parents and decreed that the new curriculum presents topics ‘in a neutral and objective manner, taking into account the state of scientific knowledge’. In its judgement, the council did not concretely address any of the objections raised about the new lessons. Instead, it rode roughshod over the right of parents to raise children in line with their own values and ruled that it is the state that should determine what children are taught about sexuality, gender, sex and relationships.
Across the Atlantic, the US Supreme Court recently reached a very different conclusion. It ruled in favour of parents who want to be able to remove their elementary-school children from class when ‘story time’ is used as an opportunity to promote LGBT propaganda. In a six-three decision, the Supreme Court found that a Maryland public school district’s refusal to allow parents to withdraw their children from such classes threatened their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion. Justice Samuel Alito said the court has long recognised the rights of parents to direct their children’s religious upbringing.
Elementary schools in Maryland introduced books with LGBT characters into the curriculum in 2022 – not primarily to improve the reading skills of young children, but to increase ‘representation’ and to introduce children to new ideas about sexuality and gender identity. When teachers, administrators and parents questioned the content and age-appropriateness of the books chosen, schools were permitted to allow children whose parents raised objections to be excused from such lessons. However, when a large number of opt-out requests caused difficulties with finding alternative provision, and prompted awkward questions from children left in class, the Maryland school board reconsidered.
It was at this point that parents from a wide range of faith communities got together and decided to mount a legal case in defence of their rights, ultimately taking their case all the way to the Supreme Court. Their actions were backed by the Trump administration, which said that Maryland schools had made the benefits of public education contingent on parents ‘foregoing [their] religious beliefs’. Announcing the court’s decision, Justice Alito said the books ‘unmistakably convey a particular viewpoint about same-sex marriage and gender’, and that the school board had ‘specifically encouraged teachers to reinforce this viewpoint and to reprimand any children who disagree’.
It is appalling that in countries around the world, state officials assume education is a tool to be exploited to impose officially sanctioned views on children. The American parents who fought back and won a tough legal battle to restore their authority deserve to be congratulated. Parents in France and across Europe need to unite and push back against the state’s encroachment on family life. The right to raise your children in line with your own values ought to be non-negotiable.
Joanna Williams is a spiked columnist and author of How Woke Won. Follow her on Substack: cieo.substack.com/