N. Ireland ideology

Democratic Unionist Party

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is the unionist, loyalist, British nationalist, and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. The Education Authority is the institution governing Northern Ireland’s primary and secondary education services and provides guidelines on how to implement government policy. The Chairman of the Education Authority in Northern Ireland is Mervyn Storey, an elder in a protestant church, appointed to the government role in 2024 by DUP Minister for Health Paul Givan, and paid £50,000 plus expenses per annum for a three-day work week.

Transgender Young People

The Education Authority has released a 60-page document entitled ‘Guidance for Schools on Supporting Transgender Young People’. It has been formally issued to schools and applies to all schools, including primary schools and pre-schools under the Authority. The document includes the following:

• Schools should provide transgender books and uplift ‘transgender role models’.
• Teachers should ask ‘transgender students’ what name and pronoun they wish to be referred to by.
• Teachers and school staff should use the student’s preferred name and pronouns including using the ‘they’ pronoun.
• Teachers must not tell the child’s parents they are changing their ‘gender identity’ without the child’s consent.
• Support of ‘transgender young people’ is part of the ‘inclusive ethos’ of a school.
• Schools are encouraged to promote this ethos by setting up a Gender and Sexual Orientation Alliance in schools, teaching in a ‘gender-aware’ way, using LGBT resources in the classroom, and teaching the Relationships and Sex Education curriculum.
• Schools should give transgender students access to toilets that match their gender identity.
• If a staff member deliberately ‘misgenders’ a student, they should be made aware that their behaviour is unacceptable.
• Staff may refer children to CAMHS, which can then make a referral to the Knowing Our Identity Service, a child transgender clinic run by Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. (​The transgender clinic was recently awarded almost £1 million in funding.)

​child abuse