There is much outrage on social media this week about toddlers and school children being suspended from school for being transphobic. How did such madness come about and why does it continue? Therein lies a sorry tale, but one we need to understand in order to stop.

 In 2019, the Conservative government introduced updated ‘Relationship, Sex, and Health Education Guidance (RSHE)’ for schools. Among other things it required schools to teach children about ‘gender identity’.

Five years later, this still feels shocking. There is no science and evidence behind the idea of gender identity; it is pseudoscience from beginning to end and with tragic consequences. Campaigners strive to articulate its dehumanising effect. The campaign group Transgender Trend says it well here:

It was the 2019 RSHE Guidance which opened floodgates for transgressive and unscientific materials to pour into schools. LGBTQ charities and sex-ed providers produced materials teaching children that “everyone has a gender identity”, “trans-women are women” and “sex is a spectrum”. They explained that children must be affirmed in cross-sex identities, that cross-sex pronouns must be respected and that boys should be allowed to use girls’ toilets at school. Worst of all, materials implied that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and medical procedures to align a child’s body with his or her inner gender identity are harmless.

The promotion of gender ideology in schools helped fuel the pipeline of thousands of vulnerable girls identifying as boys, queueing at gender clinics and accessing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and gender surgeries. These treatments are experimental, risky, irreversible and result in lifelong harm and pain.

Following years of extensive campaigning from grassroots groups and thousands of parents, in 2024 the repentant Conservative government produced new draft RSHE guidance which went to public consultation. The new guidance is clear that ‘gender identity’ should not be taught in schools:

But then Rishi Sunak called the General Election. The new RSHE guidance remains in draft form. Children continue to be taught quackery at school. The Labour government is considering its options.

Unfortunately this means that campaigners for science and safeguarding need to get back on the horse. We need to expose again the pseudoscience that is harming our children via school lessons. Indeed, is it perhaps possible that after all the years of whistle-blowing and the exposure of the harms of gender ideology – including the seminal Cass Report – that sex-ed providers will already be changing their ways?

Seemingly not, if we look at Brook.

One of the most established sex-ed providers, Brook provides “sexual health and wellbeing services” as well as RSHE lessons for schools. It has an annual income of around £14 million, £13 million of this taxpayer-funded via local authorities and health trusts. Like most RSHE providers, Brook’s RSHE materials are not publicly accessible but are available to schools via subscription. This ed-tech-enabled secrecy is a serious problem and a driver behind a wider degradation of the quality of resources being used in our children’s schools.

However, Brook’s broader views on gender ideology are free to view on its website. It is disturbing to see harmful pseudoscience so blatantly displayed.

Its glossary alone illustrates Brook’s cavalier approach to science and to safeguarding and is worth perusing in full.

Brook’s definition of ‘gender identity’ is bold even by ‘industry standards’, amounting essentially to the claim that everyone just knows who they really are.

Quackery is intoned seriously:

On ‘pronouns’ Brook boldly asserts into existence variations never seen before nor since:

Here is Brook’s cavalier approach to real harm.

Let’s look at that “More about transitioning”.

Firstly, Brook describes the mystical experience of coming out just to yourself. We may be tempted to laugh, but vulnerable people will read and trust Brook:

Here is medical advice provided by Brook. This, aimed at women, paints a rosy picture about taking testosterone:

And here is a cheerful gender surgery explainer, sort of a shopping list:

By way of contrast, this is from a whistleblowing GP who has seen the results of these interventions – also worth reading in full:

A female patient in her 20s on testosterone presented at my surgery with urinary incontinence and vaginal atrophy. Vaginal atrophy occurs when the tissue in the wall of the vagina becomes thin and fragile, which can lead to pain and bleeding. The incontinence was caused by the effects of testosterone on the bladder and urethra – it was unable to function properly. The patient was in distress. Together these symptoms are known as urogenital atrophy.

The treatment was topical oestrogen, the hormone which was being suppressed. Suggesting this treatment added to the patient’s distress as it increased her gender dysphoria, but after some discussion she decided to try it as her symptoms would persist without oestrogen.

The patient had not been told that hormone therapy could result in incontinence and vaginal atrophy. This made me question whether patients are giving informed consent. The patient had been lost to follow up by her gender identity clinic (GIC) so I referred her back.

Another for good measure:

Another female patient came to me suffering from painful chafing. She had clitoral hypertrophy due to the testosterone she was taking. The clitoris was firm and it hurt. Clitoral hypertrophy is not likely to regress if testosterone is reduced or stopped. The only advice I could give were common sense measures.

The British Menopause Society calls vaginal atrophy “a chronic and progressive condition due to oestrogen deficiency” and notes “the effect of lack of oestrogen on urogenital tissue quality is an intermediate effect, often taking three to five years to become apparent”.

We are yet to see the enormity of the harms being caused. The longer a woman is on testosterone the more progressive her symptoms may become. As a GP this causes me great concern. This long term adverse effect presents itself years after transition, when there will be an accumulation of other long term irreversible harms, such as clitoral hypertrophy.

Brook’s willingness to so boldly present pseudoscience and a cavalier approach to safeguarding is astonishing.

So much for what is publicly available via Brook’s website. As above, the secrecy that is created via the ed-tech subscription model used by almost all sex-ed providers is a serious problem. Publish their pseudoscience into a textbook and it would be mocked – and they would be publicly answerable. Secrecy suits – and we need to work to remove this option.

However, a friend has provided some examples from a Brook RSHE teacher training course.

Welcome to men who are simply women:

Welcome to the trans-toddler:

This is irresponsible:

According to Brook, this is a problem!:

According to Brook, this is also a problem:

This advice from Brook is dangerous:

I could go on:

And on:

Our children are being taught this pseudoscience in our schools. Children trust adults. We are lying to them and we are betraying them. This has to stop. We need to start exposing the promoters of harmful pseudoscience again. Until there is new guidance and new practice about the teaching of gender ideology in schools vulnerable children will be placed on a pipeline to irreversible harm – and toddlers will be suspended for being transphobic.

Caroline Ffiske is a Director of Conservatives for Women. Find her on X.