These articles were first published in our March edition of the newspaper, click here for more.
The UK Deed Poll Service reported a sharp rise in the number of parents paying £35 to alter their child’s title from ‘Miss to Master’ or ‘Master to Miss’ in the past five years, with about one under-16-year-old making the change every day, it was reported in January.
‘We used to issue a couple of these deed polls every couple of months, but now it’s seven to ten a week,’ said Louise Bowers, a senior deed poll officer. The majority are teenagers, but some are as young as ten.
It was reported in February that nursery staff in Scotland have been told not to call children ‘boys’ and ‘girls’.
The guidance from the Care Inspectorate also cautions against using words such as ‘man-made’ and ‘mankind’ and urges staff to change story characters such as Mr Squirrel to ‘Squirrel’. Critics have called the guidance ‘patronising’ and ‘out of control’.
On 14 February, the European Mission Fellowship moved offices to Glenfield, north Leicester.
It is being done to reduce day-to-day running costs and a substantial part of the funds raised from the sale of their previous site will help establish a Training Fund to train future missionaries for Europe. Significant steps on getting that fund up-and-running have already been taken and a sense of real anticipation has occurred among some of their missionaries.
In early February the House of Lords debated same-sex marriage exemptions, with the hope of removing the right of clergy to opt out of performing same-sex ‘marriages’.
Although the Bishop of Chelmsford opposed the amendment, he spoke about the CofE working closely with Stonewall and held out the prospect that church doctrine on homosexuality could change. After the government opposed the amendment, it was withdrawn.
It was reported in February that a training course for GPs which encouraged doctors to help patients ‘change sex’ has been dropped.
The course, developed by the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES), had been listed on the Royal College of General Practitioners’ website since 2015. But following concerns from GPs who felt uncomfortable pushing patients towards transitioning, the course has been removed. The Royal College also recently deleted the trans activist group Mermaids from its list of recommended referrals, branding it ‘too controversial’.
The Church of England faced opposition from more than 2,000 of its own clergy and office holders over new guidance on celebrating transgender ‘transitions’, it was reported in February.
In an open letter the clergy urged the House of Bishops to ‘revise, postpone or withdraw’ the guidance. The CofE has said it will give ‘serious consideration’ to the letter. The advice supports churches’ use of ‘affirmation of baptism’ services to mark a person’s ‘gender transition’.
A petition to the government requesting a parliamentary debate on the rights of parents to opt a child out of Relationships Education, reached the required 100,000 signatures and will be debated on 25 February.
Relationships and Sex Education becomes a mandatory subject in 2020, with many schools adopting the curriculum ahead of that date. Although parents can remove their child from the Sex Education curriculum, there is no similar provision for removal from the Relationships elements, including teaching on trans issues and same-sex relationships.