The United Kingdom’s Department for Education will allow some primary schools to offer students a booklet on “medical transitioning” called “Can I Tell You About Gender Diversity?”
LGBT activist CJ Atkinson’s latest book in a the “Can I Tell You About…?” series by Jessica Kingsley Publishers will be offered to students in late January, but the decision has already ignited protests from government officials and religious leaders. The material will be read by children as young as seven years old.
“We call it trans-panic,” Mr. Atkinson told The Guardian on Monday of backlash towards the project. “This mud-slinging has to stop. It causes active harm. When you have a group of transgender young people, one in two will consider suicide, one in three will attempt it.
The author (who prefers the pronouns they, their and them) insisted that activists are not trying to “break everything down so that there’s nothing, so there’s no meaning in anything.” Instead, they see themselves as “opening it up so everybody can have access to everything.”
“Can I Tell You About Gender Diversity?” includes information on hormone blockers, gender dysphoria, and the use of different pronouns, the newspaper reported.
A character named Sam prefers the pronoun “they,” and another named Leigh requests “xe.”
“The world is changing,” Mr. Atkinson told the newspaper in an exclusive interview. “A book like this is needed. People want to help. They want to know.”
