Letter to Jo Palmer schools HPE training program

Good afternoon Ms. Palmer,

We are writing to draw your attention to the extremely disturbing content of a teacher training program being delivered to Tasmanian primary and secondary school teachers by the organization Working It Out on behalf of your department, the DECYP.

Women Speak Tasmania has recently been alerted to the content of the program “Supporting Sexuality, Sex and Gender Diversity in HPE” and have serious concerns about the following items it contains.

How to do safe chest binding. We do not consider chest binding to be safe for any girls and object to the idea that responsibility for implementing such a practice would be considered part of a teacher’s remit.

School should provide a safe space for the donning or removing of chest binders. Clearly if a school were to do this it would amount to an endorsement of this harmful practice.

Boys who identify as girls are to be allowed into girl’s toilets where the toilets retain female labelling. If any objection is raised that is to be considered harassment. This amounts to gaslighting our female students.

If the word woman is used instead of the term ‘person with a uterus’ this is to be considered wrong. We strongly support the continued use of proper, gendered language.

Teachers are to follow certain procedures for students who have had ‘surgical
interventions to normalize the body.’ We are concerned to know why this point is included for primary and secondary teachers whose students are not over 18 years old. Is this an indication that trans surgeries or intersex surgeries are being performed on Tasmanian minors?

We would also alert you to the response of Tasmanian parents and others to the information about this program on social media. Parents and others are appalled by the actions of your department.

We urge you to investigate the content of this program and we call for the program to be suspended while your investigation is taking place.

Based on our information regarding this program we call for it to be permanently axed and for the DEPYC to employ their own staff to formulate programs rather than employ groups such as Working It Out who are clearly using the delivery of such programs as a means to promulgate gender ideology.

We look forward to your response.

Kind Regards,

Emma Shaw

Women Speak Tasmania


Below is Jo Palmer’s reply to the above letter