Children are being taught “gender identity ideology’ in Tasmanian primary schools without the knowledge or consent of parents, with one mother revealing her daughter – who had undertaken the sex education program over a period of six years – now identifies as a boy.
The mother, a qualified teacher herself, told The Australian how her family’s life changed irrevocably after taking part in Family Planning Tasmania’s Growing Up Program, alleging the content delivered in schools directly contributed to her daughter declaring she was a boy.
Another parent said she learned about a sex education program at her children’s school on the day it began and was told by the instructor the course used “inclusive language” such as “people with penises” and “people with vulvas”, but the instructor would not show her course materials. Family Planning Tasmania, which is 50 per cent funded by Tasmanian taxpayers, has refused to provide access to its teaching material, claiming “commercial in confidence” for the program, aimed at children from kindergarten to Year 6.
Parents at both public and private schools have reported they were not notified before the Growing Up Program sessions took place or given details of the “gender identity” focus, that no permission slips or parent information sessions were offered, and that parents were not permitted into the classes.
Women’s rights group Women Speak Tasmania says the program “teaches children that boys can have vaginas, girls can have penises, and that gender is nothing more than a feeling”.
WST director Elizabeth Caballero has written to state Education Minister Jo Palmer seeking an urgent review of the $2m a year program and asking that Family Planning Tasmania should no longer deliver sex education in the state.
“Multiple parents have come forward with consistent and troubling accounts highlighting a lack of transparency, age-inappropriate content, and the implicit teaching of gender ideology to primary school children,” Dr Caballero said.
The retired GP said deliberately withholding teaching materials contravened the National Child Safe Principles, which requires organisations to “seek feedback from families and communities on issues of child safety and wellbeing” and to ensure open communication with families.
WST has also written to Tasmanian Attorney-General Guy Barnett warning that the government may be exposed to liability for negligence under its duty of care to protect children from foreseeable harm.
The WST also expressed alarm at the Tasmanian Department of Education’s Respectful Relationships Resources guide which was “saturated with gender ideology from kindergarten through Year 12”.
The document says “some people with the gender identities ‘boy’ or ‘man’ have vulvas, and some with the gender identity ‘girl’ or ‘woman’ have penises/testicles. Your genitals don’t make you a boy or a girl.” Teachers are instructed to “affirm children’s unconventional choices – our job is to support all children in their decisions”.
WST says “teachers are expected to deny biological fact and instruct children in an ideological belief with no scientific foundation.”
One mother has told The Australian how, in 2023, her daughter, who had done the Growing Up Program for six years, but was now in high school, “came out of her bedroom and said that she was a boy”.
“She’d never before dressed as a tomboy or anything like that, but she wanted a new name and she now presents like a male,” she said. “It’s caused a lot of distress for my family, my husband and my son. We’ve just said, look, we can’t affirm that to our daughter, you have to respect us as well – so we don’t use the pronouns.”
Seeking the source of this new identity, the mother called FPT and spoke to a staff member there about the program taught at her daughter’s private school, who she alleges confirmed that the program teaches about identity and how it is formed, going beyond mere discussions of sexuality.
“She said, we do say you can be a girl, but you can feel like a boy inside. So you can be assigned a girl, but, you know, it can actually be a boy,” the mother claimed.
She asked to read the program but was instead invited to meet staff at FPT who, she claims, confirmed they “teach that children have a gender identity and of course they can change sex”. They defended their teaching on changing sex, she claims, by referencing intersex people, suggesting this validated the existence of a “third sex”.
She alleged they dismissed the mother’s request to read the course materials, arguing they were “commercial in confidence” and “not relevant” since her daughter was no longer in primary school.
“This concept of having an inner gender identity is spoken of as fact, but really it’s a theory, a metaphysical idea. The Genderbread diagram hasn’t been peer-reviewed,” the mother said.
“FPT placates parents by saying, ‘well, we have a parent session’, but they don’t actually tell you what’s being taught. The fact that they can’t be transparent with what they actually teach is a red flag.”
The mother says she thinks the program contributed directly to her daughter’s issues, but acknowledges that “there has to be other factors that led into it”.
“If you talk to lots of parents you always see these ingredients: this type of teaching, a bit of trauma, and she does seem to have some type of neurodiversity or autism. She’s quite gifted and thinks very deeply, feels a bit of an outsider.”
Her daughter’s private school had not reviewed the FPT program materials before they were taught and the principal admitted, in an email The Australian has seen, that she hadn’t looked at it.
The mother suggested this failure occurred because FPT is subsidised by the Tasmanian government to deliver sex education, meaning schools simply trust the third-party provider.
Another mother, whose children are aged five and nine, attended an information session held at 8.30am on the Monday of the first day of term, when only she and her husband and one other mother attended.
The school serves a low socio-economic status area with recent migrants who she believes “just have no idea what’s going on” regarding the content being taught.
When she asked about the language used in the program around puberty, she was told that it used inclusive language like “people with penises” and “people with vulvas”.
The mother contacted the acting manager for education at FPT, requesting to see the teaching materials but was informed they were “confidential to FPT”.
FPT CEO Marcus Di Martino told The Australian “the concept of gender identity is not taught as part of our GUP program” but if questions relating to gender identity were raised by students, “our educators respectfully acknowledge these while gently refocusing the discussion back to the program’s core content … We do, however, use inclusive and medically accurate language to ensure all students feel welcomed and included.”
Asked why the FPT refused to grant parents access to the teaching materials, Mr Di Martino said: “We do not provide the full program, which includes our intellectual property, to parents but provide an outline”, pointing to the information page on the FPT website.
Mr Di Martino declined to comment on individual cases.
by Stephen Rice
Source: The Australian
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The Australian – printed edition 25.10.25
