The Gender conversation

“The failure rate for school-based Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE) globally was 87%”,  (Re-Examining the Evidence for School Based Comprehensive Sex Education: A Global Research Review).

This is a significant and scary number for us within Trinidad and Tobago.

Why should we be concerned? Because if the good people at certain factions of the United Nations (UN) would have their way, CSE, a concerningly graphic sexual curriculum would be taught in schools to our children from as young as age three without parental consent.

The lobby from the United Nations to implement CSE within our regional schools at the CARICOM level is significant. One might also describe it as “careless” given the poor efficacy of CSE curriculua, both in the United States and globally, and its erosion of parental rights.

The Review is an important peer-reviewed study as it calls into question the quality of assessment and “lenient standards” employed by certain UN bodies in determining the effectiveness and outcomes of CSE programmes worldwide.

“We have examined reviews of sex education research conducted by key organizations in this field and have observed an important but little-reported characteristic common to many of them. While most of these organizations set a reasonable standard for the quality of the scientific methods employed by the studies included in their review, they often apply much more lenient standards to the quality of program outcomes used to define effectiveness. Their claims of CSE program effectiveness are typically based on a fairly low benchmark for these outcomes, often the finding of only one minimal indicator of positive impact.”

The same study goes on to note: “CSE programs in school classrooms worldwide appear to have produced more evidence of harm (16 studies) than of effectiveness (six studies). And the rate of harm was especially high for school-based CSE programs in Africa (24%, nearly 1 in 4), the continent most impacted by HIV and AIDS.”

“The fact that almost all of the evidence of school-based CSE effectiveness (five of the six studies) came from studies conducted by the programs’ developers, rather than independent evaluators, should also not be overlooked.”

One must ask why certain UN bodies that are so fixated on implementing a sub-standard curriculum given some alarming global trends that are taking root and effect, and which is directly connected to the area of personal identity and biological sex is the issue of gender.

The ‘gender conversation’ has caused immense confusion and is deeply impacting many families in our world. The Church, both globally and within Trinidad and Tobago, has become increasingly concerned about this issue, especially given the new social contagion sweeping our societies and impacting our youth, in particular teenage girls – transitioning from one gender to the next with risky treatments.

Many of our young people are opting to change gender with oftentimes dangerous and irreversible hormone treatments.

Parents, grandparents, educators, caregivers are encouraged to get and stay informed around this conversation with the information page – www.catholictt.org/gender-conversation/