Just when you thought sanity might prevail as more and more overseas doctors, health officials, and politicians are becoming aware of the dangers of the cultural-left’s radical gender and sexuality theory – the NSW Education Department has descended to a new low.

By now, NSW schools would have received an official enrolment notice stating a new category has been added to be used when enrolling students.

Self-described joins the list of: Female, Male, Not Stated/Inadequately Defined, Intersex or Indeterminate, and Other.

Under the category of Self-described, schools are told students will have the opportunity to use non-binary pronouns including they/them. One wonders on what basis a primary school child can self-identify and, if they do, whether parents will have any say in the decision.

When justifying the belief gender and sexuality are non-binary, the Education Department states the new policy supports ‘students, parents, and care givers who identify as non-binary’. Apparently, everyone now has power to self-identify anywhere on the LGBTIQA+ gender fluidity spectrum.

Forget the reality gender and sexuality are binary, with rare exceptions, where babies are born with either XX or XY chromosomes. For Christian parents, there is also the Biblical admonition male and female as He created them.

Unlike Australia – where radical gender theory, especially transgenderism, still prevails – overseas authorities, including doctors, clinicians, and health experts, are questioning the efficacy and benefits of allowing children and young people to choose to be non-binary.

The reality is the majority of children and teenagers do not have the maturity, self-awareness, or intellectual ability to fully understand the consequences of questioning their gender and sexuality.

In England, the Tavistock child gender identity clinic closed after being criticised by an independent report which suggested that they had failed to properly counsel young people. In France, Finland, Norway, and America, more and more authorities are questioning what gender supporters are doing.

I first became aware of the dangers of schools and education authorities endorsing and promoting LGBTIQA+ gender and sexuality theories when I discovered the Safe Schools program. Launched in 2010, the Victorian government justified the initiative as an antibullying program.

It argues ‘the Victorian Government established Safe Schools to ensure schools are safe places for all students, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex, queer and questioning, and asexual (LGBTIQA+) students, and are free of discrimination’.

Ignored is the admission that it was not exclusively created as a measure to stop bullying. At a socialist conference, it was argued that ‘only Marxism provides the theory and practice of genuine human liberation’ and the ‘Safe Schools Coalition is about supporting gender and sexual diversity, not about stopping bullying’.

What parents need to realise is that it’s not just the Safe Schools program being used to indoctrinate students with neo-Marxist-inspired gender and sexuality theories. The Australian Association for English Teachers has long argued that the classroom should be used to promote gender diversity.

Children’s stories like Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella are criticised for promoting a binary, heteronormative view of sexuality. Similarly, with Romeo and Juliet and Jane Austen’s novels, that argument is it’s wrong to reinforce the view love is between a female and male.

The Australian Education Union, previously known as the Australian Teachers Federation, has long argued the school curriculum should be non-heterosexist and that homosexuality and bisexuality need to be normalised.

The AEU’s policy goes on to argue all staff must be inserviced on homophobia and heterosexism and that both must be included in the content of pre-service training for all teachers. While the AEU and programs like Safe Schools seek to normalise non-binary gender and sexuality, they present heterosexuality in a negative light.

In the UK, Europe and the United States radical gender and sexuality theory is being questioned on the basis children and teenagers need to be properly counselled and warned about the dangers of identifying as non-binary. It’s about time Australia followed suit.

Dr Kevin Donnelly is a conservative author and cultural critic.