SuSe, there are a multitude of children at schools with problems that will never be cured and that will effect their lives and the reactions of people in their lives. Some of these problems are physical, some are mental, some are environmental.
Children who believe they are not the gender they were born with can easily go all through school without anyone even knowing, unlike kids with physical defects.
There is no need to make any announcements. The class doesn't need to know that little Johnny thinks he is a girl. These days both sexes participate in mixed sports. Most girls wear shorts or jeans to school. I don't know why such a big issue has to be made of the whole thing.
We don't give lessons on mental health disorders on things like schizophrenia and tell children if they hear voices in their head, then not to worry,it's quite normal.
Sexuality shouldn't be an issue at all in primary school and in secondary school if any children have issue then the home is the place to discuss it. From recent experience with many grandchildren at high school there doesn't seem to be much discrimination against gay kids at schools these days and that has occurred without any of this proposed indoctrination happening.
More than anything, what kids need to be taught is resilience. How to cope with being different in any respect. How to build self esteem and fortitude in the face of adverse comments. How to make the best of the hand they have been given, rather than trying to change the world around them, which is impossible anyway.
As I said, many kids suffer silently. Physical defects, mental defects, sexual abuse, violence in the home, drug and alcohol addiction in the home. Gender orientation is just one issue in life's reality. Stop focusing on it and address disadvantage as a whole.

Yuyutsu, you are living in a lucky country where our people expect our government to assist those less fortunate in our society. If you look at places that don't do this, then they have some of the most desperately poor people on earth. That is how you would be living if you really followed your strange ideas/lifestyle, and had no money to back it up.

We are 'focusing' on the gender issue at present Big Nana, because this thread is dealing with that topic. Mental health issues that we aren't born with are not in the same league.

You must be naive if you think children with gender dysphoria can go through their schooling undetected. Children can pick out differences in others very quickly, and a boy acting femininely or a girl the opposite, would often be quite obvious.
They are usually branded gay , once kids are old enough to know what that means. They have often been told this by their loving homophobic parents and have heard them calling these kids 'poofs' etc, so no, it is still a problem in schools and the wider society.

It is not a common problem, thank goodness, so I don't know what all the the fuss is about in mentioning the issue in schools, other than for some ignorant religious or just plain nasty reason.

Dear Suse,

I have no problem at all with the fact that the Australian government assists the poor and unfortunate, in fact I consider it a big positive thing (although I believe it should be done more directly and in this case, say, the state should pay poor patients rather than their rich doctors - but I digress). My problem is that this government (just like any other current government around the globe), more accurately the state which it represents, even exists without having first asked for the consent of the people which are being trodden under its laws.

Had participation in the state been voluntary as should, then I would most likely (after carefully reading all the small print of the contract) be happy to take the invitation and more than proud to pay my taxes. At the moment, however, had I accepted any money from the state as it stands, then I would be profiteering from an illegitimate body that violently forces itself on others without their consent.

Now if I had no money, well that would be difficult: you think that I would agree to steal other people's money through the state? well who knows, perhaps as you predict I could lose my morals on an empty stomach, I hope not. What I should do in such case is to beg, certainly not grab other people's purses, but ask politely instead. Setting up a state in order to beg collectively is OK, but then it must still be begging, not grabbing.

Now to the topic of this thread:

Given that society has over-emphasised gender and sex for so long, including even the ridiculous fact that it has different nouns such as "boy" and "girl" only because children happen to have different genitals (no such nouns exist for example for "blue-eyed" and "green-eyed" children), this may take time to undo.

Otherwise, ideally, gender dysphoria should go undetected because gender itself would not be detected in the first place. The word "gay" should not even be invented as people shouldn't pay that much attention to sexuality anyway.

If education is about teaching children how to think then shouldn’t they also think about the fact that no one can tell you whether you are a boy or a girl – only yourself?

Should they naively accept this doctrine as absolute truth or should they question it? If you want kids to question things would you not also want them to question this statement? Wouldn’t you want to present it in such a way as it encouraged them to think about whether or not it is true?

It is not like telling them that the world is round and then showing them pictures taken from space to prove your point. Surely anything that cannot be supported by fact should be presented as an opinion or theory. It does not sound like it is presented as a theory but rather as an unsubstantiated fact.

Only educators who are trying to push an agenda would be so dishonest with the children they pretend to care about. What have they got to lose by suggesting it is only an opinion? What are they afraid of by presenting it as a fact? This is not education – it is indoctrination. Those who complain about religious indoctrination seem oblivious to other types of indoctrination which can also cause great harm to children.

By all means present various opinions about gender and let children come to their own conclusion as they develop but do not play with children’s well-being and happiness by lying to them about what is factual and what is not.

Suseonline:

“You must be naive if you think children with gender dysphoria can go through their schooling undetected.”

I would challenge any primary school child to detect such a precise condition. Acting in a ‘feminine’ way is not the same as having gender dysfunction. What is wrong about acting in ways that are normally seen in the opposite sex? Should not kids be free to act how they want or are you saying that they must act according to their gender? Isn’t that imposing your own definition of what it means to be male or female and therefore against the teaching which says that no one can tell you if you are a boy or a girl?

The school curriculum has to respond to the situation that the majority of students find themselves in. Special needs kids should be dealt with in special ways. All the kids in the country should not have to spend their time having lessons on gender dysphoria when it affects so few of them. As Big Nana says there are more appropriate places to educate those who need to know.

“They have often been told this by their loving homophobic parents...” You seem rather obsessed with people’s homophobia. One could say you have a phobia about homophobia since you rarely miss an opportunity to attack people you suspect might be homophobic.

What exactly are you afraid of? Homophobic people cannot do any more harm than anyone else. They are as entitled to their views as anyone else and so long as they do not break any laws regarding discrimination or aggression or injustice then what is there to fear? A fear or dislike of homosexuals is just a feeling - feelings cannot hurt anyone, only actions, and since their actions are restrained by the law then we can only assume that your intent is to attack them just for having feelings and attitudes that are different from your own.

Toni, you know that old adage about assumptions. It has lasted for a good reason.
What gives you the idea that just because I was a health professional for thirty years that I had no experience with education? I actually taught my own four kids in the bush for a few years. Since those days I have had multiple interactions with teachers due to the fact they failed to detect severe dyslexia in a son and two grandchildren. Years at primary school and not one teacher picked up the fact that they couldn't read.
And currently I've just had to force a teacher, and vice principal to assess another grandchild who has dyscalculia, a condition they had never heard of, until I brought it to their attention. Six years of schooling and still at year one maths level yet teachers have never failed her once in this subject!
So, whilst teachers may cope with normal children who have no difficult issues, I have absolutely no faith that inexperienced staff would have any ability to handle the issue of
gender correctly, without causing more problems than they think they are fixing.
Figures show that the number of children with gender confusion is incredibly small, less than one percent, and of those children, 80% change their mind by the time they are adults.
In addition, if you read some of the literature this program is far more than just a passing mention of sexual orientation. Children are asked to do things like imagine they are sixteen and in love with someone of the same sex.
Virginity has been given a new definition by some multi gendered person who tells them that virginity is anything you want it to be!
The whole program is wrong on more levels than I can discuss here and should be scrapped.
Let children be children and keep primary school especially a politically free zone.