The mother of a transgender child has slammed criticism by politicians of an anti-bullying program as “ill-informed fear mongering”.
The Safe Schools program is under review after Liberal senator Cory Bernardi and a number of Coalition MPs called on the federal government to withdraw funding because of claims the program is indoctrinating students.
The Australian Christian Lobby has praised the review as a win against “rainbow ideology”.
But the mother, who asked not to be named, said support from the Safe Schools Coalition had been pivotal in helping Newport Lakes Primary School deal sensitively with the gender transition of her son, who was born female.
“Those Cory Bernardi comments just make me so angry,” she said.
“It comes out of no real knowledge of the young people involved. I just think they are ill-informed, fear mongering, prejudiced and intolerant.”
The mother said the Safe Schools Coalition addressed her son’s classmates about tolerance, acceptance and kindness as well as training teachers across the school to field any questions from pupils.
“[My son] was asking us quite frequently if he could change names and we agreed that would be OK, so we needed to approach the school,” the mother said.
She said Safe Schools Coalition manager Roz Ward had come to the school.
“I cannot overstate how helpful it was, just for my son to be happy in himself,” she said.
Newport Lakes principal David Moss said the school had used the services of the Safe Schools Coalition “very effectively”.
“We were very shocked when we heard about the review,” he said. “We believe it would be a loss of a significant service to schools.”
Other participating inner-west schools include Altona Primary School, Altona Green Primary School, Williamstown Primary School and Footscray City College.
Opposition Leader and Maribyrnong MP Bill Shorten labelled Senator Bernardi a “homophobe”.
Greens Senator Janet Rice said the attacks on the Safe Schools Coalition by “the homophobic dinosaurs in the Coalition” put the wellbeing of young LGBTI Australians at risk.
An Australian Greens petition calling for support for the Safe Schools Coalition has received more than 30,000 signatures.
Gellibrand MP Tim Watts said the strong sense of community in the west was undermined when people were targeted and discriminated against.
“Programs like Safe Schools are there to protect children from the kinds of discrimination some Liberal Party members of Parliament indulged in this week.”
The review is due to report to Education Minister Simon Birmingham in mid-March.
