Our response to the UK government’s latest RSHE guidance

A statement from Anne Health

This week, the Department for Education released draft guidance on relationships, sex, and health education (RSHE). Beneath its polite tone lies something dangerous: a quiet attempt to erase trans young people from our schools.

By framing gender identity as a “viewpoint” rather than a lived reality, the guidance sends a chilling message, that trans and nonbinary children are a controversy, not a community. It reduces their identities to debate, their existence to something optional, questionable, or wrong.

Teaching “the facts” must not mean erasing trans lives or promoting a narrow, binary model of sex that excludes intersex people. It must not imply that supporting a child’s social transition is dangerous, when we know, through research and lived experience, that affirmation saves lives.

We’ve seen this before. Section 28 silenced generations of LGBTQ+ young people. We will not let history repeat itself.

This guidance is not just harmful, we believe it’s legally flawed. Under the Equality Act 2010, trans young people have the right to learn without discrimination. Any policy that casts their identities as inappropriate or up for debate risks breaking that law.

This is not about protecting children. It’s about restricting what they can learn, and who they are allowed to be.

Susie Green, Co-founder of Anne Health, says:

"This guidance gives the green light for transphobia and ushers in a new Section 28, explicitly aimed at the erasure of trans and non-binary young people. It is incomprehensible that this is being introduced when we know the harm that silence and shame have already caused."

To every trans young person reading this: you are real. You are loved. Your identity is not a viewpoint, it is you. You deserve to learn and thrive in a school that sees you, respects you, and defends your right to exist.

To educators, parents, and allies: do not stay silent. Write to your MPs. Speak to your school boards. Demand education rooted in compassion and fact, not selective narratives that sideline the most vulnerable.

Trans children deserve more than tolerance. They deserve to be celebrated, supported, and safe.