A primary school in the UK has rushed to have their logo scrubbed from a graphic sex education website designed for children ages 10 and up. Sibsey Primary School in Lincolnshire, England, moved to distance themselves from the resource after being contacted by The Publica.
BecomingMe.uk is a final year project created by Amy Crozier, a student at the University of Arts London. In a post to her Instagram, Crozier stated that her project was “influenced by the experiences of my LGBTQ+ friends and family” and is designed to “help children understand themselves” as well as create a more “inclusive” society.
“As my friends and I grew up, we began to understand that the British education system is not fit for purpose nor was it diverse in its teachings,” Crozier said of the resource. “Talking with them openly made me realise how hard it is for a young person to accept themselves when information on gender, sexuality and safe sex are not integrated into the school system.”
The project contains free workbooks and resources aimed at children as young as 10.
While the site does include standard sex education content regarding puberty and consent, it also claims that “the genitals you are born with do not determine your gender” and that it is “false” to say that “I was born with a vagina therefore I must be a girl.”
One disturbing section of the workbook “Body Parts” includes an activity for children to do involving “transitioning” from a man to a woman or vice versa.
Children are instructed to “draw arrows between the procedures in the dotted circles… and the correct transition on the right,” implying that anyone who identifies as transgender should get the procedures.
The suggested medical procedures include: corrective surgery to remove the female reproductive organs and construct a penis using tissue from the arm or leg, breast removal surgery, surgery to change the penis into a constructed vagina, and cross-sex hormone therapy.
Further sections of the website include descriptions of sexual activity, informing children that they can have “anal sex, oral sex, vaginal sex,” and adding that “aftercare is important to make sure each other feel comfortable and safe.” The section includes nude cartoon drawings of couples of both sexes engaging in sexual activity.
Michelle Dewberry, a presenter for GB News, first posted the Becoming Me project to Twitter on Wednesday, bringing widespread attention and backlash to the resource.
Dewberry noted that sex education in the UK is a “unique” subject in school, as it is “largely taught… using external companies/content, often without parents knowledge.” Dewberry said that she believed the Becoming Me project was just another example of inappropriate content being taught to children in schools.
Disturbingly, Becoming Me proudly boasts that it was “created based on questions from real children and approved by real teachers.” The site includes two photos of a female teacher going through the workbooks.
Jack Rankin, a former Conservative Parliamentary candidate, was similarly outraged.
“These people are groomers and should be on the sex offender list, not near primary schools,” he tweeted. “What is the Conservative government of 13 years doing,” Rankin wrote on Twitter.
In one of the photos, the logo for Sibsey Primary School in Boston, Lincolnshire, was clearly visible on the shirt of the teacher.
The Publica found that Sibsey Primary School’s website features one member of their teaching staff who goes by the name “Mrs Crozier,” suggesting a relation between the teacher in the photos and the person who created the workbook
The Publica contacted Sibsey Primary School earlier this week for comment. The school was asked whether they were aware of the existence of Becoming Me, and if the school endorsed the contents of the website, including the content regarding medical transitioning.
“Some of our staff agreed to speak to the university student who produced these materials about their experiences teaching Relationship, Sex and Health Education, which is an ongoing area of research,” the school’s headmaster told The Publica in a statement. “However, the workbooks were not used in school, are not used in school, and we do not endorse third-party teaching materials on any subject.”
Since contacting the school, the Becoming Me website has been edited, and Sibsey Primary School’s logo has been hastily scrubbed. The photos of the female teacher have been cropped and, more significantly, photoshopped to remove the logo of Sibsey Primary School from her shirt.
The unedited images featuring the teacher have also been deleted from Crozier’s Instagram page.
While it is unclear if any school ever actually used the Becoming Me project, lesson plans for relationships and sex education created by Stonewall, which feature content relating to “LGBT inclusivity,” are directly endorsed by the government and included in suggested resources for teachers to use on the government’s website.
Becoming Me was also featured in Stonewall’s LGBTQ+ Graduate Showcase Collection, with Crozier claiming that the organizations’s work “on LGBTQ+ education was a huge influence” on her during the project. Crozier specifically thanked Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin, the “digital mobilisation lead” at Stonewall.
