A ‘woke’ teacher has come under fire after telling a pupil she should ‘go to a different school’ for rejecting a classmate’s claim that she identified as a cat.
The pupil said she was made to stay after class by the teacher, who can be heard in a secret recording calling her view that gender is binary ‘really despicable’ and ‘very sad’.
In the three-and-half-minute recording, the angry teacher, who is unidentified, said they would report the girl to a senior colleague, and she needed a ‘proper educational conversation about equality, diversity and inclusion’.
The recording at Rye College in East Sussex begins with the teacher asking the pupil: ‘How dare you? You just really upset someone, saying things like [you] should be in an asylum.’
The girl responds: ‘I didn’t say that, I just said if they want to identify as a cow or something, then they are genuinely unwell, and they’re crazy.’
‘You were questioning their identity,’ the teacher replies. ‘Where did you get this idea from that there are only two genders?’. ‘I just said my opinion,’ the pupil replies.
‘If I can respect their opinion, can’t they respect mine?’ The teacher goes on to assert there are ‘lots of genders’ including ‘transgender’ and ‘agender’.
She then links the girl’s gender-critical attitude with ‘homophobia’, adding: ‘It is not an opinion… if you don’t like it, you need to go to a different school’.
The girl defends herself by saying she was respectful, but admits she felt compelled to ask her classmate ‘how can you identify as a cat, when you are girl?’
The teacher does not refer to anyone identifying as a cat in her remarks on the recording.
Rye College was yesterday bombarded by thousands of angry social media messages after the recording went viral.
A spokesman admitted said that the teacher should have acted differently, by ‘ensuring that pupils’ views are listened to’ and ‘encouraging them to ask questions and engage in discussion’ – instead of angrily shutting down debate on a controversial issue.
The spokesman said they would make sure ‘such events do not take place in the future’.
The secondary school is graded as good by Ofsted, and in its previous incarnation as Thomas Peacocke Community College, boasts Stella McCartney as an alumnus.
It is a member of the Aquinas Trust, which boasts that one of its key values is ‘promoting equality, celebrating diversity, and addressing disadvantage’.
