On 26–27 July 2025 our spokeswoman, Tanya Carter, delivered a powerful and urgent speech at the WDI International Conference (in London and online), drawing attention to the escalating safeguarding failures in UK schools. Her talk offered a sobering account of how gender identity ideology, inappropriate RSHE materials, and institutional denial have compromised child protection – especially for girls.
We have been advocating for evidence-based, age-appropriate RSE/PSHE teaching that puts child welfare above political or ideological agendas since 2019. In her address, Tanya made it clear that while SSA supports relationship and sex education in principle, current teaching materials and training have too often blurred the lines between education and indoctrination.
In her keynote, Tanya tackled difficult but essential questions:
- Why is safeguarding so poorly understood in UK institutions?
- How did political activism infiltrate schools, often under the guise of equality?
- Why are adults’ feelings prioritised over the safety and boundaries of children?
- Why are parents still being kept in the dark about what their children are being taught?
Drawing on her experience as a former Chair of Governors and trained safeguarding lead, Tanya highlighted several real-world examples of safeguarding failures. This included shocking cases involving organisations such as NSPCC and BBC where safeguarding principles were overridden, potentially through fear of being labelled “transphobic” or “homophobic”. She warned that such silencing tactics are increasingly used to deflect valid child protection concerns and that there are grave concerns about such organisations who consistently ignore safeguarding red flags, even when they are waved firmly in their faces.
Tanya speech strengthened our call for a full public inquiry into how safeguarding has been compromised across the education system, questioning the government’s piecemeal efforts, such as recent RSHE guidance, which she argued fails to address the root causes. Tanya also criticised the ongoing lack of transparency in schools, the embedding of activist teachers, and the refusal of institutions to confront how certain interpretations of “equality” have undermined fundamental child protection.
A sobering moment from the speech was her critique of initiatives like the BBC’s “Safe With Me” campaign, which encourages children to wear badges offering to accompany others to the toilet – something Tanya rightly identified as a clear safeguarding red flag.
“It really is beyond shocking that after years of the safeguarding implications of education that erodes children’s boundaries being pointed out, this has happened yet again. It is also shocking that our national broadcaster is once again involved in attempting to undermine public understanding of safeguarding despite years of various groups pointing out its bias, lack of understanding of child protection and the disinformation being spread by its misinformation specialists.”
Her message to the public was unequivocal: Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. She urged parents to stay alert, ask questions, and refuse to be silenced. True safeguarding, she stressed, is not about slogans or badges, it is about ensuring children know they are worthy of protection and that adults must act in their best interests.
It seems that the concept of Safer Recruitment is no longer being adhered to or understood. Tanya reported that that there are many cases of ‘non-binary’ teachers wishing students to address them as ‘Mx’ and asking their classes to write down their pronouns, some of these reports have come from primary schools.
“Individuals wishing to work with children for their own validation and not for the benefit of children should be identified during the interview process and weeded out. Wanting to work with children to proselytise or to validate your gender identity is a very clear sign of an ‘unsuitable individual’, people recruiting for schools should know this. No one who lies about their sex should be employed in a school. No man who expects to identify his way into female spaces should work with children in any capacity or on policy that affects them.”
SSA has consistently held this position on the failure of safeguarding since 2019 and we do not think we are any closer to solving the significant safeguarding failures in our country than we were when we launched. Tanya’s speech has sparked widespread discussion across educational and parental networks and we urge people to keep raising those red flags. As the fight for safeguarding reform continues we hope Tanya’s contribution at WDI 2025 stands as a rallying cry for accountability, transparency, and the return of evidence-led child protection in schools.
“While some people are celebrating the end of the ‘TERF wars’ the situation in schools is rapidly deteriorating, we see no hope for improvement without the government acknowledging the scale of safeguarding failures and ordering a far reaching public inquiry. Without understanding how and why established safeguarding has failed so comprehensively there can be no way forward. It is not just gender identity ideology, with the dismantling of effective safeguarding children are at risks of all sorts and as ever it will be the most vulnerable such as those in care, with no adult to protect and advocate for them that will suffer most severely.”
We would like to thank WDI for offering us the opportunity to speak. SSA is a signatory of WDI’s Declaration on Women’s Sex Based Rights.
If you are concerned about what is happening in your school or community Tanya urges you to:
“Speak up and stand firm—our safeguarding rights exist because women before us refused to stay silent. Don’t be intimidated by labels or silencing tactics. Challenge schools, speak to your community, and help build a groundswell of public will to protect children.”
You can download and read the full speech below:
Or watch Tanya addressing the conference:
For more information on how to challenge your schools on Safeguarding start with our guide to How to Complain to your School.