Again Muslim parents are worried about the subject matter in their children’s curriculum at a secondary school in East London, UK.
The wave of protests came from parents of Muslim students who found that their children were forced to the LGBTQ ideologies in their lessons at school.
The Muslim parents were outraged after they saw viral images normalizing LGBT ideology in classrooms with their children.
The image, which is part of a classroom presentation, shows an animation of a Muslim woman wearing a hijab named Hafsa, who is narrated as a bisexual disabled person and uses all pronouns.
The animation explains that Hafsa is a Muslim girl who must choose to be bisexual or Muslim. The line that says, “Hafsa realizes that she can be both,” sets a negative example to impressionable Muslim children that “look its fine for you to be both Muslim and gay.“
Until now, it is not known which school presented the coercion of LGBT ideologies to Muslim students, but several media confirmed that the incident occurred at a school located in East London, UK.
Relationship teaching and sex education (RSE) in the UK, including teaching on same-sex relationships and transgender identity, has sparked a backlash from religious parents and religious schools who want to reject the new rules.
In January earlier this year, Muslim parents in the RedBridge area of East London vowed to remove their children from their schools unless LGBTQ issues were addressed.
Meanwhile, Parent United, a group formed in 2020 in response to concerns about the topic of RSE teaching, in its conference last November presented several charges against schools for ignoring sensitivity when advancing the topic. The group urges schools to demonstrate and agree on all resources with parents before being introduced to the classroom.
In addition, schools are asked to be transparent about when and how RSE is taught and the weight of attention to LGBT and other protected characteristics.
