Transition? NO! Barbara Nowak: Let’s love our children, let’s not hurt them

“Today we have a situation where school students are even encouraged to experience pain, because if adults take advantage of the situation that a young person, in accordance with his or her development, experiences many different problems related to his or her growth, is not sure what he or she wants in life, does not really understand all the physical processes he is going through, mental problems, doubts. It used to be that this young man actually wondered who he was, but in an intellectual sense – where to go? what to achieve? – and today he is guided in this way that his doubts concern primarily his physical appearance – will he be accepted? what does he look like? how does he feel? – and hints from various sides, especially the LGBT community, which clearly say to this man: ‘See if you really feel good in your body? Is this what you would like? Or maybe something else would suit you better? Maybe you would feel better if it weren’t for this physicality that may be bothering you?'” – Barbara Nowak said. She explained that these are “various types of doubts, especially when a person is a teenager”.

“Especially when he is going through a homophilous phase, which everyone goes through, they can cause this person to go astray, especially when there are adults around him who position themselves as guides for this young person and give him suggestions, but they give them suggestions not with the intention of helping this person, but with the intention of such a construct, the project of a ‘new man'” – she did not hide her regret.

“Today we have a situation where many circles think that they can position themselves as ‘correctors’ of God’s idea and can create this man again. And they do not mind at all that this man is told that, for example, because of the idea of changing his sex, that he is condemned to suffering, to the severe suffering of physical and mental changes, and that after surgical changes this man will never really live without pain and suffering” – she warned, adding: “This is absolutely for me as a teacher, as a mother, as a grandmother, incomprehensible”. “Until recently, I couldn’t imagine at all, as a teacher, that an adult could cynically harm a young person, the one whom the teacher should protect, with whom he should carry burdens, and today, unfortunately, I know that this is happening. I know it as a school superintendent in Małopolska, because I see these situations in my schools and they are very different cases” – she admitted.

“Generally speaking, I must say that – this is also a very important issue – most often the people who decide to change their physicality are especially girls. I see fewer boys, many more girls. And why is it like that? Because girls are more sensitive, more emotional, it’s easier to put pressure on them, it’s easier to control them, especially when you talk to them about goodness, telling them how much you care about this person. After all, this girl believes the man who talks to her like this and is cynically deceived. Today we know that it usually starts with first sowing doubts in the mind of such a young person, then saying ‘you have time, you will decide what is good for you, in what direction you want to go, since we know that sex is a fluid matter, that biology is not the most important thing, because there are possibilities of cultural gender, you should think, wait, decide – maybe as a result of experiments – who you really want to be. And blockers are given, access to which is becoming easier, in order to stop development. And the first thing is that these blockers are substances that cause changes in the human body and cause a disruption in the functioning of the body. This is the first step. And then more come. Then it turns out that there are psychologists and doctors who do not really investigate the functioning problems of such a young person, but they quickly try to give a diagnosis and everything goes further, becomes more intense, accelerates” – she said.

School superintendent Barbara Nowak emphasized that teachers and school principals must treat such children seriously and respect their humanity. How? “I have to tell him as it is, so: ‘Listen, you have a birth certificate, you are registered as a girl, we will treat you as a girl according to the law, I cannot call you by any other name than the one registered until the court decides change, because I’m not breaking the law, I take you very seriously. Until the change, if it happens, you have to accept it, because we all take each other very seriously. Moreover, you also have to look at your colleagues, because when you come to this class obviously, physically a girl, you can’t tell everyone that you are a boy and that you are supposed to be treated as a boy. Maybe it will make you feel better, but the rest of the class won’t feel good about it. They won’t see, how should they find each other, how should they behave?’ I am having such conversations with the directors. I am asking them to take really good care of this child, integrate them with the class, deal with various matters and we will see what will happen next” – she reported.

Barbara Nowak drew attention to the irresponsible behavior of psychologists, including school psychologists, who, instead of getting to the heart of a child’s problems with his or her identity, make cursory and quick diagnoses. “We already have situations like this today, where the principal comes to me with information from a psychologist and the psychologist writes that this girl must be treated as a boy and everyone must obey this. She tells this child, whom she sends with this opinion to the principal and the class teacher: this is your right. What does this mean? This means that the psychologist is doing double harm to this child, because she is dooming him to another failure, because with this arrangement, as I said earlier, the child receives a completely different message from his teacher, from the principal, from teachers than the one used by the psychologist. The psychologist is breaking the law. She has no right to direct the child in this way, but she does it. If she has the slightest idea how the school works, she does it cynically, because the school has no right proceed in this way, as the psychologist orders, until the name is not changed in court” – she said.

The Małopolska superintendent reminded that “school is a place where you grow up, where certain rules are established, so teachers, parents and students should know about it. For me, this means that adults should agree on certain things among themselves and then actually apply these principles”.

“Young people need the boundaries to have set. Certain rules must apply at school and in society as a whole” – she emphasized. “Let’s love our children. Let’s not hurt them” – she appealed.