Two ordinary Kiwis go toe-to-toe with their local school over inappropriate gender-identity and sexuality content in the curriculum.

“This is not for the faint-hearted” says Blair on engaging with his and Karen’s local school re: inappropriate content in the Ministry of Education’s ‘Relationships and Sexuality Education Guidelines’ (RSE). “You have to go in there with real determination.”

The school kids in Mangawhai, on the upper east coast of the North Island, are lucky that both he and Karen have that in spades.

Like an ever-increasing number of parents, grandparents, aunties, and uncles, Karen and Blair have strong objections to some of the sexuality and gender-identity content in the Ministry of Education’s ‘Relationships and Sexuality Education Guidelines’ (RSE). Here is a comprehensive analysis of those guidelines written by Family First.

Blair, a solo dad who now home schools his son, had already been trying to engage with his son’s school over inappropriate sexuality and gender-identity content in the RSE Guidelines before Karen also got wind of it, and joined forces with him. Together with others, they formed a Facebook group called PAGE NZ – Parents Against Gender Education New Zealand. The number of members quickly grew, and continues to do so as more people seek a place to talk, learn, and discuss what they can do about this content which kids are at risk of being exposed to now.

Not all schools incorporate the inappropriate content from the RSE Guidelines into their curriculum, but there are those that do. Karen and Blair talk with me here about the fractious engagement they’ve had with their local school in trying to get them stop incorporating this content. It’s some story.

Two ordinary Kiwis go toe-to-toe with their local school about the Relationships & Sexuality Guidelines.

Since publishing this video, I’ve had another person tell me it’s similar to what she experienced when trying to engage with her kids’ school after discovering what some of the content was in the RSE Guidelines. And Katherine Chua told her harrowing story about it, too, at the ‘Unsilenced’ event in Wellington in May (2024).