The Rowes

Nigel and Sally Rowe are challenging trans-affirming school policies after being told that their son ‘misgendering’ a child could be considered a form of bullying.

When a six-year-old boy in their son’s class started to come to school sometimes dressed as a girl, Nigel and Sally Rowe, who live on the Isle of Wight, raised concerns with the Church of England school. They say that their son, also six years old, came home from school upset and saying that he was “confused” by the situation.

Nigel and Sally met with the headteacher and class teacher, and followed up with a letter setting out some of the questions that they had. But the school’s formal response was “cold”, they say, and didn’t address their concerns. In the letter, the school suggested that an “inability to believe a transgender person is actually a ‘real’ female or male” and the refusal to “acknowledge a transgendered person’s true gender e.g. by failing to use their adopted name or using gender inappropriate pronouns,” was “transphobic behaviour”.

The policies adopted by the school were originally published in 2015 as the Cornwall Schools Transgender Guidelines, and have since been held up as best practice by other schools and local authorities, and even the Department for Education.

After being permission was granted for a judicial review, the government decided in 2022 to settle the case, awarding the Rowes £22,000 in legal costs.

Nigel and Sally, who are currently homeschooling their two children, continue to challenge these trans affirming policies, including the Church of England’s Valuing All God’s Children guidance which embeds trans ideology into church school policies.

Read the expert reports backing the Rowes’ case

• Graham Rogers, M. Sc., (Southampton) M.Sc., (Goldsmiths, London) B.Sc. (Hons).,
  (Lancaster) PGCE., Dip. REBT., C. Psychol., AFBPsS.
• Dr Paul Rodney McHugh, M.D.
• Quentin L. Van Meter, M.D., F.C.P.