The Cass Review Was Never About Schools: What Teachers and Parents Need to Know Instead

Rt Hon Bridget Phillipson MP Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities Department for Education

Mar 19, 2026

Dear Secretary of State,

I listened to your recent appearance on LBC’s Call The Cabinet with Nick Ferrari, and I want to write to you in the spirit of genuine support rather than criticism. Gender in schools is a topic that deserves more clarity than it tends to get in a live radio interview, and I believe I can help you with that.

I am Dr Helen Webberley, a gender specialist and medical educator with more than thirty years of experience in medicine. Much of that time has been spent working with transgender children, young people, and their families. I know this territory well, and I know how much it matters to get it right.

Start with what we know

Transgender adults exist. That is not in dispute. Every transgender adult was once a child. That means transgender children exist too, and they are sitting in classrooms right now, in primary schools and secondary schools across this country.

Once we accept that, the path forward becomes much clearer. We do not need two different approaches, one for children who are exploring their gender and another for children who are transgender. We need one approach: see the child in front of you, hear what they are telling you, and support them as an individual. That is what good teaching already looks like, and it is also what the law already requires.

The law is already clear

The Equality Act 2010 says that we cannot treat a child less favourably because of a protected characteristic. Gender reassignment is one of those characteristics, and it applies to children in schools.

Think of it this way. No school would call a child by the wrong name. No teacher would deliberately use the wrong pronouns. No policy would send a child to facilities that do not match who they are. We would recognise all of that as unkind and wrong. The Equality Act means that standard applies equally to transgender children. Not as a special rule for a special group, but as the same basic dignity that every child in every school has a right to expect.

The draft school guidance needs to say this clearly. Teachers deserve to know that supporting a transgender child is not only the right thing to do but also the legally correct one.

On boys and dresses

During the interview, Nick Ferrari asked whether a five-year-old boy could decide to wear a dress. I want to gently suggest that this question has a simpler answer than the debate around it implies.

For most of human history, it would not have been a question at all. Boys wore skirted garments as standard childhood dress for centuries. Shakespeare wrote tenderly about his own memory of being a small boy dressed before the age of breeching. The idea that distinctly gendered clothing for young children is somehow natural or traditional is, in fact, a product of the nineteenth century, shaped by things like the rise of Muscular Christianity and anxieties about national military strength after wars in Prussia and South Africa. It was ideology that changed what children wore, not nature.

A child who wants to wear a dress is exploring the world, which is what children do. There is no safeguarding concern in that. There is no policy problem in that. The anxiety that surrounds the question belongs to adults, and it should not be the thing that shapes guidance affecting children’s lives.

One approach, not two

Some children will be exploring their gender and working out who they are. Some will already know clearly and have known for some time. Rather than trying to work out which category a child belongs to before deciding how to treat them, schools simply need to listen to the individual child in front of them and respond with care.

The child who is exploring needs space, warmth, and freedom from pressure in any direction. The child who is transgender needs to be seen and supported as they are. Both of these things can be offered within a single, child-centred framework, and good guidance will give teachers the confidence to provide that support without fear.

Hearing parents, protecting children

When other parents have concerns or anxieties, those should be heard. They are often genuine, even when they come from unfamiliarity rather than evidence of harm, and schools can usually find practical ways to accommodate them.

There is one limit, though, and it is an important one. Another parent’s concerns cannot come at the cost of a transgender child’s dignity or safety. If a parent objects to their child being in school with a transgender child, that parent can be heard and offered alternatives where those are feasible. What cannot happen is that the transgender child is the one who is asked to hide, or to be treated differently, or to feel unwelcome. They are someone’s child too.

The Cass Review was about NHS services, not schools

You cited the Cass Review during the interview as supporting the current approach in schools. I want to offer some important context here, because it matters for how it is used.

The Cass Review was commissioned by NHS England and NHS Improvement to make recommendations about NHS healthcare services for children experiencing gender incongruence. That was its specific brief. It was never about schools. It was never about education. It was not commissioned to advise teachers or to provide a framework for school guidance. Its terms of reference confirm this clearly.

Dr Cass herself has said she does not hold specialist expertise in gender medicine, and the review has attracted serious criticism from major international medical associations. Using it as the primary basis for school guidance means building policy on something that was never designed for that purpose. There are better sources to draw on, and they point in a clearer direction.

What the evidence says

The NSPCC, whose expertise in safeguarding is beyond question, is clear that understanding identity, including gender identity, is a normal and important part of growing up, and that young people need support and empowerment through that process, not restriction or surveillance.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health states in its Standards of Care that social support, sometimes called social transition, can help children understand and explore their gender as they grow up, and that this is endorsed by major medical associations. Social transition is not a medical intervention. It does not require a referral, a prescription, or any clinical involvement. It simply means being called by a name that fits, being addressed with the right pronouns, and being seen as who you are. The evidence for its benefit to children’s mental health is clear and consistent.

A note on parental involvement and safety

You spoke during the interview about the importance of involving parents, and in most cases I agree with you completely. Families are usually the greatest advocates a child has, and working with parents is almost always the right approach.

There is one important exception that the guidance must acknowledge. For some transgender children, telling their parents is not safe. There are families where that information is met with rejection or harm. A policy that requires schools to notify parents without any consideration of the individual child’s safety is not a safeguarding policy in those situations. It is a risk. Real safeguarding means listening to the child and understanding what is safe for this particular person, not applying a blanket rule that could put the most vulnerable children in greater danger.

What teachers need from you

The teachers I know are not asking for political guidance on gender. They are asking for something much simpler: clarity and confidence. They want to know that when they listen to a child, use the name that child has asked for, and treat them with respect, they are doing the right thing. They want to know the law is on their side and that they will not be penalised for treating every child with equal dignity.

Guidance that creates doubt leaves the most vulnerable children depending on the goodwill of individuals rather than the protection of clear, consistent policy. Teachers deserve better than that. The children they care for deserve better than that.

An offer

I am writing this letter because I believe you want to do right by children, and because I think I can help. The legal framework is already there. The evidence is already there. The guidance that schools need is within reach.

I would very much welcome the opportunity to speak with you or your team, and I make that offer openly and genuinely. The children in our schools need to feel safe and to know that the adults around them are on their side. With the right guidance, every teacher in every school can offer them that.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Helen Webberley

Gender Specialist and Medical Educator

www.helenwebberley.com