Jes Taylor's Blog

Trigger Warning: Transphobia, Domestic Abuse The Government has recently announced guidance to schools that would have them inform parents of a child exploring their gender identity. This would be triggered by things such as a student wanting to make changes to their name or uniform. These changes, while seeming simple, are incredibly affirming for trans and nonbinary people. Parents would be informed regardless of whether the student wants them to or whether the child is safe in doing so. This is being presented by the Tories as an issue about safeguarding and parental consent. This misses the point entirely. A parent cannot 'consent' to their child being trans or nonbinary, they just are! The safeguarding question is not about whether parents know if their child is trans or not, it is whether the child is safe at home if they come out. Many trans and nonbinary children have school as a safe space for them to express themselves and feel validated, with many coming out to teach...

Trigger Warning: Antisemitism, The Holocaust, Nazism A few months ago, I was lucky enough to be offered a place by my school to take part in a scheme from the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) called Lessons from Auschwitz (LFA). This scheme gave me the privilege to attend seminars to learn about the Holocaust, hear the testimony of survivors and to go for a day trip to Poland, visiting the town of Oswiecim and the camps Auschwitz-I, and Auschwitz-II-Birkenau. The LFA scheme asks all its participants to take part in a follow up project to help communicate back to others what we learned from the scheme. This post will serve as both a recount of my experience with the scheme, what crucial lessons I took from it and how they apply to today. The trip to Poland started with us going to the Town of Oswiecim, near the Auschwitz sites. This gave us an insight into Jewish life in Poland before the Holocaust. We visited the site of the Great Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the town. This buil...