Nicki Gaylard, an Australian mother of six, says her 14-year-old daughter was among other students removed from regular classes at Renmark High School and exposed to a presentation that included graphic and traumatic sexual content.
Renmark High School, in Renmark, South Australia, is located northeast of the state capital of Adelaide.
The PowerPoint presentation, which was shown by “headspace,” a third-party education provider, was first challenged in December by parents who claim that they were neither informed of the lesson, nor given an opportunity to consent or withdraw their children.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which Gaylard has asked to represent her in legal proceedings against headspace presenters, alleges that presenters made reference to inappropriate sexual practices, including bestiality, but told the girls, “Don’t Google it, though.”
The hourlong lesson left the students distressed and confused, ADF said. It included themes of diversity and acceptance, and showed images of “trans bodies” that were topless from the waist up and revealed scars from double mastectomies. The lesson also included information about people who have had sex with siblings, which presenters described as “sister love” and “brother love.”
The presentation caused Gaylard’s daughter to be uncomfortable around her siblings at home, the mother told Sky News of Australia. Gaylard withdrew her children from Renmark High School the next day, saying she could not risk their exposure to unsupervised and inappropriate sexual content. She says she is working to help her daughter heal.
Gaylard told ADF she decided to seek legal action to get justice for her daughter, who “was deeply affected by what she saw that day. Her childhood was shortened through exposure to completely inappropriate material that headspace won’t even let me see,” she said.
“How can [headspace] be happy to show to children what they are ashamed to show to adults? Let children be children,” Gaylard continued.
She said it’s deeply unsettling to see the impact that one hour of extremely inappropriate content had on her daughter’s health and wellbeing, and that her authority as a parent to protect her child was completely circumvented by the secretive nature of the headspace program and material.
But her mission is bigger than just her own children.
“I’m also looking to take this forward for the sake of other kids across the country who shouldn’t have to go through what my daughter went through; and for all the parents who should never be sidestepped in this way,” Gaylard said. “That is, after all, our right and our duty as parents—and school authorities should respect our authority to determine what’s appropriate for our kids.”
The Renmark High School principal has apologized for the inappropriate material and for not seeking parental consent. The South Australian Education Department suspended headspace and has also admitted that there were procedural failures (parents not being notified; material not being properly vetted; a lack of teachers present in the room). Such admissions, however, don’t undo the damage to Gaylard’s daughter, ADF said in its press release.
What happened to Gaylard’s family should concern all parents, ADF contends.
“Nicki’s case is an example of a larger pattern,” said Robert Clarke, director of advocacy for ADF International. The presentation shown at her (daughter’s) school is part of “comprehensive sexuality education” or CSE, which is driven in-large-part by the UN, including the World Health Organization.
“Increasingly, parents are discovering that radical approaches to sex education—often shaped by internationally developed curricula and promoted by activist groups at the national level—are being quietly rolled out,” Clarke said.
It is an ideologically fueled approach to sex education built on the idea that children are sexual beings from birth and have independent “sexual rights,” Clarke added—a framework that directly violates parents’ universally recognized human right to guide the moral education of their children.
Sky News has reported that the state of South Australia will be the respondent in the Gaylard case.
