A Scottish nationalist-run city will ask schoolchildren as young as seven if they identify as "transgender or non-binary" in a new pupil survey.
Aberdeen city council, controlled by the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Liberal Democrats, organised the "health and wellbeing" survey of 59 schools under its jurisdiction, including questions on children's "relationships".
Children will be asked their gender identity, with the option of "male, female, non-binary, transgender or other" — and will be allowed to fill in the form without their parents seeing their answers.
SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has made a political campaign issue of supporting trans rights activists' demands to a further extent that the UK government in Westminster.
Parents' group Us for Them Scotland also voiced concerns about the SNP's existing policy of "validating" children who question their biological sex without consulting their parents, saying there had been a "huge growth" in young people complaining of gender dysphoria.
"It can look like it is being encouraged," said UFT Scotland organiser Jo Bisset. "The fact that schools transition children without their parents' knowledge is something our members find very disturbing."
She stressed that parents were the best people for children to talk to about their identity issues, adding: "This idea that virtual strangers should be enabling transition is very worrying."
"A seven to nine-year-old child doesn't know if they want chicken nuggets or fish fingers for dinner, and that is how it should be. They shouldn't be worrying about this sort of thing," Bisset argued. "It is indoctrination by adults looking to pursue their own ideology and impress it on children."
The SNP-led devolved administration in Edinburgh, in coalition with the Scottish Greens, recently pushed through new legislation to allow self-identified transsexuals — as young as 16 — to be legally recognised as members of the opposite sex without a medical diagnosis with gender dysphoria.
A amendment proposed by the Scottish Conservatives to prevent convicted sex offenders from obtaining the Gender Recognition Certificate that would grant them access to single-sex intimate spaces and prisons was voted down by the ruling coalition, and the Lib Dems and Labour backed the final legislation.
Green MSP Maggie Chapman, who championed the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, said earlier this week that she wanted it to be extended to allow children as young as eight to self-identify as transgender.
Scottish Tories, led by MSP and former co-leader of Aberdeen council Douglas Lumsden, condemned the nationalists' latest move.
"It is disgraceful that the council are forcing children as young as seven to answer questions about their gender," Lumsden said. 'We have heard from Maggie Chapman just this week that she would like children as young as eight to be able to change gender. These snooping questions from the council seem to be following the same agenda."
Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government has since resolved to block the necessary royal assent for the Scottish legislation to be enacted, arguing that it impacts existing equality law across the country.
Sturgeon has threatened a legal challenge to the government's powers under Section 35 of the 1998 Scotland Act which legislated for devolution.