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Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, has been giving interviews this morning about new guidance for schools in England on sex education that says “the contested theory of gender identity” should not be taught. The proposals were briefed to right-leaning papers earlier this week, but the Department for Education has only now issued a press notice. The new version of the guidance does not seem to be available online yet.

In interviews this morning, Keegan claimed the government had to act because pupils were being exposed to “inappropriate” material. She told the Today programme:

I’ve seen some materials where they talk about gender identity being a spectrum, there being many different genders looking at you know, trying to get children [to] do quizzes on you know, what’s a different gender identity and what isn’t.

Ignoring biological sex in the material I saw anyway … and a lot of that material has caused concern.

I don’t think it’s widespread, I mean, I don’t know because you know, it’s not something that we’ve gone and done a particular survey of.