The legal position is clear - discrimination against people who change gender is illegal, but for the tiny minority of those who undergo a gender change, illiberal attitudes are still much feared both in the workplace, the media and personally.

A Times Educational Supplement article this week argued that if schools approach the matter in the right way, children will learn a positive lesson about inclusiveness.

The theme of sexuality has spread its wings to Ofsted, the schools’ inspectorate, too. But rather than focusing on the wilder shores, Ofsted has just produced a tsunami that aims to sweep away the, in their view, inadequate sex education that currently exists in schools.

According to their report, secondary school children should learn more about pornography, relationships, sexuality and staying safe, rather than just the mechanics of reproduction. In primary schools there is “too much emphasis placed on friendships and relationships, leaving pupils ill-prepared for physical and emotional changes during puberty”.

The result, according to Ofsted, is that in more than a third of schools children and young people are left vulnerable to exploitation.

If ever there was an example of wrong-way-round thinking, this must be it. It is not inadequate sex education that is at fault. It is the sexualised world in which children are brought up. No amount of sex education can counter-balance the normalisation of sexual exploitation that children see in every shop, poster, newspaper, media and internet outlet.

Yes, everything that Ofsted talks about should be given consideration in education, but to say that it is schools’ fault that children are vulnerable is outrageous.

The messages children pick up outside school about sex and relationships are stronger, more persistent, more insidious than any specific lessons in school whether in personal social, health and economic education or in any humanities subject that will also explore the issues. Tinkering with PSHE lessons is not going to change anything.

A school ethos of equality, justice, the power of analytic thought can prepare children to question what they see all around them but it is the adult world generally that needs to face up to the charge of inadequacy and failure not schools.

* Sarah Evans, Principal, King Edward VI High School for Girls