How children are being taught about their gender identity

Gender theory has been called unscientific and a radical left-wing ideology. It’s definitely a complicated topic. If you’re wondering what’s being taught in classrooms and whether it qualifies as unscientific or ideological, I’m going to break it down for you.

My analysis is based on what we were led to believe are approved school board materials and the positioning of the so-called “gender spectrum” which is quickly becoming the generally accepted standard for presenting concepts of gender and its relationship (or not) to biological sex.

Our daughter’s young teacher, concerned as she was and very passionate about all kinds of social justice topics, was very confident in her approach and explained that this idea of “gender fluidity” was going to be a change across all of society.

The principal tried to reassure us that teachers had received training on the topic, that there was a “Consultant” at the board who thought they were off to a great start; and she provided us with the government and School Board policies as justification for what was being taught.

The superintendent of the School Board told us this is “the new reality”.

The policies we were told to review included Ontario’s Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy; the original document penned in 2009 when Kathleen Wynne was Minister of Education. The vision of this policy is to ensure that all members of the school community feel safe, comfortable and accepted.

The School Board Gender Identity and Gender Expression policy outlines their intent to ensure those whose gender identity and gender expression do not conform to traditional social norms are protected, understood and accepted.

The best practices section of the document specifies that school staff are expected to challenge gender stereotypes. But what our 6 year old daughter was being taught had nothing to do with deconstructing gender stereotypes.

The gender spectrum and the message she was learning – repeatedly I might add – could only re-inforce gender stereotypes, not reduce them.

One of the lessons our daughter described to us was this:

Her teacher drew a gender spectrum on the whiteboard and asked each student to come up and write their name at a point along the horizontal line in terms of whether they “felt” like a girl or a boy.

Our daughter said she’s a girl and feels like a girl, so she wrote hers at the girl line. She told us other students wrote their names all over the place.

Then the teacher said to the class – “with a very serious face” according to our daughter – “girls are not real and boys are not real”.

One would think that if gender fluidity was the teaching objective she would have sent a more balanced message that sometimes some girls feel more like boys and some boys may feel more like girls.

She had also drawn a vertical line down the middle of her gender spectrum. Our daughter wasn’t sure what this was supposed to represent. Could it be the new ideal “gender fluid” world citizen?

Ironically, the vertical line divides the spectrum into a different binary – one based entirely on gender stereotypes rather than biological sex.

The class had previously been shown a video produced by Queer Kids that is directed at children and uses a teddy bear to tell them that some people don’t have a gender. That you can use different personal pronouns if you don’t feel exactly like a girl or a boy. 

They had been read the storybook “Princess Boy” and had a discussion on sex changes. These were not your typical discussions about gender fluidity and gender stereotypes.

These were lessons in personal identity.

Gender identity, in case you haven’t come across it yet, is the legal right one has in Canada and elsewhere to simply self-identify as the opposite sex and therefore gain access to programs, services and safe-spaces typically reserved for women (or men).

I suppose if you want to explain gender identity to a class of 6 year old’s telling them that girls and boys are not real is a pretty accurate way to do it.

Gender identity is also how the medical community justifies using life-altering treatments such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery to try to change a child’s body to align with their gender identity.

The School Board policy says that school staff are expected to “integrate trans-positive and gender-inclusive content into the teaching in all subject areas”.

If these lessons are examples of what is expected this certainly wasn’t a positive or inclusive experience for our daughter who protested to us about what her teacher was telling the class. No communication to parents was ever given.

Now you might be tempted to say that this teacher was just doing it wrong. That she was totally off base.

But when we submitted a formal complaint to the College of Teachers we were told that “teachers have lots of discretion to design lessons for children that don’t identify as boys or girls” and that “the curriculum is an ideology”.

In my research since then, I’ve come to understand that this teacher was not making any mistakes, at least in terms of how trans activists view gender and the role of gender identity in our society.

The School Board policy uses the cute and harmless looking Genderbread person to introduce the new concept of gender.

Sex and gender identity are defined as two different ideas in their policy document – the definitions in their policy even say that a person’s biological sex and gender identity are separate entities. Looks reasonable at first glance. 

But their teaching materials conflate biological sex and gender identity in a single gender spectrum.

That’s deceptive.

According to gender theory, whether you are a girl or you self-identify as a girl – it’s the same thing. Gender identity is a system of group identity categorisation that is a replacement for biological sex.

Ideologically, gender identity proponents have little tolerance for the prospect that we’re all biological life forms – male or female.

Have a look at this Genderbread person – typical of what you’ll find online and in the latest “training materials” – and you’ll see the problem.

Notice that everything here, including biological sex is presented as a spectrum.

But biological sex is a binary condition. We’re either male or female. To present biological sex as a spectrum isn’t scientifically correct.

Trans activists use the intersex condition as a reason to present biological sex as a spectrum. But even when ambiguity exists around one’s sex, the human species is sexually dimorphic.

From a biology point of view, the function of the female is to produce eggs; the function of the male is to produce sperm. This leads to procreation and the continuance of the species.

Nothing else does.

This teacher and the school administrators know very well how gender identity is being used to over-ride biological sex. Their policy guidance in terms of accommodating students who don’t identify as their biological sex with access to mixed-sex bathroom facilities, sports teams and other activities outlines this perfectly well.

What they’re not being honest and upfront about is that they’re starting to teach our kids a new system of personal identification.

A kind of cultural colonisation disguised under the virtue of inclusivity and executed through our education system by stealth.

Rather than accept gender and sex as 2 distinct concepts, the inclusive education mandate provides ample leeway for ideologues to over-ride common sense. And then demand that we all fall in line with their radical world view.

As an alternative, here’s an example that presents the concepts of sex, gender identity and gender expression in a way that doesn’t simply indoctrinate kids with a particular worldview.

This depicts biological sex factually as a binary reality; alongside gender expression and gender identity to outline the differences between these concepts.

Compare this to the gender spectrum our daughter’s class was taught which uses the language we use today to refer to males and females (boys and girls) yet doesn’t offer any anchor point in biological reality.

The School Board approved gender spectrum can only have one goal – to over-ride biological reality in favour of a subjective gender identity as the preferred way to “identify” oneself.

This does not create a safe, supportive and inclusive environment for all students.

This is not education – it’s indoctrination.

It’s an attempt to change our most fundamental values and beliefs – identity; our culture; the meaning of our language; the way we organize society; the way we value the fundamental human reality of our relationship with nature and life itself.

Nevertheless, these educators were so intent on forcing children to adopt their new worldview that they lost the critical perspective that’s required these days to treat everyone with dignity and respect.

It was difficult to have a constructive conversation on this topic even when the well-being of children and the secrecy with which this agenda was being pursued were our primary concerns.

They told us there was a girl in the class who was teased when said she “felt like a boy”, and they didn’t want to put a spotlight on that issue.

So why did they?

Why were there repeated lessons on gender identity in a Grade 1 class?

We tried to raise our concerns and ensure that our daughter’s voice was heard.

That perhaps the way they were teaching this wasn’t appropriate as a universal truth for all children.

Schools have a duty of care to support ALL students. Bullying for any reason should be handled swiftly and appropriately – not as justification to confuse children and undermine their sense of reality itself.

Originally published on the authors’ personal blog www.adulthumanfemale.com