Sex and the Schools, or, An Essay You Don’t Want to Read

The first in a series . . .

“Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.—Karl Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach.”

In this new series of essays, I’d like to show you what is being taught in America’s twenty-first-century government schools and the philosophy behind it. The portrait that I will present here is not a pretty one, but it is the reality. The simple truth of the matter is that America’s government schools are intellectually bankrupt and morally corrupt. To suggest otherwise is either disingenuous or a form of head-in-the-sand-ism.

Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote in Beyond Good and Evil that the strength of a man’s “spirit should be measured according to how much of the ‘truth’” he could bear. I’m asking you to bear a big dose of truth with this essay, the kind of truth that makes you wince and hurt.

Let’s start at the 30,000-foot level, where we can get a birds-eye view of the main philosophic systems that dominate America’s government schools and drive the content of what is being taught in the classroom.

Officially, America’s schools claim to teach no moral values per se. But that claim is contradicted by the fact that they constantly push moral values such as “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” “tolerance,” moral relativism, and egalitarianism. Such “values” are intended to strip children of any standards or principles they may have previously embraced, so that the teachers can replace the sometimes conservative cultural values of the kids’ parents with the political values of today’s postmodern, cultural Left—namely, egalitarianism, multiculturalism, feminism, environmentalism, transgenderism, “social justice,” socialism, etc.

The primary function of teachers today is no longer to be the transmitters of knowledge but to serve as agents of social and political change. This is what they are taught to be in the teacher-training institutions or the so-called “ed” schools.[1] It is a well-known fact that America’s Education Deep State (i.e., federal and state education departments, the teacher-training institutions, the teachers’ unions, curriculum designers, textbook publishers, local school boards, and even now the College Board which administers the SAT), has invested enormous time and resources in pushing the ideology and agenda of what is often called cultural Marxism and what is more narrowly known as “Critical Theory.”

So, what exactly is this Critical Theory (CT) that is behind so much of what is being taught in America’s government schools?

Broadly speaking, the system of thought known as Critical Theory (Marx + Nietzsche + Freud = Critical Theory) was first developed in the 1930s by a group of European social theorists and philosophers known as the Frankfurt School (e.g., Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse). The principal aim of CT was and is, first, to deconstruct the forms of domination and hierarchy (i.e., the power relations) found in traditional or bourgeois societies, and, second, to reconstruct society toward what it calls “real” or “true” democracy, which is a neologism for socialism. Critical theory seeks to liberate any and all “victim” groups based on their inferior and subjugated social status in capitalist societies (e.g., non-whites, women, and LGBTQ+ persons, etc.).

The curricula in America’s K-12 government schools (and in many of the most elite private schools) is now dominated by two offshoots of Critical Theory known as Critical Gender Theory (CGT) and Critical Race Theory (CRT). Developed in America’s “ed” schools and law schools, CGT and CRT seek to deconstruct and reinvent all traditional gender categories and racial relationships.  The primary delivery mechanism for inciting this social revolution is America’s government school system.

Over the past several decades, this well-organized ideological-political movement has revolutionized the curricula and culture of the nation’s government schools. The movement’s threefold agenda is to 1) eradicate the “prejudices” and attitudes children learn from their families with regard to issues of gender, sexual orientation, race, class, the environment, and so on; 2) disconnect the ties that bind children to their parents and to prevent the formation of stable families; and 3) totally reconstruct the moral-political values of America’s children in order to launch a cultural-political revolution.

The ultimate aim of Critical Gender Theory is to deconstruct the family and replace it with the State as the primary vehicle for educating children. The specific political goal is to create a new class of the “oppressed.” From this new class of victims will come the new revolutionaries who will keep the revolution alive and move it to the next stage of development. This is the ultimate means by which capitalism is to be dismantled and the State is to become the final arbiter of the principle, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

To paraphrase (roughly speaking) the Declaration of Independence, let us say:

The history of America’s government school system is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over the minds of America’s children. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Let’s now look at the facts in order to prove our thesis.

This essay will focus on the role played by Critical Gender Theory in America’s government schools and its consequences for our children. The next essay in this series will examine the role played by Critical Race Theory in America’s government schools.

Critical Gender Theory Goes to School

Sex in the schools—by which I mean the sexualization of children on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity—is America’s twenty-first century kulturkampf. This is the subject about which very clear lines have been drawn, and this is where the final cultural battle of our time is to be fought.

School battles (particularly those involving elementary- and middle-school students) have been fought in recent years over issues such as bathroom and locker room policies, pronoun use, same-sex marriage, pedophilia, transgender ideology, LGBTQ+ clubs, pornographic books, boys in girls’ sports, grooming, and many other related topics. Judging by the newspaper headlines I see virtually every day on these and related topics, it would be a reasonable assumption to think that Critical Gender Theory and the LGBTQ+ agenda are just about the only things being taught in America’s schools. That is not entirely true, but, as we shall see, it’s not that far from the truth.

The battlefront comes down to two core questions: first, who shall determine the sexual mores taught to America’s young children—parents or government teachers, and, second, what sex- and gender-related values should be taught to children in America’s government schools?

And yet these fundamental questions still don’t quite capture what’s at stake in this conflict. There’s an even deeper, metaphysical question that represents the new battleground between parents and America’s Education Establishment: What is the sex-gender “identity” of each and every child? To put the issue in even simpler terms, the question is: what is a boy and what is a girl?

For tens of thousands of years, the answers to these two questions were self-evidently obvious the moment a child was born. Today, however, the answers are uncertain until the child answers them with the assistance of government schoolteachers and administrators. The question is no longer settled by nature and science and nurtured by parents.

To put a sharper edge on the matter, the question might be: how is it that 9-year-old girls can be encouraged by school officials to take puberty blockers and 15-year-old girls can be encouraged to begin a course of testosterone treatments and 17-year-old girls can be encouraged to ready themselves for double mastectomies without their parents’ knowledge and permission?

We have entered a Brave New World. This is penultimate stage of western nihilism.

At the cutting edge of this trend, and at the heart of Critical Gender Theory, is the conscious attempt by America’s Education Deep State to eliminate virtually all sex and gender distinctions between boys and girls. If this seems like an exaggeration to you, then you might ask the high school student in New Hampshire why he was suspended from playing for the school football team for texting a classmate while off school property that there are “only two genders.”[2]

For the proponents of CGT, gender is a fluid state of mind (i.e., it’s not “binary”) and a child’s chosen gender identity, autonomy, and integrity must be approved and protected at all times.

The attempt by America’s government schools in recent years to enforce a LGBTQ+ ideological agenda on children has been in the news quite a bit, but the indoctrination goes back at least a couple of decades. As early as 2007, for instance, California’s education code stated that gender pertains not to anything biological but to “a person’s gender-related appearance and behavior.”[3] Gender is, in other words, a choice and has no relation to biology. This means that children have a smorgasbord of gender identities to choose from.

To shut off debate, the Education Establishment believes that science is heteronormative (and racist) and therefore has nothing true or helpful to say on this topic. In a training seminar funded by the California Teachers Association, “Gender Spectrum” trainer Joel Baum told Oakland students in a mandatory class, “People can feel like girls. They can feel like boys. They can feel like both, and they can feel like neither.”[4] Feelings trump reason, logic, science, and reality. In other words, the Freudian-Marcusean theory of “infantile polymorphous perversity” has been updated, generalized, normalized, and given a new lease on life in twenty-first century America.

Ideas have consequences, and eventually these ideas percolate down and through the America’s elementary and middle schools.

This is why many of America’s schools now have a “Gender Support Plan (GSP),” which provides schoolteachers and administrators with a blueprint for helping children transition from one gender to another without the knowledge of their parents. America’s government schools now have formal procedures to help kids change their names and pronouns and keep it secret from the child’s parents. When administrators and teachers address the student at school, they use the child’s new transgender name and pronouns, but when they send communications home to the parents about their child, school officials use the child’s birth name. This is clearly a conspiracy by government schoolteachers and administrators to recognize the child’s secret name and keep the secret from the parents.

The anti-science process of gender brainwashing typically begins in kindergarten (a German word for “children’s garden”), where five-year-old students are told that biological sex and gender are different, that there are many genders, and that they can choose their gender identity. Implicit in this teaching, of course, is the biological nonsense that a girl’s brain—shaped as it is with its XX chromosomes—can colonize a boy’s body and that a boy’s brain—stamped with its XY chromosomes—can inhabit a girl’s body.

In California, instruction in “gender identity” begins from the moment children enter their special garden. State K-3 guidelines are clear on what young children are to be taught and why: “While students may not fully understand the concepts of gender expression and identity, some children in kindergarten and even younger have identified as transgender or understand they have a gender identity that is different from their sex assigned at birth.”[5] (Remember, these are the same children who believe in Santa Claus.) Apparently, all of this is why it is important to teach five-year-old children the meaning of words such as “trans,” “genderqueer,” “non-binary,” “gender fluid,” “gender neutral,” “bigender,” etc. California school guidelines go on to encourage teachers to invite transgender adults to class as guest speakers, and the only required book to be read by California kindergarteners is My Princess Boy. The guidelines also prohibit parents from removing their children from this government-sponsored brainwashing.

In West Hartford, Connecticut, elementary school parents were recently in an uproar because their kids’ teachers were telling the children starting in kindergarten that they can be whatever gender they want to be. School authorities have told the parents that they do not have an opt out option for their children. The indoctrination in the West Hartford schools begins in kindergarten, where five-year-olds read a book about a teddy bear who knows deep down that he’s actually a teddy girl. And as the kids advance through their grade levels, they read more sophisticated books about pronouns and actively choosing to change their gender identity.

In Williamson County, Tennessee, one of the wealthiest and most Republican school districts in the Volunteer state, kindergarteners were given IPads loaded with the book, The GayBCs to help them learn how to read. These five-year-olds learned that B for Bi, C is for Coming Out, D is for Drag, I is for Intersex, N is for Nonbinary, T is for Trans, and so on. The recommended age range for readers of The GayBCs is 4 to 8. That this book is pure CGT propaganda is obvious simply from the fact that the words used in the book are age inappropriate not simply because of the words’ meaning but also because of their difficulty.[6] If such words are too difficult for children to read and comprehend, then their function is simply ideological. If this kind of brainwashing is occurring in Williamson County, TN, you can be certain it’s happening everywhere.

And from kindergarten, Critical Gender Theory advances up the academic food chain.

In New Jersey, first-graders are now subject to sex-education classes that will include discussions of gender identity. One 30-minute lesson called “Pink, Blue and Purple” will teach six-year-olds how to define “gender, gender identity and gender role stereotypes.” The new sex-ed lesson plans include instruction requiring teachers to tell students that their gender identity is up to them: “You might feel like you’re a boy even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are ‘girl’ parts. You might feel like you’re a girl even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are ‘boy’ parts. And you might not feel like you’re a boy or a girl, but you’re a little bit of both. No matter how you feel, you’re perfectly normal!” State Senator Michael Testa summed up the situation this way: “It’s abuse, plain and simple.”[7]

What is the end goal of all this indoctrination? And how does all of this pan out in real life?

The following newspaper headline from 2022 sums up the current state of our world: “Texas Teacher Claims 20 Fourth Graders Out of 32 Students Identify as LGBTQ”![8] The teacher was proud to share this information with reporters during the school’s well publicized “pride” march. (The teachers’ pride in this “fact” no doubt raises her professional social status.)  Just so we’re clear, the teacher’s claim means that almost 63 percent of students in her fourth-grade classroom in Texas—I repeat, Texas—identify as LGBTQ. Now think about what this means (statistically, it is virtually impossible)—it basically means that this teacher is either lying, engaging in wish fulfillment, or grooming. I can see no other options.

The evidence is now clear that there is a concerted effort by the Education Deep State to promote a transgender ideology in America’s government schools. In California last year, two teachers and associated school staff were accused of coaching a 12-year-old girl into coming out as a transgender boy behind the backs of her parents. The teachers reportedly changed the girl’s name and pronouns, and then they also called Child Protective Services (CPS) after the parents objected to what the teachers were doing to their daughter.

We also now know that during a California Teachers Association conference (CTA is California’s largest teachers’ union) held in October, 2021, two teachers spoke on a panel about how they recruited students to their LGBTQ+ club and discussion groups and how they indoctrinated their students with Critical Gender Theory. The teachers claimed to surveille their students’ Google searches, online chats and hallway conversations in order to identify and recruit sixth-grade students who they thought might be open to joining their group. They also spoke about the tactics they use to conceal the students’ activities from their parents. Several conference workshops gave teachers advice on how to create and recruit for LGBTQ+ or Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs for middle schoolers.[9]

This kind of sexualized brainwashing, recruitment, and grooming is happening all over the United States. It seems patently clear now that America’s Education Establishment is using its teachers and teaching materials to encourage—nay, prepare—children to be sexually polymorphous. The teachers’ motivations are made clear from the fact that they want this information kept secret from parents. In Wisconsin, for instance, the Education Establishment has declared that parents are “not entitled” to know their child’s gender identity or sexual choices. By contrast, teachers are entitled to know this information, whereas parents must “earn” it, which means to accept the decisions and actions of government school officials.[10]

But it gets worse—much worse. Not only do government schoolteachers and administrators know important and deeply personal things (i.e., the most intimate secrets) about the children in their schools that the kids’ parents are kept in the dark about, but many school employees are actually facilitating if not encouraging children to question their gender identity and some are even prodding them to do something about it, including the pursuit of body-mutilating medical procedures.

If you still don’t believe me or think I’m exaggerating, you might ask the parents of the kids who attend Fremont High School in Oakland, California, which has just created a “transition closet” that will allow Trans/nonbinary/Intersex and various other LGBTQ+ students to come to school dressed in clothes approved by mom and dad and then change into the clothing of their selected gender identities.[11]

Meanwhile, in Connecticut, a school nurse was fired from her job recently after she revealed on Facebook that teachers at her school were secretly giving puberty blockers to “gender confused” preteens without the knowledge or consent of the parents. The nurse, Kathleen Cataford, was accused of being “transphobic” for announcing on social media that an 11-year-old at her elementary school had been put on puberty blockers. She also reported that an additional 12 more students at her school were self-identifying as “non-binary,” and that ten of the dozen students were “keeping this as a secret from their parents with the help of teachers, SSW [social workers] and school administration.” She ended her post by saying: “Teachers and SSW are spending 37.5 hours a week influencing our children, not necessarily teaching our children what YOU think is being taught.” Cataford went on to claim that the pro-transgender indoctrination begins with the kids in her school in kindergarten.[12]

As a result of all this trans skulduggery by government school officials, a number of lawsuits have been filed by parents in the last couple of years claiming that schoolteachers and administrators are secretly encouraging children to transition from one gender to another without the parents’ knowledge.

A major lawsuit has been filed by the parents of a 12-year-old girl in Wisconsin, who was encouraged by school officials to transition to being a “boy” without the knowledge or consent of her parents. When the girl’s mother inquired at the school as to what was happening with her daughter, she was told her daughter’s privacy was protected under a state non-discrimination law.[13] In California, one mother, Jessica Konen, has filed a lawsuit against the Spreckels Union School District for allegedly recruiting her eleven-year-old daughter to a transgender lifestyle. The girl’s teachers reportedly encouraged her to change her name to a boy’s name, and they told her to not to tell her mother because the mother could not be “trusted.” The teachers then gave and required the girl to read articles on how to hide her transgenderism from her mother.[14]

Hopefully, these kinds of lawsuits will stop or at least slow down the government-mandated sexual engineering of America’s children. Unfortunately, for some families, the lawsuits come after it’s too late.

Consider the case of Yaeli (aka Andrew) Martinez. According to Yaeli’s mother, Abigail, the Los Angeles County School district began encouraging Yaeli when she was 15 to join her school’s LGBQ+ group and then to take hormones and undergo gender reassignment surgery. The girl was also told that she should run away from home, register with the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) and go into the foster care system, so that she could qualify for government-funded, gender-reassignment surgery. Confused and depressed, Yaeli committed suicide when she was 19 by stepping in front of a fast-moving train on September 4, 2019. According to Yaeli’s mother, she wasn’t permitted to see her daughter in the morgue because “there was not much to see.” Yaeli’s mother has filed a civil lawsuit against LA County schools and the DCFS, but it’s too late to ever see her daughter again.[15]

This is the inevitable and tragic endpoint of Critical Gender Theory. And yet, America’s transgender ideologues and our political Ruling Class continue their assault on America’s children.

The Biden administration recently proposed that taxpayer funds be spent on hormone treatments and gender reassignment surgeries for transgender and “gender diverse” children, which by definition includes very young children. The Office of Population Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services published a report titled “Gender Affirming Care and Young People.” The report calls for gender “non-conforming” children to receive “gender affirming” medical treatment that includes “testosterone hormones for those who were assigned female at birth” and “estrogen hormones for those who were assigned male at birth.” The report also recommends that taxpayers fund “‘top’ surgery—to create male typical chest shape or enhance breasts” and ‘bottom’ surgery,” which covers genitals or reproductive organs.”[16] (Not to get away from the topic at hand, but does it not strike you as odd that the Office of Population Affairs is issuing documents on chemically and surgically castrating children?)

During a congressional hearing on April 6, 2022, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, was asked if taxpayer dollars have been spent to “fund mastectomies, metonymies and hysterectomies for sex reassignment purposes for minors with gender dysphoria?” Becerra responded by saying: “Well, Americans are entitled to receive healthcare services. They are entitled to receive any of the case[s] you just mentioned.” Becerra was later asked about the existence and veracity of an internal government document suggesting that children be removed from their parents’ homes if mom and dad were to withhold “gender-affirming care” for their children. Asked if he thought that “parents who believe in two genders only should have their children removed from them,” Becerra responded: “I can respond very quickly. Congresswoman, I believe in supporting and protecting transgender youth. I believe that they, along with their parents and their caregivers, will make the best decisions, and I would really urge that politicians, like you, stay out of their business.” I’m pretty sure that means, “yes.”

Well, there it is, folks. The Deep State meets the Education Deep State and the result is clear: America’s government schools are engaging in the sexual engineering of our children, which in any decent society would be considered systemic child abuse. In a rational world inhabited by rational people, there are no other words to describe what is happening to America’s children.

Surely, it is our righteous responsibility to speak the truth on this matter and to defend our children. Nothing else will do.

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[1]. See Rita Kramer, Ed School Follies: The Miseducation of America’s Teachers (New York: Free Press, 1991).

[2]. Rebecca Rosenberg, “New Hampshire mom breaks silence after son suspended for saying there are ‘only two genders’,” FoxNews Online, November 18, 2021: https://www.foxnews.com/us/mom-breaks-silence-son-suspended-saying-only-two-genders.

[3]. Robert Tyler, “Just the Facts on SB 777,” North County Times, December 30, 2007, http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/perspective/article_a7a132b3-6e7f-5c43-af1e-201d2e3fedeb.html. See also the California Education Code, http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=edc&group=00001-01000&file=210-214; “SB 777—An Analysis,” Private & Home Educators of California, February 4, 2008, http://www.pheofca.org/SB777080124.html.

[4]. Jill Tucker, “Oakland School’s Lessons in Gender Diversity,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 24, 2011, http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-school-s-lessons-in-gender-diversity-2370672.php.

[5]. Henry Olsen, “California wants to teach kindergarteners about gender identity. Seriously,” The Washington Post, May 13, 2019: https://archive.ph/wwmBx#selection-853.0-853.74.

[6]. Roger L. Simon, “Transgendered in Kindergarten? What’s Really Behind the Insane New Sex Ed,” The Epoch Times, April 8, 2022: https://archive.ph/c8tGo.

[7]. Bruce Golding, “NJ first-graders to learn about gender identity in new sex-ed lessons,” New York Post Online, April 8, 2022: https://nypost.com/2022/04/08/nj-kids-to-learn-about-gender-identity-under-sex-ed-curriculum/.

[8]. Chrissy Clark, “Texas Teacher Claims 20 Fourth Graders Out of 32 Students Identify as LGBTQ,” Daily Caller, March 29, 2022: https://dailycaller.com/2022/03/29/texas-teacher-fourth-grade-students-lgbt-pride-week/. 

[9]. Abigail Shrier, “How Activist Teachers Recruit Kids,” The Truth Fairy on Substack, November 18, 2021: https://abigailshrier.substack.com/p/how-activist-teachers-recruit-kids?s=r.

[10].  Jeff Charles, “School District Says Parents ‘Not Entitled’ to Know Their Kids’ Gender Identity,” RedState, March 10, 2022: https://redstate.com/jeffc/2022/03/10/school-district-says-parents-not-entitled-to-know-their-kids-gender-identity-n534241.

[11]. Ben Zeisloft, “California School Creates ‘Transition Closet’; Allows Students To ‘Swap Out’ Of Clothes ‘Parents Approve Of’,” TheDailyWire.com, February 23, 2022: https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-school-creates-transition-closet-allows-students-to-swap-out-of-clothes-parents-approve-of.

[12]. Cullen McCue, “School Nurse Was Fired for Revealing That Teachers Were Secretly Giving Students Puberty Blockers,” National File, April 2, 2022: https://nationalfile.com/school-nurse-was-fired-for-revealing-that-teachers-were-secretly-giving-students-puberty-blockers/. See also, Andrea Blanco, “Connecticut school nurse, 77, is suspended over 'transphobic' Facebook post revealing that student, 11, was on puberty blockers, 12 others were non-binary, and that teachers were helping some keep it secret,” DailyMail.com, March 29, 2022: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10665389/School-nurse-suspended-revealing-student-11-puberty-blockers.html/.

[13]. Harold Hutchinson, “ ‘Metastasizing Like A Cancer’—Parents Across the Country Sue Schools Over Clandestine Transitions,” Daily Caller News Foundation, December 1, 2021: https://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2021/12/01/metastasizing-like-a-cancer-parents-across-the-country-sue-schools-over-clandestine-transitions/.

[14]. Ben Zeisloft, “California School Creates ‘Transition Closet’; Allows Students To ‘Swap Out’ Of Clothes ‘Parents Approve Of’,” TheDailyWire.com, February 23, 2022: https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-school-creates-transition-closet-allows-students-to-swap-out-of-clothes-parents-approve-of.

[15]. Josh Boswell, “‘I knew the hormones wouldn’t work. Why did they play with her life?’ Bereaved mom blames LA County for her teenage daughter's suicide, claiming school pushed her to transition to a male instead of properly treating her depression,” DailyMail.com, March 30, 2022: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10612285/California-mom-claims-LA-school-encouraged-daughter-transition-blame-suicide.html.  

[16]. HHS Office of Population Affairs, “Gender-Affirming Care and Young People”: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/viewer.html?pdfurl=https%3A%2F%2Fopa.hhs.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2F2022-03%2Fgender-affirming-care-young-people-march-2022.pdf&clen=346511&chunk=true.