The Promotion of Gender In Our Public Schools-Why?
Background
It’s well known that members of the human species have an inordinate ability to rationalize just about anything that they want to believe is true or is otherwise useful. Such is the case with various concepts, most prominently transgenderism, often collectively described as gender ideology.
Without any scientific or medical basis, a person’s self-perceived gender has been accepted by many in the medical community as a valid characteristic of the human species that an individual can unilaterally change at any time as they see fit. As such, over 70 different genders have been identified by gender activists in recent years. At the extreme, hormone and puberty blocking drugs and irreversible, life-altering surgeries have been promoted by otherwise reputable medical professionals in a mostly failed attempt to facilitate transitions between genders - otherwise known as “gender affirming care”.
There are many parallels between gender ideology and the once widely popular “science” of eugenics developed in the United States during the first half of the last century. Eugenics, like gender ideology, was developed on the premise that there are certain human characteristics that define who somebody really is. Eugenics falsely attempted to interpret the value of certain physical and mental characteristics in a top-down manner whereas gender ideology permits each individual to do this on their own using their own psychological state at any point in time as a presumed representation of “who they really are” (i.e. – gender).
Significant parallels exist between the evolutions of eugenics and gender “sciences” including:
1. a scientifically unsupported belief system created and endorsed by many otherwise reputable medical professionals,
2.“education” of the public by the media, some medical professionals and political activists to promote the credibility of the revolutionary new “medical science” and
3. the eventual passage of laws and rules to encourage or even mandate certain aspects of the new “medical science” onto the general public. Biden’s illegal rewrite of Title IX law to include gender identity is a recent example.
Fortunately, eugenics imploded as a presumed medical science but not until after it was learned that Adolf Hitler utilized eugenics thinking to determine who should be a part of his “master race” and millions of people had been experimented upon and/or exterminated.
In some ways, gender ideology is reaching a similar crossroads following the maltreatment of tens of thousands of young people worldwide. Several European countries who had embraced the “Dutch protocol” of gender affirming care as far back as the 1990’s are now publicly acknowledging that drug and surgical treatments for treating gender dysphoria are not addressing what had been claimed for these treatments and that evolving medical science no longer supports gender affirming care, especially for young people. In other words, it is now widely acknowledged that if a person imagines that they are of a certain gender, medically prescribing drugs and even surgically treating them in an effort to help them match their physical characteristics with their psychological gender identity generally don’t work.
Despite the existence of serious questions about the scientific validity of gender ideology, combined with the outright rejection of gender ideology by a substantial portion of the American adult population, the public education establishment, at the behest of far left teacher’s union leadership and far left Democrat party leadership, nevertheless continues making a strong push to accommodate gender ideology in all aspects of public school operations with the goal of changing traditional American cultural values. As a result, many public schools are attempting to force students and parents to accept an ideology lacking any proven scientific basis and in direct contradiction to long-standing family and community values.
In the most extreme manifestations of this effort by the schools to accommodate gender ideology, cultural norms are disregarded on behalf of a minute minority of the student population who, at the behest of gender activists, psychologically prefer not to conform to proven biological science. As a result, culturally unacceptable practices such as different sexes sharing the same restrooms and shower rooms and boys competing on girl’s athletic teams are being forced on school communities. In addition, gender activist’s insistence on recognizing a student’s or staff’s preferred gender pronouns while simultaneously protecting the privacy of their gender identity is creating administrative and legal nightmares for schools.
Why?
Why is this happening? It’s all about political power and money and has nothing to do with “accepting young students for who they are” as the gender activists claim. The fact that students are exploited and may be harmed for life is simply the collateral damage associated with “fundamentally changing America” through the forced acceptance of gender ideology.
School board members and school administrators are generally intelligent people who can easily see through the fallacies of gender ideology and the unrealistic demands of gender activists. Yet they continue to tolerate and/or promote gender ideology. This leads one to believe that these professionals and elected officials are being sufficiently incented or compensated in some way so as to disregard their own best judgment along with the interests of the communities they were elected or hired to represent. Examples of the key incentives affecting public school leaders include:
1. Many school board members are endorsed by the local teacher’s union and receive significant monetary support from teacher’s union dues and volunteer support from these unions for their election campaigns. Such arrangements constitute a major conflict of interest giving the teachers unions leverage over school board members when it comes to contract negotiations and support for the union’s political agenda which currently includes the promotion of gender ideology in public schools. As a result, community interests are often compromised or ignored.
2. School superintendents are employed subject to school board approval, so they are also incented financially to support the school board’s and, in turn, the union’s agenda when the school board is controlled by union-supported board members even when this agenda doesn’t reflect the interests of the community or board members own rational judgment.
3. Gender ideology is a key component of the Democrat party’s culture change agenda and that of its teacher’s union allies. Since all four key public school political influencer groups (superintendents, school board, teachers union, Democrat party) are often financially and politically interdependent, there is considerable pressure for union-supported school board members and school board appointed superintendents to conform. This is especially true if school board members have future political ambitions requiring Democrat party support and if superintendents have future career aspirations requiring teachers union and/or Democrat party support. As a result, community preferences often take a back seat.
4. Teachers are compelled to accept the promotion of gender ideology in schools in order to protect their employment benefits including part year work schedules and oftentimes generous pensions negotiated for teachers by the teachers unions. Teacher’s union dues are directed by teacher’s union leaders in support of mostly Democrat candidates for public office and, in turn, support for the Democrat party political agenda (regardless of teacher preferences). Nevertheless, some teachers are placing the well-being of students ahead of their careers and their financial well-being and are resigning in protest of gender indoctrination in their public schools.
5. Increasingly, teachers union leaders use their political power, even up to threat of a strike, to force public schools to accept or promote some aspect of the Democrat party’s or left-wing activist’s political agenda which may have little or no bearing on public education. This is totally inappropriate but often tolerated in blue states. Examples include certain aspects of climate change policy or recognizing support for foreign entities like Hamas or Palestine.
6. Especially in Democrat-controlled states, public schools are generally very well-funded by the state (in addition to local property taxes), sometimes in excess of the schools' actual educational needs. But oftentimes this funding comes with strings attached. Schools may be required to satisfy political interests in order to qualify for the funding. Sometimes politicians impose unfunded mandates that schools are forced to comply with. Such legal requirements are often designed to force a political agenda on the schools. Gender ideology is a prime example. A specific MN example is a recent legal requirement for schools to offer menstrual products in boy’s restrooms.
7. There are also multi-billionaire gender activists like the Pritzker family from Illinois who use their extreme wealth to buy political influence nationwide. So, it would not be at all surprising if some of their money found its way down to the local level in order to influence public school policies to promote gender ideology in targeted school districts. Chicago public schools are an example of big money influence being employed to promote gender ideology.
8. Just recently, the Biden administration illegally attempted to reinterpret Title IX law to include protections for gender identity while literally destroying the girl’s/women’s rights that Title IX was originally passed into law to protect. Since the executive branch does not have the authority to rewrite laws passed by Congress, several states have already filed suit to block this reinterpretation of Title IX – a blatant election year ploy to satisfy the Democrat party’s far left base. Right on queue, some public schools are falsely interpreting this illegal, partisan attempt by the Biden administration to include gender identity within Title IX as justification for the implementation of new gender protection policies.
9. Ironically, the Minnesota legislature passed a gender affirming care law in 2023 making Minnesota a destination for those seeking such care despite knowledge that several European countries have reversed their decades-long endorsements for gender affirming care (aka – the Dutch protocol) based on accumulated evidence that such care is largely ineffective and that patients dealing with gender dysphoria really need much more intensive psychological evaluation and care. England’s only child gender identity clinic was shut down as a result of data accumulated about the false benefits of gender affirming care over several decades NHS to close Tavistock child gender identity clinic (bbc.com)
Conclusion
The promotion of gender in public schools is largely a political issue driven by political activists allied with Democrat party leaders and the teacher’s union leadership intent upon changing traditional American cultural values and increasing their political power in the process. Wherever these groups have political control they are forcing schools to impose gender ideology on students and staff at the expense of the well-being of the majority of students and their families. As a reward for the left’s gender indoctrination agenda, students are unwittingly being groomed to grow up as loyal Democrat voters.
Public schools are not qualified and it’s not within their scope as educators to promote unscientific gender ideology to young children any more than schools should be promoting religious ideologies (although some schools have inappropriately taken it upon themselves to promote Islam).
Gender dysphoria is a valid psychological condition as are dozens of other such mental conditions and should be treated by professional child psychologists. Gender dysphoria affects only a very small percentage of youth. Gender dysphoria should not be endorsed by public schools as a normal human condition and special accommodations created at the expense of other students and staff any more than psychological conditions like paranoia or schizophrenia are not promoted or accommodated with special policies compromising the rights of other students and staff.
Parents must protect their children by opposing the gender ideology agenda in their public schools and by electing school board members who are not affiliated with the teachers union and/or the Democrat party.
-Written by a Bloomington Resident
