Gender ideology bypass of sex ed review
How counseling materials and the Gender and Sexuality Alliance bypass community review and school board approval
My colleagues on the Sheboygan Falls School Board yesterday declined to consider a resolution to remedy bypassing of review and parental notice for human growth and development (sex ed) instruction. Our district has a robust review process involving a community team with parents, healthcare professionals, and members of the clergy. On sex-ed topics related to gender ideology, however, that process is being bypassed.
Genderbread Person
An example is that a 5th grader on her first day of school, browsing the online material for her classes, will find alongside her math and science courses, a counseling page that includes a document titled the “Genderbread Person”, which teaches that anatomical sex is a continuum from nothing to “female-ness” or “male-ness”, contradicting formal statements from the National Association of Scholars and American College of Pediatricians based on robust academic research that sex is binary, including at the anatomical level.1
The instructional material also describes what it calls “sex assigned at birth” (which the Heritage Foundation calls “politicized language”)2 as including male, female, and intersex. It provides no context to indicate that intersex refers not to a third sex, but to disorders of sex development, in which normal sexual differentiation and function are disrupted.
The counseling page also links to GSAFE, the Trevor Project, GLSEN, the It Get Better Project, the GSA Network, and the LGBTQ National Help Center, all of which are partisan political activists that teach sex-ed concepts with a leftist bias. There are no links to websites expressing competing views.
Not only is the instructional material biased and scientifically inaccurate, it’s also not community reviewed or school-board approved. Parents were not notified of the content or offered an option to opt their students out. Proper review would have ensured clear and complete information and addressed whether this topic is appropriate for 5th graders.
Update: The Genderbread Person and links remained up until the counselor eventually left the district. The school board has still taken no action to prevent a future occurrence.
Gender and Sexuality Alliance
Another source of side-channel instruction is the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA), a district-sponsored high school club led by teachers paid by the school. It meets during school on Fridays at 9:34 am and instructs students about gender and sexuality according to leftist gender ideology. For example, the GSA promoted as the “LGBTQ+ anthem” Lady Gaga’s song “Born This Way”, which many students are likely to interpret as teaching that sexual orientation or gender identity is simply determined at birth. According to the American Psychological Association, there is no scientific consensus that sexual orientation or gender identity is determined at birth, with many scientists believing nature and nurture both play complex roles.3
By playing up the song in the GSA's gender and sexuality context, the alliance is leading students toward a false and disempowering sex-ed belief of limited autonomy over their sexual choices. The Federalist describes how this can influence students toward unwittingly jumping onto a high-risk bandwagon. “[M]any gender dysphoric young people hit a rough patch in life (or several), have poor or immature coping skills, and got the message from peers, online, or both that transgenderism was a handy, simple explanation for their feelings”.4
Student safety
High rates of mental illness among students who identify as LGBT
Parents and students expect to trust the school to teach vetted scientific facts about sex ed. One of the many reasons is that students who identify as LGBT are “exponentially more apt to not only think about suicide but also plan and actually attempt suicide”, according to the DPI.5 They also have very high rates of self-harm, anxiety, and hopelessness, as documented by the DPI’s 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS):6
LGBT identification is high risk independent of other factors. According to a 2020 PLoS ONE study in Europe, sexual minority youth are at high risk for suicidality “even when controlling for the pupils’ country as well as after adjustment for alcohol and illegal drugs use, bullying, family interaction, school-related stress, economic status, and religiosity”.7 Similarly, a 2007 Journal of LGBT Health Research study of adults in Minnesota found that “adjusting for discrimination did not significantly reduce mental health disparities”.8
Bandwagon effect
High school students are easily influenced by what they perceive as popular or trendy. To protect student safety, the school is responsible for ensuring a bandwagon effect doesn’t draw students into the LGBT column on the harmful behaviors chart – students who would otherwise not be in that high-risk column.
A 2018 Brown University study documented a bandwagon effect, referred to as social contagion.9 The study involved children with symptoms of gender dysphoria, defined as “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning” caused by a mismatch between biological sex and perceived or desired gender identity.10 “Most of the parents (80.9%) answered affirmatively that their child’s announcement of being transgender came ‘out of the blue without significant prior evidence of gender dysphoria.’” Parents reported increased social media/internet use prior to disclosure of a transgender identity. Clusters of transgender identification occurred within friendship groups at more than 70 times the expected prevalence rate.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) corroborates that “social factors also play a role” in youths’ “gender identity development” as it relates to “the increased number of adolescents seeking care who have not seemingly experienced, expressed (or experienced and expressed) gender diversity during their childhood years.”11
A 2022 study in the journal Pediatrics presented student survey data that the authors argue stand in contrast to the Brown study;12 however, that study was itself controversial, with City Journal critiquing its methodology and calling its conclusion “an astonishing leap of logic.”13 Its conclusions were based on self-reports of transgender identity, which it noted had declined. By contrast, the Brown study analyzed gender dysphoria, which objective insurance data show has continued to increase, along with gender-altering medical procedures.14
Glorying trans identities to promote gender ideology
The Gender and Sexuality Alliance contributes to the bandwagon effect. It’s “a LGBTQ+ organization”15 about gender and sexuality with a Social Committee that plans social events.16 Its scope makes likely the lack of diversity among friendship groups that the Brown University study found preceded the high rates of dysphoria and other mental health problems.
The alliance popularizes LGBT-focused celebrities, furthering the bandwagon effect and enticing students into their social media circles. At the September 16 meeting, the GSA played a quiz game to name celebrities from clues and flamboyant photos. According to The Federalist, “glorifying trans identities” is a step in “manufacturing trans gender kids.”17
Manufacturing trans kids wouldn’t be nearly so successful were it not for entertainment glorifying trans identities, through YouTube videos, children’s shows, video games, and education. Children are attracted (and groomed) through the influence of their peers, social media, and teachers.
It’s easy to see why a child who hits a rough period emotionally, or feels socially awkward or isolated, would be drawn to identifying as transgender as a means to acceptance and attention.
Another step is to “affirm the cross-sex identity”. The GSA uses subtle messaging about who people “truly are”, including that people “should embrace who they are”,18 which in many contexts reinforces a healthy concept of self-identity, dignity, and worth. In the gender and sexuality context of the GSA, however, this messaging can be misleading, as it’s given without context or warning of the risks of embracing a gender opposite one’s sex.
Mental health risks to youth who identify as transgender
City Journal cited a Mental Health America survey that quantified the mental health of 11-to-17-year-old youth who identify as transgender:
93 percent were at risk for psychosis,
91 percent exhibited signs of posttraumatic stress disorder,
90 percent likely used drugs and alcohol,
90 percent experienced moderate-to-severe anxiety, and
95 percent experienced moderate to severe depression.19
The school board’s role
Unquestionably, our school needs to be free of discrimination and bullying, but it must not achieve those goals at the expense of student safety. Fortunately, there is no need to focus on gender and sexuality and risk a bandwagon effect causing students who otherwise would have led normal childhoods to instead suffer gender dysphoria and other mental illness. All students, whether they’re perceived as “normal” or as short, nerdy, not athletic, unintelligent, an ethnic minority, socially awkward, or anything else, deserve a safe and welcoming environment at school.
During the public forum, school board candidate Robyn Denning asked how counselors or other staff would handle questions related to sex ed topics not covered by an approved curriculum. Her question is an example of the thoughtful dialog we should encourage within our district. My reading of district policy is to strike a balance where instruction delivered to multiple students at once is subject to the review and approval process, whereas isolated one-on-one conversations can answer student questions independently in a neutral manner, keeping parents fully informed along the way.
Parents need to be confident in knowing what sex ed material is presented to their children and in making an informed decision to opt in or out. I regret that my colleagues were unwilling to address the current problems.
Related posts
This post was updated to include referenced content from a November 2022 report provided to the school administration and then to the school board.
NAS Statement on Gender Ideology in Higher Education. National Association of Scholars. October 5, 2021.
Marinov, G. In Humans, Sex is Binary and Immutable. National Association of Scholars. 2020.
Sex is a Biological Trait of Medical Significance. American College of Pediatricians. March 2021.
Anderson, R. Transgender Ideology Is Riddled With Contradictions. Here Are the Big Ones. February 9, 2018.
Understanding sexual orientation and homosexuality. American Psychological Association.
Understanding transgender people, gender identity and gender expression. American Psychological Association.
Pullmann, J. Explosive Ivy League Study Repressed For Finding Transgender Kids May Be A Social Contagion. The Federalist. August 31, 2008.
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey Comparison Tables, Tables by LGBT Status. At p. 22.
Gambadauro P, Carli V, Wasserman D, Balazs J, Sarchiapone M, Hadlaczky G (2020) Serious and persistent suicidality among European sexual minority youth. PLoS ONE 15(10): e0240840. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240840
Burgess D, Tran A, Lee R, van Ryn M. Effects of perceived discrimination on mental health and mental health services utilization among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons. J LGBT Health Res. 2007;3(4):1-14. doi: 10.1080/15574090802226626. Erratum in: J LGBT Health Res. 2008;4(1):43. PMID: 19042907.
Littman L (2018) Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria. PLoS ONE 13(8): e0202330.
What is Gender Dysphoria? American Psychiatric Association. Referring to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-5-TR.
Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8, WPATH, 23 International J. Trans. Health 2022 S1–S258 (2022). W Id. At S44–S45.
Jack L. Turban, Brett Dolotina, Dana King, Alex S. Keuroghlian; Sex Assigned at Birth Ratio Among Transgender and Gender Diverse Adolescents in the United States. Pediatrics August 2022; 150 (3): e2022056567.
Sapir, L. (2022) Major Flaws in New Study on Pediatric Gender Transition. City Journal.
Respaut, R, Terhune C, Putting numbers on the rise in children seeking gender care, Reuters. Oct. 6, 2022.
Athletics, Clubs, & Activities. Sheboygan Falls High School website.
Sheboygan Falls High School Gender and Sexuality Alliance “Officer Positions” slide deck. September 20, 2022.
Heyer, W. How A 10-Year-Old Girl’s Mom Saved Her From Going Transgender, The Federalist. June 30, 2021.
Rufo, C. (2022) Sexual Liberation in Public Schools. City Journal.