The problem is broader than the particular issue discussed here. Public schools are being turned into indoctrination rather than educational institutions. Ultimately, private school which, by necessity, must be much more responsive to parental concerns, is the better solution.
Apparently private schools are even worse because they are beholden to accrediting agencies, which are even quicker to adopt these policies than public school districts, which at least have bureaucracy to slow things down.
Private schools aren't immune to this pressure. This is why activists are laser focused on power positions, so they can push their ideology down to the masses by coercion, shame and force. It's not a bottom up movement, but a top down movement.
I wrote to both the TDSB Superintendent in charge of DEI policy, my local Conservative MPP and to the Ministry of Education about the poster a few months back, and none would address my concerns about the misleading info in it, or explain what some of it means...you can be a girl, a boy, both or neither?! The only response was that they were trying to be nice to people. The Super did say that the poster was in a part of the school where only older kids, grade 4 and up, would see it.
This is all so insane. There is no right way to be a girl. There is no right way to be a boy. And there is no possible way to change what you simply are.
Thanks for this. Going to send it to my grown children. Hopefully getting information out about this will help. Have trouble seeing my twin seven year old grandsons understanding this - but they eventually will have to. It is difficult enough to understand basic human biology without all the woke baloney.
I am currently building up my nerve to have the pre-emptive gender talk with my kids. It's so frustrating because they're really too young to be talking about this at all, but I have no choice because if I don't, someone else will talk about it anyway and fill their heads with lies.
The issue is so convoluted that I'm having trouble planning how to even get into it without getting sidetracked with lots of digressions to all aspects of the issue.
Does anyone know of any resources that can help guide parents and kids through a real-world lesson about sex and gender? We should create and share a video or slideshow or some kind of lesson plan that can help parents do the talk you're suggesting. I consider myself a good communicator but this makes me freeze up. Plus my kids tense up too when they sense the conversation is going to get serious. I think a lot of parents would want to have this talk but just don't know where to start. Especially when we're dealing with such young kids that it's too soon to discuss aspects of sexual reproduction that explain exactly why sex is real and gender isn't.
My daughter encountered the bullshit outlined above in kindergarten. I have talked to her about it in response. My basic story is always the same: Boys have penises, girls have vaginas. If you have a penis, you are a boy. If you have a vagina, you are a girl. Yesterday my daughter told me one of the boys at her summer camp (one of the teachers, actually, so teenager/young adult) likes to dress up like a girl. I was like, that's fine! Boys can wear dresses and make-up if they want to. But they are still boys. I would not have a formal talk, I would just constantly reinforce the basic biology. I also repeat that how you feel does not determine if you are a boy or a girl; it's your body.
I don't want my sons wearing dresses and I will teach them it's weird. That is my belief and it is every bit as valid as yours. I will teach them to not make fun of others based on how they dress or look, but I am against normalizing the idea that cross-dressing is fine.
Talking about sex and gender is just doing what the leftists are doing.
It is inappropriate and wrong. And the kids can't understand any of it anyway.
What you need to do is talk to them about adults, mostly teachers for them, but also other parents. And discuss how adults might seem like they know everything - but they actually don't.
And many teachers are very confused and wrong about things.
And that is OK, and your kids should be kind to those confused adults (and not tell them they are confused or those adults get mad and even crazier). But just tell your kids not to believe all adults. Just come home and ask you for the right answers.
Thanks for the feedback. I might be getting a little too paranoid about this stuff, since I subscribe to so many gender-critical Substacks, but I can't help feeling like I need to get out in front of the crazier arguments and debunk them. But maybe it's enough just to emphasize the fundamentals and, as you suggest, remind them that supposed authority figures like teachers are not always right. Teach them skepticism and critical thinking.
The other challenge (and maybe a good reason to slow-play it) is you never really know when these things might be introduced. It could pop up in kindergarten, but it might not. So much depends on your school and the individual teachers, and whether they have bought into the religious activist zealotry or whether they actually just want to do right by kids and education. Also whether other students have declared themselves trans and spurred the school into extreme action. We've actually been pretty fortunate so far and according to the kids they haven't heard of any such stuff in class yet. We live in a very blue area full of "In this house we believe" signs, and sometimes I wonder if that is somehow an advantage. Like maybe activist teachers feel like a vanilla suburb is more in need of learning their brand of "tolerance" while the parents at a school like ours can be trusted to give kids the approved messaging at home? Or maybe we've just been lucky.
In any case, thanks for the suggestions so far and let's keep the discussion going! If it's going to be up to parents to keep our kids on the right track, I think we should all keep talking to each other about what works best.
So just tell them that many adults And, especially teachers, are confused and will to try to confuse them. And its a test for the kids to figure out when the teachers are confused - and they when points if they report the confused/odd teachers actions back to you.
And tell your kids that if they ever have question, or somethings doesn't make sense, to just ask you.
You won't confuse them and lie to them like the some teachers will.
And only listen to teachers when they are making sense. Teachers aren't perfect.
In fact, lots of them are really really messed up, and kids should feel sorry for them, and just ignore teachers when teachers start talking crazy.
Thank you for this very informative essay. I find it unconscionable that teachers interject these ideologies into the curriculum for young children. It's hard, at times, to fathom what they must be thinking. I'm even more stunned by the fact that sexuality has become such an important topic in grade schools. That, I think, is the responsibility of parents, and only parents.
Good article, but I think the title is a bit misleading. I expected from the title an article about what to say to a child before the gender ideologues get to talk to them, which wasn't talked about. Perhaps consider changing the title.
its also important for both parents to be aware of the harmful misinformation pushed by the gender industry and mindlessly parroted by their stooges. triangulating families to wedge kids away from parents is a favorite goal of gender ideology, as well as triangulating a wedge btn different parents. IMO any kid or parent can be can fall prey to their bogus arguments. certainly im aware that some groups are more at risk. but really anyone can experience a tough time growing up and fall prey to these scammers. protecting kids from gender ideology maybe done in some of the same ways as protection from any other bully. thats confidence building activities , perhaps via mashal arts, keeping them off internet and having a close relationship with kids. the old school way of raising kids via distance and freedom to use internet and cell phones at will is a big risk. certainly telling kids about the harms of gender ideology is necessary. but that will only go so far if child is vulnerable in other ways.
The problem is broader than the particular issue discussed here. Public schools are being turned into indoctrination rather than educational institutions. Ultimately, private school which, by necessity, must be much more responsive to parental concerns, is the better solution.
Apparently private schools are even worse because they are beholden to accrediting agencies, which are even quicker to adopt these policies than public school districts, which at least have bureaucracy to slow things down.
Private schools aren't immune to this pressure. This is why activists are laser focused on power positions, so they can push their ideology down to the masses by coercion, shame and force. It's not a bottom up movement, but a top down movement.
I wrote to both the TDSB Superintendent in charge of DEI policy, my local Conservative MPP and to the Ministry of Education about the poster a few months back, and none would address my concerns about the misleading info in it, or explain what some of it means...you can be a girl, a boy, both or neither?! The only response was that they were trying to be nice to people. The Super did say that the poster was in a part of the school where only older kids, grade 4 and up, would see it.
This is all so insane. There is no right way to be a girl. There is no right way to be a boy. And there is no possible way to change what you simply are.
Thanks for this. Going to send it to my grown children. Hopefully getting information out about this will help. Have trouble seeing my twin seven year old grandsons understanding this - but they eventually will have to. It is difficult enough to understand basic human biology without all the woke baloney.
I am currently building up my nerve to have the pre-emptive gender talk with my kids. It's so frustrating because they're really too young to be talking about this at all, but I have no choice because if I don't, someone else will talk about it anyway and fill their heads with lies.
The issue is so convoluted that I'm having trouble planning how to even get into it without getting sidetracked with lots of digressions to all aspects of the issue.
Does anyone know of any resources that can help guide parents and kids through a real-world lesson about sex and gender? We should create and share a video or slideshow or some kind of lesson plan that can help parents do the talk you're suggesting. I consider myself a good communicator but this makes me freeze up. Plus my kids tense up too when they sense the conversation is going to get serious. I think a lot of parents would want to have this talk but just don't know where to start. Especially when we're dealing with such young kids that it's too soon to discuss aspects of sexual reproduction that explain exactly why sex is real and gender isn't.
My daughter encountered the bullshit outlined above in kindergarten. I have talked to her about it in response. My basic story is always the same: Boys have penises, girls have vaginas. If you have a penis, you are a boy. If you have a vagina, you are a girl. Yesterday my daughter told me one of the boys at her summer camp (one of the teachers, actually, so teenager/young adult) likes to dress up like a girl. I was like, that's fine! Boys can wear dresses and make-up if they want to. But they are still boys. I would not have a formal talk, I would just constantly reinforce the basic biology. I also repeat that how you feel does not determine if you are a boy or a girl; it's your body.
I don't want my sons wearing dresses and I will teach them it's weird. That is my belief and it is every bit as valid as yours. I will teach them to not make fun of others based on how they dress or look, but I am against normalizing the idea that cross-dressing is fine.
Did you mean “inculcate” instead of ‘inoculate”? I assume autocorrect or SpellCzetch as I like to call it “fixed” that for you.
Gotcha.
Talking about sex and gender is just doing what the leftists are doing.
It is inappropriate and wrong. And the kids can't understand any of it anyway.
What you need to do is talk to them about adults, mostly teachers for them, but also other parents. And discuss how adults might seem like they know everything - but they actually don't.
And many teachers are very confused and wrong about things.
And that is OK, and your kids should be kind to those confused adults (and not tell them they are confused or those adults get mad and even crazier). But just tell your kids not to believe all adults. Just come home and ask you for the right answers.
Thanks for the feedback. I might be getting a little too paranoid about this stuff, since I subscribe to so many gender-critical Substacks, but I can't help feeling like I need to get out in front of the crazier arguments and debunk them. But maybe it's enough just to emphasize the fundamentals and, as you suggest, remind them that supposed authority figures like teachers are not always right. Teach them skepticism and critical thinking.
The other challenge (and maybe a good reason to slow-play it) is you never really know when these things might be introduced. It could pop up in kindergarten, but it might not. So much depends on your school and the individual teachers, and whether they have bought into the religious activist zealotry or whether they actually just want to do right by kids and education. Also whether other students have declared themselves trans and spurred the school into extreme action. We've actually been pretty fortunate so far and according to the kids they haven't heard of any such stuff in class yet. We live in a very blue area full of "In this house we believe" signs, and sometimes I wonder if that is somehow an advantage. Like maybe activist teachers feel like a vanilla suburb is more in need of learning their brand of "tolerance" while the parents at a school like ours can be trusted to give kids the approved messaging at home? Or maybe we've just been lucky.
In any case, thanks for the suggestions so far and let's keep the discussion going! If it's going to be up to parents to keep our kids on the right track, I think we should all keep talking to each other about what works best.
But it is difficult to know what to say to kids.
So just tell them that many adults And, especially teachers, are confused and will to try to confuse them. And its a test for the kids to figure out when the teachers are confused - and they when points if they report the confused/odd teachers actions back to you.
And tell your kids that if they ever have question, or somethings doesn't make sense, to just ask you.
You won't confuse them and lie to them like the some teachers will.
And only listen to teachers when they are making sense. Teachers aren't perfect.
In fact, lots of them are really really messed up, and kids should feel sorry for them, and just ignore teachers when teachers start talking crazy.
I looked into Egale, the organisation behind the poster. Their list of “Government Partners” is a chilling read: https://egale.ca/our-partners/#government-partners
It all seems so benevolent. Creepy.
Thank you for this very informative essay. I find it unconscionable that teachers interject these ideologies into the curriculum for young children. It's hard, at times, to fathom what they must be thinking. I'm even more stunned by the fact that sexuality has become such an important topic in grade schools. That, I think, is the responsibility of parents, and only parents.
Frederick
EverythingIsBiology.substack.com
Good article, but I think the title is a bit misleading. I expected from the title an article about what to say to a child before the gender ideologues get to talk to them, which wasn't talked about. Perhaps consider changing the title.
its also important for both parents to be aware of the harmful misinformation pushed by the gender industry and mindlessly parroted by their stooges. triangulating families to wedge kids away from parents is a favorite goal of gender ideology, as well as triangulating a wedge btn different parents. IMO any kid or parent can be can fall prey to their bogus arguments. certainly im aware that some groups are more at risk. but really anyone can experience a tough time growing up and fall prey to these scammers. protecting kids from gender ideology maybe done in some of the same ways as protection from any other bully. thats confidence building activities , perhaps via mashal arts, keeping them off internet and having a close relationship with kids. the old school way of raising kids via distance and freedom to use internet and cell phones at will is a big risk. certainly telling kids about the harms of gender ideology is necessary. but that will only go so far if child is vulnerable in other ways.