By Lee Duigon
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he them; male and female created he them. ~ Genesis 1:27
Gender is a product of the mind ... Being transgender or gender non-conforming is normal and healthy. ~ British Columbia Teachers Federation, Handbook on "gender education," p. 5
Coming soon, to a public school near you: the teaching that "gender is a spectrum," and "gender identity" a state of mind, a social construct-and it's all part of a top-down campaign to convince your children that they can be "whoever they want to be." Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.In March, 2010, the National Education Association, America's biggest and most powerful teachers' union, sent a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women to testify to the need for all the world's national governments to embark on a program of radical sex education in their public schools. To quote from a contemporary news report:
Comprehensive sex education is "the only way to combat heterosexism and gender conformity," [NEA delegate Diane] Schneider proclaimed, "and we must make these issues a part of every middle and high-school student's agenda." "Gender identity expression and sexual orientation are a spectrum," she explained, and said that those opposed to homosexuality "are stuck in a binary box that religion and family create."[1]
In April the Council of Europe announced that it would soon "finalize a new convention that defines ‘gender' as a social construct rather than as a distinctive grounded in biology."[2]
Yes, it's coming right down from the top.
BC Teachers Set to Go
British Columbia teachers are already poised to go full-speed-ahead with this. The B.C. Teachers Federation has authorized a classroom teachers' handbook, "The Gender Spectrum: What Educators Need to Know."[3] Funding for the handbook was provided by the union and by the "Pride Education Network," a homosexual activist group. We will quote extensively from this handbook, to provide a fair and thorough representation of what public "educators" intend to "teach" the children entrusted to them."Psychologists believe," the text begins on Page 3, "that a person's core identity, or sense of self, is based on three major components: gender identity, style of behavior, and sexual orientation." We are not told which particular psychologists believe this, nor why we ought to make any psychologist's "belief" the basis of any child's education. The reader is warned that "outdated and oppressive views of gender continue to circulate in our everyday understanding of what it means to be human" (p. 5).
Insisting that there are no relevant differences between girls and boys (pp. 10-11), the handbook declares, "No less than seven gender categories existed among the Chukchi people of Siberia in the 1800s" (p. 12). So that makes gender chaos universal? We are not told why we should care about what the Chukchi people of Siberia in the 1800s thought about gender or any other topic.
Pages 12-13 offer a mass of gobbledygook about "two-spirit persons" (simultaneously male and female, supposedly) among the American Indians, written by Harlon Pruden, co-founder and council member for the North East Two-Spirit Society. There are no footnotes offered in support of any of this pour soul's ravings, such as this howler on page 13: "When a family was not properly raising their children, it has been documented"-but no such documentation is provided here-"that two-spirit people would intervene and assume responsibility as the primary caretaker." We cannot even speculate as to why anyone would expect us to believe this.
Boys and Girls Together, in the Shower
Schools are urged to establish a "dress code to enable a student's right to dress in accordance with their gender identity" and "the right to be addressed by one's preferred name and pronoun" (p. 16). On the same page, the handbook recommends "access to safe restroom and locker room facilities that correspond to one's gender identity"-in other words, teenage boys will be able to get into the girls' locker and shower room by claiming that they "feel like a girl" today.Schools should hire "staff with diverse gender identities and expressions" (p. 17)-yes, that seems like a good idea, doesn't it? An even more amazing recommendation is that teachers should never address children as "boys and girls" anymore (p. 23).
"If students cling to traditional beliefs about gender," (translation: Christian beliefs) says the handbook (p. 29), teachers ought to "challenge" them with questions-thus pitting children against adults in a debate. How often do you suppose children will win such debates? How often do you suppose they will even dare to try?
The "gender is a spectrum" message is to be soaked into all lessons on all subjects, urges the handbook (p. 31). Special lessons shall be given. For example: "Ask students to imagine/pretend they had two moms or two dads. If that were so, what would they get double of?" (p. 33). Teachers are advised to stress the "positive/fun things" about the situation. Meanwhile, teachers of young children should "Use the book, King and King, to prompt student thinking about marriage equality" (p. 37). King and King is a fairy tale (pun intended) about a prince who "marries" another prince instead of a princess.
For older students there will be lessons on "Examining Novels for Gender Bias," featuring such thought-provoking questions as, "Are all the romantic relationships in the novel heterosexual?" (p. 45)-implying, of course, that that would be wrong. After all, the whole educational experience is all about "encouraging students to identify forms of sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, transphobia, privilege and oppression in their everyday lives" (p. 49). The add-on of "privilege and oppression" tips off the underlying Marxist mind-set of the whole enterprise.
It's Already Here
We have quoted the handbook at such length because it has been our experience that Christian parents who send their children to public schools do not want to believe our reports about what those schools teach. We recommend that readers use the link we have provided to the handbook and see for themselves whether our report is true.Some will argue, "Oh, that's British Columbia! It's in another country-it has nothing to do with us."
But the campaign to create "gender-free" children has already begun in the United States. The Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland, California, has already installed a "gender coach" in the classroom to teach very young children that "you can be a boy or a girl, or both." Don't take our word for it: see it on video.[4] The "coach" was provided by an organization called Gender Spectrum (http://www.genderspectrum.org )-which presumably would not exist if it did not perceive a demand for its services.
Even in British Columbia, however, parents have not yet faced up to the teachers' unions plans for their children. Roadkill Radio host Kari Simpson attended a parents' rally recently and reported that the parents "had no idea that any of this was in the schools. Although not much news leaks out of the schools, I think it's safe to assume that at least the activist teachers are using that handbook."
The BCTF "has fought for and won a position in which teachers have virtual autonomy in the classroom," said Roy Grey, formerly the leader of the Christian Heritage Party and now a Roadkill Radio co-host. "We've been asking to hear from parents what they think of this-but the schools don't want the parents to know what's going on, and most of them don't know."
Sometimes we wonder if they would even want to know.
As always, we urge parents to remove their children from the public schools and provide them with a Christian education, either at home or in a Christian school. We cannot understand why any Christian parent would allow his child to receive "gender education" at the hands of teachers' unions and gay activists.
Decide: are the lessons suggested in "The Gender Spectrum" handbook the lessons that you want your child to be taught?
[1] http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.1798/pub_detail.asp
[2] http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-european-convention-defines-gender-as-social-construct/
[3] http://bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/SocialJustice/Issues/LGBTQ/Resources/GenderSpectrum.pdf
[4] http://www.massresistance.com/docs/gen/11b/CA_trans_elementary/index2.html
Lee Duigon is a Christian free-lance writer and contributing editor for the Chalcedon Report. He has been a newspaper editor and reporter and a published novelist.
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