Although it has yet to publicly announce the changes, the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has formulated a new curriculum related to health and fitness that includes human sexuality.
Among the changes is teaching children as young as kindergarten about transgenderism. On page 28 of the document, the curriculum covers the “Health Education Core Idea: Sexual Health.” There are six topic areas:
- Anatomy and Physiology—children in kindergarten will learn that “boys and girls have some body parts that are the same and some that are different,” but by first and second grade, they are expected to begin learning about “medically accurate names for body parts, including external reproductive anatomy.”
- Growth and Development—children in kindergarten will learn that living things “grow and mature,” which leads to learning how they grow and mature the next couple of years, followed by education on puberty in third grade.
- Reproduction—the reproduction of living things isn’t considered appropriate until second grade, and human reproduction is gradually introduced over the next few school years.
- HIV Prevention—Human Immunodeficiency Virus and its prevention aren’t considered appropriate until fourth grade.
- Healthy Relationships—children in kindergarten are expected to recognize what it means to be a friend, which progresses to describing friendship and recognizing healthy friendship over the next couple of years.
- Self-Identity—children in kindergarten will learn that “there are many ways to express gender,” and over the next few years after that, they are to be taught about a “range of gender roles and expression” and the “importance of treating others with respect regarding gender expression.”
According to a report by The Daily Caller, the new standards were developed in March:
By the end of elementary school (typically around age 11 or 12), students will be expected to “Understand the range of gender roles, identity and expression across cultures.”
In seventh grade, students will learn to “Distinguish between biological sex, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation.” By eighth grade, students will be expected to “recognize external influences that shape attitudes about gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation.”
This education continues through high school where students will “Evaluate how culture, media, society and other people influence our perceptions of gender roles, sexuality, relationships and sexual orientation.”
The state education agency said it is not trying to force a set of beliefs on any students. However, an official quoted in the article could not say what would happen if a student refused to complete a particular segment of the curriculum on religious grounds.
Taking the biblical implications of the matter out of the equation for a moment, this kind of “education” was specifically rejected by the American College of Pediatrics in March. In an official statement, it urged both educators and legislators to “reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex.”
“Facts—not ideology—determine reality,” it said.
The statement was later updated with additional source material in response to questions regarding gender dysphoria, a condition in which a person believes his or her gender is the opposite of his or her biological sex. LGBT and transgender activists attacked the scientific statement, which provoked a stern response from the governing body for pediatric medicine:
Our opponents advocate a new scientifically baseless standard of care for children with a psychological condition (gender dysphoria) that would otherwise resolve after puberty for the vast majority of patients concerned …
There is an obvious self-fulfilling nature to encouraging young GD children to impersonate the opposite sex and then institute pubertal suppression. If a boy who questions whether or not he is a boy (who is meant to grow into a man) is treated as a girl, then has his natural pubertal progression to manhood suppressed, have we not set in motion an inevitable outcome?
All of his same sex peers develop into young men, his opposite sex friends develop into young women, but he remains a pre-pubertal boy. He will be left psychosocially isolated and alone. He will be left with the psychological impression that something is wrong. He will be less able to identify with his same sex peers and being male, and thus be more likely to self identify as “non-male” or female.
Moreover, neuroscience reveals that the pre-frontal cortex of the brain which is responsible for judgment and risk assessment is not mature until the mid-twenties. Never has it been more scientifically clear that children and adolescents are incapable of making informed decisions regarding permanent, irreversible and life-altering medical interventions.
For this reason, the College maintains it is abusive to promote this ideology, first and foremost for the well-being of the gender dysphoric children themselves, and secondly, for all of their non-gender-discordant peers, many of whom will subsequently question their own gender identity, and face violations of their right to bodily privacy and safety.
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