All Illinois public schools must now teach LGBT history. They can only buy history textbooks that include it. And not just LGBT history. A very specific idea of that history.

The “Inclusive Curriculum Law” was signed in August. It goes into effect on July 1, 2020, to let teachers prepare the lessons for the 2020-21 school year. The law also covers women and minority group history. California, Colorado, New Jersey and Oregon have already passed similar laws.

Why? The head of LGBT lobby group Equality Illinois explains. “As a former first grade teacher, I know how an inclusive education system can create change within a community.”

That’s true. But what of the costs? And what about other ways of understanding sex and gender?

Exploring Concepts

The law only enforces what many schools systems do already. Evanston/Skokie schools, for example. The school systems posts its LGBT week curriculum online.

Preschoolers and kindergarteners will “explore concepts of families, gendered toy and clothing stereotypes, colors and meaning, flags, allyship and identity.” 1st graders will learn to use the pronoun “they” for an individual. 4th and 5th graders will watch a PBS documentary about a girl who dreams of leading the boy-only Hula troop.

There is a 5-day plan for LGBT week, although teachers are encouraged to teach it all year. Take the plan for kindergarteners and first graders. On Monday, the children watch the video “Heather Has Two Mommies.” Important vocabulary words include “gay” and “lesbian.” On Tuesday, they watch I am Jazz, a TV show about a young boy who “transitions” to a girl. They also watch Princess Boy, about a young boy who wears girls’ clothing.

On Wednesday, the students learn about the colors of the LGBT flag. On Thursday, they learn about being an ally. The kids learn about tolerance on Friday. Important vocabulary words include diversity, inclusivity, family, identity, gay, lesbian, transgender and ally.

Equating Sexuality With Race

The curriculum teaches these children to approve of families headed by same-sex parents. One way it does that is to compare them with mixed-race and adoptive families. A second way is simply to normalize them. In one video, a boy says he has two dads and two moms. Materials include pictures of same-sex couples with children, which prompt students to label them as families. All the slides can be viewed here.

Special needs children are shown a video about a “gender-fluid” 11 year old.

Teachers and other school employees were required to fill out a survey indicating how comfortable they were teaching LGBT curriculum. Was the survey anonymous? Would they suffer repercussions if they admitted they were uncomfortable?

According to Joy Pullmann, writing at The Federalist, teaching about LGBT isn’t labeled as sex ed.  If it was, the school would have to tell parents and they could opt out. So it’s put into history. In other words, treated as a regular academic subject.

Young Children are Impressionable

What are the costs of this? What happens when you teach children that biological sex doesn’t matter, that only what you think you are matters?

A Brown University professor found found that social influences may be contributing to children feeling gender dysphoria. It may even drive them to it. Her study revealed that “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” among teens and young adults may be a social contagion. Among the possible causes are having friends who identify as LGBT, an identity politics peer culture, and an increase in internet use.

The curriculum portrays transgenders as making a perfectly normal decision. But studies have shown that 20% of transgenders revert back to their birth sex. This frequently happens after a young person has taken hormones and had sex change surgery. They then deeply regret having made the physical changes. The curriculum does not warn children about this. They are not told that many transgenders realize they were wrong and revert back.

Nor are children told that 41% of transgenders attempt suicide. Nor that mental illness affects 60-90% of transgendered people.

Other Points of View

And what of other points of view? Many parents disagree strongly with the ideas behind transgenderism. Christians, Jews, and Muslims hold different beliefs about what male and female are. The curriculum offers no alternatives to the LGBT idea. It doesn’t explain how some religions object to those lifestyles.

It’s one-sided “education.” It doesn’t teach children to think about the issue. No dissent is acceptable. Children are only allowed to express approval of the LGBT lifestyle, and they are pushed hard to do so.

In order to be fair, the curriculum should offer other perspectives. Focus on the Family has a great guide to talking to children about transgenders. Unfortunately, the politically correct crowd will never allow it in the schools. To them, traditional Christian teaching about male and female is hate. To offer it in school even as an alternative point of view unconstitutionally teaches religion.

What can Christians do? An alternative approach might be to organize Focus on the Family’s Day of Dialogue, which assists students with sharing a redemptive perspective about what God has to say on important topics people care about, like relationships, sexuality and spirituality.

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