The New York State Education Department released a new “framework and legal update to support schools in fostering an educational environment that is safe, supportive, and affirming for transgender and gender expansive (TGE) students.”
New Yorker’s Family Research Foundation (NYFRF) warned parents, calling the school guidance a “war on parents.” The foundation said the education department was doubling down on “gender ideology”:
New York parents, please take notice: The government and the educational establishment in the state of New York have fully embraced left-wing gender ideology and have taken drastic steps to impose it upon students, faculty, staff, and administrators in schools at all grade levels.
The new guidance, “Creating a Safe, Supportive, and Affirming School Environment for Transgender and Gender Expansive Students: 2023 Legal Update and Best Practices,” was released on June 12, 2023
NYFRF, a Focus on the Family-allied family policy council, reported:
The stated purpose of the document is “to help public school administrators continue to take proactive steps to create a culture in which TGE, nonbinary, and intersex students feel safe, supported, and included.” This 42-page document reads like an excerpt from a dystopian novel like Brave New World or 1984.
The “2023 Legal Update and Best Practices” includes a list of 25 terms, demonstrating that the education department has been co-opted by this non-scientific, damaging ideology. The glossary includes the following definitions:
Agender: Refers to a person who does not identify with or experience any gender. Agender is different from nonbinary because many nonbinary people do experience gender.
Assigned sex at birth: The sex, male, female, or intersex, that a doctor or midwife uses to describe a child at birth based on their external anatomy.
Cisgender: A term used to describe a person whose gender identity aligns with that typically associated with the sex assigned to them at birth.
Gender expansive: A person with a wider, more flexible range of gender identity and/or expression than typically associated with the binary gender system. Often used as an umbrella term when referring to young people still exploring the possibilities of their gender expression and/or gender identity.
Gender nonconforming (GNC): An umbrella term for those who do not follow gender stereotypes, or who expand ideas of gender expression or gender identity. Gender nonconforming does not mean nonbinary. Cisgender people can be GNC as well.
Queer: A term used to express a spectrum of identities and orientations. Queer is often used as a catch-all to include many people, including those who do not identify as exclusively straight and/or people who have nonbinary or gender-expansive identities. This term was previously used as a slur but has been reclaimed by many in the LGBTQ movement.
NYFRF says of this list, “The vast majority of these terms have no foundation in New York law.”
Indeed, these are ideological terms, with no real basis in science or medicine. Most of them come from the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT activist group in the U.S.
NYFRF, a faith-based organization that advocates for life, family, religious freedom and parental rights, highlighted some of the other serious problems with the guidance (our emphasis throughout):
In the section on “Understanding Gender Identity,” the document asserts that “the individual student is the sole person who will establish their gender identity.” … There is no age or grade level limitation on this instruction.
Schools are instructed to look favorably on damaging “transgender” medical treatments performed on young people. The document notes that “some [students] may express readiness to reinforce their social transition with medical treatments. … School personnel may provide an affirming space for TGE students to share opportunities, challenges, and aspirations for their future – including medical transition.”
Efforts to assist “transgender” students do not involve parents unless a student gives his or her permission. If your child is presenting himself as a member of the opposite sex in school, you can be kept completely in the dark about that fact.
School personnel are encouraged to avoid addressing students as “boys and girls” and are advised to eliminate “gender-based policies, rules, and practices” that “do not serve a clear pedagogical purpose.” Schools are encouraged to phase out single-sex gym classes.
With this guidance, New York’s State Department of Education is directly undermining parents’ rights to care for their children and direct their upbringing according to their faith and values.
New Yorker’s Family Research Foundation makes this clear:
When it comes to “transgender” issues in New York schools in 2023, three things are completely clear. First, parental awareness of their children’s so-called gender identities is optional. Second, the privacy and safety of students who are not “transgender” is irrelevant. Third, any perspective that does not affirm transgenderism is dismissed.
Related articles and resources:
Education Roundup: Queer Science, Drag Shows and Rainbow Clubs
Florida Parents Sue School for Helping Teen ‘Transition’ – Without Their Knowledge or Consent
New Jersey: Schools Must Not Tell Parents About Child’s ‘Transgenderism’
New Yorker’s Family Research Foundation
Wisconsin Teachers Instructed to Hide Students’ Gender Identities from Parents
Yes, Transgenderism is a False Belief System
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