When Sex Ed Stopped Being About Sex – Or Education

 

Remember that time I warned you that you’d be made to care about the transgender movement’s activism? It was Monday, reviewing Ryan Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally. Well, here’s a prime example of what I was referring to (as reported by a local news station):

The Sequim School District has stopped teaching a sexual health education course after some parents said it was not age appropriate.

Superintendent Gary Neal tells Q13 News that some parents had concerns after this year’s curriculum concentrated more on gender identity than the lessons in previous years.

Jason Peterson is a single-parent of five children. He said when he first agreed to allow his 12-year-old daughter to take the course in November, he thought the lessons would be about the same when his older two children took the course.

“I assume, like most other parents, that we would be covering pregnancies, STDs and all of those things that you want your kids to know about,” Peterson said.

That wasn’t the case for Peterson, who said his daughter came home crying and confused about the class in November.

“They told her that if she was into fishing and wearing athletic gear, or playing basketball, that those were boy things. And that would mean that she was a boy inside and that she was gay,” Peterson said.

Got that? If you like sports as a young girl, you’re not normal, you must be gay or transgender. This is what the sexually woke are teaching children just as they’re entering puberty.

Meanwhile, remember how outraged the left was about abstinence-only sexual education? We were told that schools shouldn’t be worried about indoctrinating children with ideology; sexual education was about preventing teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

Now, none of that matters; students are now simply cogs for a gender identity-obsessed left, where being a woman is broken down into if you like to wear dresses or nail polish. Young women will learn how they aren’t really women, but not about how to prevent their female bodies from becoming pregnant. Think this is hyperbolic? Peterson explained to his local news: “Twenty out of 32 pages [of the curriculum] are generated to gender identity. It’s heavily weighted towards that. It’s biased toward that.”

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  1. ShawnB Inactive
    ShawnB
    @ShawnB

    I weep for the future.

    • #1
  2. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Like I said in your previous OP, the effects on children are/will be devastating. It infuriates me!

    • #2
  3. Matthew Maldonado Inactive
    Matthew Maldonado
    @MatthewMaldonado

    When the U.S. Military began to debate transgender policies, and later take action towards “equality,” I remember thinking that eventually women, LGBT, and other minorities will “equalize” themselves into discriminatory treatment. 

    Our society and many of its institutions have recognized that discrimination is inherent in a diverse culture. We have accepted that compensation for said discrimination may be justified in limited circumstances, e.g. education, workforce, marriage. But if we continue to push for over-compensation, we will once again highlight the differences and perceived inferiority.

    • #3
  4. Quake Voter Inactive
    Quake Voter
    @QuakeVoter

    Cheers for Mr. Peterson and the parents of the Sequim school district.  I hope the reckoning is starting.  The moral and sexual rot that passes for mere factual education even in the deepest red school districts is astonishing.  Many of our local schools in Colorado care far more for their 166-day work year, full-salaried pensions at 54, and self annointed role as social and sexual change agents than they seem to care for the intellectual and cultural richness of the curriculum or the selection and promotion of superb teachers.

    Bring it on.  District by district.  The tools are there, especially in states with conservative state houses (sadly not the case in Denver).  We just have to pick them up and use them.

    • #4
  5. Pony Convertible Inactive
    Pony Convertible
    @PonyConvertible

    Government can fund education, but we have to stop letting them run them. Close all public schools.

    • #5
  6. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Why are we so helpless to stop this nonsense?  It’s evil destructive and we complain but why do we, meaning parents, relatives, voters,  tolerate any of it.

    • #6
  7. iWe Coolidge
    iWe
    @iWe

    My 15 year-old kid heard a 90 minute assembly lecturer today in school. The subject was all about the “N” word and how race does not matter and a range of transgendered BS. He said it was a complete waste of time, and the speaker, who was promoted as being “amazing” could not make a single coherent point. Apparently most of the kids shared my son’s conclusions.

    Kids do have a way of cutting through the BS, sooner or later.  After all, how can “there be no such thing as race!” when there is “white privilege”?

    • #7
  8. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Bethany Mandel: “Twenty out of 32 pages [of the curriculum] are generated to gender identity. It’s heavily weighted towards that. It’s biased toward that.”

    Bethany,

    I can describe this using no other term but Evil.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #8
  9. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    iWe (View Comment):
    After all, how can “there be no such thing as race!” when there is “white privilege”?

    Alas, if logic worked on these people, we would have dispensed with their nonsense years ago. It’s all about the feelz.

    • #9
  10. Ralphie Inactive
    Ralphie
    @Ralphie

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Why are we so helpless to stop this nonsense? It’s evil destructive and we complain but why do we, meaning parents, relatives, voters, tolerate any of it.

    I am always reminded of John Gall’s Systemantics.  It is an older book that is online in pdf form somewhere. I first heard of it from a comment about Obamacare, which seems to be the perfect example of Gall’s Law:

     A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system. – John Gall (1975, p.71)

    It is a great read, I think it is philisophical.

    Education is a system. The parts; teachers, administrators, politicians, students, money, all keep it going. If one part is removed, the system ceases to exist.  Teachers, politicians, money are not going anywhere voluntarily. The homeschool/ choice movement is an attempt to get out of the “system” in order to get an education.

     

    • #10
  11. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Pony Convertible (View Comment):

    Government can find education, but we have to stop letting them run them. Close all public schools.

    This is dead-on. There is no way in hell the aggregate value to society and the value to most individuals wouldn’t go straight up like a hockey stick  

    • #11
  12. Blondie Thatcher
    Blondie
    @Blondie

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Why are we so helpless to stop this nonsense? It’s evil destructive and we complain but why do we, meaning parents, relatives, voters, tolerate any of it.

    We are not helpless to stop this nonsense. Stop sending your children to government schools! Homeschool if you have to and don’t give me this crap about you can’t afford it. Unless you are a one parent household, you both don’t have to work. There are several on this site that homeschool and can attest to that fact. I have talked til I’m blue in the face to my siblings about their kids going to government schools. They know all about gender issues but couldn’t tell you where Wyoming is on a map or who fought in WWII or (I could go on….). 

    • #12
  13. Pony Convertible Inactive
    Pony Convertible
    @PonyConvertible

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Why are we so helpless to stop this nonsense?

    Because the government is running the schools.   

    Let’s look at food instead of education.  Like education, proper consumption of food is important to a child’s development.  Many parents don’t make good decisions, and don’t provide a nutritious diet to their child.  Our country has a big problem with overweight kids. So, because parents don’t always make good decisions about food, should we force them to get food from government groceries?  Should the government control the entire food industry and tell farmers what to grow, how much to grow, and what what they will be paid?  When shopping at the government grocery should customers be told what food has to go in their carts?

    That is pretty much how our education industry operates.

    As a society we have decided we want all kids to have access to food.  This is why we have food stamps.  With food stamps, even poor people have access to quality food, they also have choices on what they feed their kids.  This system isn’t perfect but it works pretty well.  It is much better than shopping from a government store whose food is produced at government farms.  

    Government funding of education is one thing, but they shouldn’t be the producers.

    • #13
  14. She Member
    She
    @She

    Bethany Mandel: “When Sex Ed Stopped Being About Sex – Or Education”

    The word is not the thing.”  To coin a phrase.  But back in the day, it used to be a hell of a lot closer to it, or at the very least, clearly associated with it.  We used to understand that words do mean things, and we generally agreed as to what they meant.

    And as a result, our lives, and even our heads, were not so incoherent and confused.

    The unfortunate thing about the truth of this post is that you can revise it to describe the state of so much of liberal education today.

    “When English Literature Stopped Being About English – Or Literature”

    “When Western Civilization Stopped Being About The West – Or Civilization”

    “When US History Stopped Being About The US – Or History”

    “When The Science of Geography Stopped Being about Science – Or Geography.”

    And on and on.  Yet another example of co-opted language, sloppy thought, and the deprecation of any sort of common heritage or frame of reference.

    On the other hand, perhaps for the first time in my life, I’m regretting being born forty years too early.  Otherwise, I might have gone to Harvard, and at this very moment, I might be taking a course like “Chocolate, Culture, and the Politics of Food.”

    You know.  Really important stuff.

     

    • #14
  15. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Blondie (View Comment):
    homeschool

    In spite of all of the wealth and progressive power, Minnesota has the worst “achievement gap” in the  country. The worst place in the USA for black people in this sense. It never improves. 

    There is an economist here that says we should get high quality teachers to “homeschool” four black kids at a time. It literally only takes two and a half to four hours a day for each kid. The rest of the day could be for some kind of mentoring thing. Supposedly this would be very fiscally efficient. I’m just reporting what he said. 

    Just from my own perspective, kids would be way better off if the parents could divert money towards tutoring or trade education instead of just shoveling 100% of the money and into the centrally planned leviathan. Of course since the main point of education is graft for educators, union bosses, and administrators, this will never happen.

     

    • #15
  16. OkieSailor Member
    OkieSailor
    @OkieSailor

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Why are we so helpless to stop this nonsense? It’s evil destructive and we complain but why do we, meaning parents, relatives, voters, tolerate any of it.

    Because ‘we’ have bought into the fiction that public education is ‘free’. 

    • #16
  17. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    The GOP and the libertarians need to step way, way back and think real hard about how human capital is actually developed or not. 30,000 ft. 50,000 ft. 

    • #17
  18. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Ralphie (View Comment):

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Why are we so helpless to stop this nonsense? It’s evil destructive and we complain but why do we, meaning parents, relatives, voters, tolerate any of it.

    I am always reminded of John Gall’s Systemantics. It is an older book that is online in pdf form somewhere. I first heard of it from a comment about Obamacare, which seems to be the perfect example of Gall’s Law:

    A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system. – John Gall (1975, p.71)

    It is a great read, I think it is philisophical.

    Education is a system. The parts; teachers, administrators, politicians, students, money, all keep it going. If one part is removed, the system ceases to exist. Teachers, politicians, money are not going anywhere voluntarily. The homeschool/ choice movement is an attempt to get out of the “system” in order to get an education.

    Don’t know the book but the point you make about it confirms lots of other works (Mancur Olsen and Hayek himself about emergent order.  Russ Roberts focuses a lot on emergent order.  )  We have to destroy the public school system  and start over, public institutions can’t be fixed or reformed.  School choice, including home schooling, can help destroy our public schools as we know them,  but it has to be a serious and broad imposition of choice in our public schools.  New Zealand eliminated all of its educational bureaucracy,  turned all schools, that’s one at a time not as a group, over to  teachers and parents free of mandates, but with a simple core curricula, which in a tiny homogenous country like New Zealand was possible.   But then any kid in the country could go to any school in the country and the money followed the kid.   Serious teachers and parents know who the good teachers are and it will all sort itself out with time.  Our cities could do this, parents could use their school vouchers for home school, private school, or if their public school becomes well run and serious, free of the nonsense, they can send them there.   A few charter schools here and there won’t do the trick.  Public schools have to be destroyed and replaced with real education picked by parents who, of course, care more  and know their kids better than anyone else, especially remote and superfluous educational administrators.

     

    • #18
  19. OkieSailor Member
    OkieSailor
    @OkieSailor

    Blondie (View Comment):

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Why are we so helpless to stop this nonsense? It’s evil destructive and we complain but why do we, meaning parents, relatives, voters, tolerate any of it.

    We are not helpless to stop this nonsense. Stop sending your children to government schools! Homeschool if you have to and don’t give me this crap about you can’t afford it. Unless you are a one parent household, you both don’t have to work. There are several on this site that homeschool and can attest to that fact. I have talked til I’m blue in the face to my siblings about their kids going to government schools. They know all about gender issues but couldn’t tell you where Wyoming is on a map or who fought in WWII or (I could go on….).

    Homeschooling is a lifestyle choice, one we made for our family. We raised and educated 4 kids on a single income. That meant we didn’t do many things we might have done on two incomes. Like all lifestyle choices, including a two income model, it involves trade-offs. It really is as simple as that, financially. It does, in addition, involve a large time commitment. For anyone who is unwilling to make those commitments I advise private schooling after throughly investigating whether the private school is actually different in good ways to the ‘free’ option. BTW, the national average per student cost of ‘free’ public schooling is twice that of private schooling. What’s up with that?
    It took commitment and sacrifice to home educate our kids but it was well worth it for both of us. It didn’t hurt that Mrs. OS is so much smarter than I am though we still had need of opportunities outside of our home which we utilized frequently but only when we had full knowledge of the curriculum and methods of instruction.

    • #19
  20. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    I knew sex ed in public schools had degenerated years ago, when I read one school system was teaching elementary school kids how to put condoms on fruit.  Sex ed has gone from “what sex is”, to “how to do it”, to “your sex is what you want it to be”.

    Pitiful . . .

    • #20
  21. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    OkieSailor (View Comment):
    BTW, the national average per student cost of ‘free’ public schooling is twice that of private schooling. What’s up with that?

    I love this. Education’s number one purpose in this country is government graft handed over at the point of a gun. 

    • #21
  22. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    OkieSailor (View Comment):
    BTW, the national average per student cost of ‘free’ public schooling is twice that of private schooling. What’s up with that?

    I love this. Education’s number one purpose in this country is government graft handed over at the point of a gun.

    If I’m not mistaken, forced government schools are one of the planks in The Communist Manifesto (gotta get around to reading it some time).
     

    • #22
  23. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Did all this smut being pushed accelerate under Common Core? Just curious – isn’t Common Core going away? Also is the Constitution being taught still?

    • #23
  24. Nick H Coolidge
    Nick H
    @NickH

    Bethany Mandel: “They told her that if she was into fishing and wearing athletic gear, or playing basketball, that those were boy things. And that would mean that she was a boy inside and that she was gay,” Peterson said.

    That’s what I find so odd about all this. For years now the feminists have been preaching that women can do anything that men do and that a woman can like the same things as men and still be a woman. Now the first part of that is only partially correct, but the second part is true. A woman can love football and hunting and playing poker and all kinds of stuff that is traditionally thought of as masculine and still be a woman. But now all of a sudden we’re supposed to start enforcing the stereotypes again and force all women who like masculine things into thinking of themselves as men. That’s nuts by itself, but the fact that they’re teaching this to kids is just [redacted] insane! Why aren’t the feminists up in arms about this? This is one of the areas where they had a valid point and had made a lot of gains for women as a result. And now they’re going to throw it all away in support of “gender identity” or intersectionality or something. I just don’t get it.

    • #24
  25. AchillesLastand Member
    AchillesLastand
    @

    Bethany Mandel:

    “They told her that if she was into fishing and wearing athletic gear, or playing basketball, that those were boy things. And that would mean that she was a boy inside and that she was gay,” Peterson said.

    Got that? If you like sports as a young girl, you’re not normal, you must be gay or transgender. This is what the sexually woke are teaching children just as they’re entering puberty.

    Umm…wait a minute.

    Didn’t we just go through 50 years of “feminists”** burning their bras, fighting the patriarchy, I am woman hear me roar, you’ve come a long way baby, GI Jane, the only reason for fewer women in STEM curricula/jobs is rampant sexism, etc, etc.

    All of the above was a rebellion against the idea of gender differences, and pretending that gender did not make any difference whatsoever (with the snide caveat: “the only gender-specific job descriptions are ‘wet-nurse’ and ‘sperm donor’ “).

    But now they tell GI Jane to get transgendered***? To forget about a STEM career because a new manufactured “penis” is required? I think I’ve got whiplash — or is that just intellectual dysphoria?

    Now, with the advent of transgenderism, we, or should I say our children, are being told that gender is everything, gender is transcendent, gender is all.

    Notice that I say “gender” and not “sex” — these used to be synonyms, but now they have been divorced as if the two never had anything to do with each other.

    Sorry for the rant…

    **I’m not sure the word “feminist” has any meaning anymore.

    ***Remember when it was called a “sex-change operation”?

    • #25
  26. AchillesLastand Member
    AchillesLastand
    @

    Nick H (View Comment):
    That’s what I find so odd about all this. For years now the feminists have been preaching that women can do anything that men do and that a woman can like the same things as men and still be a woman.

    You beat me to the punch!

    • #26
  27. livingthenonScienceFictionlife Inactive
    livingthenonScienceFictionlife
    @livingthehighlife

    Bethany Mandel: “They told her that if she was into fishing

    Wow!  Who knew my son was dating a girl who is really a guy.  

    • #27
  28. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    AchillesLastand (View Comment):
    Notice that I say “gender” and not “sex” — these used to be synonyms, but now they have been divorced as if the two never had anything to do with each other.

    Actually, they used to not be synoyms – and they really aren’t.  The left has turned them into synonyms because sex is a biological fact, whereas gender is a grammar construct.  By equalizing the two words in meaning, the left can turn a biological fact into a construct which in turn can be socially reconstructed to mean anything.

    • #28
  29. Nick H Coolidge
    Nick H
    @NickH

    AchillesLastand (View Comment):

    Nick H (View Comment):
    That’s what I find so odd about all this. For years now the feminists have been preaching that women can do anything that men do and that a woman can like the same things as men and still be a woman.

    You beat me to the punch!

    Yes, but you might have said it better.

    • #29
  30. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    We need politicians who are unafraid to call these educators what they are – Criminals.

    The Equal Protection Clause should ensure that reasonable viewpoints across the political and religious spectrum are heard in our schools with equal respect. But that clearly is not the case. Our courts have somehow fabricated and granted  a new right to indoctrinate, in an absolute contradiction of all fairness  and ideas of equal justice,  to our loony Lefturd  educator  friends which cannot ever seemingly be breached.  This indoctrination that educators routinely perform  on our children now should be viewed uncompromisingly as a ghastly civil rights violation, and should be prosecuted up and down the public school and college systems with a vengeance.   It is almost to the point that parents should be receiving just compensation in the tens of thousands of dollars minimum for the civil rights abuse heaped upon their kids without the parents’s permission.  There is absolutely no excuse for what is taking place in our schools. 

    Most children are the most important things in their parents lives, but we have allowed our nihilist/progressive betters  to take our children and diabolically indoctrinate them into little evil , radical progressive toadies.  This has to stop and the Left need to pay a very steep price for the crimes they committed. 

    • #30
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