Northwestern Oregon is a great example of how kindergarten has evolved.
On Wednesday, City Journal’s Christopher Rufo shared lesson plans from Portland Public Schools (PPS). The district provides information for kindergarteners about sex, and how to care for your body.
“Welcome, scientists!” the slides begin. These slides include a penis, scrotum and stomach.
Science:
Most often, people with these types of parts are males. But any kind of child or gender can have them.
Per PPS, the same goes for “people with” vaginas.
The next step is naked cartoons. Two types of humans exist:
- Person with a Penis (circumcised, or not-)
- Vulvae Person
For teachers, there is also guidance.
Use the slide wording, which was carefully chosen and inclusive of all gender identities. Slides are rich in text to aid language teachers. Trans people wrote this lesson. This lesson was written for students in Kindergarten through Third Grade and is appropriate for their developmental needs.
“Hello,” an illustrated name tag announces. “My name is _____, and my pronouns are _____.”
Portland busts the myth that “Names can never hurt me”:
If someone gives us their name, it is best to use it! That helps them feel safe…
Parents may not be right but children can prove them wrong.
Only you are able to determine your gender. Even if other people don’t understand, you are the only person who knows you the best. … Any gender can look or act any way they want.
An example of a book called Jacob’s New DressThe winner is drawn.
[S]The ometimes [what doctors and adults say] isn’t true! Because we can’t ask babies what their gender is since they can’t talk. 😀
The bottom line
Anyone can be a woman.
Children are told to express themselves as they wish — with a “haircut, clothes, and makeup.”
As for pronouns, “ze/zir” is offered — in addition to “ones you make up.”
Creating one’s own pronouns might be especially important, because the binary sexual system was created by Caucasians. Perhaps you thought ancient nonwhite books — the Bible among them — recognized a rule of men and women.
Wrong:
Different places were colonized by white Europeans who brought their views on gender and sexuality. The views of white European settlers about gender were imposed upon those who lived in the United States at the time. This shift still affects how we talk and think about gender hundreds of years later.
Let’s be very clear.
Colonization is for Gender. The concept of gender and sexuality diversity has existed for as long as humans have lived on this planet. Over time, the words people use to define themselves has changed. White colonizers tried to erase many cultures, including what some might now call “queer” or “trans” people, but these cultures already had words for, cultures including, and ways of thinking about gender and sexuality. These words are also products of colonization. The world’s other cultures, especially those that are Indigenous or Black, see gender differently and use different terms. This lesson focuses on the United States’ language over the last 20 years.
For third graders, Portland covers pride flags, pride marches, and “LGBTQIA2S+.”
Everything is Socially Constructed!
- Sex assignments
- Gender identity
- Gender expression
- Sexuality
“Straight,” “cisgender,” and “heteronomative” are listed under “Dominant Culture and Oppression.”
We address pernicious power:
Transphobia is the idea that cultures, systems, people, and beliefs that oppress anyone who isn’t cisgender. Transgender people are less likely to be granted privileges, while cisgender individuals have greater power and visibility across all areas of society. Transphobic ideas and acts can be malicious and intentional, or they may not.
Also, for the socially-conscious child:
[Queer culture]BIPOC and the disabled as well as other LGBTQIA+ folx are subject to discrimination. Queer culture is subject to racism, sexism and classism. It is still trying to liberate ALL people.
It’s a lot for small children to process, and radically different from everything that’s existed until now. Previously, tiny tots learned things such as counting and reading; parents made the calls where haircuts, makeup and clothes were concerned; and looking at genitally-correct cartoons wasn’t something for which five-year-olds were known.
There are a few things that may be troubling in all this new complexity. If gender is a social construct, then in actuality, isn’t there only sex?
PPS stresses the myth of stereotypes and presents tykes with challenges to overcome:
Your friend Dong wants to join ballet class, but he’s worried that other kids will tease him.
“There are many ways to be a boy, a girl, both or neither,” the tutorial touts. But if there are many ways to be a boy or girl, how can there be such a thing as “neither” or “both”?
It’s unprecedentedly sophisticated; hopefully, children so young as to still be eating their boogers will figure it out.
Evidently, they’ll have to:
LGBTQIA2S+ has been obtained
- Friends
- Classmates
- Members of the family
- Family’s of friends
- Teachers
- Teammates
Each person knows someone queer or trans. Whether or not they are aware! Sometimes the people we know just aren’t out yet or sometimes you haven’t talked to them about their gender or sexuality.
It’s a new day, indeed.
-ALEX
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