At the very end of February, an elementary school in Arlington, Virginia had kindergartners sit on the floor to hear a transgender spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) read them a book in which the claim is made that a boy can have a “girl brain but a boy body” or a boy brain and a girl body. The school district later claimed “parents were notified by a letter ahead of time and were allowed to opt out of they chose.”
But that claim was reportedly false. As Casey Chalk, himself the father of three small children, notes for The Federalist:
A copy of the February 22 letter provided to the Family Foundation of Virginia under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act shows absolutely no offer for parents to pull their kids out of the activity. Moreover, although the letter notes that a book written by a transgender person would be read to the class, it does not explicitly say that kindergarteners will be told they may have a “girl brain but a boy body” or a boy brain and a girl body, as the book claims. Nor does it say that the kids would be read to by a cross-dressing man who calls himself “Sarah.” Rather, it says only that “there will be discussion around the big ideas of the books which are we want to accept and welcome all people.”
The Washington Post reported that in the February 28 class at Ashlawn Elementary School, which was taught by openly homosexual teacher Jaim Foster, the transgender advocate, Sarah McBride, read the children the storybook “I Am Jazz.”
The Post added that after McBride finished reading the book, she informed the children, “I’m like Jazz. When I was born, the doctors and my parents, they all thought that I was a boy.” When a young girl asked why, McBride answered, “Because society, people around them told them that was the case. It took me getting a little bit older to be able to say that in my heart and in my mind, I knew I was really a girl.”
Chalk points out the specious nature of the school district’s claim that parents had been informed they could opt out of their children attending the class; he notes that the letter the district sent was only in English and many parents in the district speak other languages. He adds that the school district “offers a program titled English for Speakers of Other Languages/High Intensity Language Training (ESOL/HILT).”
Exposing young children to matters as serious as gender issues, including transgender issues, would seem extraordinarily inappropriate.
In 2018, Brown University assistant professor Lisa Littman published a scientific paper examining the phenomenon in which groups of teenage girls suddenly expressed feelings of gender dysphoria; Littman suggested that the girls were affected by social-media content that championed gender transition. As Jeffrey S. Flier, a former Dean of Harvard Medical School, noted, “The fact that Brown University deleted its initial promotional reference to Dr. Littman’s work from the university’s website—then replaced it with a note explaining how Dr. Littman’s work might harm members of the transgender community—presents a cautionary tale.”