Parents fume after school teaches kindergarteners gender isn’t real
Parents of students attending La Jolla Country Day School in San Diego expressed their concern over curriculum teaching their children that gender isn’t real.
La Jolla Country Day School, which teaches kindergarten through fourth grade, introduced a book into their first-grade curriculum entitled “It feels good to be yourself” by Theresa Thorn. Thorn’s book teaches children that “Some people are boys. Some people are girls. Some people are both, neither, or somewhere in between,” according to its website.
Parents claim they were not notified of the curriculum ahead of time and only found out until the children started expressing confusion about gender when they got home from school. Some parents reached out to local media outlets expressing their concern that a “liberal agenda” is being pushed on their six and seven-year-olds.
A concerned mother emailed local news saying, “It’s a very sad situation” that she has to “worry about what teachers are exposing to her child,” according to KUSI News.
“I was never informed of what was gonna go on this curriculum, and when I saw this, I was completely shocked,” said one father, who chose to remain anonymous. “I think they shouldn’t be pushing any liberal agenda at all,” he added.
Excerpts of the book say that it is normal for children to feel that their “gender changes from day to day or from year to year.”
The book has a section on being “Non-Binary” that says, “Just like there are many different ways to be a boy or a girl, there are many different ways to be non-binary – too many to fit in a book!” A concerned parent says this is causing his children to come home “confused.”
“You know we taught them that there are boys and there are girls, and then they come with a different idea from school… My discussion with them is, you know, I tell my sons not everything you’re gonna hear from school is true,” the father said.
The father told his sons that there are “only two genders” after telling him they were confused by what the book said. “What you need to know is that there are only boys and girls…That is science. Those are the facts,” he says.
“I am greatly disappointed that LJCDS chose to conduct a gender identity lesson during first-grade library time… This is a topic not appropriate for six and seven-year-olds and proved to cause great confusion and concern with many of the children,” another parent said.
The head of LJCD’s Lower School, Payton Hobbs, confirmed the book was read to the first-grade students. “The focus of the lesson is connected to the concept of Dignity and its meaning here at LJCDS. During the lesson, they discuss “acceptance of identity” as an aspect of our Dignity model. Students are also provided time to talk about what this means to them,” Hobbs said.
“After this initial discussion, they read ‘It Feels Good to Be Yourself,’ by Theresa Thorn, which focuses on gender identity. Afterwards, the team takes questions from the students and talk a bit about pronouns,” Hobbs continued.
Parents said their children were asked to fill out a “gender workbook,” which instructed them to question their own gender identity with questions like “Are you really the gender you think you are?” The parents said they were never given the option to opt-out of this lesson.
“If it were up to me, I would have opted out because I don’t think it is right. The school had no right to start off with this sort of nonsense,” the anonymous father said.
The school issued a statement saying that they value “diverse viewpoints and beliefs” and that parents who have concerns should reach out “to have a dialogue.”