The tyranny of gender ideology strikes again. This time, it takes advantage of our children.

All joking aside, as of March the state of Washington made an incredible stride in inclusivity by amending the Health and Physical Education K-12 Learning Standards to include a section devoted to education on gender identity, expression and sexual orientation.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn wrote in a March 25 statement that this process has been ongoing since 2014 with the hope of developing the most inclusive and medically accurate set of health and physical educations standards for the state.

“As part of the development process,” Dorn wrote, “the standards underwent multiple reviews from many stakeholders including two Bias and Sensitivity reviews and an extensive public comment period, allowing those with a stake in health and physical education an opportunity to inform the development and implementation of the standards.”

These standards exist under a new pillar within the sexual health education core entitled “self-identity.” The curriculum ranges from kindergarten to high school, beginning with understanding that there are many ways to express and identify one’s gender.

In a July 8 Washington Post article, journalist Valerie Strauss cites the praise these policies received from both the National Education Association (NEA) and the National Parent-Teacher Association (PTA).

“Every student matters, and every student has the right to feel safe, welcomed and valued in our schools,” NEA president Lily Eskelsen García said in a May 13 news release. “Educators are responsible for our students’ education and safety, including those students who are perceived or identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning.”

Strauss also noted a National PTA resolution urging state and local member organizations to review school and district polices on bullying to adequately protect LGBTQ students.

Needless to say, these changes have also met with their share of blowback, especially from those claiming the new standards infringe upon private convictions.

Peter Hasson, associate editor for conservative college publication the Daily Caller, extensively quoted Nathan Olson, a communications manager for the office of the Superintendent, in a column entitled “Washington state to teach Transgenderism to kindergarteners.” In one such quote, Hasson unintentionally reveals a major flaw in the argument that these standards will unnecessarily trespass upon religious belief.

“Standards help students become familiar with concepts that education experts feel are essential for all students to know,” Olson said. “Standards are not used to impose belief systems.”

The comparison could be made to science curriculum concerning evolution: first, the teaching of evolution is not an imposition on a belief system because evolution as science does not require belief, and second, it is within the interest of the state to educate public school students from the most up-to-date elements of the body of human empirical knowledge.

The same can be said of the new gender inclusive curriculum: gender identity, expression and sexual orientation do not require normative belief; simply recognition and acceptance that they exist as part of the human experience.

Moreover, these standards cannot and do not teach “Transgenderism.” One cannot teach someone to be transgendered, which is simply part of their innate identity since birth. More importantly, these standards are not going to force the state’s children to all start experimenting with gender identity and expression. They are simply intended to teach greater societal awareness and acceptance of these essential aspects of the broader human experience.

To those who think we are simply going to confuse our children by exposing them to ideas of gender fluidity, this is not the case. First, give children some credit for their resilience and intelligence when learning new material. If we can teach children various languages at young ages effectively, teaching them about the range of gender identities, expressions and orientations should not be much of a challenge.

Second, children who are currently only taught cisgendered, heteronormative curricula are more confused later in life when they realize they are not cisgender or heterosexual. Even worse is when children are not adequately equipped for non-heterosexual relationships and sexual interactions.

In fact, the problem of these new learning standards is not the standards themselves, but rather properly and adequately implementing them.

Paulina Abustan, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of cultural studies and social thought in education at WSU, agrees these curriculum changes are a step in the right direction but worries educators are not getting the proper resources to teach about gender identity, expression and sexual orientation to the full.

“I’m happy to hear this is happening, that there is a push to include LGBTQ in schools,” Abustan said, “but I’m not sure if teachers are getting proper institutional training and support. The teachers I know – local Pullman teachers – would like more training so they can teach this sensitively.”

Abustan recommends age-appropriate LGBTQ books, onsite or district trainers and electronic resources be readily available for teachers when they cover the topics of gender and sexuality.

The bottom line to these new health and physical education curricula is that they are not experimenting on our children or causing them more confusion about their gender identity or expression; in fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics has found that most children have a stable sense of gender identity by age four.

Rather, we risk having continued generations of queer-identified youth who do not have the knowledge and assurance to know that, regardless of how they identify, there is nothing wrong with them; that they are valued by society; and, finally, that they have the education to live healthily and form healthy relationships later in life.

Those opposed to this sort of new paradigm should only be afraid that an open, inclusive future for America’s children will have no room for their bigotry.

Tyler Laferriere is a graduate student pursuing his master’s in economics from Phoenix, Arizona. He can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of The Office of Student Media.