Only 4 MORE WEEKS to Submit Your Comment on DESE'S new Health Framework!
You'll be "Amaze"-d at the confusing, unscientific ideas DESE wants to teach elementary school kids.
It's time for another friendly reminder to send DESE your public comment on the new draft Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Framework.
Every week until the public comment period is over, we will be highlighting one objectionable area of the framework and providing you with an example of curricula that would align with the Framework.
To see our previous countdown posts, click HERE, HERE, and HERE.
Today we are highlighting “Range of Gender Identities,” a video resource from Amaze. Amaze is a collection of video-based curricular resources produced by Advocates for Youth (AfY). As we mentioned previously, AfY’s Director of Sexuality Education and Training served as a content contributor for DESE’s draft Framework. She is also listed on the Amaze website as a Content Expert. She can be heard in this interview saying that she has no idea how many genders there are and that children can determine their own gender identity by age 4 or 5. Given her beliefs on gender identity, it’s no surprise that the Amaze resources she helps create teach similar messages to very young children. DESE has not released their list of recommended resources for this Framework yet, but with AfY having a seat at the table, we’re fairly confident AfY and Amaze curriculum and resources will be on their list!
Amaze videos have already been found in MA schools. See this post about Sharon Public Schools, which uses a different Amaze video to present the concept of gender identity in their 6th-grade puberty lesson.
The video resource “Range of Gender Identities” correlates to several standards listed in DESE’s draft Framework for grades 3-5, listed below. You can also find these on page 27 of the draft Framework:
Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Sexual Health [3.5.GS]
1. Describe the differences between biological sex and gender identity, and explain how one’s outward behavior or appearance does not define one’s gender identity or sexual orientation.
2. Describe a range of ways people may express their gender and that some people’s gender identity (how they think about themselves) matches others’ expectations about what their bodies look like on the outside and others do not.
3. Explain how gender identity and sexual orientation can vary in each individual.
To see how this video meets DESE’s standards, watch it for yourself here:
Or check out these screenshots from the video, which features a family sitting down for dinner and having a discussion about the gender identity of “Alex,” a friend who will be stopping by. The kids at the table authoritatively educate their elderly Uncle Jay, who still holds the regressive and silly view that there are only two genders.
“Back in your day, most people understood the world in terms of boys or girls. But now, we know gender is more complex than that,” the teenage boy explains.
And indeed, a teenage boy’s definition of gender is “more complex…” if by “complex” he means patently nonsensical.
Of course, this confuses Uncle Jay.
Don’t worry, Uncle Jay, your family members will teach you how to be a good person.
Enter Alex, who looks and sounds a lot like a girl (but without breasts… maybe Alex watched Amaze’s video on chest binding?). Uncle Jay gives “them” a warm welcome.
And of course, Alex should receive a warm welcome, because a child struggling with their gender identity or other mental health issues deserves care, friendship, and love. But treating a child with care, friendship, and love does NOT mean that the adults in the room should affirm their gender confusion. And teenagers, “educated” in the world of Amaze, should not be treated as the experts on the reality of what it means to be either male or female.
This video, according to the Amaze website, is made for kids ages 9-12. That means that by Amaze’s own definition, this video would be a perfect resource to be used in MA classrooms that are implementing this standard for kids in 4th or 5th grade.
It almost goes without saying at this point (or at least it should) that telling kids who are just on the cusp of puberty that whether they are male or female depends on how they “feel” and that it’s possible that they aren’t male or female at all, can be incredibly damaging. What does a 10-year-old girl understand about what it “feels” like to be a woman? What does it mean to “feel” like a man, if you are a skinny, uncoordinated 11-year-old boy? There is no way to answer these questions that doesn’t end with hormonally tormented children making subjective judgments based on stereotypes, positive (or negative) experiences with adults, or ideas they have absorbed about masculinity and femininity from the media (possibly including pornography). Opening a child’s mind to the subjectivity of these ideas is utterly inappropriate and could lead a child to a lifetime of confusion.
In addition, can’t you just picture a child going home and “educating” their conservative parents on the issue of gender identity after seeing this video? In less than 3 minutes, they have been taught that their parents’ beliefs are antiquated and wrong and that it is their duty as an ever-wise 9–12-year-old to correct their parents in order to be a good “ally.”
And let’s not forget, this video, along with the grade 3-5 Framework standards it fits into, talks about sexual orientation. Adults understand that sexual orientation refers to whether you find men or women sexually attractive, but there is no good way to describe this concept to a prepubescent child without great potential for causing confusion. If a child is too young to experience sexual attraction, could they confuse the love they feel for a same-sex friend with a same-sex orientation? What if a child was sexually abused by someone of the same sex - might they mistake the confusing physical feelings prompted by the interaction as a signal that they are same-sex attracted? What false notions might be planted in a child’s brain as a result of this topic being addressed in a classroom setting? And how might what is taught conflict with the values or religious beliefs of the child or his/her family?
Every child in a 3rd-5th grade public school classroom walks through the doors on any given day at a different moment in their development, with different beliefs, and with a different capability to understand human sexuality. A teacher cannot possibly know if a lesson like this is right for every child in their class. Discussing these sensitive topics with young children is, and must be, a parent’s responsibility.
Students can be taught to be kind to the Alexes of the world (or any child who has a physical appearance, behavior, or quality outside the norm) without reinforcing gender ideology and diverse sexualities and dragging kids down the road to confusion in the process.
If parents love Amaze, or they want their child to learn these topics, there is nothing stopping them from showing videos like this to them at home. But there is NO reason why this resource, or the standards that underpin it, need to be brought into an elementary school classroom. It’s not necessary. It’s not appropriate. And we must tell DESE “no.”
So, will DESE list AfY’s Amaze as one of their recommended resources? We’d be “amazed” if they DIDN’T! We already know that some MA schools are using Amaze and other pro-gender ideology resources in the classroom (like The Genderbread Person below). We’ll see more of this if DESE approves these standards.
The confusion that stems from teaching elementary school kids about gender ideology is only ONE of the many reasons we urge everyone to contact DESE and tell them that its Framework is not appropriate and cannot be accepted.
To submit your comment today, click HERE to use MFI's easy submission form.
You can also read THIS POST for other ways to submit your comment. You’ll also find lots of other useful links including our extensive 33-page evaluation of the most concerning content in this draft Framework.
And finally, for folks who prefer a quick look at the issues with DESE's draft Framework, click HERE to download our pdf one-sheet. This little document is perfect for the TLDR people in your life who don't have the time for a deep dive but still want to be in the know.
As of today, there are only 28 more days until public comment ends. That’s less than a month! So far 655 people have commented through MFI's easy online system. If you aren't one of them, send your comment in today!
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For more information on Amaze, check out their website or their YouTube channel. You can also search the MIP Facebook group HERE to see previous posts about this highly graphic and disturbing resource. Amaze is popping up in more and more MA schools, and each video encourages kids to go online and view their other videos. Parents need to be aware of this, but fair warning… don’t click on this channel while your kids are around!
And just in case you think we might be exaggerating about the highly objectionable content produced by Amaze, here is a link to one of their newest videos: