My 11-year-old son is in the sixth grade in the New York City public school system. Middle school, like the Middle Ages, as we all remember, is a confusing time, a time to discover who one really is.
Young kid’s bodies are changing and going through puberty, hormones are raging, and insecurities about what is happening is hard to cope with as they age.
So imagine how furious I was to find out that my son, let me repeat that, my SON, was recently asked what his gender identity is on, of all things, a teacher evaluation form.
Let’s set to one side the abject absurdity of 11-year-olds even filling out teacher evaluation forms. Though it is related. They are evaluating educators on the basis of what exactly? Their one decade of vast experience and knowledge? When I was in middle school we still labored under the naive notion that it is teachers who evaluate children.
As the online form flows to the bottom, the questions become demographic in nature. What is your race? Do you feel people like you are represented in the lessons? That kind of thing. Then finally, boom. “What is your gender identity?” The options being “Boy,” “Girl”, “I use another word,” or opting not to answer.
Let me start right off by saying that personally I no more believe that a man can become a woman, or the reverse, than that Joe Biden can play for the Lakers. But even if I’m wrong about that, gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition, and as such, it requires medical diagnosis, not self-identification by pre-teens on a Department of Education survey form.
The question, “What is your gender identity,” on an official form plants a dangerous seed in the minds of children.
Obviously, this question is not only leading, but expresses as reality something that many, and let’s be honest, its probably most, Americans do not believe is real.
Notice that while you see polls that ask about transgender rights, you never see the simple question, “Can a man become a woman?” put to that test. That’s because the far left, not to mention those who make their millions by confusing kids about their gender, know damn well it would be a landslide, and not in their favor.
The question, “What is your gender identity,” on an official form plants a dangerous seed in the minds of children. It encourages gender confusion. After all, “trans,” “non-binary,” “Demi-Fem” or whatever new nonsense term they pick up on TikTok, are way more special than “normal” or “cis,” and middle schoolers crave being special, unique and important. This is not a question so much as an invitation.
Teaching tolerance in a host of areas, from race, to religion, to disability and myriad others is a proper function of a public school system. But, nudging kids toward a lifestyle by propagating progressive propaganda is not.
I count myself lucky that my son brought this question to his parents’ attention with the 11-year-old version of “What the hell is this?” But that he had to bring it to our attention at all is disgraceful and dangerous.
We send our kids to school to learn math, science, history and a general love of learning, not to be indoctrinated with some religion of gender transubstantiation.
What began as a legitimate demand to treat those who identify as trans with dignity and respect has turned into an Orwellian requirement that Americans be compelled to accept a metaphysical assertion that is simply not provable in any scientific way.
That’s bad enough in adult contexts such as workplaces and newspaper style guides, but to force it upon children verges on abuse. For many who object to these practices, private school for their own kids is the answer. But it’s not good enough. The vast majority of our children attend government schools and until that is no longer true we all have a responsibility to protect those students.
Every day the excesses of the trans movement become more apparent. A biological man smashes records in Ivy League women’s swim meets, J.K. Rowling is barred from celebrations of her own novels, people with penises are housed among women in prisons and shelters. Now, 11-year-olds are asked to assign themselves genders by the mighty, all knowing state.
Of course, we are all called upon by the supreme Disposer of all events to be kind, tolerant and respectful of all people. But, we have moved well beyond that. Matters of gender identity are not for 11-year-olds to decide, certainly not without the consultation of their parents.
Let children be children, not perilous pawns on the chessboard of our current culture wars. There will be time enough for that. Let us not replace their innocence with the indoctrination of identity politics. They are children, not experiments.
If we must, in defiance of the knowledge of thousands of years, now debate the nature of gender, so be it. But if it be so, for God’s sake, leave my 11-old-year out of it.
