‘Black Lives Matter at School’ Teaches Young Children to Be Transgender and Queer ‘Affirming’

Protestors in support of Black Lives Matter brought their children to rally against the po
STEPHEN ZENNER/AFP via Getty Images
Dr. Susan Berry

Some government schools are celebrating “Black Lives Matter at School Week” using lesson plan “resources” from Black Lives Matter (BLM) that teach children as young as kindergarten age the culture of white, heterosexual people from traditional families led by a father and mother, must be overturned.

Seattle KTTH 770 conservative talker Jason Rantz wrote Wednesday that Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is celebrating Black Lives Matter at School Week as black history month gets underway, during which kindergarten-age children are taught “radical, political agendas” on gender identity and about disrupting the “nuclear family structure.”

The host of the Jason Rantz Show wrote at mynorthwest.com that some parents have called into his show to express that the curriculum is teaching their children how to become political activists.

BLM cofounder Alicia Garza, Rantz explained, believes the issues of her organization are closely tied to gender identity, as she explained in 2014:

Black queer and trans folks bearing a unique burden in a hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously fetishizes us and profits off of us is state violence.

Breitbart News reported in June that, in a 2015 video, another BLM cofounder, Patrisse Cullors, revealed that the founders of BLM are “trained Marxists.”

In the video, Jared Ball of the Real News Network interviewed Cullors about the direction of the BLM movement.

“The first thing, I think, is that we actually do have an ideological frame,” she said. “Myself and Alicia in particular are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists.”

“We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories,” Cullors added. “And I think that what we really tried to do is build a movement that could be utilized by many, many black folk.”

The Black Lives Matter at School website states:

In the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and others named and unnamed, a great Uprising for Black Lives has swept the nation and the world, inciting new urgency and radical possibilities for advancing abolitionist practice and uprooting institutional racism.

Rantz elaborated on the theme of the BLM curriculum:

All the lessons and resources from BLM center on 13 guiding principles, which include being queer and trans affirming. They tell young children to do “the work required to dismantle cis-gender privilege and uplift Black trans folk.”

Teachers are instructed their “students need to see how problematic our binary notions of gender are.” They are told to read this statement to their young students:

If our doctor and our parents assign us a gender and it matches what we feel inside, then we can say we are cisgender. However, we may look like what society says a girl or boy should look like, but inside, we feel something different than just boy or just girl, we are somewhere in between, we can say that we are gender-expansive or transgender.

Children are taught to be “transgender affirming” and “queer affirming” in a resource by Lalena Garcia.

“Everybody has the right to choose their own gender by listening to their own heart and mind,” Garcia states. “Everyone gets to choose if they are a girl or a boy or both or neither or something else, and no one else gets to choose for them.”

Kindergartners are taught the BLM definition of the word “ally”:

Ally is “someone who uses their power and space to work with harmed communities to end discrimination, racism, and prejudice,” the lesson plan states.

Teachers are also told to guide young children to respond to these leading questions:

  • Why is it important to accept people the way they want to be accepted?
  • Why is it my responsibility to be an ally, and how can I do that?

According to the BLM lesson guide, teachers of children in grades K-3 are directed:

You will need to be prepared to help students develop their awareness and understanding of the following concepts: biological sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, non-binary, gender spectrum.

Rantz similarly observed the curriculum diminishes the role of fathers in families. Garcia instructs in the following BLM concepts:

Black Families creates a space that is family friendly and free from patriarchal practices.

“There are lots of different kinds of families; what makes a family is that it’s people who take care of each other.  It’s important to make sure that all families feel welcome.”

Black Villages is the disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics and a return to the “collective village” that takes care of each other.

“There are lots of different kinds of families; what makes a family is that it’s people who take care of each other; those people might be related, or maybe they choose to be family together and to take care of each other.  Sometimes, when it’s lots of families together, it can be called a village.”

Black Women is the building of women-centered spaces free from sexism, misogyny, and male-centeredness.

“There are some people who think that women are less important than men. We know that all people are important and have the right to be safe and talk about their own feelings.”

“Alternative perspectives” to these principles are dismissed as “racist,” noted Rantz, who said he asked SPS how students will be exposed to alternative views beyond BLM. He was directed to the district’s Strategic Plan with the response:

Generally speaking, the alternative – “the competing point of view” — has been the predominant viewpoint for several hundred years in the US and much of the western hemisphere. In other words, it has been the status quo. Seattle Public Schools is working to dramatically improve academic and life outcomes for students of color by disrupting the legacies of racism in our education system.

In January, the Washington Education Association (WEA) raised the Black Lives Matter flag over its building. The teachers’ union said about the flag:

Displaying the BLM flag is part of a Black Lives Matter resolution passed by the WEA Board last November. Black History month starts in February, the first week of which is Black Lives Matter in School Week. Click here for resources to help you navigate this important month and to continue anti-racism work throughout the year.

Among their “resources,” WEA lists those to “know your rights and your students [sic] rights in the wake of harsh immigration crackdowns”; the NEA Racial Justice in Education Resource Guide; and the NEA Diversity Toolkit Race and Ethnicity, which is intended to help “teach about race, racism and ethnic differences,” and provide information on topics such as “class, ELL, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity.”

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