A Georgia school board voted along party lines Thursday to fire a teacher after officials said she improperly read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class.
A Georgia school board voted along party lines Thursday to fire a teacher after officials said she improperly read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class.
I just don’t understand why 5th graders should even be exposed to that that early. For kids that haven’t even gone through puberty yet I think gender identity is a pretty mature topic, and I don’t think I’d want a teacher being the one to discuss it with my child.
And before someone says that I just want to suppress the info keeping it out of school, what about the flip side where a nut job teacher decides 2 genders is part of the lesson plan?
Edit: Never been so dogpiled about a comment before. In MY OPINION I just think 5th grade is too early. According to the hive mind I am wrong.
I also get nervous having government agencies (schools) involved with anything lgbtq+. We all know the government and our courts always side with the compassionate and accepting side. And would never suppress people’s rights. /S
Some of you are out of control, I never thought that comment would cause people to assume my gender, orientation, political affiliation, hell one of you assumed my race (wtf)
5th grade seems like an appropriate time to start educating students about this as part of their health curriculum. That’s the grade when they gave us the puberty talk in my old school district.
Some early bloomers absolutely start puberty during or before 5th grade.
For people outside the US how old would 5th graders actually be?
11 usually
That seems like a perfectly reasonable age to introduce a person to a topic like puberty.
Like I’m pretty sure I was taught the basics of it and what it does to your body when I was that age.
Maybe it’s just how I was raised or taught, sex ed didn’t start till 7th/8th grade for me, and looking back seemed like an appropriate age to me.
But this isn’t sex ed. Discussing gender doesn’t mean discussing having sex.
My sister “knew” she was trans when she was around 8. Granted, we didn’t have the terminology back then so…
That being said, how is it a “mature” topic? We teach children the concept of “this boy” and “this girl” much earlier than that. And I’m confused how the concept has anything to do with puberty either.
It’s clearly a children’s book. Do you really think it’s presented in any sort of inappropriate way?
Except gender is a much less mature topic than sex and sexual attraction, something that should be taught around 5th grade if not earlier, before children have confusing feelings and their bodies undergo confusing changes. The media atmosphere already leaves impressions about sexuality in the minds of children much earlier, so there isn’t much harm for parents or teachers to discuss the topic in a much healthier way.
Gender on the other hand is something impressed upon and experienced by even toddlers, so the topic of gender isn’t all that mature, it’s only treated as mature because of the social taboos regarding trans individuals.
People are gender non conforming from a young age, not after puberty. Making them wait to learn about it just means they will be confused about it for longer, whether it’s themselves or their peers
In response to the edit: I notice you pivoted from it being a function of “maturity” and placement relative to puberty, to now wrapping it in concern of the gov’t - some how - surpressing “lgbtq rights” by teaching about their existence, which is a contradictory stance, but w.e.
Look, my sister’s trans, my mothers are gay, and I’m the straight dood in my family. I’m not in a hivemind, and my experience watching them wade through life informs my thoughts. Your appeal that people who disagree with you are in one is troubling, to say the least.
Heck, you didn’t even address a few anecdotes of people being precisely in the age range you had issue with, and instead chose to take a different tact – instead doubling down you are correct.
I didn’t “pivot”, i didnt brink up the age aspect because it is pretty apparent that i’m in the minority (at least on here) with my opinion, The government / school aspect was before the edit if you look again. I only brought that back up because I felt i could expand my train of thought on it, i didn’t feel there is anything to add about the age when such education is appropriate, especially when me and the other commenters disagree so strongly that nothing will come of it.
Yeah, you think they should wait until the trauma really sets in? That’s the right time?
Yeah why tell kids about puberty until they’re done with it?
I think my teachers did a really good job discussing this when I was a kid. In fact, I think they did such a good job, that it should be the standard until we have a more agreed-upon understanding of gender fluidity. I mean, I’m in favor of teaching it but I understand not everyone is and it’s maybe not fully understood yet.
Way back in 2005, my 5th grade health teacher essentially said this:
"Usually men want to have sex with women and women want to have sex with men. But sometimes, men want to have sex with men, women want to have sex with women, and not everyone feels like they were born in the right body. Sometimes, men feel like women and women feel like men.
You guys have probably heard a lot about gay marriage and homosexuality in the news. This is what they are talking about and adults don’t always agree on some of this. A lot of people think it’s okay to be gay or to change your gender. Other people think it goes against their religion. I’m here if you have any questions, but you can also ask your parents what they think about it."
This was after he sent home a permission slip to talk about sex ed. in general. Every parent signed except for one Muslim girl in the class. She went and watched movies in the room next door because her parents preferred to talk to her about it in their own way.
I thought it was a pretty uncontroversial way to handle this whole thing. We could probably go a bit farther today, but this was pretty progressive for 2005.
I remember this so vividly because I could feel that there was tension around the topic and I could tell that my teacher was respectfully trying to share “both sides” of an issue. I use quotes around both sides because I honestly think homophobia and transphobia are ridiculous views to hold, but I know people have them, unfortunately. And I do think people have some right to dictate what education their child receives even if they’re teaching them abhorrent things.
I remember thinking it was interesting that adults didn’t agree on this. There was a legal battle over gay marriage licenses in New York City going on in 2005 and it was all over the local news, so I remember it being a big deal.
I was in catholic school and started sex ed (well what counts as sex ed for a catholic school) in 5th grade. They told us about some of the most extreme cases of what some.of the worst sti’s do and we watched video of an actual birth so if we could handle hearing and seeing those things in a catholic school, I think 5th graders can handle learning about how people express their genders.
Let’s keep going. Hope you disabled notifications.
Just cuz you had a bad take doesn’t mean we’re a fucking hive mind. I didnt even bother reading others’ replies before giving you my piece. But way to be condescending to cushion your ego!
So you support government censorship as a tool to protect against… government censorship?
Still haven’t read what others had to say, it’s probably quite disgusting yes
Look you had a bad take and now you’re lashing out to protect your ego. its fine
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You are 100% correct. Absolutely no reason to be bringing up any of this nonsense to 10 year olds.
But good luck having a logical conversation with some about this - just because you don’t want 10 year olds exposed to this, they immediately (and quite wrongly) accuse of you being some bible-thumper or some right wing nazi or a MAGAt or someone along those lines. Maybe you just know your kid and know it is too early to discuss this stuff with them? This teacher forced the hand of the school board panel to fire her because she specifically pull this stunt against parent wishes.
It is obnoxious to see that many on the far-left act the same way and use the same attack techniques as those on the far-right. They both are just as stubborn and just as closed-minded to altering viewpoints. What makes it especially bad is that liberals at least like to pretend that they are open-minded to differing viewpoints, but the reality is that for many, that is absolutely not the case.
This shit has no business in schools, especially at this young age. Those who are stubbornly pushing this nonsense are doing way more harm than good to liberal causes. These people are painting a terrible picture to the country of what the far-left wants to do and that they will do it regardless of what parents agree to.
You all are setting the movement back, not helping it move forward. You come off as clowns.