Throughout all of history, education has been understood as being about learning the truths of reality and conforming oneself to those truths in order to flourish in civil society.
The Biden administration wants to turn that idea on its head. The administration thinks one should try to twist reality to conform it to oneself and one’s emotions.
That brainwashing starts at the highest levels of the federal government and percolates down into the classrooms. And that’s exactly what’s happening with the Department of Education.
The taxpayer-funded federal agency whose stated mission is to “promote student achievement” and “foster educational excellence” is giving gender-inclusivity trainings to its employees.
As part of The Heritage Foundation Oversight Project’s ongoing investigation into the bureaucratization of transgender policy in the federal government (what we call the “transgender administrative state”), we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request asking the Education Department’s Office of Inspector General for training materials mentioning “DEI,” “Transgender,” “Equity,” or “Pronouns.” (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
In response to the request, we obtained a 38-page internal PowerPoint training for employees, “Things Your Seventh Grade English Teacher Never Taught You: The Use of They/Them/Theirs and Other Best Practices in Gender Inclusivity.”
The presentation starts out with their definitions of gender and sexual orientation and explains why the two are not the same.
“For many people, gender does not match either sex assigned at birth or societal expectations,” it states.
Next up, there is a confusing slide with umbrellas depicting the spectrum of gender-fluidity.
This slide cites GAY TA Science, a group that uses data science techniques to “capture, combine, and extract insight” to “give LGBTQ+ experiences a voice.”
The presentation then shifts to the subject of transgenderism and transitioning, with slides on “gender-affirming health care” and “transgender terminology.”
Throughout the presentation, there are “practice time” slides, instructing employees to practice using each other’s pronouns.
The whole thing calls to mind images of elementary school, but maybe that’s the point. If you never learned about “gender inclusivity” in elementary school, you must learn about it now to have a place in the federal government under President Joe Biden.
The presentation then goes on to outline reasons why pronouns matter.
It gives statistics on suicide rates among the transgender population, deceptively omitting the fact that studies show so-called gender-affirming care leaves people feeling lonelier and more suicide-prone.
The next part of the presentation is dedicated to “Pronouns 101.”
One slide suggests that the singular use of “they” in so-called gender-inclusive language is a part of the natural evolution of language, giving examples.
Another slide decrees, “Asking pronouns should be applied to EVERYONE (DO NOT PROFILE).”
This is just another example of the Biden administration’s efforts to create a radical gender bureaucracy in the federal government, stemming directly from the president himself.
On the day he took office, Biden signed Executive Order 13988, “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation,” an order which undoubtedly intends to screen out Americans who believe in common sense and basic biology.
Since then, just about every federal agency has implemented policies and trainings to indoctrinate employees in the LGBT mindset and force out anyone who dissents.
According to its website, the Department of Education is given a $68 billion annual budget. This funding is supposed to be dedicated to establishing and distributing funds for federal financial aid policies, collecting data on American schools, focusing national attention on top education issues, and ensuring equal access to education.
Instead, the department is focusing its attention on gender umbrellas and pronouns.
It’s no wonder that America’s public education system is in decline.
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