The stated reason government schools in Jacksonville have pursued the anti-parental practice of educating young children about sex and ways to change it is not one that will stand up to scrutiny.
Sex education has been expanded into educating about “transgenderism”, but some parents worry that schools are promoting more than educating.
In a slippery attempt to defend the practice, the schools are calling it “gender affirming care.” That’s akin to calling the practice of killing unborn children “health care.”
For five centuries the same definition of the word “gender” has been recognized: “Noun: Sex, male or female.” — from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
But in recent years, liberals have sought to create another grievance group to add to the collection that constitutes the Democrat Party by adjusting the meaning of gender.
They would have people believe that a person’s sex is only a “social construct” that is “assigned” to them at birth but later can be changed. In some Blue States elected officials are seeking to allow people to put “X” on their drivers’ licenses to list their sex.
Impressionable children, always willing to try the newest fad, are falling for this ruse. It can lead to the use of dangerous medications or life-altering surgery.
Schools claim “affirming” is needed to protect these children from bullying.
Numbers illustrate the weakness of the entire rationale.
Although the media present the issue as if half the population suffers from gender dysphoria, by one estimate there might be .7 percent of the population who identify as transgender, according to Education Week.
With about 130,000 children in the local schools, that means 910 might have the problem, at most.
Suppose 10 percent of them experienced bullying, which probably is a high estimate. That would be 91 children — spread across 150 schools during 180 days of school.
The problem is that in 2016 Duval County reported only 80 cases of bullying for the entire year and, obviously, not all of those were gender-related.
Clearly this problem – if it even exists – is one that can easily be managed case by case. It does not require a district-wide, “how-to” indoctrination of all students or mixing boys and girls in the same restrooms.
We asked the school administration how many cases of gender bullying were reported last year. We are awaiting an answer. In the meantime, the School Board voted to put off adopting new sex ed materials and to write their own instead — and to make the new material conform with state law, which the board to date has declined to support by a proposed resolution.
