Left-wing pedagogical efforts to introduce gender ideology into the classroom have by and large slipped under the notice of parents, who are only now becoming aware of its impact on children. Some call it ‘ideological capture’, others call it ‘grooming’.
Kids are being exposed to drag shows, Pride parades organized by local school boards, transgenderism, and LGBT-based curricula. Children are instructed to question their gender and sexuality. It’s all being done for the sake of affirming the choices of adults who often struggle with their own identities.
Dogged investigations by the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo and ‘Irreversible Damage’ author Abigail Shrier have done much to bring the issue into the limelight. Tireless work by social media researcher Libs of TikTok chronicle an endless litany of self-published videos by professed kindergarten and grade schoolteachers who ramble on about “educating” the kids under their care with transgenderism and gender theory.
Chronicling these videos earned the Libs of TikTok account multiple suspensions on Twitter the woke mob is increasingly worried about negative exposure.
In many cases, schoolteachers who self-identify as ‘non-binary’, ‘genderqueer’ or ‘transgender’, express a wide spectrum of emotions over how students perceive them – as if the children exist only as a foil for the narcissism of the adults instructing them. Others speak of how proud they are of the kids who identify as something other than ‘cisgendered’ and straight – as if it’s any business of theirs.
While their job may simply be to teach math, or English, or history, these teachers spend much of their time going over how best to “educate” kids with their worldview, as if schooling serves as nothing more than a vehicle for which to promote their own brand of identity politics.
As kids come home from school asking to be referred to by a whole new set of gender pronouns, and as books such as ‘Genderqueer’ – which contain graphic illustrations of non-traditional sexual relationships – make it into official school curricula, many have likened the whole exercise to a form of sexual conditioning.
Grooming, or ideological capture, is slightly more complicated than what the terms might imply. More than just a worrying precursor to normalizing pedophilia, grooming of this sort conditions children to discard traditional notions of heterosexuality, the nuclear family, and the gender binary of male and female.
Strong father figures? Forget about it. The only people they have to look up to are an endless array of gender-confused 20-somethings with “they/them” pronouns who tell them that honest work, meritocracy, and parenting are forms of patriarchal, capitalist oppression.
Public schools are not the only place where such grooming takes place. Influencers on social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, not to mention the mainstream media, have all played large roles in normalizing transgenderism and non-traditional lifestyles. The permeation of this new, woke ideology has even consumed institutions such as Disney, which remonstrated against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ efforts to clamp down on grooming in the classroom.
Dubbed by the mainstream media as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, DeSantis’ legislation was designed merely to give parents a larger say in what’s being taught in classrooms, effectively putting a stop to the promotion of woke gender ideology in Florida’s schools, which was being pushed on kids as young as five.
The legislation at its most basic states that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate.”
In other words, the law, which wouldn’t even need to exist in any part of the world that hasn’t embraced postmodernism, allows for kids to be kids – at least for a while.
More than simply opposing the legislation, several of Disney’s corporate executives have expressed a desire to make the company’s productions more “inclusive” to the LGBTQ+ community.
Karey Burke, president of Disney’s General Entertainment Content and the proud “mother of two queer children,” including “one transgender child and one pansexual child,” expressed her support for “many, many” characters who fall under the rainbow – with a vow to make members of marginalized groups at least 50 percent of the company’s regular characters by the end of the year.
Speaking at the same company event, Disney executive producer Latoya Raveneau discussed injecting the “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” into children’s programming, adding that she is “adding queerness” wherever she can with the company’s full support.
It goes without saying that the backlash against the conservative opposition to grooming is only increasing in strength. As more parents speak out against it, the response from the establishment hasn’t been to yield, but to promote it even harder. Only recently, the Biden administration expressed its support of “trans children” through the introduction of “X” gender identifiers on passports and a promise to fight against state laws prohibiting so-called “gender-affirming care” and ideological capture.
Charlee Corra, an heir to the Disney family, came out publicly as transgender with “they” and “them” pronouns, and spoke in support of the company’s efforts to drive woke ideology through the company’s messaging.
The fight, it seems, has existential ramifications for the future of Western Civilization. The winners will determine what the West will look like in generations to come.
Politics aside, there is a rule that in previous eras wouldn't have even elicited a second thought: strangers shouldn't talk to kids about sex. The fact that the talking is being done by corporations and state institutions does not warrant discarding this rule. If anything, conservatives must double down on calling out grooming for what it is. Optics be damned – the lives of children matter more than anything else.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.