The Michigan Department of Education’s training program for public school employees includes an expansive program on gender and sexual identities along with instructions for facilitating student gender transitions without parental notice.
Materials from the training were obtained by Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo, who shared several videos from the trainings on Twitter.
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In one video, a presenter claims that “this particular culture” has conditioned people into believing that gender is a binary reality. The presenter goes on to list a number of supposed gender identities including “questioning, demisexual, demiromantic, aromantic, and skoliosexual.”
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1570155939931750401?s=20&t=npIOciJfU5wmlEWbgasUAA
“I’ll leave that to you to go Google on those because we ain’t got time today,” the presenter quipped.
In another video, a teacher asked a presenter about a student who asked to be addressed by “he/she/they/them” pronouns, which the teacher found confusing. The presenter responded by telling the teacher to “go with what the kid says” because children are “the best experts on their own identities and their own bodies.”
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1570160189659295744?s=20&t=npIOciJfU5wmlEWbgasUAA
In another clip, a Department of Education presenter offered guidance on avoiding “outing” a suicidal student to his or her parents when the student had requested to be addressed by a different name and pronoun.
The presenter noted that the law required parental notification if a student was suicidal but added, “You can also talk to parents that their kid is having suicidal thoughts without outing them, without saying why.”
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1570161115707092993?s=20&t=npIOciJfU5wmlEWbgasUAA
“You can say: ‘We have some concerns. Your child has shared this,'” the presenter said. “I would 1,000% recommend working with the student to let them guide that process.”
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In a Thursday press release, the Department of Education acknowledged it conducts “professional development” sessions so local school districts are “safe and supportive for LGBTQ+ students” and have an understanding of laws, research, and “best practices.” Family engagement, the department said, “is foundational to work with and on behalf of children.”
“Parents, educators, school staff, and the community work together to support and educate children,” state Superintendent Michael Rice said in the release. “Making space in our schools for all our students, including our LGBTQ children, is vital so kids can learn and grow in safe and positive environments. The involvement and partnership of parents and educators are always encouraged.”
On Friday, the department issued another press release that said the allegations that the state was encouraging school districts to facilitate secret gender transitions for students were “patently false and deliberately divisive.”
“LGBTQ+ students are substantially more likely than other students to be threatened or injured with a weapon at school, to be bullied at school or online, to skip school because they felt unsafe, to have experienced trauma, to have been pushed or kicked out of their homes, and to have attempted suicide,” the department said. “The professional development provided to educators is not promoting a ‘radical gender theory program.’ It is helping educators address the realities that they experience in their classrooms every day.”
