Pride Month in Glendale
Dear Parents,
June is Pride Month. Glendale Unified School District’s (GUSD)’s Director of Teaching and Learning, Christopher Coulter, sent an email to all teachers with a “curated” list of LGBT “supplemental resources.” We checked with some parents, and they all said that they had no idea that these resources were sent out.
The following video was forwarded to us by GUSD teachers. We would like to acknowledge the particular teachers who value the concerns of parents and have respect for parental beliefs. Our concerns identified in this email are not with individual teachers, it is with the leadership at GUSD, including the Teaching and Learning Department and Superintendent Ekchian, who are ultimately responsible for continuing to push radical gender ideology content.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/NzwtR4Ox4zPo/
The resource list included in the video contains objectionable information that parents should be aware of. As just one example, one of the book recommendations for middle schoolers is Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon. Here’s a picture of the author from a now-deleted Facebook post. The original Facebook post included a disturbing quote about the author’s views on gender identity and children:
Vaid-Menon said that any concerns about little girls being abused by men who go into women’s bathrooms are misplaced because little girls are actually “kinky.”
Here is another picture of Vaid-Menon, this one still on his Facebook page, holding a copy of the same book that GUSD recommends teachers use in the classroom:
This is what GUSD is recommending for your middle schoolers. What do the other recommended resources say?
The curated list of LGBT “supplemental resources” sent out to GUSD teachers by Christopher Coulter also includes links to the two YouTube videos shown by the GUSD teacher that we covered in a previous article:
It would appear that the parent concerns expressed over the past two months in GUSD School Board meetings have fallen on deaf ears.
Below are the resources we believe were linked on the video sent to us by the GUSD teachers:
Elementary Books:
Human Rights Campaign: Diverse LGBTQ Inclusive Picture Books
ADL: 10 Phenomenal Books to Read for LGBTQ Pride Month (sorted by age with discussion guides)
One by Kathryn Otoshi
Red: A Crayon’s Story by Michael Hall
Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag by Rob Sanders
Lesson Resources:
Ready, Set, Respect! Lesson Collection from GLSEN
“I Am” Me: Talking About Identity from GLSEN
As we read through the GLSEN lessons, we noted that they are aligned to the California Common Core English Language Arts (ELA) standards. This guide instructs teachers on how to insert gender ideology into required regular academic subjects.
The links to the following resources are included on the last page of GLSEN’s “I Am Me” lessons:
GLSEN: Gender Terminology Discussion Guide (PDF)
Jessica Kingsley Publishers: Pride Month Resources – This link suggests books on topics ranging from gender identity to non-monogamy to autism. Click on “Browse Subjects” up at the top for more information.
Learning for Justice: My Family Rocks! – This lesson plan tells children that the nuclear family is becoming less common. It states, “We live in an increasingly diverse world, and that’s true even for family structures. The ‘nuclear’ family is not as prevalent in our society as it once was.”
Learning for Justice: Quilting our Diverse Classroom
Teaching LGBTQ History: Gender Roles During the Gold Rush – This link includes slides for a lesson to be taught in the classrooom:
Gender_Roles_During_Gold_Rush_PowerPoint.pdf (lgbtqhistory.org)
Slides 12 and 13 discuss Charley Parkhurst. The presentation states, “Today, we might consider Charley a transgender man.” The lesson plan uses male pronouns for Charley in the subsequent slides and also uses “assigned female at birth” to describe her. However, in the previous slides, it is explicitly stated that women during the Gold Rush often wore men’s clothes to pretend they were men in order to get jobs and because they were more comfortable than wearing a dress when working. Why did the authors label Charley as transgender? The only evidence presented to indicate this is that she wore men’s clothing.
Middle School Books:
Drama by Raina Telgemeir
Me, My Dad and the End of the Rainbow by Benjamin Dean
The Deep & Dark Blue by Niki Smith
George by Alex Gino – We wrote about the issues with this book in a previous article.
All Out: The No-Longer Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages by Saundra Mitchell (Editor)
Out! How To Be Your Authentic Self by Miles McKenna
Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon – See above for more on Alok and this book.
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
High School Videos:
AARP: A Living History of the LGBT Movement Since the 1800s (Grade 6+)
YouTube: LGBT+ History by the Decades: The Roaring Twenties Episode 1 (Grade 6+)
Simon & Schuster Books: The LGBT Revolution (Grade 6+) – This video uses the word sodomy. It also portrays communism in a positive light, asserting at one point “Despite fierce opposition, a few brave people stood up and fought back.” The narrator then explains, “In Los Angeles, Harry Hay, an ex-Communist Party member, brought together a few gay men in 1950 and told them homosexuals are an oppressed cultural minority.”
TED Talk: Jenni Chang and Lisa Dazols his is what LGBT life is like around the world (Grade 9+)
Additional Resources:
Lesson: Pauli Murray: Fighting Jane and Jim Crow | Learning for Justice
Lesson: Bayard Rustin: The Fight for Civil and Gay Rights | Learning for Justice
Lesson: Lorraine Hansberry: LGBT Politics and Civil Rights | Learning for Justice
Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACoE): About the FAIR Education Act (PDF)
Constitutional Rights Foundation: California’s Diversity: Past and Present – Lessons for the Fair Education Act of 2011 (PDF)
Human Rights Campaign Foundation: Lesson Plans to Create LGBTQ+ Inclusive Classrooms and Schools (website)
CA Department of Education: LGBTQ+ Resources: Region 11 – Los Angeles - Educator Excellence (website)
GLSEN: Pronoun Guide Resource (PDF)
Global Citizen: 15 LGBTQ Activists of the Past and Present You Should Know (website)
Contact your children’s teachers and principals today and get a confirmation in writing of what content will be provided to your children during Pride Week. Ask them, in writing, if they will be using any of the resources sent by Director of Teaching and Learning Christopher Coulter. Ask them if any of these resources will be shown, recommended, or even mentioned to your children. Ask if any of the books or resources will be physically present in the classroom at any point for the rest of the year. Ask if any school-wide activities are planned, including lunchtime activities that are either student-led or administration-led. Get everything in writing. If you find out that they lied, consider taking legal action.
We encourage you to contact GUSD directly and request ALL of these resources. When you get them, please consider sharing them with us at genderidentityk12@protonmail.com.
You can email GUSD’s Public Records Unit office and cc Christopher Coulter and GUSD Superintendent Vivian Ekchian. You have a legal right to this information.
Public Records Unit at GUSD: <pra@gusd.net>
Director of Teaching and Learning, Christopher Coulter: <ccoulter@gusd.net>
GUSD Superintendent Vivian Ekchian: <vekchian@gusd.net>
Thank you,
The Gender Identity K-12 Team