A California school district allegedly instructed a teacher to prepare a lesson on gender identity for fifth graders.
The teacher also read a book on the subject and had the students watch a video of the book with kindergarten mentees. The book, called “My Shadow is Pink,” describes a boy who sees his shadow as pink, a reflection of “your inner-most you,” First Liberty Institute explained. The book character then “wears a dress to school, and his dad changes his beliefs and puts on a dress too,” the legal group noted.
Parents with children in the Encinitas Union School District have since filed a lawsuit, demanding opt-outs and notifications of the content.
According to the lawsuit, opt-outs may not be given for individual lessons, only for the entire unit. Other content covered in the unit with gender instruction included “puberty, health reproduction, media influences on health habits and body image, hygiene, boundaries and bullying and diseases and their transmission, including information about HIV/AIDS.”
Although the parents took their children out of the unit, the students were still subjected to the content through the school’s “buddy” program. The “buddy” program involves older students being “paired with younger students as ‘buddies’ to spend time together and form mentoring-based relationships.”
The teacher then read “My Shadow is Pink” to the students, without informing parents, after the school district believed fifth graders could be used to “help kindergartners learn about gender identity.”
Fifth-grade teacher Sean Murphy and kindergarten teacher Kathryn West were “following School District policy and directives from mandatory training to teach younger students about gender identity through an ‘equity’ book,” the lawsuit says.
Following the reading and accompanying video, the fifth graders were instructed to take their kindergarten buddy outside and “pick a color that represents you” for a visual of their supposed gender identity.
The students described in the lawsuit believe “God and biology determines gender, not internal feelings. And they thought it was especially inappropriate to compel them to be a mouthpiece for the School District and foist that messaging on vulnerable kindergarteners.” The lawsuit adds that while the video was playing, one student “wanted to cover his buddy’s eyes and ears to protect him.”
“No child should be forced to speak a message that violates his religious convictions,” First Liberty attorney Kayla Toney said in a statement. “It’s unconstitutional for teachers would force Christian elementary students to speak messages to five-year-olds in a way that violates their faith.”
