Last updated on February 20th, 2024 at 05:12 am
A proposal for a new charter school in Brooklyn, New York, that promises to allow children from grade five upwards to explore their gender identity has sparked controversy. The Miss Major Middle charter school plans to create a “genderful environment” for students (grade 5 to 9), but critics describe it as child indoctrination.
The founder of Miss Major Middle, Joji Florence, calls himself a “proud” nonbinary parent of three and has said that children want to “explore, learn about, challenge, change, or move inside and outside the bounds of masculinity and femininity”.
Maud Maron, a parents’ rights activist and community education council member in NYC, has voiced concerns about the school, suggesting it “rewards and encourages gender dysphoria” and can lead to irreversible damage to children’s bodies due to potential hormone blockers and surgeries. Critics also argue that the introduction of such themes at such a young age might traumatize children.
Another concerned mom said, “There’s a push in schools to normalize the transgender movement, to make it younger and younger in age, and to exclude parents from knowing about their children’s transgender inclination. These three things combined equals child abuse.”
To illustrate what all this is about, the school intends to teach “gender-inclusive biology”, meaning that lessons need to be “inclusive of diverse gender, sex, or sexuality.” Thus, instead of teaching children about the differences in male and female anatomy, the language is changed from “women” to “ovaries” that produce eggs. Then, a “gestational parent,” not the mother, is the one who “carries the fetus for nine months”.
The proposed school’s future remains uncertain, with a decision due from the State University of New York in June.