Target Corporation is under fire for aligning with GLSEN, a K-12 education group that aims to keep parents out of the loop with their child’s in-school gender transition, while providing sexually explicit books to schools for free, and integrating gender ideology at all levels of curriculum in public schools. Target has donated $2.1 million to GLSEN seeking to provide guidance to districts and students on hiding gender transitions from parents. GLSEN provides educators the tools to make math “more inclusive of trans and non-binary identities” by including “they/them” pronouns in word problems where previously the teacher may have used binary pronouns such as “he/she.” GLSEN has similar recommendations to intervene if students are creating graphs about sex and gender. Teaching manuals recommend that teachers should include a variety of choices in any data set to include “agender, genderfluid, female, male, nonbinary, transman, transwoman, and other” categories.
The controversial education group also seeks to ensure that districts allow biological males to participate in women’s sports, which the majority of Americans overwhelmingly do not support. GLSEN provides full-time school staff with sexually explicit books from its “Rainbow Library” free of cost. One book listed for their 9th-12th grade library, “Beyond Magenta,” has been criticized for describing a 6-year-old child as “sexually mature” who “hated being a kid” and engaged in oral sex. GLSEN also provides elementary teachers with lesson plans on gender identity and pronouns for elementary school students.
Parents, both left and right, have expressed concern over schools’ policies, including keeping their child’s gender transition a secret. In some instances, schools deceive parents. A Christian teacher in California lost her job after refusing to comply with the gender policies of the Jurupa Unified School District, requiring her to lie to parents that she was teaching their children. Conservatives have criticized Target for displaying gender-fluid merchandise and featuring children’s items that are offensive to some customers.