(Photo Credits: Sharon McCutcheon from Pexels)
New Jersey and Illinois‘ public schools are set to teach LGBTQ history this academic year. Meanwhile, Texas takes a step back in creating LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum and classrooms.
The Texas Board of Education—said to be a Republican-majority board—had turned down Ruben Cortez’s (a Democrat) proposal to require schools to teach an inclusive sex education during the preliminary vote last week, ABC News reports.
With Cortez’s proposal, middle school and high school students will be taught about the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. That being said, the board also found lessons about consent an inappropriate topic for middle school students but the fight is not over yet as the final vote is in November.
As to why Cortez had proposed the changes to the state’s curriculum, he related that his daughter had struggled in accepting her own gender identity. “One of my children this summer came out to us and the fact that she had to bottle that in for years thinking that we wouldn’t accept her.” Cortez added, “It’s difficult to imagine what other students who don’t live in a tolerant house would go through if we don’t insert language like this to help our students.”
Cortez explained that with an inclusive curriculum, he hopes to teach “the importance of treating all people with dignity and respect regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity.”
Meanwhile, Carisa Lopez—political director for the Texas Freedom Network—said that by rejecting the proposal, the board members are standing with the bullies instead. She said in a statement to ABC News:
<blockquote>”Imagine the tragic message state board members have sent by refusing to acknowledge that LGBT students even exist in our classrooms. The board had a chance to stand with young people who are looking to feel safe and respected in their schools. A majority of board members chose to abandon them and stand with the bullies instead.”</blockquote>
Texas is one of the six states that have laws actively prohibiting the “promotion of homosexuality.” The other states are Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Carolina.
According to USA Today, 4.1% of Texans identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, which means that Texas has an estimated 858,000 LGBTQ residents. The article added that Texas continues to lack “statewide nondiscrimination laws protecting LGBTQ people in virtually all areas, including employment, housing, education, adoption, state employees, and more.”
Texas also allows adoption agencies to deny adoptive services to same-sex couples who want to be parents based on religious beliefs.
Clearly Texas has a long way to go when it comes to being LGTBQ-inclusive; education would have been the first step toward it.
Oh ffs, said to be…? This is the best propaganda people can run with to make it a political thing and not just social?
As a gay man, I want equal rights, but I don’t want gays to be used as a weapon against society. When I was in college, I remember in my psy101 class, being told by the instructor that being gay was a mental illness. I do not want to go back to that, nor do I want being gay to be promoted. Having children and raising a family is ultimate desire for a healthy society, a society that also can respect those who don’t fall into the model. But that model, the so called nuclear family is sustainable, a society… Read more »
As a STEM professional, I can only thank Texas for their decision, if for the wrong reasons. This isn’t 1950, and with an internet and legal gay sex the need for more indoctrination has never been lower. What is needed are courses that lead to jobs and careers. The intellectual idiots that promote these programs will do anything to keep from having to get a real job, and warping the minds of youth mean nothing to them. Post Covid the only secure jobs are going to be in STEM and the trades. Graduate the students at 16 and send them… Read more »
Isn’t it rather irrelevant that Texas has no statewide non-discrimination laws when the fed.gov has already made clear through the courts and legislation where discrimination is not allowed? With respect to gender identity and sexual preference, I think kids today are perfectly aware of the difference without having to take more time away from other subjects which are far more important in terms of life management and success. Sciences, language arts, mathematics, history, and civics come to mind as examples. I take the view that schools have been failing miserably at teaching those subjects for quite some time. Try to… Read more »
Republicans are willfully ignorant. This is not surprising at all.
Unadulterated hate is worse, and that’s what you posted, hate. So much for that tolerance you demand.
Why cant the parents teach the kids they love them no matter what it not the schools place to raise our kids fir us.
Good decision by the Board. My choice of lifestyle is exactly that “choice”. Teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. That is the responsibility of the school. The rest is just social engineering and has no place in the classroom. Tired of special interest groups including my own F’n up things due to an agenda.
I think as long as you’re not demonizing gay folk as has been done in history, that’s one thing; some understanding of human sexuality in all of it’s forms is much desired. I know, no one is saying “homosexuality is desirable” that’s just spinning. Nor is it something you can just sweep under the rug either. We’ve had educate world about us “we’re here, in every facet of life period, around the world in every color, race and creed, male-female,14% of the totality of populous. . . . An intelligent approach to the subject is what is needed. I do… Read more »