By Reagan Reese and Megan Brock
Daily Caller News Foundation
- Pennsbury School District donated $1,200 to the Gender and Sexuality Development Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to give professional development trainings to its K-12 teachers.
- CHOP’s youth gender clinic has referred kids as young as 14 for cross-sex surgeries such as mastectomies or breast construction.
- The professional development trainings taught teachers how to create “gender inclusive and affirming educational environments” and encouraged them to use gender neutral language in the classroom.
A Pennsylvania school district donated to a Philadelphia gender clinic that put on professional development trainings advising teachers on how to support “transgender and gender expansive students,” according to documents obtained through a Daily Caller News Foundation public records request.
The Gender and Sexuality Development Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) trained Pennsbury School District’s K-12 teachers on April 5, 2022, on how to create “gender inclusive and affirming educational environments,” according to documents first made public by the DCNF. Though CHOP did not require payment, it accepted a donation of $1,200 from the school for the training.
CHOP’s gender clinic for the youth refers kids as young as 14 for cross-sex surgeries including mastectomies or breast construction. Clinic employees have promoted such procedures, hormones and puberty blockers, for children.
During the training of K-5 teachers, Samantha King, the manager of education initiatives at the gender youth clinic, explained using a “gender unicorn” that while biological sex comes from genitalia, gender identity comes from the head. Educators were encouraged to use gender neutral language such as “students” instead of “boys and girls,” to include examples of LGBTQ people in their lessons and to consider “un-gendering” class activities.
The training encouraged K-5 teachers to “emphasize and protect rights of all children to be themselves” and suggested classroom materials such as “Red: A Crayon’s Story,” a picture book that teaches gender identity by describing a crayon who is labeled as red but is actually blue.
In the 6-12 grade professional development training, King taught educators that gender exploration is “normal and valid” no matter the age of a child. Teachers were encouraged to “critically examine gender roles and messages” both in the present and throughout history with suggestions of books to include such as “Gracefully Grayson,” a novel about a boy who is a “girl on the inside,” the training showed.
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The school district’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion Dr. Cherrissa Gibson reached out to King in 2021 to organize the professional development trainings for the entire district after King had met with a group of elementary school staff who were planning to support an incoming transgender kindergartner, the documents showed.
“I believe this is a great starting point for our education, not just as a school but, district wide,” Stephanie Hultquist, principal of Edgewood Elementary, a school within the district, wrote to the gender clinic in 2021.
Ahead of the presentations, Gibson referred King to the school’s “transgender and gender expansive students” policy which she asked for the training sessions to be based off of, the documents showed. The policy requires educators to keep a student’s gender transition confidential and permits students to use the bathroom and locker room on the basis of gender identity.
The school district policy allows students to compete in sporting events on the basis of gender identity.
A workshop for Pennsbury School District educators put on by King reviewed the policy and explained that by age 3, children can label their gender and by age 4, a kid’s gender identity is “stable.” Teachers were given suggestions on how to respond to students if they question the gender identity of others, the workshop showed.
“It is not okay to tell someone they aren’t who they say they are,” the workshop advised teachers to say. “Since Sam knows herself best, if Sam says she is a girl then that is true. Lets show kindness and respect by not questioning her.”
CHOP’s Gender and Sexuality Development Program and Pennsbury School District did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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