Students at Santa Fe High School near Houston were reportedly told to use an online tool known as a "Genderbread Person" to learn about and explore the different aspects of gender, including gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and sexual orientation.
It teaches that gender identity, for example, is "how you, in your head, think about yourself," while biological sex refers to the "objectively measurable organs, hormones, and chromosomes." The diagram also touches on gender expression, which looks at how a person dresses, behaves, and interacts to express his or her gender.
According to one teenager, students were told to write what they identify as and to what they are sexually and romantically attracted.
"The amount of activity that public schools are involved in and spend on political and controversial LGBT topics is off the charts," responds Jonathan Saenz, president and attorney at Texas Values.
That, he says, is why so many parents are looking for other education options.
He is proud of 17-year-old Shay Cundiff for coming forward and expressing her concern.
"In many public schools these days, there's a lot of fear amongst students that if you express your concern on these issues, that you're going to be punished," Saenz observes. "There's also an element of secrecy, where school administrators are cutting parents out of these equations and these conversations. Sometimes that's how they're able to continue to exist."
He says a bipartisan group of House and Senate members recently passed a new state law to protect kids from gender transition surgeries, but this incident at Santa Fe High School shows that there is still an agenda to create doubt and confusion in the minds of children.
Pointing out that state law has already said these type of things are illegal, Saenz warns it is just a matter of time before institutions that violate or encourage people to violate that get caught.
