In January, Nancy Githoitho, the mother of a ninth-grade student at San Francisco Unified School District’s George Washington High School, was shocked to find a worksheet her son had completed in Health Education class. Titled “Sex Unit Terms,” the three-page assignment lists dozens of niche gender- and sexuality-related terms — including “skoliosexual,” “bigender,” “polyamorous,” and “down low” — and asks children to define the terms and describe a scenario “demonstrating understanding” of them. There, in boyish print, were her son’s answers:

The worksheet is likely from the “Gender Norms, Gender Identity, Transgender Experiences” section of Health Education, which also includes topics like “Systems of Oppression and Privilege, Prejudice, Implicit Bias, and Discrimination” and “Sexuality Orientation and Identity,” according to a 2020-21 syllabus reviewed by Pirate Wires. A graduation requirement for all students in SFUSD, Health Education is the final course in a series that runs from kindergarten through high school. Though the content of these courses varies by grade level, discussion of self-determined gender and sexual identity is emphasized throughout.

As early as kindergarten, per the district’s “LGBTQ Family + Gender Diversity Teaching Guide for Elementary Grades,” students learn that sex is “a guess that grown-ups make to label the bodies of babies when born” and watch videos such as “How do you express your gender?” and “Gender explained: Transgender and Nonbinary” from YouTube channels like “Queer Kids Stuff.” (This channel also posts videos like “What is my gender dysphoria?” and “What’s an abortion, anyways?”) Students are given print-outs of various pride flags such as the “Trans Pride Flag” and “POC Inclusive Pride Flag” to color in. They are also instructed to resist the “limiting ideas” about their “gender identities” that could come from their families or friends.

Elementary-school teachers are told that LGBTQ students in the district are at higher risk of experiencing bullying and suicidal ideation and that teachers thus have a “legal and moral imperative” to actively affirm their chosen gender identities. The earlier this “affirmative” education begins, the better. From kindergarten on, teachers are encouraged to avoid “assuming [children’s] pronouns based on [their] appearance or expression” and instead implement lessons teaching children to proactively self-define and disclose their own pronouns.

As children move through grades, their gender and sexuality education continues to emphasize the curriculum’s two overarching themes: radical self-determination — the infinite malleability of a child’s self-determined gender and sexual identity — and solidarity with historically "oppressed" members of the LGBTQ community. Radical self-determination is often taught as part of the health education curriculum. In fifth grade, for instance, students complete a “gender snowperson” worksheet that asks them to define their own gender identity, sexual orientation, sex assigned at birth, and gender expression. They are instructed that “identity is a process [that can] change over time” in unpredictable ways, that their own gender identity is “determined by the way we feel inside or [is] right for us,” and that “we don’t decide anyone else’s gender identity.”

Students also learn about the importance of expressing “solidarity” with oppressed members of the LGBTQ community through their history and social studies courses. As they learn about how California was settled, elementary students are also asked to interrogate how post-colonial California society understood gender and how this differed from Native American conceptions of gender. (The teaching guide indicates the implication of these questions should be that “westward expansion and colonialism impacted Native American gender diversity.”) They are also quizzed on the “relationship between oppression and LGBTQ health” and study the key role that “trans people of color” continue to play in the fight for “housing, healthcare, legal protection, [and] safety,” as seen in protests like “Black Lives Matter, Women’s March, March for Our Lives, Standing Rock #NoDAPL” and so on.

Administrators seem to recognize this educational program may concern parents and go to great lengths to assure teachers that they have no legal obligation to notify parents or caregivers about gender-related content in school curriculum. The elementary-school teaching guide acknowledges that some parents may have “strong opinions” about the "queer and trans”-related content taught to their students, but assures teachers that “discussion about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning people does not constitute a discussion about human sexuality or family life education and [as such] does NOT require parent notification or permission according to the California Education Code.”

The guide goes on to outline a number of situations – including “providing definitions to students,” “teaching about LGBTQ family and gender diversity” and “celebrating diversity or [Pride] month” — that don’t warrant parental notification. It emphasizes that “notification is NOT the same as permission.” The former merely requires informing parents about upcoming course material and requests parents only respond if they want to excuse their children from class, while the latter requires that parents consent to the course material before it is taught.

In practice, this means that parents often aren’t aware of the explicit and potentially confusing content their children are being taught. Nancy said she had been unable to view Health Education course material on her son’s Google Classroom, though she was able to see material from other classes like Math and English. When she discovered her son’s worksheet, she emailed his school counselor and asked if he could opt out of the class because it “conflicts with our cultural, religious and traditional beliefs.” The counselor responded that her son “is no longer in this class as the class is only one semester,” per an email chain reviewed by Pirate Wires. (Nancy has since pulled her children from SFUSD schools and joined the San Francisco chapter of Moms for America, which she now leads. This weekend, she will speak about her children’s experience in SFUSD at the state capitol.)

In other words, Nancy was never notified about what her son was learning and, had she not discovered the worksheet, may never have learned what her son was taught in the class. Incidentally, all export features, including print, copy and paste, are disabled on the district’s LGBTQ elementary school teaching guide cited above, though this is not the case for any of the other guides linked on the same page. The secrecy makes sense in view of the district’s broader project — inculcating in children the expansive understanding of gender and sexual identity that the “limiting views” of friends and families might preclude — but it does beg a troubling question: What else do SFUSD parents not know?

– Sanjana Friedman