The Institutionalization of Gender Identity in New York City Public Schools

Let's go back to talking about stereotypes

Five-and-a-half years ago, I was looking for someone to do a training on gender at my kids’ elementary school. It felt sometimes like we were living in the 1950s, with parents hewing so closely to gender stereotypes, so afraid to let their boys wear pink or their daughters cut their hair short. I was hoping to give them a dose of the 1970s, a Free to Be You and Me vaccination. Although I didn’t have the language to articulate this then, I was hoping that we could move the conversation past gender identity and back toward stereotypes. Selfishly, I wanted there to be room for a kid like mine. I wanted her to be allowed to be different, but also unremarkable.

It was hard to find a vendor to do that, especially for an affordable price. Finally, I got hold of the Gender and Family Project at the Ackerman Institute. They were already a DOE-approved vendor, the price was right, and they promised to dedicate much of their presentation to dismantling gender stereotypes. Their one request: a private teacher training before they spoke to parents.

The night of the presentation, I watched, mouth agape, as they breezed by one famous photo of young FDR in a dress, and an image of a South Asian man in a kurta (a dress-like tunic) to show slide after slide about pronouns and gender identities—ideas from the gender-affirming care model that I felt suspicious of, but had no information with which to object. I was, on some level, mortified by the presentation, but of course I’d already learned that to question was bigotry. I did ask them to go back to the slide where they talked about cultural gender stereotypes, and how they change over time, because I could tell people—especially moms of boys—really wanted to talk about their experiences and anxieties. But they didn’t.

After, and in response to, this, I created my own presentation on the history of childhood gender stereotypes, which I’ve presented successfully at corporations, schools, and parent meetings. But Ackerman is still going strong in New York City schools.

In fact, per an email that went out to a Brooklyn school district this week, those trainings are now free:

It pains me that, all these years later, public (and private) schools are still pushing the affirmative model, which has been slowly crumbling under scrutiny. There is no good evidence that affirmation and social transition improve mental health. Heck, there’s no good evidence that there’s such a thing as gender identity. (In my presentation, I mostly avoid gender identity altogether, though it is designed to present to people who subscribe to the theory.) Many people believe in gender identity—a gendered soul, separate from the body—and I support their right to do so. I don’t support presenting beliefs as facts, and suppressing debate and other viewpoints.

My own viewpoint—that is, my presentation on the history of ideas about what boys and girls should look like and do, and how those changed, and why—was suppressed both by my kids’ elementary school and by their middle school. PTAs at both schools invited me to give the presentation and then canceled—the presentation I created in response to Ackerman’s, to fill in the many holes theirs left.

We need more viewpoint diversity around gender, not just more of the same activist training, which teach people what to think rather than teaching them how to question their beliefs.

Stereotypes? They persist. Kids feeling boxed in by gender norms? Still a thing. Kids using “gay” as an insult? Still happening—just out of earshot of teachers. These trainings end up telling us what’s acceptable to express, but they don’t tend to change our minds.

How much do we need to talk about gender in schools? Not a ton. My hope is that someday, teaching on gender diversity can happen in a few minutes, starting with this sentence: Boys and girls can look and act all kinds of ways. That’s what my child’s kindergarten teacher told the class, and it worked beautifully.

I still want what I wanted five years ago: for gender nonconforming kids to be allowed to be different, but also unremarkable. And I’m still hoping to give my presentation to New York City schools.