Lauren C. Moye, FISM News
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan criticized her state’s department of education after controversial teacher training videos circulated that included keeping a child’s gender dysphoric identity private from parents even when a child is suicidal.
The Democratic governor’s chief operating officer, Tricia Foster, penned the letter to State Superintendent Michael Rice on Friday, telling him the training videos “went outside of that scope” in encouraging parent perspectives in education.
Foster urged Rice to ensure the training complied with “all applicable regulations, maintain department guidelines, and are reflective of best practices.”
While the incumbent governor did issue a censor, the letter hardly condemned the majority of content in the videos that have outraged conservative writer Christopher Rufo, who first brought the training videos to light on Sept. 12, and Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon.
The videos themselves were first presented during 2020, then were repackaged for the 2021-2022 academic year. Rufo has shared the training videos in question on Twitter.
Academic queer theory promoted in the videos includes the dismantling of the idea that “gender is binary.” The videos promote that traditional gender views are a Western construct that has been used to oppress minorities, according to Rufo’s summary. To do this, teachers are trained to encourage alternative gender pronouns and to abandon gendered phrases like the use of “boys and girls.”
Additionally, Rufo shares that teachers are taught to begin “Gender and Sexuality Alliance” clubs in schools beginning in elementary ages. These clubs are to be hidden from parental oversight with fake names and by the use of private communications.
This secretive behavior should go so far, according to Rufo’s analysis of the videos, as to keep a child’s gender dysphoria a secret from parents unless a child directs otherwise, even if it might impact a suicidal or depression treatment plan.
“If you’re sort of into that area of like, ‘you’re going to hurt yourself or somebody else,’ and you have a duty to report — I mean, the law is really clear about that — you can also talk to parents, though, about like that ‘your kid is having suicidal thoughts,’ without outing them, without saying why,” says Kim Phillips-Knope, a leader in the LGTQ+ Students Project, says in one of the videos. “You can say, ‘We have some concerns, your child has shared this,’ [but] I would one-thousand percent recommend working with the student to let them guide that process.”
Finally, the Michigan Department of Education instructs teachers how to facilitate child sexual transitions and recommends that they keep a child's “chosen name and pronouns” a secret from parents, even if the child is suicidal. pic.twitter.com/XtvfaEz6JN
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) September 14, 2022
The Michigan Department of Education defended its LGBT program the same day that Rufo circulated the videos, saying that they believe “protecting and respecting all children takes the partnership of parents, educators, and students.”
In a Friday statement, he said Rufo’s assertions were “patently false and deliberately divisive.”
There was no acknowledgment of how the program actively encouraged teachers to keep a child’s gender dysphoria a secret from parents even during a potential liability situation, however.
Dixon, who hopes to unseat the Democratic governor, has harshly criticized the “sickening” videos. She stated that Michigan’s education department was “being weaponized to actively recruit our kids and advance their radical gender theory with zero input from parents.”
Whitmer currently leads Dixon by 13 points in a recent poll.