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Teaching About Gender Identity | Munk Debates

May 10, 2023

Teaching About Gender Identity

Be it resolved, teaching about gender identity has no place in the K-5 school curriculum.

Guests
Jonathan Butcher
Elizabeth Meyer
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About this episode

It's a debate being argued across school boards, politics, and family dinner tables: whether educators should be including gender identity and sexual orientation in their k-5 curriculums. At least 5 Canadian provinces and seven US states now require the inclusion of LGBTQ topics, while more conservative states like Florida have banned any mention of such language altogether. Conservative lawmakers and parents argue that teaching about gender identity is inappropriate and confusing for children who are too young to understand the complexity of this subject and its potential life altering consequences. Educators, driven by liberal ideology, are ignoring parents’ wishes and using their classes to push their own political beliefs on impressionable youth. Progressives believe that as the number of children who identify as transgender and non-binary rises, teachers have an obligation to dispel misconceptions about gender and provide inclusive, safe environments for all students, especially the most vulnerable. Contrary to what some right-wing groups claim, you cannot alter or influence a person’s gender identity through education, while banning its teaching altogether will cause emotional and mental distress to our most vulnerable youth.

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Guests

Jonathan Butcher

“If you turn the teaching about biology into opinions are about how someone feels you’ve removed the authority that academic instruction needs to be trusted by children.”

Jonathan Butcher

“If you turn the teaching about biology into opinions are about how someone feels you’ve removed the authority that academic instruction needs to be trusted by children.”

Jonathan Butcher is the Will Skillman Fellow in Education at The Heritage Foundation. He is the author of Splintered: Critical Race Theory and the Progressive War on Truth (Bombardier Books, April 2022). He co-edited and wrote chapters in The Critical Classroom (The Heritage Foundation, 2022), discussing the racial prejudice that comes from the application of critical race theory in K-12 schools. In 2021, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster nominated Jonathan to serve on the board of the South Carolina Public Charter School District, a statewide charter school authorizer. He has researched and testified on education policy around the U.S.
Jonathan previously served as the education director at the Goldwater Institute, where he remains a senior fellow. He was a member of the Arizona Department of Education’s first Steering Committee for Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, the nation’s first education savings account program. He is also a Senior Fellow with The Beacon Center of Tennessee, a nonpartisan research organization, and a contributing scholar for the Georgia Center for Opportunity. 
Jonathan holds a B.A. in English from Furman University and an M.A. in economics from the University of Arkansas.

Elizabeth Meyer

“Children are active observers of their environments. They see and understand what is valued and not at their school.”

Elizabeth Meyer

“Children are active observers of their environments. They see and understand what is valued and not at their school.”

Elizabeth J. Meyer is a former high school teacher, coach, and Fulbright teacher exchange grantee (2001, France). She is currently an Associate Professor and program chair in Educational Foundations, Policy, and Practice in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is the author of two books: Gender, Bullying, and Harassment: Strategies to End Sexism and Homophobia in Schools (2009, Teachers College Press) and Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schools (2010, Springer). Dr. Meyer completed her M.A. at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Ph.D. at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her research has been published in academic journals including: Educational Researcher, Gender and Education, Teachers College Record, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Policy Analysis Archives,and The Journal of LGBT Youth. She has discussed her research on FOX News, National Public Radio (USA), CTV National News (Canada), and other regional media outlets. Her current research projects in K-12 public schools address: educators who support student-led LGBTQ-equity projects, Title IX, and transgender-affirming policies and practices. Professor Meyer was in the inaugural class of fellows for the National Center on Free Speech and Civic Engagement in 2018 and received the American Educational Research Association's 2021 award for Distinguished Contributions to Gender Equity in Education Research. She maintains the Gender and Education blog for Psychology Today and is also on Twitter: @lizjmeyer. 
 

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