Renderings of vaginas and penises.
A “gender wheel.”
Puberty blocker implants being shown to 9-year-olds.
Did a Washington state school district known for pushing social and political agendas on children finally take things too far?
Last week on “Sundays with Subscribers,” we featured an interview with Alesha Perkins – an Olympia School District mom who has been speaking out about the way race and racism is being taught in the classroom. For Perkins, alarm bells started going off when the district appointed an anti-police activist to the school board. Talauna Reed was captured on camera during a 2021 racial justice protest calling cops “pigs” and urging demonstrators to “tear everything up in this fucking city until they do what we want them to do.”
When Perkins brought the video to the school’s attention, they brushed it off.
Since then, Perkins has made it her mission to bring other disturbing stories to light. In April, the district made headlines when it cut 4th grade band and wind instruments – citing, in part, ties to white supremacist culture. In February, the district was in the national spotlight once again for holding segregated “safe” clubs for BIPOC students, where they could meet without white kids present.
As if those aren’t bad enough, the latest example may be the worst yet, Perkins says.
On May 9, one of the district’s elementary schools taught sex-ed curriculum to 4th and 5th grade students. While parents were notified that the lessons would be taking place, the materials used were not what had not been approved or shared with families beforehand.
Material included depictions of different vaginas and penises, as well as what intersex private parts might look like. Perhaps most bizarre is a depiction of a vagina with the face of a cat.
“Bodies can look all sorts of ways!” the pamphlet asserts. “It’s okay if you don’t look like one of these photos! It’s impossible to represent everyone in just a few photos. Every body is a good body.”
Another page from the booklet showed images of items students might need once they hit puberty, such as tampons, razors, and deodorant. Except the page also showed a picture of a puberty blocker, even listing the brand name of the implant: SUPPRELIN LA.
The material also included something called the “gender wheel.” According to GenderWheel.com, the gender wheel was created by Maya Gonzalez, a “Xicanx genderqueer femme with three decades of experience as an independent researcher with a specific focus on LGBTQ and suppressed history.”
The gender wheel allows kids to choose variations of pronouns, body types, and genders to see if any combinations line up with how they feel. For example, the gender wheel could depict an “intersex” "trans femme” who uses the pronoun “ze.” Or, an “intersex girl” who is “nonbinary” and uses the pronoun “tree” (yes, tree).
“The wheel is alive. All of the circles turn to show the infinite dance that includes every body inside and outside, as well as out in the world,” the pamphlet reads. “Words and ways of thinking are changing all the time as old, limiting beliefs transform and evolve.”
In other words, the lesson teaches make believe – not legitimate sex education.
“Why is a biologically and medically inaccurate gender wheel being presented as a game?” Perkins asked. “Why are children being given a theory on gender from a publication with no medical or scientific credentials?”
She was not alone in her concern. In fact, when other parents pushed back at the lesson the school did something it hadn’t done when other stories came to light: admitted that it was a mistake.
In an email to parents of 4th and 5th graders, Lincoln Elementary Principal Marcela Abadi claimed the material was not part of the school’s approved curriculum.
“We are investigating the matter and working with staff to get more information to determine next steps,” she wrote. “If you have any questions, please reach out to me.”
Emails between parents and the district show that the presenter was not a teacher, but rather an outside speaker from the Teen Council (Planned Parenthood).
The principal claimed the presenter “went off script” and would not be invited back to speak. In an email request for comment, the principal directed unDivided to contact the district's communications department. We will update this story accordingly.
Perkins, whose last school-aged child is a senior, called the sex-ed lessons “the most egregious thing I've seen so far in doing this.”
“I believe this is so bad, such an obvious violation of trust and a clear indoctrination on trans ideology that if it were my kid, I would probably consult a lawyer.”
