POK formed in April of 2019 in response to California’s Assembly Bill AB-329, which forced sex and gender ideology onto the state’s public-school educated children. What’s happened since is a matter of public record. The New York Times recently described the growth of transgender identification as a “stark generational shift.” Gallop reports that 21% of Generation Z now identifies as LGBT.  At liberal arts colleges the figure is closer to 40%, in what Abigail Shrier calls a “social contagion.”  The Williams Institute of UCLA claims that, of those who identify as transgender, nearly one in five…are ages 13-17.” But as distinguished from past social fetishes, the Sex and Gender Cult (SGC) is uniquely injurious, and especially to children.

Does the “cult” label fit? A typical definition is: “a religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.”

Certainly, sex and gender activists are seen to demonstrate fervor for their beliefs akin to religious passion, complete with their own worldview and dogma. Second, what can be more extreme or unconventional than insisting on an imaginary gender identity which repudiates biological reality (“Men can get pregnant”)? Finally, though there may not be a particular personality behind the sex and gender movement, devotees rigidly conform with the pronouncements of various leaders and organizations working in unison to advance the same worldview.

Who are these leaders/organizations? Like the mythological hydra, the bodies behind the SGC are manifold and powerful. Defeat one and another rises, though none as yet is anywhere close to being defeated.

THE SGC HYDRA

Government. As reported in a prior post, POK has catalogued the long succession of laws in California going back to Gray Davis which have served to corrupt our children and chill parental rights, most recently SB-107.  Similar laws are being passed in other states, some twenty-two and counting. More ominously, the federal government is increasingly at the vanguard of advancing the SGC.

In just the latest incident, last June the Biden Administration issued an executive order to advance “LGBTQIA+ Equality.” Among the Order’s many edicts are:

  • Ending Conversion Therapy,
  • Giving special protections to those who identify as gender non-conforming,
  • Promoting sex and gender data collection,
  • Ending the ban on transgender military members,
  • Advancing LGBT interests in America’s foreign policy,
  • Fighting for passage of the First Amendment killing Equality Act,
  • Appointing leaders based on their LGBTQIA+ status,
  • Celebrating “Pride” at home and around the world.

Earmarked in the recently passed $1.7T Omnibus Spending bill was a provision to fund the group TransLatin. Their agenda?  To…“dismantle the U.S. criminal justice system and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and inject ‘transgender history and discourse’ into elementary schools, among other progressive initiatives.”

One particularly influential agency of the federal government is the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), not an organization Americans traditionally associate with the promotion of sex and gender themes. According to its website, the mission of the CDC  is: “to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S.”

But that mission has apparently expanded. As reported by the Daily Signal and others, “just days after Christmas the CDC republished a ‘self-assessment tool’ urging teachers, administrators, school health staff, and others to become an ‘awesome ally’ by advocating for LGBT causes in school.” “The document, ‘LGBTQ Inclusivity in Schools: A Self-Assessment Tool,’ appears on the CDC’s youth website in a section ‘For Schools’ and under the drop-down ‘Tools for Supporting LGBTQ Youth.’ ” School support staff can grade themselves in accord with how inclusive they are with LGBTQ interests, from “Commit to Change” and “Beginning to Break Through,” to “Awesome Ally.”

The Resources page guides educators to visit: “Schools in Transition: A Guide for Supporting Transgender Students,” GLSEN, an organization that establishes LGBT campus recruiting clubs for minors, GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, and other SGC promoters.

Before public exposure forced its removal, the CDC encouraged “youth” to access a site called “Q Chat Space.” The site is specifically tailored for children aged 13 and up to discuss topics ranging from “Drag Culture 101” and “Queer Youth Activism” to “Astrology” and “Queering Tarot.” According to archived pages captured by Brietbart, “Each section of the website has a large button on the bottom of the screen that says ‘Click/Tap here for a quick escape …’ and shows a stick figure running towards an exit. When clicked, the button takes users to the Google homepage, hiding the site.” Q Chat Space is run in part by Planned Parenthood and supported by the National Library of Medicine for its “ability to be hidden from parents.”

Teachers’ Unions.  We at POK well remember when in 2019 the then president of the National Education Association,  Lily Eskelsen Garcia,’ joined with a spokesperson from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) at Ashlawn Elementary School in Virginia to read I Am Jazz and Julian Is a Mermaid. That same year the NEA chose to conclude their annual conference with a Drag Show where children were invited.

That was just the beginning. The NEA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) spent over $100M last year on political activities, in no small part to advance the Sex and Gender Cult in the nation’s schools. As the Daily Caller has reported, “Teachers union chapters hosted drag queen story hours, provided schools with LGBTQ ally badges and vowed to compile a list with information on the ‘opposition.’ ” “The New Jersey chapter of the NEA (NJEA) hosted a ‘LGBTQIA+ banned books drag queen story hour’ at its 2022 convention as a way for educators to ‘explore and express their intersectional identities.’ ” “The NJEA also published an ad ahead of the 2022-2023 school year, labeling parents who speak out at school board meetings against CRT and gender identity lessons as ‘extremists.’ ”  Similar examples abound.

State-based teachers’ unions are no less committed to advancing the Sex and Gender Cult while marginalizing parents. As reported by The Federalist, members of the California Teachers’ Association (CTA) “plotted how to push LGBT politics on children and undermine concerns about their tactics from parents.” “Speakers went so far as to tout their surveillance of students’ Google searches, internet activity, and hallway conversations in order to target sixth graders for personal invitations to LGBTQ clubs, while actively concealing these clubs’ membership rolls from participants’ parents.”

Medical Establishment. As if the push from unions, state, and federal government weren’t enough to strip America’s most fragile members of their innocence, the medical establishment is there to help expedite the process. This past October, the American Medical Association asked Attorney General, Merrick Garland, to “take swift action to investigate and prosecute…high-profile users on social media” who have created a “campaign of disinformation” against children’s hospitals that perform “gender-affirming health care (GAC)”

Notice the use of language here: gender affirming. It’s Orwellian. Because rather than affirming one’s gender, the prescribed treatment in far too many cases irreversibly damages it.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is similarly committed to sex and gender ideology. Yet as Christopher Rufo writing for the City Journal points out, medical associations are working to “obscure the radical nature of so called gender-affirming care,” which includes puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and experimental gender surgeries on minors—including double-mastectomies for girls, which involves surgically removing the breasts, and vaginoplasties for boys, which involves surgically removing the penis and turning the tissue into an artificial vagina. Despite what trans activists have insisted, the medical evidence to support these procedures for minors is thin, weak, and contested.”

Ironically, progressive European nations that once promoted these procedures are now scaling them back. The United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, and France have each taken steps to reverse the tide. But not here at home, where GAC treatments are expanding. Of course, in its letter to the DOJ, the AMA did not define what it meant by “disinformation.” Instead of debating the merits of GAC publicly, it seeks to bludgeon its detractors into silence through government coercion.

The American Psychiatric and Psychological Associations have similarly not only capitulated to the Sex and Gender Cult, they’re advancing it. The trend can be traced back to over 40 years ago when homosexuality was removed as a “disorder” from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). More recently, the DSM-5 removed “Gender Identity Disorder,” replacing it with “Gender Dysphoria.”

The protean DSM speaks to the professions’ need to accommodate the spirt of the age.  An example is the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines for Practice with Boys and Men, which defines gender as “social and cultural experiences and characteristics associated with social statuses…” It also claims that “socialization for conforming to traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behavior, (and) result in gender role conflict.” The guidelines further instruct therapists to avoid traditional notions of masculinity as they are considered, on the whole, to be harmful.  None of this is surprising, as only 6 percent of some 800 psychologists surveyed described themselves as conservative.

Special Interest Groups. Finally, there are the monied special interest groups collectively assembled to advance the Sex and Gender Cult to children, as comprehensively and early as they can. Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign, SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States), GLSEN, Advocates for Youth, and others are working tirelessly to expand and spread the SGC throughout the nation’s schools.

IMPACT

And the results?  From coast to coast the nation’s schools are seeing the inevitable and heartbreaking consequences brought on by confusing children about who they are and sexually manipulating them, mainly for adult, activist, gratification. For American teens, suicide is the now the second leading cause of death overall. For children aged between 10 to 14, the rate has tripled since 2007. A few other anecdotes:

Florida: “The parents of a 12-year-old Florida girl who tried to hang herself twice at her school after ‘months of secret meetings about her gender identity’ are slamming the district staff who allegedly went behind their backs and ‘created a double life’ for their daughter.”

Maryland: “Non Binary” student numbers there are up a staggering 582% since 2019.

Illinois: A “Chicago-area high school ‘literacy coach’ recently recorded a video of herself in which she admits to indoctrinating the students in her charge. ‘I am, in fact, indoctrinating your children….I’m indoctrinating them. You’re 100% right.’ ”

Washington: A “mom slams a woke school therapist for ‘socially transitioning’ her daughter, 10 years old: Teachers let the little girl use the boy’s restroom and a fake name after she was influenced to be transgender. The same law removes the necessity of ‘parental permission’ for sex reassignment surgery on teenagers.”

California: “A woke teacher who identifies as ‘trans demi-boy non-binary’ boasts on social media about teaching children about gender and pronouns using ‘gender-fluid’ stuffed unicorns and narwhals.”

I could go on. POK has collected hundreds of such examples from Maine to California and everywhere in-between.

Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine some adult, say in a park, supermarket, or on social media, targeting your child to talk to her about intimate sexual matters and then instructing her on how to hide the encounter from you, her parent.

How would you feel?  What would you do?

I can predict your answers. Why then, as a society, are we continuing to allow these same encounters to occur on a far deeper level behind school doors?

Mark