No Grooming to See Here, Move Along

Leftists are definitely NOT ideologically grooming minors. They are definitely not preparing and encouraging minors to embrace leftist assumptions about sexuality and “gender.” Uh-uh, no way, no how. How do we know they’re not? We know it because they say so—again, and again, and again.

Sure, in publicly subsidized classrooms, they’re teaching kids that all family structures are identical in value, that all sex acts are intrinsically good, that pronouns have nothing to do with biological sex, and that boys can be girls just by waving their hand (and I can build a castle from a single grain of sand).

And, yes, when they’re exposing kids to leftist materials on early sexual activity, sex toys, kink, pornography, sexual fantasies, non-marital sex, homoeroticism, and cross-sex identification, they’re censoring all dissenting ideas, but they’re censoring because they care so, so, so deeply about “safety.” Whatever else all this propaganda, indoctrination, and censorship is, it’s definitely not grooming. Here's the most recent example of definitely-not grooming. Bryce Thomas Van Vreede is a homosexual special education teacher at Pulaski High School in Wisconsin who indulges his sexual fetishes in his spare time. If that’s not troubling enough, according to Libs of TikTok, Van Vreede “allegedly told students how to find him on social media by providing them with his Instagram and TikTok handles (novacaine_queen), exposing them to the shocking images he had shared of himself,” including a photo of Van Vreede with his back to the camera and his bare buttocks fully exposed and this:

Libs of TikTok cited a community source who claimed that “‘when the school administration caught wind of the inappropriate photos, they allegedly did nothing and claimed that it does not affect his professional role.’”

Evidently, public schools no longer care about the mental or moral health of teachers as long as they are fulfilling their "professional role"--whatever that is.

This story serves as a warning to parents who assume grooming takes place only in urban schools. Pulaski is a small village about fifteen miles from Green Bay that leans conservative, and yet Pulaski High School employs a homosexual fetishist to serve as a role model for minors.

We hear again, and again, and again that no cross-dressers are grooming children. The trans-ladies doth protest too much, methinks.

As should be clear by now, grooming includes not just curricular and supplementary materials used in the classroom. It also includes the stickers, posters, and flags with which leftist teachers adorn their classrooms. It includes teacher commentary in the classroom and presentations by outside speakers. And it includes policies like those that mandate the sexual integration of restrooms and locker rooms and concealing information from parents.

In another Wisconsin school district, the Madison Metropolitan School District, ideological grooming commitments have led to the sacrifice of transparency and parental rights for secrecy and children's autonomy:

School staff shall not disclose any information that may reveal a student’s gender identity to … parents or guardians … unless legally required to do so or unless the student has authorized such disclosure. Transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive students have the right to discuss and express their gender identity and expression openly and to decide when, with whom, and how much to share private information. If a student chooses to use a different name, to transition at school, or to disclose their gender identity to staff or other students, this does not authorize school staff to disclose a student’s personally identifiable or medical information.

A recent Time Magazine article characterizes policies that require parents to be notified if their child is “socially transitioning” at school as the forcible “outing of transgender youth.”

Sharing with parents vital mental health information about their own minor children has been redefined as forcible “outing” by presumptuous leftists who reject any and all limits on their autonomy.

Leftist school leaders in Montgomery County, Maryland have taken presumptuousness even further by eliminating parental notification and opt-out policies for parents of pre-K through eighth grade children who object to their 3-14-year-olds being exposed to storybooks about sexuality and gender.

Representing Muslim, Jewish, and Christian parents, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is suing for parental notification and opt-out rights to be restored. The lawsuit makes clear the ideological bias that shapes the storybook selections:

Employees responsible for selecting books are encouraged to look through an “LGBTQ+ Lens” and ask whether “stereotypes,” “cisnormativity,” and “power hierarchies” are “reinforced or disrupted.” … The Board tells teachers to emphasize ideological viewpoints—for example, that “not everyone is a boy or girl” and that “some people identify with both, sometimes one more than the other and sometimes neither,” so students “shouldn’t” “guess[]” but instead solicit “pronouns.” … The Board directs teachers to frame disagreement with these ideas as “hurtful,” … and “[d]isrupt either/or thinking.”

Government employees who serve and are paid by the public have no ethical or pedagogical right to select books based on arguable leftist beliefs on sexuality and “gender.”

According to Deseret News,

Becket says one book, for example, asks 3- and 4-year-olds to search for images from a word list that includes “intersex flag,” “drag queen,” … and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker. Other books focus on children’s romantic feelings, gender transitioning and gender identification.

“LGBTQ+” activists in Montgomery County have chosen not to use “safety” as their rationalization for robbing parents of choice and freedom—two values purportedly revered by leftists. Instead, “LGBTQ+ advocates and the school board’s attorneys say the board is advocating for inclusivity in its curriculum.”

Since when do commitments to “inclusivity” require the eradication of parental rights?

In the service of inclusivity, will the Montgomery County School Board add books about polyamory to the storybook list for four-year-olds? Will they prohibit parents from opting their children out of polyamory storytime? What about adding books about people who identify as amputees (i.e., Body Integrity Identity Disorder)? If not, why not? Who decides which “identities” may and should be excluded?

Those who believe these school issues are trivial need a good slap upside the head. Those who hold such a belief are likely the same people who have admonished conservatives for years to shut up about “social issues,” and now marriage has been destroyed, homosexual couples are purchasing children to be raised intentionally as motherless or fatherless children, teenage girls are having their healthy breasts sliced off, drag queens are reading stories to toddlers in public libraries, city mayors are being publicly spanked, and employees who refuse to use incorrect pronouns are being fired.

The ideological grooming of the next generation matters. In fact, it matters far more than tax rates and business regulation.