Tag: lgbt

CU Boulder class teaches ‘queering literacy’ methods for high school teachers

Aspiring high school English and social studies teachers can learn “queering literacy” methods at the University of Colorado at Boulder this upcoming fall semester.

“Queering Literacy in Secondary Classrooms” teaches students using “theories and practices of literacy teaching and learning that challenge multiple forms of oppression,” according to the course description.

“Using the tools of queer pedagogy,” this course will prepare education majors to “develop, and enact strategies for planning and implementing literacy instruction that moves beyond inclusion of differences in the English/language arts and social studies curriculum,” the course description states.

A professor who regularly teaches the course provided further insights on the content in a phone interview with The College Fix.

Professor Sara Staley described education as facing a “highly polarized political moment right now, especially around topics like DEI.” The current listed professor for the fall 2025 semester is Ashley Cartun.

Staley said she wants to support “teachers and students” who are “trying to create spaces of belonging in every classroom.” She said Colorado “laws and policies” require teachers to “create a safe, respectful, inclusive learning environment for a diverse population of students.”

She said, “a lot of research” shows teachers are not trained enough in “gender and sexual diversity.” Staley also co-runs the Queer Endeavor, a CU-Boulder program that works in “close collaboration with district and school leaders, K-12 teachers, and counselors” for LGBTQ education.

There is also “a lot of research that shows that school can be a pretty unwelcoming place for students who are different” especially for “queer and trans youths,” Staley said.

The class she teaches helps students learn about “diverse identities” and “what it looks like to read a book with a queer character in it” without reinforcing “negative stereotypes.”

Staley said, “queer pedagogy” is about “supporting students to think critically by asking questions of what they read.”

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Women’s College Hit With Civil Rights Complaint For Admitting Men Claiming To Be Women

One of the largest all-women’s colleges in the U.S., Smith College, has been hit with a federal civil rights complaint because it admits men claiming to be women and allows them in the private women’s spaces like restrooms.

The Title IX complaint, filed by Defending Education with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, brought the complaint against the 150-year-old Massachusetts women’s college “for discrimination on the basis of sex in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance in violation of” federal law.

The college’s Equal Education Opportunity Policy “indicates that it will follow Title IX and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in its federally funded programs,” the complaint, written by Defending Education Vice President Sarah Parshall Perry, states. However, she continues, “The very same policy … indicates that Smith interprets Title IX to prohibit ‘gender identity’ discrimination, despite federal case law and this [Education] Department’s guidance to the contrary.”

“Discrimination based on gender identity is not the same as discrimination based on sex under Title IX, as this Department well knows, and the Supreme Court has never held it is,” the complaint reads. “In other words, to the extent Smith’s accommodations for so-called gender identity encroach upon sex-specific programs and spaces, it is in violation of Title IX. The college’s admission policy appears to violate Title IX for the same reason.”

The complaint further cites executive orders signed by President Donald Trump and guidance from the Education Department that Title IX protections shall be based on sex rather than “gender identity.” The college confirms it allows males who claim to be female to take admissions spots from actual women, the complaint says. Smith’s website explicitly states that “people who identify as women—cis, trans and nonbinary women—are eligible to apply to Smith.” It also says that male applicants can simply claim to be women to be considered for admission because “Smith’s policy is one of self-identification. The applicant’s affirmation of identity is sufficient.”

“Ironically, in what appears to be yet another exercise in sex discrimination, Smith admits natal men who identify as women but does not admit natal women who identify as men,” the complaint states, citing a 2023 CNN article.

The complaint goes on to cite “Smith’s policies on ‘Gender Identity and Expression,’” which “indicate that ‘[e]very single-occupancy restroom on campus is designated all-gender” and show how the college “advertises ‘[a]n all-gender locker room in the athletic facilities,’” the complaint reads. Smith College’s website also says that “more and more” multi-stall bathrooms on campus will be designated “all-gender,” allowing men to access them, and that the health & wellness center “provides trans-affirming primary care, including hormone therapy.”

The school made the change to allow men in 2015, when it told itself, faculty, staff, parents, and alumnae that allowing men in the school actually “affirms Smith’s unwavering mission and identity as a women’s college, our commitment to representing the diversity of women’s lived experiences, and the college’s exceptional role in the advancement of women worldwide.”

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California ordered to clean trans ideology out of classroom materials

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent a letter to California on June 20 ordering it to remove gender ideology references from educational curriculum and programs funded by a federal sexual education grant or face the loss of funding.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) reviewed materials created through California’s Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), a federally-funded sexual education program, and uncovered “egregious content” teaching young students they can change their sex. HHS noted the PREP program has mission of providing minors with medically accurate education rather than ideological agendas.

“After requesting, receiving, and reviewing California’s PREP materials, ACF uncovered egregious content teaching young students that gender identity is distinct from biological sex and that boys can identify as girls,” states an HHS press release. “The educational materials promoting gender ideology have nothing to do with Personal Responsibility Education and are outside the scope of PREP’s authorizing statute.”

The California Department of Public Health didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Primary School Children Being “Sexualised” by Lessons on the “300 Flags of Pride”

Leaflets handed out at primary schools by the charity Swindon and Wiltshire Pride claim there are more flags representing sexuality and gender identity than there are for countries.

The material, signposted by the local council on social media, goes into detail about a “small selection” of 29 varieties.

It says: “While some might think [300] is too many, it’s all part of a drive to be more inclusive of the expansive breadth of identity within the community.”

Along with the rainbow LGBT Pride flag are a variety of offshoots, from the “intersex-inclusive Pride flag” to the “polyamory Pride flag” and even a black and white “heterosexual flag” for straight people, which it says can include transgender people.

The materials make up part of a free annual support guide produced by the charity, which also points to websites providing advice on controversial practices such as wearing a “binder to reduce apparent size of breasts”, the use of cross-sex hormones in under-18s, and information on “fetish spectrums”.

Parents of children at the primary schools told the Telegraph their concerns had been ignored by the local Labour council. …

One mother, a former teacher, said the guide being given out in primary schools was “really concerning”.

“Obviously the polyamory one, encouraging children to have multiple sex partners, they shouldn’t be sexualising children,” she said. “In the guide itself, under education, it states it is ‘for schools, teachers, and students’.

“A couple of sentences down, for example, it says ‘raise awareness of the lesser known identities across the fetish spectrum’,” she added, saying that was “inappropriate”.

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California Ordered to Cut ‘Gender Ideology’ From Sexual Education

The Trump administration has given California 60 days to remove all references to transgender or non-binary gender concepts from its federally funded sex education curriculum—or risk losing millions of dollars in federal funding.

In a letter sent on June 20, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said California’s Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) materials include “gender ideology” content not permitted under federal law.

Citing multiple lesson plans and teacher guides, the agency said the state’s curriculum teaches that gender identity is distinct from biological sex—something ACF says is outside the program’s statutory scope.

“The Trump Administration will not tolerate the use of federal funds for programs that indoctrinate our children,” ACF acting assistant secretary Andrew Gradison said in a statement. “The disturbing gender ideology content in California’s PREP materials is both unacceptable and well outside the program’s core purpose.”

Among the flagged material are lessons describing transgender, non-binary, gender-fluid identities, as well as references to social and medical gender transitions, including hormone therapy and “gender-affirming” surgeries.

ACF stated that these subjects fall outside the statutory framework of the PREP program, which is designed to educate youth on abstinence, contraception, and select adulthood preparation topics such as healthy relationships, financial literacy, and job readiness. Teaching about gender identity does not qualify, the agency says.

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‘Trans’ Congressman Says Democrats Went Too Far on ‘Trans’ Rights Push

Facing mounting political backlash and growing public fatigue, a high-profile Democrat is urging his party to reevaluate its aggressive push on “trans” issues. 

Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), who made history in 2024 as the first openly trans-identifying person elected to Congress, is now calling for a reset, warning that Democrats may have gone too far.

In a recent interview with The New York Times’ Ezra Klein, McBride acknowledged that the progressive movement advanced too far, too fast, without bringing the public along. 

“We as a coalition went to Trans 201, Trans 301, when people were still at a very much Trans 101 stage,” he explained.

According to McBride, the party’s absolutist stance on “trans” policies and broader progressive ideals may have alienated key segments of the electorate. 

He argued that the movement’s pursuit of “every single perfect policy and cultural norm” failed to account for where the public truly stands.

“It misunderstands the role that politicians and, frankly, social movements have in maintaining proximity to public opinion, of walking people to a place,” McBride said.

He pointed to what he called a sense of “cultural aggression” that developed around “trans” advocacy, suggesting that it allowed Republicans to present themselves as reacting to extremism rather than instigating conflict. 

“We’re punishing trans people because of their actions. Rather than: We’re going after innocent bystanders,” McBride said of how GOP messaging has reframed the debate.

The freshman congressman also leveled broader criticism at the progressive movement, saying, “We became absolutist — not just on trans rights but across the progressive movement — and we forgot that in a democracy we have to grapple with where the public authentically is and actually engage with it. Part of this is fostered by social media.”

These comments mark a notable shift from McBride’s previous public stance. 

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FBI Settles Lawsuit Over Biden Era Cover-Up Of Trans Killer Manifesto

More than two years after facing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for playing politics with a trans killer’s manifesto, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has agreed to a settlement. 

The agreement is a victory for transparency and open government, but it’s personal for this reporter. 

‘Did Not Want the Public to Know’

I was a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit demanding that the FBI release the manifesto of Audrey Hale, the biological woman identifying as a man who in March 2023 burst into a Nashville Christian school and murdered three third-graders and three staff members before being fatally shot by responding police. 

At the time, I was National Political Editor for the Star News Network, which has done some of the best investigative work in bringing to light the dark mind of a mentally deranged mass murderer despite law enforcement efforts to keep the killer’s motives shrouded in secrecy. President Joe Biden’s FBI, which pulled the levers behind the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department’s (MNPD) handling of the politically charged case, denied my FOIA request for Hale’s manifesto. The file includes hundreds of pages of the 28-year-old woman’s journals and other writings. 

In May 2023, Star News CEO and Editor-in-Chief Michael Patrick Leahy and I filed a lawsuit seeking the documents. Star News also sued the Nashville Police Department, joining the Tennessean newspaper and other groups in what became a combined complaint. 

We were represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), a nonprofit conservative law firm based in Milwaukee. On Wednesday, WILL announced the settlement, in which the FBI has agreed to turn over 120 pages of the shooter’s manifesto and to pay the law firm more than $86,000 in legal fees. 

The lawsuit would likely still be tied up in federal court had the FBI, under new management, not agreed to end the Biden FBI’s prolonged fight to keep the public in the dark. FBI Director Kash Patel ultimately ended an empty “investigation” into a trans school shooter who died at the scene and had no accomplices. 

“This was a case in which the Biden administration did not want the public to know what motivated this transgender shooter to shoot up the school and kill six people,” Dan Lennington, WILL’s deputy counsel, told me Wednesday on the Dan O’Donnell Show. 

The trans-centric Biden administration wanted to protect the trans agenda, and, as the Star News Network reported, the FBI advised against releasing information that it believed could put males pretending to be females and females identifying as males at risk. As The Federalist reported, four days after the shooting at the Christian elementary school, Biden issued a statement insisting that “Transgender Americans shape our Nation’s soul.” New York Post columnist Miranda Devine at the time noted that the far-left president railed against “MAGA extremists [who] are advancing hundreds of hateful and extreme state laws that target transgender kids and their families. … These attacks are un-American and must end.” He said nothing about a twisted trans Nashville area resident indoctrinated in hate. 

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Federal Investigation Launched After Boy Wins Minnesota Girls’ Softball Title

Two federal Title IX investigations have been launched after a Minnesota girls’ softball team with a male player, who identifies as a “girl,” won the state championship.

The Champlin Park High School softball team defeated an all-female team for the win.

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it will be “elevating its Title IX investigations into the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) to the Title IX Special Investigations Team (Title IX SIT), which is comprised of both the Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice.”

In a press release about the investigations, the DOE said:

“In February, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened a Title IX investigation into MSHSL over its stated intentions to flout federal law and instead follow state policies which allow student-athletes to compete in sports based on their ‘gender identity.’ On June 3, OCR opened a Title IX investigation into the Minnesota Department of Education after receiving a complaint alleging that MDE has policies which permit males to participate in female sports and occupy female-only intimate facilities. Both investigations are today being elevated to the Title IX SIT.”

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights initially launched its investigation into MSHSL in February, after President Donald Trump announced his executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” The league responded that they would not be complying and will continue allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports.

“The Minnesota State High School League, similar to other youth sports organizations, is subject to state anti-discrimination laws, which prohibit discrimination based on gender identity,” MSHSL said in a statement at the time. “Therefore, students in Minnesota are allowed to participate consistent with their gender identity.”

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon called the refusal to comply “completely unacceptable.”

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Commons forced to apologise after allowing a transgender woman to use female-only toilets despite Supreme Court ruling

The House of Commons has been forced to apologise after allowing a transgender woman to use female-only toilets despite the recent Supreme Court ruling that protects single-sex spaces.

Robin Moira White, a trans barrister who is a biological male, was directed to use the ladies’ loos in Portcullis House last week after attending a meeting of the women and equalities committee in which the landmark judgment was discussed.

White, 61, said parliamentary employees had been told that swift access to the lavatories was required because of a health condition.

But the barrister, who was shown to the closest ones to the Thatcher Room, where the committee had met, was challenged outside the facilities by women’s rights campaigners, Kate Harris and Heather Binning, who had attended the same hearing.

Harris said that a staff member told her ‘We don’t do that here’ in reference to excluding trans women from female loos.

She added: ‘We were in the mother of all parliaments, and it was not adhering to the law. It was not the fault of staff, who clearly have not been trained in how to deal with these issues.’

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Los Angeles Children’s Hospital Shutting Down ‘Transgender’ Youth Clinic Amid Federal Pressure

The Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) has announced that it will shut down the Transyouth Health and Development program by the end of July.

The move comes amid mounting federal pressure to stop mutilating and sterilizing children in the name of “gender science.”

There have been reports that CHLA is under investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for potential violations of new federal guidelines issued by the Trump administration regarding sex changes for minors.

The hospital is one of the few in the nation that will provide sex change surgeries and hormones to kids under 18 who receive taxpayer-funded healthcare.

“Federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, have made it clear there will be consequences, potentially civil and criminal, for entities pushing irreversible procedures on vulnerable minors,” the hospital wrote to staff.

“The threats are no longer theoretical,” the hospital asserted.

“CHLA has a responsibility to navigate this complex and uncertain regulatory environment in a way that allows us to remain open as much as possible for as many as possible,” the email continued. “This painful and difficult decision was driven by the need to safeguard CHLA’s ability to operate amid significant external pressures beyond our control.”

The Post Millennial reports, “CHLA is more dependent on public funding than any other pediatric center in California, making it especially vulnerable to changes in federal policy. Around 40 percent of all pediatric beds in Los Angeles are housed at CHLA, and executives say preserving access to care for the largest number of children, particularly low-income and chronically ill kids, must come first.”

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