by Renee McGuinness

A required course for kindergarteners about personal pronouns will be on the school board agenda Monday, February 10, 6:30 pm- 9:00 pm at the Middlebury Union High School Library, 73 Charles Ave, Middlebury

Mary Hogan Elementary School kindergarten teacher Franny Gould teaches her five- and six-year-old students to explore, create, and claim their pronouns and that “good” parents affirm their children’s self-determined gender identity through literature curated in her “Who We Are” LGBTQ+ gender ideology study unit.

Some parents were not allowed to opt their children out of this study unit because it is integrated into the required course of minimum study under Vermont Title 16: in this instance, literacy as a subcategory of language arts. Under the Primary Years Program of Inquiry at ASCD, guided by the International Baccalaureate Learner Profile, six themes, such as, “Who We Are;” “How We Express Ourselves,” “How the World Works,” are included in this learning program.

“Who We Are” is described in the Point of Inquiry (POI) program as, “An inquiry into the nature of self; beliefs and values; personal, physical, social, and spiritual health; human relationships including families, friends, communities, and cultures; rights and responsibilities; what it means to be human.” Pretty heavy stuff for a kindergartener.

As the only means offered to objecting parents, according to Addison Central School District’s (ACSD) D22 Policy, several parents are challenging the developmental appropriateness of the seven books included in the “Who We Are’ study unit under the formal materials reconsideration process.

The seven books being challenged are: “They He She Me: Free to Be!” By Maya Christina Gonzales and Matthew Smith Gonzales; “Bodies are Cool” by Tyler Feder; “It Feels Good to Be Yourself” by Theresa Thorn; “Julian is a Mermaid” by Jessica Love; “Introducing Teddy” by Jessica Walton; “Sparkle Boy” by Leslea Newman; and “Fred Gets Dressed” by Peter Brown, all of which are available on YouTube as a read aloud, with the comments sections turned off.

While supporters of the “Who We Are” study unit proclaim that every child deserves to have themselves reflected in the classroom, these books go beyond storylines that portray families with members in the LGBTQ community by encouraging young children to experiment with their own identity, thus teaching a worldview that is not inclusive of many people’s worldviews.

“They She He Me – Free to Be!” is written by partners and parents Maya and Matthew Gonzales. According to the authors’ bios published in the back of the book, Maya was given the pronoun “she” when she was born and has decided it “mostly fits her . . . but inside she feels like much more than what we usually think of as ‘she’,” while Matthew Gonzales, who was given the pronoun “she” at birth by “her” two fathers, “came to understand that ‘he’ represented the truest part of him, inside and out.” Their first-time collaboration asserts that young children, who are just beginning to learn to write letters and words, learn how to read, and do not have the cognitive ability to understand the concept of parts of speech, can choose their pronouns, that they might be doing important work if they are a part of changing the meaning of words, and that the word “tree,” a noun, can be used as a pronoun.

“Bodies are Cool” by Tyler Feder hyper-focuses on physical features, teaches children they can define their own bodies as male or female, “his or her or their bodies, however you define your body,” and declares all bodies, regardless of health status due to lifestyle choices, are worthy of affirmation. This narrative, through illustrations and simple words, indoctrinates children into believing that feeling and looking unhealthy is an option that should be celebrated, rather than instilling a sense of pride that comes through discipline in lifestyle choices that will bring them lifelong health and wellbeing (and reduce health care costs – more than a sidecar issue).

“It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity” by Theresa Thorn, discredits parents and obstetricians by claiming they “guess” which gender a baby is at birth, and sometimes they are mistaken, because, “what a baby looks like when they are born can be a clue to what the baby’s gender will be, but not always.”

Thorn’s book teaches kindergarteners that on-going mental chaos, “you might feel like your gender changes from day to day or from year to year,” is normal and healthy, which conflicts with the LGBTQ+ doctrine that LGBTQ+ identifying-persons are “born this way” and “born in the wrong body.”

 “Julian is a Mermaid” by Jessica Love indoctrinates young children into believing that the loving response from a parent or legal guardian is to accept and support a child’s self-determined identity – even if that identity is not human – through a storyline in which the responsible adult-in-charge – in this case an “abuela,” Spanish for “grandmother” – brings  her grandson, who declares himself to be a mermaid and strips down into nothing but underpants, a sheet tied around his waist to form a mermaid tale, a fern headdress, and a pearl necklace given to him by his grandmother, to a mermaid parade that includes other creatures.

I have received unsubstantiated claims from members of two separate Vermont school districts that elementary students are identifying as cats and using litter boxes to relieve themselves. If children are identifying as animals in public schools – and this needs to come to light one way or another – one can accurately speculate that the plus-sign in “LGBTQ+” includes, but is not limited to, identifying as animals, mermaids, and other imaginary creatures.

“Introducing Teddy” by Jessica Walton is a story in which Thomas, a stuffed bear, is anxious about whether his owner will accept or reject him when he confesses that he feels more like a “Tilly,” and moves his bowtie from his neck to his head to indicate he’s a girl, not a boy – a narrative that uses wardrobe stereotypes rejected in other storylines, while subtly indoctrinating children into the notion that wounding the flesh through use of hormone blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries to match the wounds of the heart and mind is a rational, healthy solution. Walton declares “Girl or boy, only you know who you are on the inside, but the best thing you can be is a good friend.” In other words, you are not a good friend unless you accept a classmate’s gender identity disorder.

“Sparkle Boy” by Leslea Newman teaches children that loving parents encourage and affirm cross-dressing, and that defending and affirming a loved one’s desire to cross-dress in clothing, jewelry, and make-up  in the face of bullying – as the sister does in this story – is more virtuous than teaching children the virtues of modest, humble, respectable public attire, and rewards the impulse to covet the attractiveness of feminine dress rather than appreciate and respect traditional forms of masculine and feminine dress.

“Fred Gets Dressed” by Peter Brown violates children’s innate sense of modesty by exposing them to images of a naked toddler (back side only) in a co-ed classroom, under the pretense that if an illustration has contours perceived as appropriate for a children’s picture book, it is developmentally appropriate. “Fred Gets Dressed” blurs the lines between natural curiosity and exploration of traditional Western attire by presenting parents who join in with cross-dress-up, affirming to the child that either choice of dress, masculine or feminine, is acceptable, and infers that exterior appearance is a reflection of the inner person, contradicting the messages of some of the other seven books that outward appearance is not an indicator of internal feelings of identity.

To date, Principal of Mary Hogan Elementary, Jen Kravitz, along with her chosen committee, has determined the seven books will remain in the curriculum. It appears the superintendent may have come to a decision on the materials, as “D23 (Selection of Instructional Materials) Request for Consideration Update” appears on the ACSD school board agenda for this evening’s meeting. The ACSD School Board is last in line of authority in the materials reconsideration procedure, if the superintendent has determined the books will remain in the curriculum, per ACSD D23 and D22 policies.

The ACSD Selection of Library Materials policy under D22 defines “diverse library collection” as “the library collection intentionally contains content by and about a wide array of people and cultures to authentically reflect a variety of ideas, information, stories, and experiences, including those from traditionally marginalized and underrepresented communities.”
ACSD D22 Selection and Management of Library Materials criteria includes, “Clarity, authority, and accuracy;” “Inclusion of differing viewpoints to allow students to evaluate media and information with a critical lens and make informed judgments;” and “Diversity in literature that represents various races and ethnicities, religious beliefs, sexual orientations, gender identities, socioeconomic statuses, and physical abilities.” There is a list of “Examples of Library Selection Sources” in Appendix A.

Act 150, passed in spring 2024, Sec. 7a. 16 V.S.A. § 1624 SCHOOL LIBRARY MATERIAL SELECTION POLICY (pp. 7-9), makes it illegal to remove materials, “due to any author’s, school board member’s, or members of the public’s “discomfort, personal morality, political views, or religious views,” with no provision to ensure materials from all moral, political, and religious views are curated in public school libraries. This law makes no provision to ensure that the materials selection process to procure materials for both public and school libraries and classrooms includes recommendations and reviews to ensure a broad and inclusive collection of religious, traditional Western, and constitutional points-of-view on sex and gender, government, social studies, science, and literature.

If the books in question remain in the curriculum, it will be a blatant display of hypocrisy and a violation of ACSD’s policies by excluding religious and traditional Western points-of-view from the “Who We Are” study unit. Not all children’s “lived experiences” are being reflected in Franny Gould’s kindergarten classroom, and reality has been put aside.

Franny Gould’s “Who We Are” study unit is not inclusive for students who identify as simply boys or girls according to the worldview in which they are being raised by their parents, portrays parents as subservient to the self-determined emotional whims of their children, and preys upon the developmental stage in which young children are exploring what it means to be a boy or a girl, with a natural curiosity of what it might be like to be the opposite gender, by teaching children that they can choose their gender.