Here’s another encouraging sign in the debate over gender. Two leading textbook publishers are pulling back from promoting gender ideology after being exposed by a prominent conservative organization.
Scholastic and Pearson have reportedly rejected progressive gender ideology in their material. It’s a significant development given that their content is widely used in K-12 schools, which have become battlegrounds in the gender ideology war.
This development comes after the Heritage Foundation shed light on the content of the companies’ products.
Heritage education analyst Jonathan Butcher reported last month that Scholastic had published an online Resource Guide for K-12 “educators, caregivers, and advocates” to accompany its “Read With Pride” series of children’s books. Titles in the series include “My Moms Love Me” for “the youngest reader” and LGBT graphic novels for young adults.
The guide vanished from Scholastic’s website at the end of June without explanation, leaving only the “Read With Pride” page. Based in New York, Scholastic is one of the world’s largest publishers of classroom fiction reading.
“The Read with Pride Guide was a resource for adults available for Pride Month and is not a textbook for students,” Anne Sparkman, a Scholastic spokeswoman, told The Washington Times.
An archived web copy of the guide showed that a glossary includes definitions of terms such as “agender” (people with no gender identity), “allocishet” (“people whose gender and sexuality are privileged by society”) and “genderfluid” (people with fluctuating gender identities) to instruct adults working with K-12 students.
“We are experiencing an undeniable, joyous boom of queer literature for children and young adults of all ages, but it can be difficult to stay up to date on the latest quality representation,” the Scholastic guide states. “You’ll find suggested resources for finding diverse LGBTQIA+ children’s and young adult literature included in this guide.”
London-based Pearson, the world’s largest academic publisher, removed editorial guidelines highlighting “genderism” and “antiracism” from its website last year.
In a June 2023 staff editorial, the New York Post said the guidelines and related videos disappeared shortly after Mr. Butcher reported about them.
However, Pearson’s website continue to advertise a sociology book that Mr. Butcher said promotes “the use of gender identity over biological sex to describe individuals” in student-teacher conversations.
A spokesperson with Pearson told The Washington Times that the book “is not available for adoption in the high schools or the K-12 market.”
Butcher explained that the publishers’ decision came about because progressive gender ideology is unpopular with most Americans.
Mr. Butcher said it’s unsurprising that Scholastic and Pearson removed their most controversial materials from public access.
“The pushback on these ideas is strong and the publishers don’t know how to defend them when reporters, policy analysts or parents question what they are doing,” Mr. Butcher said. “Why would you show something to teachers and parents if you didn’t expect it to reach students?”
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Sheri Few, president of U.S. Parents Involved in Education, said that “Not everyone is going along with this illusion that there are more than two sexes” and that “resistance is building.”
She’s right. In fact, Scholastic’s and Pearson’s recent pivot is evidence that the “resistance” against the effort to push gender ideology in the education system is not only growing but becoming more effective.
It may not have seemed like it when the furor over gender ideology in schools began years ago, but this outcome is inevitable and will likely become more widespread over future years as more Americans become aware of the ongoing campaign to indoctrinate young children into this demonic belief system.
Despite having control over America’s institutions, progressives are in for an eventual reckoning that has already started. They have managed to infuse their ideas on a myriad of issues into society – but they made a mistake when they began targeting children. Fortunately, it is one that those opposing gender ideology have wisely capitalized on.