Institutionalizing Intimacy

Gender Education and the Imperiled Future of Privacy

How and Why?  These are the questions being asked by parents and others about the meteoric rise of “gender education” in America’s public schools.

The how is comparatively straightforward; the answer to why, however, points to an even more insidious, longer-lasting effort that goes far beyond pronouns.

As reporter Christopher Rufo has pointed out (for a deep-dive on individual specific events, see https://christopherrufo.com/ ) the trend has been growing for years, despite the false denials of those involved in the effort.

From Portland kindergartners being given non-gendered anatomy lessons (leading to pronoun – even before the kids learn what a pronoun is -  discussions in first grade, to chats about cisheteronormativity in third grade to being told to make activist commitments in fifth grade) to children learning “gender is a universe” in other schools, to teachers telling students not to discuss the lessons with their parents, to learning that the most important part of the alphabet is LGBTQIA2S+, etc., these curricula abound throughout elementary schools across the country.

But the “how” also involves a larger concept and is in fact the inevitable outcome of the “long march through the institutions” posited by Marxist activist/philosophers Antonio Gramsci and Rudi Dutschke (with the help of Herbert Marcuse and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School).  The march starts with the academics and then their students (and administrators), spreads from there to the government bureaucracy and then to the non-profit world of large foundations and then to various and sundry corporations (note – all three – colleges, foundations, and businesses - need to embrace the government attitude to continue to receive funding, contracts, dispensations, and legal cover.)

The students who bring this progressive/CRT/woke/dialectical mode of thinking/whatever you wish to call it (which changes depending upon what you are allowed to call it) out into the real world do so with the zealotry of the converted and the absolute knowledge – since they have never been exposed to anything else – of their own righteousness.  And then they get jobs as bureaucrats and functionaries and spokespeople and marketers and social workers.  And as teachers.

From there, it’s smooth sailing into the high schools, then the middle schools, and now the elementary schools – what is happening in kindergarten today is not shocking, it was inevitable.

How the teachers became the apostles is also rather simple – a constant reinforcement of the ideology, a significant amount of career self-selection of the like-minded, and possibly the remembrance of unpleasantness in school themselves, hence the fourth-grade graduation ceremonies, the dumbing-down of the lesson plan, the self-esteem movement, and the obsession with bullying to try to absolve themselves of problematic memories.  And, of course, gender education.

(Personal note – kids are acutely aware awful monsters who use, among other things, boundary pushing and categorization of others to help them find their place and develop their personalities; this process naturally leads to a certain level of teasing, such as I experienced in large part due to my last name rhyming with a certain naughty word, a problem which eventually led to the banning of the singing of the “banana-fana-fo-fana” song on my bus in third grade.  I did not complain but my school was tired of getting phone calls from people upset that 40 kids were driving – windows down – through the neighborhood screaming “F…ley” at the top of their lungs  But I digress.)

One justification for the movement is the claim that 14-year-olds are absolutely sure exactly what they currently are and will always be and denying them immediate “treatment” for an issue on which they will take action on absolutely, assuredly, most definitely, inevitably in a few years anyway is tantamount to child abuse.  If this were true, if humans stopped growing and maturing and exploring and changing at the age of 14, the world as we know it simply wouldn’t exist (and we all know grown-ups who still act like 14-year-olds and they are horrible human nightmares).

Finally as to the “how,” an incredibly important factor is money.  The hordes of new administrators at every level of education need something to administrate to justify their existence and the consultants and non-profits that feed off of the system need that, too.

Take, for example, GSA Network, a national umbrella groups that helps create GSA’s (gender and sexualities alliances) at schools across the country.  According to their 2020 (latest available online) non-profit tax filing, they had a budget of $2.75 million, of which $1.6 million went for salaries and benefits for 22 employees (the two co-executive directors made $134,000 and $123,000 each – oddly the presumably - by first name- male director made more than the presumably female director  – can’t be perfect, I guess.)  For more information on the organization, you can visit the website at: https://gsanetwork.org/

Now, as to the “why?”

Some have posited that the movement is primarily about encouraging gender fluidity or at least doubt in the minds of the students as to their sexual preferences.  In part, this is a factor.  Others have noted that being cool and hip and now and irritating and/or confusing their parents is pretty much the raison d’etre of all teenagers and educators are feeding this overriding predilection. 

As to current coolness, the list now goes genderqueer, then trans, then non-binary, then fluid, then two spirit (it would be higher if people knew what that means), then intersex, then questioning, then gay, then bisexual, then, last but not least, lesbian, as it has always been (hence the fact that the overwhelming majority of teens with rapid-onset gender dysphoria are girls who may be, in part, trying to avoid that label.)  And if you ask a good old-fashioned lesbian what they really think of the current state of affairs and promise to never repeat what she said to anyone you will get a very irritated and disheartened and oppositional response – for example, see here:  https://thepostmillennial.com/lesbian-group-kicked-out-of-welsh-pride-march.

Of course, straight doesn’t even register a blip.

But it is quite possible that there is more than mere sexuality at play here.

All things related to sex and gender are – however one feels – deeply personal decisions, personality aspects, traits, and predilections and they have historically, for better or ill, been treated as matters to be handled privately.  But by diving into deep public discussions of something so individual and so private so early in life – discussions led not by a parent but a government employee – the entire concept of intimacy becomes institutionalized, just another factoid that can be recorded, modified, and controlled.

The two most famous works involving dystopian futures – “1984” and “Brave New World” – both place sex at or near the center of the power constructs that drive the societies described.  In “1984,” The Party sees sex and intimacy as a threat, a personal space it cannot control, hence organizations like ‘The Junior Anti-Sex League,” the push to think of the sexual act only in terms of procreation, and the never-ending efforts to “cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman.”

“Brave New World” takes what seems to be a polar opposite tack, with continual guilt-free sex encouraged and children produced in jars who are decanted not birthed.  Ironically, this idea of intimacy having only entertainment value accomplishes the same goal strived for in “1984” – the destruction of  not only the family but of the very idea of the personal private relationship, sexual or not, outside of the purview of the power structure.

What, therefore, is being taught in thousands of schools today is only partially about the topic at hand – gender – but also about the much larger effort to institutionalize as many facets of life as possible.  As nothing is more private than personal intimacy, imagine the impression being made on school children today as it relates to future privacies, or lack thereof.  In other words, once you’ve gone “there” you can go anywhere and be taught anything.

Authority figure obedience, individual acquiescence, and an understanding that the power structure has not only the right but the duty to ensure personal conformance to the group to avoid potentially giving offense is being ingrained in an entire generation by this process, a subservient group-think reality wrapped in the cloak of celebrating individuality.

This is in no way meant to downplay the immediate negative impacts of the movement, but if this march toward totalitarianism is not stopped,  Gramsci’s long march through the institutions will no longer even be necessary – everyone will already be there at the end, waiting for instructions.