SCOOP: The Springfield, Missouri public school district held a training program forcing teachers to identify their racial and sexual “privilege,” promoting identities such as “pansexual” and “polyamorous,” and warning that “misgendering a trans person is an act of violence.”

The training program began with a “land acknowledgement,” led by “chief equity and diversity officer, Yvania Garcia-Pusateri, asking teachers to “acknowledge the dark history and violence” of European settlers and to commit to “social justice work.”

Next, the district asked teachers to identify their racial and sexual “privilege” and consider how they contribute to “cycles of oppression.” This system leads oppressors—i.e., white male heterosexuals—to feel “anger, dehumanization, guilt, collusion, ignorance, self-hatred.”

The program followed the basic principles of radical gender theory: society has created a “heteronormative” system that is inherently oppressive. The goal is to subvert this system and affirm identities such as “trans,” “nonbinary,” “polyamorous,” and “pansexual.”

Administrators shared a video featuring “genderqueer” and “nonbinary” children, which claimed that some children “don’t have a gender” and that “misgendering a trans person is an act of violence.”

“My identity, although you can’t see it, still needs to be validated.”

At Parkview High School, one of the district’s “equity champions” held another training telling teachers that they must “acknowledge [their] privileges” and “lean into [their] discomfort” as part of their “LGBTQ+ 101” education.

The trainer instructed teachers to “try not to use gender-specific terms in class,” to use “they/them” pronouns for nonbinary children, and to “add your pronouns to [their] email signature.”
“For some folks, pronouns are non-negotiable.”

Fortunately @kimmiehermann at Southeastern Legal Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the district and Attorney General @Eric_Schmitt has put the district under state investigation. Voters and public officials should immediately shut this program down.