New Jersey public school second graders will be getting lessons related to gender identity this fall under state sex education guidelines that will take effect in September.
The standards listed “performance expectations” for second graders, which include discussing “the range of ways people express their gender and how gender role stereotypes may limit behavior.”
Educators in the Garden State are preparing to carry out the teaching standards, which were established in 2020 but not required to be enacted until Sept. 2022.
One school district in the state distributed sample lesson plans indicating first graders could be taught they can have “boy parts” but “feel like” a girl.
The lesson plans, which were given to parents at the Westfield Board of Education’s Feb. 22 meeting, appear to be reflective of the Garden State’s new, broader sex education curriculum.
One lesson plan, “Purple, Pink and Blue,” instructs teachers to talk to their first graders about gender identity, and its first objective is to have the students be able to define “gender, gender identity and gender role stereotypes.”
The lesson’s second objective is to have students name “at least two things they’ve been taught about gender role stereotypes and how those things may limit people of all genders.”
“Gender identity is that feeling of knowing your gender. You might feel like you are a boy, you might feel like you are a girl,” the lesson plan states. “You might feel like you’re a boy even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are ‘girl’ parts. You might feel like you’re a girl even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are ‘boy’ parts.
“And you might not feel like you’re a boy or a girl, but you’re a little bit of both. No matter how you feel, you’re perfectly normal!”
Another lesson plan for second graders, “Understanding Our Bodies,” tells teachers to instruct students that “there are some body parts that mostly just girls have and some parts that mostly just boys have.”
“Being a boy or a girl doesn’t have to mean you have those parts, but for most people this is how their bodies are,” the plan states. “Most people have a vulva and a vagina or a penis and testicles, but some people’s bodies can be different. Your body is exactly what is right for you.”
The objectives for this second grade lesson include having children be able to “identify at least four body parts” from female and male genitalia, and for students to describe “why it is important for them to know the correct names for the genitals.”