A sample of trans-genderism taught in Illinois 4th-grade classrooms – Wirepoints

By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Take a good look at the book recently read by a teacher to her 4th-grade students at my neighborhood public school in Wilmette. You’ll quickly understand why DEI, and trans-activism in particular, have become so objectionable and divisive, particularly in school settings. And why the backlash at the national level to remove such content from our schools, even among Democrats, has become so powerful.

The book that the Wilmette Central School teacher read out loud is called “It Feels Good to be Yourself.” The teacher begins by describing Ruthie, who at five years old determined that she was a he. Her younger brother was just three-and-a-half years old when he announced he was a he. Both kids inform their parents of the gender decisions they’ve made. The decisions are accepted without question.

The teacher reads on: “You might feel like a boy. You might feel like a girl. You might feel like both a boy and a girl – or like neither. You might feel like your gender changes from day to day or from year to year. Your feelings about gender are real. Listen to your heart.”

Really? Day to day? To ten-year-olds?

As if that wasn’t enough, the book adds this: Doctors and your parents looked at your “body” and just guessed at your gender when you were born. “Maybe they got it right, maybe they got it wrong.”

It’s hard to reach any conclusion other than this one: This book is being read to 4th-graders only to create gender confusion among impressionable young minds. 

Here is a link to a Youtube reading of the book (no relation to the 4th-grade teacher at Central). I encourage you to stick with the six minutes it takes to get through the video.

By any measure, the book’s views are extreme to an overwhelming share of Americans. Normalizing these ideas to little kids in a public school setting – that gender can change day to day and year to year, and that little kids have self-determination – is an extreme proposition. Such ideas don’t belong in our schools. 

Not to mention that life is tough enough for children. They shouldn’t be forced to question their gender.

Books like this lead to a form of self-fulfilling prophecy. Repeat the ideas of trans-genderism often enough – especially at a young age – and of course some kids will inevitably become confused enough to believe it. As comedian/pundit Bill Maher recently put it, “children are impressionable and very, very stupid.”

Tie all that up with social media, peer pressure and typical childhood rebellion and you have a growing problem – one that involves lifetime consequences. WSJ contributor Abigail Shrier has a whole book detailing the social contagion of transgenderism and the harm it’s done, in particular to girls.

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Defenders of “It Feels Good to be Yourself” and the DEI movement in schools will say it simply creates awareness and invites inclusivity. The book does no harm, they claim, and anybody who opposes it is a trans-phobe and a bigot. 

Tell that to the increasing number of Democrats speaking out against the trans movement. Common sense is making a comeback. Listen to Maher’s monologue, for example, and how harsh he is in his critique of the movement.

Politicians are starting to change their minds as well. Rahm Emanuel recently said…”I don’t want to hear another word about the locker room, I don’t want to hear another word about the bathroom. You better start focusing on the classroom,” he recently told a “Real Time” panel.

Though Emanuel doesn’t practice what he preaches, he’s right. Kids aren’t learning to read and do math anymore, which we’ve documented thoroughly. School districts are pushing social justice, activism and other woke stuff in place of basic literacy and numeracy. 

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There are many more serious problems this short book helps spawn: boys in girls bathrooms, boys in girls sports, the invasive cutting and reshaping of minors’ bodies, laws that block parent notification at schools, and more.

All of it requires serious pushback.

Fortunately, the federal government has created a portal for students, parents, teachers, and the broader community to report illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning. Their goal is to ensure “all students have access to meaningful learning free of divisive ideologies and indoctrination.”

And locally, a parent group called New Trier Neighbors, of which I am a board member, has gone even further, creating a new web-based transparency tool for parents, students, teachers and citizens to track local examples of questionable classroom content.

At ClassroomChamp.com, users can review assignments, surveys, readings, books, assembly materials, memos and teacher trainings — submitted by parents, educators, and students — presented “as is” so you can assess for yourself the quality of the materials. Materials are organized by school and also tagged by type and issue, including anti-Semitism, gender ideology and racial ideology. 

If it proves helpful to the community to bring awareness to these issues, Classroom Champ can be expanded to cover school districts across the state.

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For sure there are parents in Illinois who disagree with our position above and will continue to support transgender activism. They are free to do so, but they have no right to impose those ideas in our public schools.

Read more from Wirepoints:

• New Trier High School Led On Woke Education. It Should Lead The Way Out.
• The next absurd bill from Illinois’ legislature: Removing student test scores from teacher evaluations
• Underreported Trump order has sweeping implications for DEI at universities and other federal grant recipients
• Nation’s Report Card results are in: Illinoisans spend billions more on education, yet 2024 reading results are still below 2019 levels