According to a recent survey from the Foundations Freedom at Arizona Christian University, 30% of Millennials identify as LGBTQ and a whopping 39% of Millennials ages 18-24 identify as LGBTQ. “The proportion of young adults who identify as LGBTQ is roughly three times the proportion identified among the combined older adults of the nation.” According to WebMD and the CDC, the percentage of teens identifying as LGBTQ rose from 8.3% to 11.7% from 2015 to 2019.
Do you wonder why so many young people identify as LGBTQ? Whether it’s your child, grandchild, friend’s child, friend’s grandchild, child’s friend, or neighbor you likely know of someone young who identifies as LGBTQ. Although we know from historical data that roughly 10% of the population is LGBTQ, what’s happening in our society today is much different.
In colleges across the country including Grand Valley, there is a new phenomenon known as Gay for a Stay where girls will sleep together in the same bed. Each time we visit a large supermarket we can’t help but notice individuals confused about their gender. In fact, it is now common to see multiple employees bagging groceries or ringing up sales whose gender is not obvious. At Grand Haven High School on the first day of class when students meet their teachers, most teachers ask them for their pronouns. The Spanish teacher at Grand Haven High School, Mrs. Bloomquist, has jumped on the bandwagon and introduced a gender-neutral article for nouns. El is masculine, la is feminine and le is gender neutral. She followed that discussion up with asking the students what they would call a group of gender fluid people?
Kids are not simply confused about their gender identity and sexual orientation. They are suffering from an odd form of emotional abuse. Instead of teaching our children to be accepting of people who are different, our schools are making our children want to be different. Using the ideas of diversity, equity and inclusion our children participate in exercises that rank their “power and privilege”. The book This Book is Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell is used in academy classes at the Grand Haven High School to teach diversity, equity and inclusion. The lessons in this book teach children to understand their identity and examine their power and privilege. These ideas are reinforced in English and History classes when they are shown videos explaining white privilege and white power. (This video was shown to 10th grade English students at Grand Haven.)
When our children learn about the “oppression matrix”, and that straight, white, English-speaking, Christian males are members of the oppressor class who must atone for their privilege, they begin to feel badly about themselves. Nobody wants to be thought of as an oppressor. Our children are being taught that our institutions are dominated by straight, white, males and they must do something to make a change otherwise they are part of the problem. Centuries of horrible oppression is being projected onto our children. This is an emotional argument that deeply confuses children.
Minority children are taught that they have been oppressed. Adolescence is known for being a difficult transition period of life. Children are sometimes bullied and poked fun at by other children. As children learn to navigate the world, and learn more about human nature, they definitely have instances of going too far. Innocent jokes that turn into mockery should be addressed as children learn to monitor their behavior. Unfortunately, today it receives hyperfocus and events that have nothing to do with race or gender are turned inside out. If a minority child feels any negative emotion in connection with childish behavior, the minority child learns that he/she has been oppressed. The more incidents are viewed through a racial or gender lens, the more incidents can be blamed on discrimination and the more oppressed the child feels. The result is that both racial minorities and white students feel badly about themselves as they are divided into the oppressed and the oppressors.
When white children hear messages like this repeated in books from the libraries, in academy classes and in English and History classes they begin to reject themselves. They can’t change their skin color, but they have been taught that they can change their gender. They can also change their sexual orientation with a simple declaration and the schools are highly supportive of LGBTQ students. Grand Haven has a large poster in the library with a rainbow and the words “Love is Love.” Students in the high school have been given t-shirts for coming out. Students were given rainbow stickers which they were expected to wear one day to show support for LGBTQ. Here’s another example from a school in California. That’s why we are seeing an explosion of confused children.
The survey from Arizona Christian University revealing that 39% of 18-24 year-olds identify as LGBTQ should not be taken as a sign that more people identify as LGBTQ, but that approximately 29% of our children have been severely emotionally abused. Children are trying to tell us that they want to be unified. They don’t want to be oppressors, because that is mean. They would rather be oppressed. Statistics are telling us this is so. Society is telling us this is so.
Normalizing sexual experimentation, indirectly encouraging gender exploration, and teaching concepts of dominate power structures, are much different than teaching children to be accepting of others. Our society has taken the noble idea of accepting everyone and done the opposite. Now, it is good to be different because to not be different is to be an oppressor.
What is happening at GHAPS and across the country is not ok. We must not ignore it. We must fight for our children. We must hold the school system accountable. We must ensure they remove materials that make our children reject themselves, because it is creating an epidemic and our children will have lifelong problems due to these ideas being taught at GHAPS. It needs to stop and it will take the entire community to stand-up against it.