Expert: National Day of Reading a ‘Trojan Horse’ to indoctrinate kids

Children across the nation will be subjected to LGBTQ propaganda on Friday during the “National Day of Reading,” sponsored by the innocuously named group, “Welcoming Schools.”

Parents may be surprised to learn it’s put on by America’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which offers trainings, lesson plans and booklists for “LGBTQ+ and gender inclusion.”

Dustin DeVito, director of research at the nonprofit 1792 Exchange, told the The Lion how the HRC even sneaks its progressive agenda into curricula that isn’t explicitly LGBTQ.

“They have this ‘anti bullying’ curriculum that’s really just a Trojan horse for reading books about transgenderism to kids,” DeVito said.

The Welcoming Schools website declares, “We uplift school communities with critical tools to embrace family diversity, create LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive schools, prevent bias-based bullying, and support transgender and non-binary students.”

The organization has held National Day of Reading at the end of February for more than 10 years. Schools, libraries and various clubs are hosting LGBTQ story time and encouraging others to sign HRC’s pledge to do the same.

“At a time when many LGBTQ+ books are being challenged or removed from schools and libraries, we have a simple and powerful response: we read. Research shows that affirming and inclusive stories help LGBTQ+ youth feel seen, safe, and valued — and help all children grow in empathy and understanding,” a Parenting with Pride advocate said in a video.

Last year, more than 23,000 individuals participated in National Day of Reading, topping more than 1.6 million impressions. Welcoming Schools partnered with the National Educational Association, which represents 3 million educators nationwide, and with the American Association of School Librarians, which represents more than 7,000 school librarians, according to HRC’s website.

The campaign targets children of all ages, even 0-5 years old, as one library in Pennsylvania advertises. Welcoming Schools also lists local bookstores to find LGBTQ propaganda, including in Dallas, Indianapolis and Washington, D.C.

Schools and libraries aren’t the only promoters. U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Florida, is introducing the Fight Book Bans Act to keep LGBTQ content on the shelves, he announced in an interview with drag queen.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is also promoting the indoctrination.

“It’s vital that young people, especially LGBTQ plus youth, have access to books that speak to them and to their lives,” he said in a video. “We should be focused on broadening our children’s horizons, not shrinking them, expanding our collective imagination, not censoring it, filling our bookshelves, not emptying them.”

The reading day is just one of many avenues HRC uses to push its agenda. The organization recently released its 2026 Corporate Equality Index, which grades companies on how inclusive their policies are. The project is an effort to encourage companies to embrace progressivism.

Alarmingly, companies that target children such as Disney, Mattel and Riot Games, met the HRC’s standards for “perfection” on LGBTQ advocacy and inclusion. Macmillan Learning and McGraw-Hill – both publishers of student educational content – also earned a perfect score. Penguin Random House – one of the largest publishing companies in the world – is a also top sponsor of Welcoming Schools.

“[HRC] is one of, if not the most primary group pushing all these issues,” DeVito told The Lion. “And so to the extent we can get people to connect the dots and not just talk about wokeness as some vague, ethereal term, but realize this is a group concretely pushing transgenderism among children, through schools, through company trainings and through your healthcare plan, then it helps people to then act.”