High school’s ‘oppression and privilege’ slideshow links to teen sex Ed website

(The Daily Signal) – Tenth-graders at a Missouri high school last week had to watch a slideshow on “oppression and privilege” that appears to violate state law by using information from a Planned Parenthood affiliate that lists abortion clinics on its website. 

The website of the Planned Parenthood affiliate tells teens about “porn literacy” and “hookups” for casual sex.

The class of sophomores at Webster Groves High School near St. Louis watched a slideshow titled “Being an Ally,” which lists so-called oppression categories as “racial,” “class,” “gender,” “sexual orientation,” “religion,” and “immigration status.” 

“It’s wrong to teach that different categories of human beings are either inherently oppressive or oppressed,” said the mother of one student, who provided a video of the presentation to The Daily Signal.

“This rhetoric is divisive in nature and creates undeserved mentalities of guilt or victimhood,” said the mother, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her child’s privacy.

In an apparent violation of Missouri state law by the Webster Groves School District, the end of the Oct. 18 slideshow included a barcode and link to the website for Teen Health Source, a subsidiary of Planned Parenthood Toronto. 

Teen Health Source calls itself a “sexual health information service run for and by youth.” Categories listed on its website include “Birth Control,” “Gender Identity & Sexual Orientation,” “Pleasure,” “Pregnancy,” “Puberty & The Body,” “Sex,” and “STIs” [sexually transmitted infections]. 

The presentation to 10th-graders isn’t out of the ordinary for Webster Groves School District, which enrolls almost 4,500 students in the suburbs of St. Louis. 

Last September, a parent read the transgender-promoting children’s book “I Am Jazz” to a second-grade class without the school’s first informing other parents.

Starting in kindergarten, students in the school district learn to “examine issues of social justice and equity within an anti-bias framework.”

Two school employees, counselor Cassie Aschinger and social worker Anne Gibbs, presented the “privilege and oppression” slideshow to the 10th-graders, a video of which later was uploaded to an online learning platform. 

“Being an ally means using your privilege to help support people who are facing oppression that you might not experience yourself,” Aschinger told the 16- and 17-year-old students, according to the video.

The presentation included tips on listening to those who are oppressed by navigating factors such as “gender pronouns.” 

Gibbs told the students that “allies” need to go through “unlearning,” which “involves questioning and rejecting oppressive beliefs you might have held for a long time.”

“As you learn about your privilege as a non-oppressed person, try to be honest with yourself about how that privilege has affected your life and who you are,” Gibbs told students, according to the video posted here.

The mother who leaked the video of the slideshow to The Daily Signal said a public school shouldn’t ask children to evaluate their privilege. 

“The district knows that many parents disapprove and continues to push these lessons anyway,” she said.

The “About” page for Teen Health Source, linked in the presentation to the 10th-graders, says it is “non-judgmental, sex-positive, pro-choice, and inclusive.” 

Missouri law requires school districts to notify parents of the “basic content of the district’s or school’s human sexuality instruction to be provided to the student.” It also specifies a “parent’s right to remove the student from any part of the district’s or school’s human sexuality instruction.” 

However, the school mom who saw and leaked the video of the slideshow said she wasn’t informed in advance.  

In a letter to the state association of school boards, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey promoted a model resolution with which school districts could pledge to “uphold Missouri law on human sexuality instruction in public schools.”

Bailey’s draft resolution for the Missouri School Boards’ Association notes that “issues of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression are inextricably intertwined with human sexuality.” 

On its website, Teen Health Source defines abortion as “a safe medical procedure that ends a pregnancy.” The website also says medical abortions “use medication to stop the growth of a pregnancy and then expel the pregnancy tissue from the uterus” and a surgical abortion “remove[s] the pregnancy tissue from the uterus.” 

“Pregnancy tissue” apparently is a euphemism for “unborn baby” or “fetus,” words that don’t appear there in regard to abortion. 

The Teen Health Source website has descriptions and links to abortion clinics in the Toronto area. It doesn’t list any pro-life pregnancy resource centers. 

Teen Health Source also suggests “trangender care” clinics that offer minors sterilizing hormone therapy and referrals for transgender surgery. Other services listed include support for teenagers who want help “coming out” or are “questioning gender identity and/or sexual orientation.” 

Some clinics recommended to Teen Health Source’s audience, which encompasses ages 13 through 19, provide HIV testing, birth control prescriptions, and abortion pills. 

A section of the website, called “Navigating sex and gender dysphoria,” defines gender dysphoria as “a term for stress, conflict, or negative feelings people can feel in relation to their bodies, gender or how others perceive their gender.” It defines gender euphoria” as “a term for the joy, comfort or connection people can feel in relation to their bodies, gender or how others perceive their gender.”

A page on gender dysphoria advises teens who are questioning their gender on how to have “affirming sex” and remind themselves that their “body and gender is awesome and is the gender and sex that you say it is” [sic].

A post on “porn literacy” tells teenagers: “Porn can be good for inspiration.” 

“Lots of people use and enjoy porn,” Teen Health Source’s post reads. “Some people are concerned about how they use it. They may worry that they’re using porn too much or that they’re addicted to it, but there’s no one ‘normal’ or ‘right’ amount to use porn.”

“Linking students to any website that publishes articles about gender identity, sexual pleasure, ‘porn literacy,’ and abortion should not occur without notifying parents,” the anonymous mother of a sophomore told The Daily Signal in an email. “They are sneaking in sexual education when some families may have opted out.”

A post on “Sex, Gender, and Sexuality” says:  “Some people are transgender, which means their gender identity doesn’t align with their biological sex.”

“Your gender identity may be fluid and can change throughout your life,” the post reads. 

Teen Health Source’s webpage titled “Hookups” describes what it calls “casual sex encounters.” 

“Sex is not something that happens only when people are in committed relationships,” the post reads. “There are many different kinds of sexual relationships and sometimes it can be confusing to sort them all out.”

The slideshow presentation that refers to Teen Health Source makes her want to remove her child from the school district, the concerned mother told The Daily Signal. 

“The decision-making by district administration and the Board of Education have become increasingly predictable and politically-driven,” she said in an email. “How can parents feel comfortable sending their children to school where they are fed a constant stream of one-sided political propaganda?”

The mother said she believes the Missouri school district violated state law by encouraging students to visit a website associated with Planned Parenthood that contains materials on sex education. 

“I would really like to see Webster Groves School District drop the politics from their decision making and curriculum,” she said. “But unfortunately, I don’t see that happening, as they’ve been accelerating in the opposite direction.”

A Missouri law, passed in March, will allow students to transfer from their school district to eligible schools starting with the 2024-2025 school year. 

“School choice is just around the corner in Missouri, and I think people will be shocked at the number of families who pull their children from the district, given that opportunity,” the mother said.