Seattle using ‘gender book kit’ to teach kindergarteners they can change genders

Seattle Public Schools is using a set of classroom materials that tells kindergarten through 5^th-grade students that boys can become girls and girls can become boys.

The lessons appear on a district webpage and received attention after the social media account Libs of TikTok posted video clips of the curriculum.

The account shared a sample from the district’s “gender book kit” on X and said, “Seattle Public Schools needs to be immediately INVESTIGATED and DEFUNDED.”

The post included a video of Brennon Ham, a district health education specialist, reading a book titled Introducing Teddy to young students. The story centers on a teddy bear who declares a new identity and changes his name, as LifeSiteNews reports. 

In the lesson, the character says, “I need to be myself … In my heart, I’ve always known that I’m a girl teddy, not a boy teddy. I wish my name was Tilly, not Thomas.” 

After the bear changes its bowtie, Ham tells students, “We can all do whatever makes us feel good.” 

The lesson for kindergarteners also defines gender as “a person’s feeling about being either a boy, a girl, neither, both, or somewhere in between.” 

Other grades receive similar lessons. First graders read My Princess Boy, which describes a young boy who likes to wear dresses and dance “like a beautiful ballerina.” Vocabulary for the lesson includes “compassion” and “acceptance.” 

The characters in the book have blank faces, a design choice raising concerns for some parents who prefer children to learn about the dignity of everyone rather than abstract concepts of identity. 

Additional books include Jacob’s New Dress, I am Jazz and It Feels Good to be Yourself, which introduce ideas such as a “transgender boy,” a character who is “both a boy and a girl” and another who is “neither a boy nor a girl.” 

In 3^rd grade, Seattle teaches its students about “sex assigned at birth,” “gender identity” and “gender expression,” the latter of which Ham describes as something that can take a “never-ending” number of forms. 

Teachers also introduce the word “ally,” defined as “a person who works for equality.” Ham explains it means students should “support groups different from them.” 

The district says it created the Gender Book Kit in 2017. Since then, schools across the country have adopted similar lessons, even as public concern about the impact on children has grown. 

Indeed, several states, including Florida, have passed laws to limit instruction on gender ideology in elementary schools. Supporters of such limits argue schools shouldn’t pressure children to adopt identities at odds with biological reality or their families’ beliefs.