When it comes to “gender identity,” South Carolina’s universities are waging a full-scale war, but the response of our schools and legislature is little more than a feisty skirmish.
An example is a recent agenda item from the well-respected Edgefield County School District (ECSD) Board of Trustees. The board, at its November and December 2024 meetings, passed the readings of “Policy JBAC – Comprehensive Health Education Compliance.” The motion was not listed on the January 2025 gathering when it would have undergone its third and final reading and, at this time, it’s not known why it did not take place.
Meanwhile, Spartanburg District 4 and Dillon 3 School District in Latta, SC, also had documents on “Code JBAC” which underscored the fact that a child’s pronouncement regarding expression of “gender identity” may not be concealed from parents, which is in keeping with South Carolina’s state law on the Comprehensive Health Education Program. The law stipulates that staff and teachers are required to notify school administration (for further parental notification) whenever a minor claimed to be of the opposite sex or asked to be addressed by pronouns that are in contrast to the minor’s sex.
There is good reason for parents to celebrate that South Carolina schools will not conceal a child’s confusion over his or her biological sex and we should thank our local school boards for wanting to make that fact clear to all who work with children. There is more reason for optimism on the matter of gender identity after President Trump signed Executive Order 14168 which, among other things, rejects the notion of gender identity and calls for it to be rooted out across government. A subsequent executive order specifically protects women’s sports from males claiming to be female.
With all this great news, parents might be tempted to relax but that would be shortsighted. A more significant problem remains namely that, as long as the concept of “gender identity” is taught in universities, the health and wellbeing of children are in danger, parental rights are under threat from our institutions, and our healthcare system is steeped in pseudo-science.
What is “gender identity”? It is unrelated to science or biology or sex or even reality and is one of the lynchpins for undermining health science, serving as an entry point for radical progressive political and social ideology. The term “gender identity” grew from the redefining of the words “sex” and “gender” which were for the most part interchangeable, barring a few instances such as when referring to gendered languages. After years of tinkering by academics, the words were separated into two categories, one for science and the other social. The American Medical Association (AMA) recommends narrowing the use of the term “sex” to matters involving science and biology, suggesting that “[t]he term sex should be used when reporting biological factors or for work involving cells and model organisms.” That freed up the word “gender” to be massaged into a new meaning for the purpose of legitimizing sexual identities outside of the sex binary. A further ideological twist was embedded into both “sex” and “gender,” powered by postmodernism, a philosophy that declared them to be “social constructs” — ideas created by you and me (and the patriarchy) to allegedly oppress individuals and which forced everyone to behave according to unjust social notions of binary sex characteristics, either masculine or feminine. The eventual adoption of the fictional concept of gender identity allowed “gender nonconforming” people to be liberated from the biological constraints of their physical bodies. Vioilà! A boy can become a girl, or so they tell us.
Reading further, the AMA confirms that “gender identity” is determined by feelings about one’s identity unmoored from reality, defining it as a “component of gender that describes an individual’s internal sense of their gender, which may not correspond to a person’s sex assigned at birth, presumed gender based on sex assigned at birth, or primary or secondary sex characteristics.” (italics added) The American Psychological Association (APA) declares gender identity to be “a person’s psychological sense of self in relation to their gender.” (italics added)
The scions of our medical establishment agree: gender identity represents how people feel about themselves and, with a little more digging, we learn that identities can change over time. The term attempts to capture the fluid and changing ideas inside a person’s head, even as a passing fancy, regarding one’s perceived sex. As a reminder, until recently, this type of gender confusion was correctly recognized as a debilitating psychological issue that required the compassionate intervention of a mental health professional.
“Gender identity” and its related ideologies fester in the universities and then ooze into K-12 classrooms through teacher training and as part of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) curriculum and “health education.” Non-binary genders and transgender identity are further normalized through social emotional learning (SEL) lessons that include Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) content embedded in anti-bullying messaging urging “inclusion,” “empathy,” and “compassion.” It is also standard fare in South Carolina’s healthcare worker training.
It is not possible to accept the notion of gender identity without also getting sucked into queer theory, an insidious socio-political philosophy that is the offspring of university feminist studies. Radical feminists were desperate to minimize differences and fully equalize men and women in every respect. This extended to one’s sense of sexual identity which was dismantled until we ended up where we are today. Although deeply intertwined with gender identity, queer theory is very explicit that it is not about being gay, straight or nonbinary. The actual objective, we are told, is the targeting of all social norms for disruption. As a leading queer theorist David Halperin described it, “[q]ueer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant.” Another critical theorist stated: “…Queer theory has its roots in disruption of, rather than assimilation to, norms of identity… [and] also found roots in a postmodernism that challenged the idea that truth could be final.”
Children aren’t deciding to have a “gender identity,” to be “gender fluid” or to “identify as transgender” on their own; adults teach them to embrace it. Despite that gender identity may represent a disconnect from reality, many otherwise sensible people allow themselves to be socially pressured to advance this dangerous absurdity. Making sure parents are informed about it is important but it doesn’t counter it, rather it normalizes it and allows a political agenda to infect schools and to victimize kids. By treating it as reality, adults send a message to vulnerable children that this is a legitimate and scientific explanation for distress they may experience, especially as they approach puberty, a time of increased psychological vulnerability.
The adults who treat gender identity as a real thing are also found nodding with approval as children are allowed to explore imaginary “gender fluid” categories, including identifying as something from nature such as plants, animals, or even inanimate objects. Should your child be somehow spared from gender confusion, the school system will not escape the consequences, since there will be pressure from activist groups for accommodations, including gender lessons in the curriculum, “gender-affirming” school counselors, referral to affirming medical providers, and demands that teachers and other students refer to the child by the wrong sex, possibly including neopronouns like xer, zir, and vis.
And in addition to the assault on young people’s psyches, a dangerous manifestation of gender ideology for children is the pathway to a lifetime of physically damaging drugs that potentially culminates in irreversible surgeries and amputations of healthy body parts, enriching the vast sex reassignment surgery market. Abortion provider Planned Parenthood saw an opportunity and, by 2020, claimed to be “the second largest provider of gender affirming hormone care.”
Showing tolerance for the belief in gender identity — that there is a fluid aspect to sex or that one may be of the opposite sex – was a precursor to Drag Queen Story Hour; to allowing males into private female spaces like bathrooms, dressing rooms, and locker rooms; and to depriving girls of scholarships after forcing them to compete against males. While Trump’s executive order may have thwarted this in some institutions, we are only four years away from the possibility of political policy whiplash once universities belch out more idealogues to vote accordingly.
Parental rights are directly threatened by “gender identity.” It came straight out of the universities and into our schools, but it’s in our homes now. While the public becomes more accustomed to using terms like “gender identity,” the stranglehold of the overall ideology continues to tighten. Several states have passed legislation to deal with parents reluctant to “affirm” the charade, potentially removing gender-confused minors from custody of parents who reject medicalization or social transition and offering haven across state lines for children seeking medical interventions through the courts.
It’s laudable that South Carolina won’t be hiding it from parents, but whenever well-meaning (and sometimes legally mandated) policies and legislation include the term “gender identity,” parents and legislators have forfeited the upper hand in protecting children. It demolishes the scientific reality of binary sex. It moves the debate securely into the talking points crafted by universities, national and local activist organizations, and others looking to further anti-science dogma about “gender fluidity” and “transgender” people. This is part of a well-documented socio-political agenda that mobilizes radical groups and their funders and comes from the United Nations and the World Health Organization.
Gender identity molds a child’s most basic biological concept of self, using it as a building block for radical sexual reengineering before plowing onward to dismantle all norms, beliefs and fundamental understanding of biology, truth, family, religion, and the rest. And universities are the source that feed it into schools and our healthcare system.
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