"I and others here are old enough to look back on the events of the 60's and 70's, and then listen to reports of control oriented teachers, principals and school boards and ask "Hey, didn't we already work through that in the 60's?" But if it's not control squabbles over hair length or reading the wrong book, it's re-writing the curriculum to hide the events of the past or forbid people from discussing anything but binary genders."
Yup, I understand, it's like the Catholic Church persecuting teachings about the Earth turning around the sun and not vice versa. I always ask myself how shaky or indefensible your own set of beliefs and rules must be that you fear anything that questions them? Children at school should be confronted with a diversity of views and philosophies: look around you, watch, learn, understand, digest, make up your own mind. We don't need more people raised in silos cordoned off from each other, we need less. Willful ignorance is not an educational concept. And history teaches us that it never works in the long run in any case.
Since the gender stuff seems too rile everyone:
I'm no gender studies specialist, but our knowledge of the statistical spread between a "complete woman" and a "complete man" is today more in depth and sophisticated than is was 50 years ago. Not that there weren't always people who were somewhat and somewhere in between - if you were born in the 50ies or 60ies as an infant with less than clear primary and secondary sex organs (it happens), they would simply operate you into a woman because it was surgical easier than the other way around and in your then assumed best interest - you weren't asked (nor told in the aftermath) and more often than not your parents weren't really either on an informed basis. Maybe, just maybe there is an alternative to that.
And I'm not ruling out that gender fluidity might be a passing trend and overplayed currently; if that is the case then like any mistaken biological or psychological theory it will be invalidated over time. We didn't need to forbid teaching that mice evolved from wet straw (--> spontaneous generation) or that there is a "serial killer chromosome" (there can be a genetic disposition towards violence and lack of emotional control, but thankfully the vast majority of people who have that do not turn into serial murderers), we just eventually realized that these things didn't exist and dropped them from any sane curriculum.
Things always play out in the long run. In the meantime, you can take an inquisitive look at them and discuss. It's one thing that differentiates us from animals.
