During a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) and Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) discussed claims about public school indoctrinating students into the LGBTQ+ community.
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00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are only two sexes, male and female. Sex is a biological classification, not a personal choice. A boy is a boy, and a girl is a girl. For all of history, until recent years, neither of these statements have been controversial. For all of history, both have been considered simply common sense.
00:20Unfortunately, in recent years, too many schools have begun teaching a radical view of gender. They decided, instead of focusing on success creation through proficiency in reading, writing, math, and attendance of our American culture, they instead prioritized the teaching of multiple genders.
00:35That one gender is determined by his or her feelings, and it may frequently flow from one to the other. Examples throughout our country.
00:44Guidance from the Los Angeles Unified School District affirms students may be agender, genderqueer, genderfluid, two-spirit, gender-bigender, pangender, gender-nonconforming, and gender-variant.
00:58The Chicago Public Schools asserts that preferred gender pronouns may include common words such as Z.
01:05Seattle Public Schools claims students may proceed from living and identifying as one gender to living and identifying as another.
01:13This leftist ideology that comes straight out of the Marxist playbook can be summarized in two words, absolutely nuts.
01:22What's worse is that many schools are encouraging other people's children to gender transition while hiding it from their parents.
01:30Parents Defending Education has identified 1,200 districts serving 12 million students that have policies allowing or requiring school staff to hide from parents the child's gender transition.
01:41It's time to put a stop to this nonsense. Young children should be honored and protected, not told that something's wrong with their body or that they should mutilate themselves in order to look like another gender.
01:52The most loving thing we can do for them is to tell them the truth. There are two sexes. They are not interchangeable, and these facts are rooted in biological reality.
02:02President Trump's January 20 executive order got this right, and I quote,
02:07Ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex having increasingly used legal and socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women,
02:22from women's domestic abuse shelters to women's workplace showers. This is wrong.
02:29Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attacks women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being.
02:39The erasure of sex in language and policy has a coercive impact not just on women but the ability of the entire American system.
02:47Basing federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in the government itself, unquote.
02:56President Trump is exactly right. Every school should be teaching students the truth about gender.
03:01Federal dollars should never fund woke activists who want to indoctrinate vulnerable children.
03:07With federal dollars comes responsibility. The taxpayer should never be funding the teaching that denied the biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female.
03:18H.R. 2617, the Say No to Indoctrination Act, is very simple. It effectively codifies the January 20 Trump executive order on gender as it pertains to K-12.
03:29The bill amends the elementary and secondary educational act to say that no funds under that law may be used to teach or advance radical gender ideology.
03:39The ANS simply makes a slight technical adjustment. Radical ideologues should never get taxpayer money to tell vulnerable children they are born in the wrong body.
03:49Neither should schools secretly helping students to transition behind the parents' back.
03:54This bill is a simple step to restore sanity and common sense to our educational system, and radical gender activists have no place in these schools, in our schools.
04:05Instead, vulnerable children should be protected, honored, and told the truth.
04:09I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the ANS and the underlying bill, and I yield back.
04:15I thank the gentlemen. Are there any members who wish to be recognized for further discussion on the amendment and the nature of the substitute?
04:23I recognize the gentleman from California, Representative Takano.
04:32Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word and rise in opposition to the bill.
04:38You're recognized.
04:40Mr. Chairman, public school did not make me gay. God made me gay.
04:48Public school made me a teacher and a congressman.
04:52Public school opened my eyes to the possibilities for my future, and it gave me access to role models.
04:58It gave me a chance to learn and to find my passion and to thrive.
05:02Even though I grew up in a time when people believed that being gay was like a disease, that being exposed to it made you gay too, I was in high school when the Briggs Initiative debates consumed California.
05:18The Briggs Initiative was a ballot proposition that would have banned gay and lesbian people or anyone who supported gay and lesbian people from teaching in public schools.
05:27It was believed at the time that gay teachers were a risk to students, which is the same principle that my colleagues are employing here today.
05:39My colleagues are under the impression that being gay or being transgender is a social contagion, something that can be caught or spread through too many inclusive books or a rainbow flag hanging in the classroom.
05:53They warned that a learning environment which encourages a child to be themselves is dangerous.
06:00Now, nothing a teacher ever said to me would have made me gay.
06:05It doesn't work that way.
06:07There is no ideology that is turning kids transgender.
06:11Kids are simply born who they are.
06:15And it is our job as educators to accept, include, and support them as they grow up as who they are.
06:23That is not ideology.
06:25That's simple human decency.
06:27Let me say that again.
06:29That is not ideology.
06:31That is simple human decency.
06:34This bill isn't going to mean that transgender people aren't a part of our schools and communities.
06:40They are and they always have been.
06:43And what it will mean is that we're going to waste time and energy targeting an already vulnerable population of students
06:49and ensuring that they won't be able to find support or representation in the place where they go to learn every day.
06:56Bills like these have immediate consequences.
06:59In a recent survey, nearly 70% of LGBTQIA plus students surveyed said that they felt unsafe in their learning environment.
07:09Last year, it was found that anti-trans state laws increased suicide attempts among transgender youth by as much as 72%.
07:18The Trevor Project, which runs the largest suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQI plus youth in the country, has reported a 700% increase in calls from young people in just the last five months.
07:35A 700% increase in calls from young people in just the last five months.
07:44I wonder why that is.
07:46I am just heart sick of having to come up here and use suicidal rates for children to try and convince my colleagues of how wrong.
07:59How wrong-headed it is to use the power of the federal government to marginalize one small group of people.
08:08Extremely vulnerable people.
08:09People we should be protecting.
08:11They should not be being stigmatized.
08:14These are the kids that are most vulnerable to violence and harassment at school.
08:22Transgender people are a beautiful part of our society.
08:25They always have been and always will be.
08:28They do not need to justify their existence.
08:31And they have the same right as any other student to a free, fair, and equal education.
08:39Now, there are real pressing issues in K-12 schools right now.
08:47Billions of dollars in ESSER funds are being canceled.
08:51Over $65 million in teacher training grants have been cut off.
08:56And there's already a teacher shortage and severe residual effects of pandemic learning loss.
09:03And this is what my colleagues on the other side are choosing to spend precious committee time on.
09:10All this bill does is make school feel less safe for children.
09:14And when you censor material about a minority group because it does not align with your ideology, it sets a dangerous precedent.
09:22It does not take long before politicians' ideologies begin to creep further and further into our children's freedom to learn.
09:30I strongly oppose this bill and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
09:35I ask the question, have you no decency?
09:39And I yield back.
09:42Thank the gentlemen.
09:43Now I recognize Representative Miller from Illinois.