‘It is Not Controversial for Four-Year-Old Boys to Wear Dresses to School’ Teachers Union Affirms

Teachers’ unions are the single most important player sabotaging public education. To union bosses and operatives, students not reading or doing math at the grade level is no big deal. But “noises” from the community and local parents because their political agenda to indoctrinate and divide has gone too far must be dealt with immediately.

Recently, the Cupertino Education Association (CEA), a local chapter of the uber-progressive California Teachers Association in the Cupertino Union School District (CUSD), has concocted a campaign to rally “members and community allies” to “stand up for LGBTQ teacher rights.” What is the deal?

At Dilworth Elementary School in the school district, a newly hired, self-identified “openly trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming” teacher activist stirs up a big controversy among parents because said teacher whose pronouns change daily has been caught telling his transitional kindergarten students “boys can wear dresses.” Last month, the teacher was put on administrative leave, pending district investigation, after parents voiced concerns over his use of TK classrooms to promote gender inclusive materials. Among many appalling statements the teacher-activist shared, there was a call for teaching “the truth,” which is that “it could be in the district’s compelling interest to provide elementary school students with the knowledge that boys can wear dresses.”

Insisting that “student and teacher identity is not a controversial subject,” CEA wants its supporters to lobby the CUSD Board to reinstate and protect the transgender teacher. Moreover, the union is campaigning to stop the board from adopting Board Policy 6144 at its upcoming board meeting. A common policy guardrail on age-appropriate instruction related to controversial issues, Board Policy 6144 and its accompanying administrative regulation, have been approved by a supermajority of public-school districts in California. The policy doesn’t prohibit any educator from teaching a controversial issue, provided that:

1. The topic is age appropriate.
2. Instruction is presented in a balanced manner without bias and with adequate factual information.
3. The teacher does not advocate his/her person opinion or viewpoint. 
4. Students retain the right to freely express an opinion on the topic.
5. The subject matter observes state and federal law.

But the local union is against this common-sense policy. CEA’s “pro-LGBTQ” initiative has received support from its woke co-conspirators, such as the United Teachers of Santa Clara, and the Oak Grove Educators Association. Legacy media rushes to help, with the San Francisco Chronicle running a report that downplays the issue as just: “a teacher used pronouns.” 

Regardless of how strongly the unions, the self-anointed intelligentsia and the cultural elites feel about affirming gender identity, parents and concerned citizens don’t simply accept the narrative as a priori or a universally held truth. And even if the grown ups wholeheartedly stand with the LGBTQ community, they may not want sensitive and private matters of sexual orientation and gender expression to become classroom discussion topics for kids as young as four years old. 

Drama from the Cupertino Union School District reflects how far to the left of the public and their members the teachers’ unions have moved. According to a February 2024 Pew Research survey, 62% of elementary school teachers did not wish for their students to learn about gender identity in school. A 2017 survey by Education Week found that 43% of teachers described themselves as politically moderate, 29% as liberal, and 27% as conservative. Yet, during the 2024 election cycle, teachers’ unions poured nearly half a million dollars into political races, with 98.43% going to Democratic candidates. 

Year round, the California Teachers Association peddles racism and fringe transgenderism with initiatives endorsing “Black Lives Matter” and advocating for LGBTQ+ inclusive teaching. Smearing those who disagree as “extremists,” CTA doubles down on indoctrination with power moves to recall independent school board trustees and insert its puppets. The California Federation of Teachers (CFT) refuses to fall behind on the journey to “reimagine” public education for the radical and fringe at the expense of learning, innocence and societal cohesion. For instance, in June 2023, CFT passed the Pride Resolution, portraying attempts to curate school library books as “anti-LGBTQIA+.” 

For these unions and their local chapters, it is more important to showcase an unwavering commitment to controversial ideologies than to help kids learn. The painful reality that only 35% of California’s students are proficient in math does not seem to bother the ideologues a bit, as long as teachers can tell their four-year-old students to wear dresses to school.