HARRISBURG – The Pennsylvania Department of Education has been quietly pushing guidelines promoting gender theory concepts in K-12 public schools, continuing a disturbing pattern of dishonesty and intrusion from the governor’s administration, said Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-33).
“Once again, Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration skirts the legislative process to implement a far-left agenda behind the backs of the 13 million Pennsylvanians,” Mastriano said. “These guidelines encourage school districts to proselytize radical ideas about gender identity to children in all grades, all under the guise of school safety.”
The department’s recommendations include gender diverse definitions that teachers and administrators should know, including preferred personal pronouns such as “ne, ve, ze and xe.” Other inclusive terms feature subjective and reimagined definitions of words long considered inextricably linked, such as biological sex and gender, Mastriano said.
“The department touts the left’s twisted vernacular as objective fact, while the governor’s Democratic allies demonize parents as too bigoted to teach their own children about these sensitive topics,” Mastriano said. “We can teach kids to be tolerant, accepting and kind to others – no matter what – without indoctrinating an entire generation.”
That’s why Mastriano said he stands behind several Senate-led bills to prioritize and empower parental involvement in our public education system, alert families about explicit material available in school libraries and limit formal conversations about gender identity and sexual orientation to middle and high school curriculum only.
He also introduced historic legislation earlier this year to establish a Parental Bill of Rights, which would give families statutory rights to direct the upbringing of their children free from bureaucratic overreach.
“Our schools need to focus on closing the learning gaps that worsened as a result of the governor’s ill-advised pandemic school closures, not forcing elementary-age children to engage in inappropriate conversations about gender identity,” Mastriano said. “It is up to parents, not the state, to engage with their children on these complex social issues and I will never stop fighting for their right to do so.”
CONTACT: Doug Zubeck