Townhall has covered how many school districts across the nation have tried to implement policies that allow children who believe they are “transgender” to transition behind their parents’ backs. And, some school districts have implemented LGBTQ+ clubs for children as young as elementary school.
While some students identify as "transgender," there are some who believe they are "non-binary," which means that they do not "identify" with being a man or a woman. In many cases, these individuals go by "they/them" pronouns instead of "she" or "he."
According to a report from Fox News, the number of students in Oregon identifying as “non-binary” increased for the fourth year in a row, and the latest figures show an almost 57 percent increase from the previous year.
Reportedly, more than 2,770 K-12 students in the state identified as “non-binary” during the 2022-2023 academic year. This is about .5 percent of the entire student population, and a 56.7 percent increase from the year before.
Fox pointed out that the cohort had a higher dropout rate “than males or females in the 2021-2022 school year.”
Most “non-binary” students were in high school. But, many children, some as young as kindergarten, indicated that they identified as “non-binary” (via Fox News):
Nonbinary and transgender populations tend to skew young. Nationally, about 3% of young adults ages 18-29 identify as nonbinary, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey. Another 2% identified as transgender.
The Pew survey did not include minors, but a 2017 survey of Oregon teens found 4.8% of eighth graders and 5.5% of 11th graders identified as nonbinary.
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Some skeptics and detransitioned youth have blamed a nationwide spike in children identifying as a gender different than their biological sex on "social contagion" or the increase of gender ideology in schools.
"In Oregon we now have a culture of educating our children what to think, not how to think," Matt Bunch, a businessman running in the Republican primary in Oregon House District 51, told Fox News. "Our state needs to focus more on setting the nearly 60% of students who can't read at grade level up for success than discussing topics that should be left up to parents."
Late last month. Townhall reported how a new survey found that voters “of all political stripes” agree that America’s public schools are not teaching students the responsibilities of being a good citizen. And, almost half of all respondents indicated that lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity are receiving too much attention in schools.
And, Parental Rights organization Parents Defending Education did an investigation that uncovered that Gender and Sexualities Alliance (GSA) clubs are emerging at schools across the country starting as early as pre-school.
"These new GSA clubs are about ideology and social and political activism. They increasingly target younger students in schools because they are a captive audience away from their parents and caregivers. Students are often instructed to keep secrets -- it's a major child safeguarding risk and has no place in schools,” Erika Sanzi, director of outreach at PDE, told Townhall.
