(The Center Square) – Despite a Trump administration executive order defunding gender ideology in public education, Los Angeles Unified School District materials instruct elementary children how to be transgender activists, warn parents that failing to support “gender-affirming care” could endanger their children, and the district allows students to socially transition at school without parental notification, an investigation by The Center Square found.
Lance Christensen, vice president of the California Policy Center who in the most recent election challenged California State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, said the lesson plans are “basically trying to groom our kids.”
“This is an intentional, subversive curriculum to divide children from their parents and make them wards of the state,” he said in an interview with The Center Square. “Gender ideology wants to mutilate, sterilize, and emasculate our young children.”
A review of LAUSD’s resources, materials, and policies shows wide departures from historical American norms, Christensen said, and has failed to keep up with new parental opt-out requirements as rules on by the U.S. Supreme Court in Mahmoud v. Taylor. The ruling allows parents to opt-out of content for religious reasons, and could cost the struggling school district its federal funding if the Trump administration enforces its executive order withholding funding for schools that promote “radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling.”
LAUSD redirected media inquiries on the curriculum, policies, and Supreme Court ruling to the California Department of Education. CDE did not answer questions on materials and policies as they relate to the Trump administration’s executive orders, but referred to its guidance on the latest Supreme Court ruling.
This CDE guidance says, “In light of the unique circumstances presented locally each LEA [local education agency] should determine what policies or materials require a Mahmoud notice and opt out process, and how to implement such a process.
Only 27% of LAUSD’s more than 400,000 students meet basic grade-level science standards, with 37% meeting math standards, and 45% meeting reading standards. LAUSD projects a $1.3 billion annual deficit by 2028. Since the 2012-2013 school year, student enrollment is down 29%, staffing is up 21%, and per-student spending is up 229%.
Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor the U.S. Department of Education responded to requests for comment.
Policies, curriculum for young students
Under the LAUSD policy, children can socially transition their genders at school without parental notification. They are also able to use school facilities such as locker rooms and restrooms, and participate in school sports consistent with their expressed gender identity.
Elementary sex education curricula listed by LAUSD include “sex assigned at birth, gender, and sexual identity” and “gender identity, gender expression, and transgender” as lesson components for “puberty” in the upper elementary Positive Prevention Plus curriculum. This timing is consistent with state standards that teach gender as part of fifth grade health classes, but gender ideology content outside of sex education can start much earlier and be more expansive.
At LAUSD, August is “Inclusive Back to School.” As part of this effort, LAUSD links to a wide range of resources, from “Welcoming Schools: Defining LGBTQ Words For Elementary Students,” to “Talking Race to Young Children.” LAUSD also provides supplementary lessons for the initiative, including “Names and Pronouns,” which emphasizes “importance of respective affirmed names and pronouns,” and “Gender Roles,” which includes a slide from an organization called Gender Spectrum in which a male and a female student escape their respective gender boxes.
Content from Gender Spectrum is heavily linked across LAUSD resources and includes a wide range of gender-related content.
Gender Spectrum’s “Changing bodies to match gender identity” handout at a page linked to by LAUSD warns parents of possible suicide for not providing puberty blocking hormones for their children, describing puberty for transgender children as “physical betrayal.”
“Sometimes when a young child is consistent and persistent in their transgender identity, they will experience great dread and anxiety as puberty approaches,” wrote Gender Spectrum. “Parents of pre-pubertal transgender children are aware of this oncoming physical betrayal.”
“Rightfully so, many parents are worried their child may experience suicidal feelings if forced to experience the pubertal changes not in alignment with their identity,” continued Gender Spectrum. “However, parents are often in the dark about the consequences of acting to delay puberty or to offer cross hormones, but there is information available to help you make these decisions with your child.”
Another handout from Gender Spectrum for parents, called “Some Common Myths About Gender,” says that children can identify as transgender from an early age.
“According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, ‘By age four, most children have a stable sense of their gender identity,’” wrote Gender Spectrum. “We don’t question when cisgender children know their gender at a young age, so why do we question when transgender or nonbinary children know their gender at the same age?”
That same handout also described what it said was the importance of “gender affirmation” to “gender congruence.”
“We all want to experience gender congruence – the feeling of harmony in the three dimensions (body, identity and social aspects) of our gender,” wrote Gender Spectrum. “Finding congruence is an ongoing process that evolves as we continue to grow and gain insight into ourselves and is most often found through exploration. Any way we can help a child to find congruence is important and essential to their health and well-being.”
LAUSD’s “Elementary School LGBTQ+ Book List & Lesson Plan” website details what some of this ideology means in practice. In 2021, LAUSD provided these “welcoming and affirming books to every elementary school in Los Angeles Unified School District.”
In “Julian is a Mermaid,” recommended for ages four to eight, a boy dresses up “just like the ladies,” and is affirmed as a “mermaid” by his grandmother. In the lesson plan posted by LAUSD for the book, suggested for grades kindergarten through third grade, the lesson goal is to “help students understand that gender is a spectrum and that we cannot know how someone identifies unless they share that with us or unless the author lets us know how the character identifies.”
The lesson plan also encourages children to express themselves at school in ways that would not be accepted at home.
“If you have students who say that they have family members who say that boys can’t be mermaids (or don’t wear dresses), let your students know that home and school can be different,” says the lesson plan. “One response can be, “Home and school can be different. Here at [NAME OF SCHOOL], students can wear what makes them happy.’”
In “I am Jazz,” listed for four to eight year olds, a transgender child who knew they were transgender “from the age of two” goes to the doctor and shares the joy of receiving gender-affirming care.
“I have a girl brain but a boy body. This is called transgender. I was born this way!” says the character Jazz, who shares discomfort with being a boy. “Then one amazing day, everything changed. Mom and dad took me to meet a new doctor who asked me lots and lots of questions. Afterward, the doctor spoke to my parents and I heard the word ‘transgender’ for the very first time.
“Being Jazz caused some other people to be confused too, like the teachers at school,” continues Jazz. “At the beginning of the year they wanted me to use the boys’ bathroom, and play on the boys’ team in gym class, but that didn’t feel normal to me at all. I was so happy when the teachers changed their minds.”
The LAUSD-linked lesson plan for the book instructs teachers to “clarify the meaning of the word transgender” and to “define the word transgender as: when your gender identity (how you feel) is different than what doctors/midwives assigned to you when you were born (girl/boy, she/he pronouns or sex assigned at birth).”
In “When Aidan Became a Brother,” listed for four to eight year olds, a girl realizes she is a boy, becoming “Aiden.” After Aiden’s mother becomes pregnant, Aiden seeks to secure gender-neutral clothes, a gender-neutral room and help select a gender-neutral name for the coming child.
In the LAUSD-linked lesson plan, teachers are instructed to ask: “What does identity mean to students after reading? After reading When Aidan Became a Brother, what does it mean to you to ‘be yourself’? Why? How might your understanding of ‘being yourself’ have changed after reading When Aidan Became a Brother?”
The lesson goes on, instructing students to conduct “additional research on transgender issues that are happening in schools and in the government today,” and instructs teachers to ask how “can students get involved with helping advocacy groups with transgender children and supporting and fighting for their rights?” The lesson instructs children to “brainstorm different ways that they can enact immediate change in their classroom, in their school, and in their community.”
The lesson also instructs teachers to encourage “students to research other books with transgender characters” and asks, “What did they find from their search? … What do students think could be done in their schools or the publishing industry to encourage more books with transgender characters? Have students brainstorm different ways to advocate for more books with transgender characters, through a letter, petition, or other ways to get involved in the community and their library.”
A fifth grade handout in the 3Rs curriculum also offered by LAUSD for elementary school students instructs teachers to cut out links to “puberty” videos on a website called AMAZE. LAUSD also links to AMAZE on other LGBTQ+ pages and resources.
In one puberty video, “Accessing Sexual Care for Minors,” AMAZE explains how children can get “sexual healthcare without a parent’s consent,” and depicts a child sneaking past parents to go to see a doctor. The video instructs children what questions to ask to guarantee confidentiality from parents.
Just one click away is the “gender identity” tag, which includes seven videos on topics ranging from gender identity to transgenderism.
Among those is “What Are Pronouns,” in which characters in a diner peruse a pronoun menu that includes Hir, Xie, Zhe, Yo, Zee, and Ey.
One video, “Range of Gender Identities,” says “gender exists on a spectrum’ and that “When you’re born, your sex is assigned in a medical way, but the sex listed on your birth certificate may not match your gender identity.” It goes on to explain the terms “nonbinary,” “genderqueer,” and “genderfluid.”
Opt-outs amid gender ideology’s spread to the broader curriculum
California’s FAIR Education Act only requires that, beyond sexual education, history and social science lesson content be LGBTQ+-inclusive, but other documents and guidance point toward a broader expansion.
Anther piece of Gender Spectrum material on the web page linked by LAUSD, called “Framework for Gender Inclusive Schools,” instructs teachers and administrators on how to create a more gender-inclusive school. Suggestions include, “Utilizing the arts to explore gender,” “Using advisory programs or classroom meetings to surface gender-related themes,” “Assigning open-ended projects that include gender-related topics, readings, or news,” “Arranging for transgender or other gender nonconforming individuals to present work in classrooms, and “Exploring current curriculum areas for natural entry points for inserting gender issues or topics.”
According to Christensen, the expansion of gender ideology beyond sexual education has made it nearly impossible for parents to stay on top of and monitor school lessons for objectionable content, beyond the expected notification and opt-outs for sexual education.
“Parents don’t know what’s going on in the classroom most of the time,” said Christensen “I don’t have time to spend reviewing eight hours of material every day for my four kids.”
Opt-outs in California have generally been governed by the California Healthy Youth Act. The ACLU offered earlier guidance that said parents cannot opt their children only out of LGBTQ+ lessons in sexual education, and must choose to either allow their children to take the course in full or opt-out entirely. The opt-out provisions do not apply when LGBTQ+ content is included in other, non-sexual health education curriculums.
“Schools may not facilitate selective opt-out of the LGBTQ-related content in sexual health education,” as allowing such would “violate the non-discrimination provisions of the Education Code,“ wrote the ACLU. “Schools must therefore allow parents/guardians to opt their students out of this instruction in its entirety.”
The ACLU’s notice on CHYA also said, “General instruction or programming relating to LGBTQ people and issues is not subject to parental opt-out,” other than “instruction in health” that “conflicts with the religious training and beliefs of a parent or guardian of a pupil.”
“Beyond the two narrow, well-defined circumstances described above, parents do not have a right to opt their students out of public school programming or instruction in California,” concluded the ACLU at the time.
But that changed after June 27, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Mahmoud v. Taylor. The case centered on a school district’s refusal to allow parents to opt-out of LGBTQ+ storybooks for elementary school students. The court held that parents have a right to opt out of any lessons or content that pose “‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill.”
The school district in question maintained a no-opt-out policy for the storybooks, saying it “could not accommodate the growing number of opt out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment.”
In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested schools should “cabin” LGBTQ+ content to more easily facilitate opt-outs.
“Most straightforwardly, rather than attempt to ‘weave the storybooks seamlessly into ELA [English Language Arts] lessons,’ the Board could cabin its sexual- and gender-identity instruction to specific units,” wrote Thomas.
ACLU Southern California issued new guidance conceding the new parental right to opt-outs, while advocating against the “silo-ing” of LGBTQ+ content.
“Schools should not segregate LGBTQ+-related content in an effort to make opt-outs administratively easier,” wrote the ACLU. “Silo-ing this information so it is no longer part of ongoing discussion across the whole curriculum (in history, reading, literature, art, etc.) detracts from the benefits of inclusive education, and does not necessarily serve the intended goal of accommodating religious objections, since the logic of Mahmoud also would permit opting out of other content that parents believe ‘substantially interferes with the religious development’ of their children.”
In August, LAUSD issued updated guidance expanding some opt-out provisions, though only for English class, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
“If a Parent who, based on religious beliefs, requests in writing to opt their child out of participation in English Language Arts storybooks with LGBTQ+ themes, this request should be honored for the school year in which it was submitted,” wrote LAUSD, leaving its policy towards other classes and materials up in the air.
According to religious liberties lawyer Kayla Toney, who works at pro-bono legal nonprofit First Liberty, Mahmoud v. Taylor means opt-outs apply to broader content beyond ELA and sexual education.
“Whether it’s a passing reference, or a certain topic that might come up in history class or science class, as long as the objection is sincere and based on their religious beliefs schools need to honor that, and they can find ways to make that workable,” Toney said in an interview with The Center Square. “In some circumstances that might mean changing the curriculum – for example, if a large number of families opt out, and the school determines the curriculum they’ve chosen is not serving the needs of the community, that’s certainly an option.”
“The parents here did not set out to change their curriculum – they simply wanted their religious rights to be respected, and the Supreme Court said that’s absolutely required,” continued Toney.
Toney pointed to her case with First Liberty against another Southern California school district in which she secured a preliminary injunction blocking a gender lesson for elementary school students, hinted at future federal action and encouraged parents to seek legal assistance if school districts do not comply with Mahmoud v. Taylor.
“Just today, our clients Jenny and her son Shae, who is twelve years old, testified at the president’s Religious Liberty Commission, and it was really encouraging for them to be able to share their story and share the focus the government has on these issues,” said Toney. “It shouldn’t take follow-on lawsuits to make [religious] rights a reality but it probably will in certain places across the country.”
LAUSD’s possible Title IX and FERPA violations
Beyond the curriculum, Christensen says that LAUSD policy of not notifying parents of their children’s at-school gender transition is in violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which requires that parents have access to student records. The Trump administration is currently investigating California for its state law, AB 1955, banning the disclosure of children’s’ gender identities to their parents.
Christensen says LAUSD’s policy of allowing transgender athletes to participate in sports and use facilities of the opposite sex also violates Title IX, which in part guarantees females’ rights to equal opportunity in athletics and education. The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit against California’s K-12 transgender athlete policy.
In addition to actions on FERPA and Title IX, the Trump administration also issued two executive orders pertaining to federal funding of gender ideology and “radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling.” The latter order, citing FERPA and Title IX, directs the federal government to create a plan for “eliminating Federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology” and “protecting parental rights, pursuant to FERPA.”
LAUSD says it gets about 10% of its funding from the federal government, though that number has fluctuated over the years. For the 2025-2026 fiscal year, $844 million of LAUSD’s $9.39 billion in revenue came from the federal government. Given that LAUSD faces a $1.3 billion deficit by fiscal year 2028, any reductions in federal funding could have a major impact on the school district, which is the nation’s second largest.
“The Trump administration has demonstrated they’re willing to withhold funds for specific programs or projects that don’t align with federal law,” Christensen said.
Liabilities from parents
Christensen said school districts face even greater liability from parents of children who transitioned because of the LAUSD curriculum.
“We’re looking at school districts that are losing billions of dollars because they’re being sued when teachers have molested children. How’s it going to be any different in ten, twenty years when we look back and say the same thing – these kids that were convinced they were a different gender, a different sex, they didn’t belong in their body, were told to mutilate or sterilize themselves?” said Christensen. “What’s going to be the liability for school districts at that point in time? I think it’s going to be as big if not bigger.”
Christensen pointed to a growing body of scientific research opposing the supposed efficacy of hormone therapy and gender affirming surgery and the high rates of dissipation of gender dysphoria among children who do not go through medical transitioning.
“What has been proven is those kids that hold off and don’t engage in trying to change their gender largely desist by the time they become adults,” said Christensen. “Those that go through the process have a significantly higher percentage of suicides after they go through the process.”
A 2008 peer-reviewed data study found only 2.5% to 20% of gender dysphoria in adolescence and young adulthood results in permanent transgenderism. A 2021 study found similar results, with 89% of children referred to gender dysphoria clinics desisting from gender dysphoria by adulthood.
Meanwhile, a 2021 California study found that suicide rates double for transgender individuals who receive male-to-female surgeries.
In California, the taxpayer-funded Medi-Cal healthcare system covers “gender-affirming care,” including “hormone therapy” and a “variety of surgical procedures that bring primary and secondary gender characteristics into conformity with the individual’s identified gender.”
California currently requires that parents must consent to gender affirming care for children under 18. However, some children have been able to avoid parental consent to be medically transitioned, as happened with Yaeli Martinez, who committed suicide in 2019 at the age of 19.
Abigail Martinez, Yaeli’s mother and a Salvadoran, Christian immigrant, says Yaeli was transitioned by school staff at Arcadia Unified School District, which borders LAUSD and has similar gender policies and materials, after Martinez sought help from the school in treating her daughter’s depression.
In a Supreme Court amicus brief, Toney outlined how she said the school urged Yaeli to “accuse her mother of abuse at the police station, which would allow the state to pay for Yaeli’s gender transition without parental consent.”
Martinez lost custody of Yaeli, whom a judge allowed to receive male hormones. Yaeli eventually reached out to Martinez for food, and told her mother “she knew she would never become a boy, and that the cross-sex hormone treatments were causing severe pain in her bones.
After this reconciliation, Martinez was absolved of abuse claims, but two months later, Yaeli took her own life by lying down in front of an oncoming train.
“This is a life that was lost. Not just my daughter, I hear many kids, after treatment they commit suicide because that’s not what they need,” said Martinez in an interview with The Center Square. “They need to stop: all the doctors, the surgeons, and everyone who is involved must stop with this ideology.”
