{"id":2330827,"date":"2024-08-26T06:52:01","date_gmt":"2024-08-26T10:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/its-jaw-dropping-how-much-sex-ed-has-changed-in-50-years\/"},"modified":"2024-08-26T07:00:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-26T11:00:40","slug":"its-jaw-dropping-how-much-sex-ed-has-changed-in-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/its-jaw-dropping-how-much-sex-ed-has-changed-in-50-years\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s Jaw-Dropping How Much Sex Ed Has Changed In 50 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fits-jaw-dropping-how-much-sex-ed-has-changed-in-50-years%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2330827&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The\u2062 text reflects on the evolution of sex education from simpler times to\u2062 the present complexities surrounding gender\u2064 and identity. The author reminisces about \u200ca biology teacher, Sister Edmund Marie, who\u200b taught students about plant anatomy in\u2062 a way that \u2062subtly \u200dconveyed lessons about human sexuality. Her engaging methods and beautiful illustrations fostered a natural understanding \u2064of biology&#8217;s purpose, contrasting sharply with contemporary educational tools like\u2063 the Genderbread Person. This\u2062 modern graphic is criticized for its lack of depth and \u200cclarity, \u200bas it presents \u200bgender identity as a fluid and socially constructed concept, rather than \u200crooted in biological reality. The author\u200b argues that such images promote \u2062ideological beliefs \u200dover factual understanding\u200b of human sexuality, reinforcing separation from biological identity. \u200cthe text \u2062advocates for\u200b a return to teaching grounded in the natural order, emphasizing\u200b the importance of relating to reality instead of abstract\u2064 concepts.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Sex education was simpler when I was a girl. There were only two sexes back then, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/detransitioners-medically-harmed-by-gender-affirming-care-speak-in-favor-of-tennessee-ban\/\" title=\"Detransitioners Medically Harmed By \u2018Gender-Affirming Care\u2019 Speak In Favor Of Tennessee Ban\">word gender<\/a> had not yet leaped from the declension of nouns to an identity.<\/p>\n<p>Sr. Edmund Marie, the biology teacher in the girls&rsquo; department of our parish high school, visited the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/betty-white-tv-icon-dead-at-99\/\" title=\"Betty White, TV Icon, Dead at 99\">grammar school<\/a> every year. She spent a day talking to us about plant biology and brought a black portfolio of oversized botanical posters. One was a standard line drawing for classroom use, the rudimentary kind that appears in countless textbooks.<\/p>\n<p>But she toted other more engaging ones: enlargements of antique cross-cut illustrations of plant anatomy. Delicately drawn and colored, these old prints testified to the beauty inherent in the function of nature&rsquo;s designs. That is why Edmund Marie went to the extra trouble of bringing them. She loved her subject and wanted to elicit a response that went deeper than bare information.<\/p>\n<p>Without the benefit of previous instruction from a learned source, we all understood &mdash; who knows how &mdash; that Sister&rsquo;s botany lessons were proxy for sex-ed. Long before she arrived, we all knew who the pistil people were in the room. And there was not a single doubt about which classmates had stamens.<\/p>\n<p>Brother James from the high school boys&rsquo; department would drop by to add a few notes to Sister&rsquo;s presentation of floral reproductive processes. A strapping Marist, he carried a distinct masculine gravitas &mdash; daunting, really &mdash; that dampened inclinations to snickering from any of the boys.<\/p>\n<p>With young eyes on those lovely old botanicals, we absorbed inklings of the splendor of purpose revealed in the facts of botanical construction. Moral lessons would come later. They could wait. Our first formal schooling in what nature had in mind by giving us <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/yes-doctors-are-performing-sex-change-surgeries-on-kids\/\" title=\"Yes, Doctors Are Performing Sex Change Surgeries On Kids\">sexed bodies<\/a> had a grandeur to it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>None of us could have said so at the time, but the eye has its own way of knowing &mdash; an organ of the brain, it conveys its own counsel. Our eyes testified to an ineradicable truth: human bodies share the same ordered framework, the same stimulus to create life that animates every bloom.<\/p>\n<p>Place any one of these prints &mdash; any botanical from the eras that produced them &mdash; next to today&rsquo;s teaching tool: the Genderbread Person. The descent in quality of mind and in the character of hand between then and now requires no words.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You have only to look.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The drawing, a crude cartoon, makes no impression on the mind&rsquo;s eye. It makes no demands on the imaginative faculties of the child viewer. It touches no soul.<\/p>\n<p>The Genderbread Person&rsquo;s sexual ambiguity grooms the child for lessons in the &ldquo;social construction&rdquo; of innate categories of male and female. A tacky graphic, it presents sexuality as a colorful blank slate on which youngsters can project whatever subjective imaginings are fed to them.<\/p>\n<p>We know that words matter and that they have meaning. So do images. They communicate differently, more obliquely perhaps, but no less forcefully. In truth, in our increasingly image-saturated culture, images have become the lingua franca with which words have to do combat.<\/p>\n<p>The Genderbread Person (and they\/them&rsquo;s fellow traveler, the Gender Unicorn) are vehicles for ideology. Information about human sexuality is irrelevant unless it serves gender dogmatism. Youngsters are coached to believe that they are free to choose an identity that separates them from their own bodies &mdash; from the oppression of biology.<\/p>\n<p>The Gender Unicorn diagram, a popular infographic and teaching aide, was created by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/transstudent.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Trans Student Educational Resources<\/a> (TSER), a sophisticated, well-funded organization led by trans-activists.<\/p>\n<p>TSER rolled out the Gender Unicorn in 2014. In 2018, Gary Yagel, a Presbyterian pastor, wrote a refutation: &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.forgingbonds.org\/blog\/detail\/the-gender-unicorn-the-worldview-that-is-shaping-your-child-or-grandchild\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Gender Unicorn:<\/a>&nbsp;The Worldview that is Shaping Our Children.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We must view those in the LBGTQ life through the lens of grace. Those who hold these views &hellip;&nbsp; need to be loved and valued as those made in God&rsquo;s image, much more that they need to hear our arguments against their worldview,&rdquo; the pastor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forgingbonds.org\/blog\/detail\/the-gender-unicorn-the-worldview-that-is-shaping-your-child-or-grandchild\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>However, the issue is not about that shape-shifting bracket called a worldview. It is about relationship to reality. It is about recognizing the corporeality that begins with certain irrefutable facts about such phenomena as chromosomes, skeletal structure, brain development, the function of the endocrine system, et al.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The argument is precisely what is needed. Appeals to religious belief are matters of&nbsp;<em>faith.&nbsp;<\/em>That means they&rsquo;re less effective as elements of argument with the faithless.<\/p>\n<p>To speak of the beauty of God&rsquo;s design falls on ears deaf to God-talk. Yet most Christian pulpits still repeat, in their own way, Yagel&rsquo;s instruction in &ldquo;how to be winsome, understanding, and compassionate towards those who don&rsquo;t hold the biblical worldview.&rdquo; Yagel&rsquo;s kindly, pious rebuttal-lite epitomizes the reigning homiletic stance even now, six years later.<\/p>\n<p>Every effective rebuttal aims to score the most points in an argument. It stands to defeat the opposition.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What well-meaning Christians need to remember is that winning comes first. Scrap sentiment; argue to prevail. Repudiate the fallacies and rhetorical strategies of the opposition. Leave understanding for later.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In the end, withheld sympathy is more compassionate than squandered forbearance.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Maureen Mullarkey is a painter and a critic. A member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), she writes on art and its intersection with religious and politics. Her essays have appeared in various publications, including The Nation, The Hudson Review, Arts Magazine, Art &amp; Antiques, and The American Arts Quarterly. She was a columnist for The New York Sun during its life as a print publication. Currently, she is a senior contributor to The Federalist, an irregular contributor to The Weekly Standard, and keeper of a weblog titled <a href=\"http:\/\/studiomatters.com\">Studio Matters<\/a>. She is represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC. Follow her on Twitter, @mmletters.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sex education was much more straightforward during my childhood. At that time, there were only two sexes, and the term &#8220;gender&#8221; had not yet evolved from a grammatical concept to an identity. Sister Edmund Marie, our biology teacher in the girls&#8217; section of our parish high school, would come to the grammar school annually. She dedicated a day to discussing plant biology and brought along a large black portfolio filled with oversized botanical posters. One of these was a standard line drawing commonly found in textbooks.<\/p>\n<p>However, she also carried more captivating illustrations: enlarged antique cross-sectional diagrams of plant anatomy. These beautifully detailed prints showcased the elegance inherent in nature&#8217;s designs, which is why Sister Edmund Marie made the effort to bring them; her passion for her subject aimed to inspire deeper engagement beyond mere facts.<\/p>\n<p>Without any formal instruction beforehand, we instinctively understood\u2014perhaps through intuition\u2014that Sister\u2019s botany lessons served as a stand-in for sex education. Long before her arrival, we were already aware of who among us represented pistils and stamens.<\/p>\n<p>Brother James from the boys\u2019 department would occasionally join Sister during her presentation on floral reproduction processes. A robust Marist brother with an imposing presence that discouraged any snickering from his male students.<\/p>\n<p>As we gazed at those exquisite botanical illustrations, we began to grasp glimpses of the beauty behind nature&#8217;s purpose revealed through its structure. Moral teachings could wait; our initial exposure to what nature intended by giving us sexual bodies felt grand.<\/p>\n<p>Though none of us could articulate it then, our eyes possessed their own understanding\u2014an organ linked to our brains that conveyed its own insights. Our observations confirmed an undeniable truth: human bodies share a similar organized framework and are driven by the same life-creating impulse found in every flower.<\/p>\n<p>If you place one of those historical prints alongside today\u2019s educational tool\u2014the Genderbread Person\u2014the decline in intellectual quality and craftsmanship between then and now speaks volumes without needing explanation; it is evident simply by looking.<\/p>\n<p>The Genderbread Person is merely a crude cartoon that fails to engage or stimulate children&#8217;s imaginations or touch their souls.<\/p>\n<p>This graphic presents sexual ambiguity as if sexuality were an empty canvas onto which children can project whatever subjective ideas they are given about gender roles constructed by society.<\/p>\n<p>We recognize that words hold significance\u2014and so do images\u2014they communicate differently but just as powerfully. In today&#8217;s image-saturated culture, visuals have become dominant over words in conveying messages effectively.<\/p>\n<p>The Genderbread Person (alongside its counterpart, the Gender Unicorn) serves ideological purposes rather than providing genuine information about human sexuality unless it aligns with gender dogma. Children are led to believe they can choose identities detached from their biological realities\u2014freed from what they perceive as oppressive physicality.<\/p>\n<p>The popular infographic known as the Gender Unicorn was created by Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER), an organization backed by trans activists with substantial funding.<\/p>\n<p>Introduced in 2014, this diagram prompted Gary Yagel\u2014a Presbyterian pastor\u2014to write &#8220;The Gender Unicorn: The Worldview That Is Shaping Our Children&#8221; four years later.<\/p>\n<p>Yagel emphasized viewing individuals within LGBTQ communities through grace rather than solely focusing on arguments against their beliefs: \u201cThose who hold these views need love and value as beings made in God\u2019s image,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p>However, this debate transcends mere worldviews\u2014it concerns how we relate to reality itself while acknowledging undeniable truths regarding chromosomes, skeletal structures, brain development processes within endocrine systems etc.<\/p>\n<p>Arguments grounded on factual evidence are essential since appeals based solely on religious beliefs may lack effectiveness when addressing those without faith.<\/p>\n<p>Discussing God&#8217;s design often falls upon deaf ears unresponsive towards spiritual discourse yet many Christian leaders continue echoing Yagel&#8217;s advice about being compassionate towards differing perspectives even six years later.<\/p>\n<p>Effective rebuttals aim primarily at winning arguments against opposition rather than fostering sentimentality; thus prioritizing victory over empathy becomes crucial when confronting fallacies presented by adversaries while reserving understanding for another time.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately withholding sympathy may prove more compassionate than misplacing tolerance unnecessarily.<\/p>\n<p>Maureen Mullarkey is both a painter and critic affiliated with AICA (International Association of Art Critics). Her writings explore intersections between art along political\/religious themes appearing across various publications including The Nation &amp; Arts Magazine among others while previously serving columns at The New York Sun until its print closure currently contributing regularly towards Federalist &amp; Weekly Standard platforms maintaining personal blog titled Studio Matters represented artistically via George Billis Gallery located NYC following @mmletters Twitter account for updates!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1222,"featured_media":2330828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Grande_salle_ENC_n1-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[39265,39266,39264],"class_list":["post-2330827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-educationalreform","tag-historicalchanges","tag-sexeducation"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Grande_salle_ENC_n1-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2330827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2330828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2330827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2330827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2330827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}