California educators are engaged in a calculated and strategic effort to subvert parents and recruit middle school students into LGBTQ+ clubs, Abigail Shrier warns.
"We are seeing coaching and deliberate confusion of our young kids when it comes to gender identity," Abigail Shrier, author of "Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters," told Fox News.
"Parents can never underestimate the level of deception and manipulation that activist teachers are willing to go to on issues of gender," she said after listening to leaked audio from a conference with California’s largest teachers union.
Shrier was sent audio files from a California Teachers Association (CTA) conference called "2021 LGBTQ+ Issues Conference, Beyond the Binary: Identity & Imagining Possibilities."
The sold-out conference in Palm Springs at the end of October provided best practices workshops that encouraged teachers to "have the courage to create a safe environment that fosters bravery to explore sexual orientation, gender identity and expression."
Listening to the audio from the event, Shrier found that teachers "among other things, were given instruction on the surveying of students and the deceptions of parents for encouraging their inclusion in LGBTQ+ clubs," she told Fox News.
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"These were sixth-graders we’re talking about surveilling," said Shrier. "We’re talking about targeting kids as young as about 11 years old for personal invitations to the LGBTQ club based on these children's internet searches."
Shrier said the most alarming thing she heard was teachers who admitted to reading children’s Google search histories for signs of interest in LGBTQ issues as a way to target kids for recruitment and actively encouraging other teachers to do the same.
"The fact that they were targeting children for these personal invitations to their club is very concerning, and that they were coaching other teachers in the surveillance of students for this purpose is really not something we usually see," said Shrier.
Attendees of the conference spoke in depth about ways to subvert parents, suggesting changing the name of the club from "Gay Straight Alliance," to another name like "Equity Club."
One teacher reportedly encouraged teachers not to keep a roster for the clubs, so if a parent ever asks if her child is a member the teacher can plead ignorance.
At the CTA conference, two teachers led a seminar about "How we run a ‘GSA’ (Gay-Straight Alliance club) in Conservative Communities," and discussed their strategies for how to "get the bodies in the door" and ensure kids keep coming back when "we saw our membership numbers start to decline."
"Much of the discussion was recruitment: ‘How do we get students to stay and discuss these things the way we want them to?’" Shrier recalled.
She said the teachers spoke openly about their motivations for creating this coalition of gender-obsessed students.
"They said, effectively, if you want to bring a new society into existence, it seems the way to start that is with children," said Shrier. "And so activist teachers are looking to recruit other people’s children in their revolution."
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"You have to ask yourself if teachers are willing to make these remarks in a broad address — a sold-out conference — what are they doing that we don't know about?"
Shrier said Americans have widely been naïve, with well-intentioned parents supporting clubs that promote safe spaces.
"Unfortunately, these spaces have been exploited by activists, teachers who have done so much as direct students not to repeat anything that is said in that club," she said.
"Parents really need to tell their middle school students or high school students, ‘No teacher should ever tell you to keep a secret from your parents.’"
Following Shrier's reporting on the conference Thursday, the Spreckels Union School District, the district where two of the conference participants work, sent out an email with a list of new guidelines around student clubs.
"The District has taken immediate steps to address several of the concerns raised in the article," the email states. It goes on to say clubs must submit an outline of all activities and materials before meeting, student sign-in sheets will be maintained and parent/guardian permission will be required for club participation.
The list of new practices concluded with, "Teachers are prohibited from monitoring students’ online activity for any non-academic purposes."
Teny Sahakian is an Associate Producer/Writer for Fox News. Follow Teny Sahakian on Twitter at @tenysahakian. If you've got a tip, you can email Teny at Teny.Sahakian@fox.com
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