The Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) project, Learning for Justice, promoted an explicit sex education book for elementary school students in a guide to teachers.
The guide was published by Learning for Justice, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and is titled “Best Practices for Serving LGBTQ Students.” The guide discusses pronouns, sex education, and policies surrounding cross-sex access to sports and bathrooms.
It also promotes a number of books, including one intended for children and written by Cory Silverberg, the founder of a “beginner’s sex store” and a leader in the leftist sex education movement.
Under the section titled “The LGBTQ Library,” the SPLC’s Learning for Justice promotes Silverberg’s book, titled “Sex is a Funny Word,” for elementary school students.
The guide described Silverberg’s book as “less controversial than the title suggests” before praising it as “an essential resource about bodies, gender and sexuality for young children.” Though the guide presents the book as a tame educational resource, it features explicit content not suitable for children.
A Twitter user purchased the book and proceeded to document the mature content featured between the covers. One section of the book is titled “touching yourself.” It even includes an illustration of a girl in a bathtub.
“Sex is a Funny Word” is just one of the many books promoted by the guide for teachers. The guide also promotes other books for young children, including “I am Jazz,” a story that promotes child transgenderism, and a “Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity.”
Additionally, the guide strives to embed a number of different leftist practices and beliefs in schools. For example, the Learning for Justice guide tells educators that the claim “students are too young to know their gender identity or sexual orientation” is a “myth” and instead argues that “children often know their gender as early as 2 or 3 years old.”
It also advocates for men to be able to compete against women in school sports and use both women’s bathrooms and locker rooms. Teachers are told that they should also “challenge gender norms” and “model inclusive pronoun use.”
The Learning for Justice framework has been used in schools, though it is not usually specified whether or not districts follow the suggestions of this specific guide.
California’s Glendale Unified School District, for example, used Learning for Justice as the basis for its four-day professional development series. Chicago Public Schools also references the project of the Southern Poverty Law Center in their “social justice standards” and “equity toolkit.”
The Learning for Justice guide explains that the aim of the Southern Poverty Law Center is to use a number of tools, including school curriculums, “to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people.”
