NEWARK, NEW JERSEY — The manipulative trend of “gender fluidity” has spiked among students in New Jersey public schools over the past four years.
The number of students who reported as “non-binary” – a term indicating gender confusion – has skyrocketed by over 4,200 percent since 2019, new state enrollment data shows.
Four years ago, there were 16 students who identified as “gender-non-conforming.” That number ballooned to 675 during the 2022–2023 academic year. Perhaps even more concerning is that 41 of these students were enrolled in elementary schools.
NORMALIZING CONFUSION
In May, the Hanover Township school board passed a policy requiring staff to notify parents about any information that could impact a student’s physical or mental health – such as a change in gender identity or sexual orientation.
The state subsequently sued the district for “discrimination” and Governor Phil Murphy blasted the district for insisting that parents must be informed about important developments in their child’s life. Ironically, Murphy claimed that kind of transparency “jeopardizes [children’s] well-being and mental health.”
Hanover Township Board of Education's new policy requiring staff to "out" LGBTQ students to their parents violates the rights of our students — jeopardizing their well-being and mental health.
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) May 17, 2023
I support @NewJerseyOAG in challenging the Board's policy. https://t.co/7gTKqGc6sr
The issue of how schools should handle gender-confused students remains a contentious one across the country. Deep blue states like California, New York and New Jersey have served as a foil for Florida’s more conservative approach.
“It is wrong to teach a second grader that they may have been born in the wrong body, it is wrong to teach students that gender is a choice,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in April.
Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act – passed in 2022 to the dismay of the Hollywood elites who spoke out against it – requires school staff to notify parents if they become aware of a change in a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
“In Florida, we not only know that parents have a right to be involved, we insist that parents have a right to be involved,” DeSantis said at the time.
“THE RESULTS ARE NOT GOOD”
The longstanding social presumption that parents know what’s best for their children has been disregarded by the LGBTQ movement.
“Children are not born knowing what is normal and need to be taught,” child development psychologist Leonard Sax told The Epoch Times earlier this month. “Almost every culture we have a record of has taught girls to be women and boys to be men. We don't do that [in America]. Instead, we undermine that. And the results are not good. And we are seeing an explosion of anxiety and depression among American children.”
Given New Jersey’s stance on the issue, a positive turnaround seems unlikely under the current leadership.
Nicole Stouffer, a New Jersey parent and biostatistician who founded parent advocacy group NJ Fresh Faced Schools told the Washington Free Beacon: “Since non-binary gender is normalized in the schools, expect that this count will become higher for the 2023–2024 school year.”
