N.J. governor to 'entertain' parental concerns about gender ideology indoctrination
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said he is willing to âentertainâ the concerns of parents who are outraged that the stateâs education department plans to teach gender identity topics to children as young as eight.
Responding to questions from the press, who asked Murphy to comment on the concerns of parents who think that gender identity should not be taught in elementary school, Murphy defended the state education plans, but said parents deserve a say on the matter.
âI'd say a couple of things,â Murphy said, Fox News reported. âNumber one, I think there's some sort of sense that parents have no say, and I would just say emphatically that parents deserve absolutely to have a say in this sort of stuff â along with all other interested parties, but probably none are more interested than parents.â
âNumber two, I don't like the fact that some are using this as an opportunity to score political points and to further divide us,â he added. âI say that on behalf of the LGBTQIA+ communities. Let's everybody not use this to divide us.â
Murphy said that the education policy was not âa new development,â noting that the standards were passed in 2020, he acknowledged that they were only going to be put into effect this fall. However, Murphy said that if enough parents opposed the standards, he would be willing to âentertainâ changes to the policy.
Murphyâs remarks smack of an out-of-touch Roman autocrat, who claims that he is willing to âentertainâ the complaints of the tax-paying plebeians who put food on his table. Instead, Murphy, who was elected by a popular vote, ought to simply listen to the concerns of parents, who are rightly angered by efforts to indoctrinate their children with woke ideology in public schools.
Under the stateâs education standards, public schools are set to teach second-graders about âthe range of ways people express their gender and how gender role stereotypes may limit behaviour.â
The lessons are mandatory and listed among school âperformance expectationsâ for the students.
Fox News reports:
The education standards list a number of lesson plans for educators to use, one of which describes being able to define "gender identity and gender role stereotypes" as a "first objective" for students.
"Gender identity is that feeling of knowing your gender. You might feel like you are a boy, you might feel like you are a girl," the lesson plan states. "You might feel like youâre a boy even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are âgirlâ parts. You might feel like youâre a girl even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are âboyâ parts."
New Jerseyâs plans to move forward with woke indoctrination are in direct contrast to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantisâ successful efforts to ban woke ideology from seeping its way into the classroom.

Ian Miles Cheong
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Ian Miles Cheong is a freelance writer, graphic designer, journalist and videographer. Heâs kind of a big deal on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/stillgray