Gender variations and choices

Courtesy of Ann Althouse, a link to a story from Oakland about a  school that is teaching kids that "gender" is a variable in nature:

... fourth- and fifth-grade students learned about the crazy world of gender within the animal kingdom with lessons about single-sex Hawaiian geckos, fish that switch genders and boy snakes that act "girly."

"That's a lot of variation in nature," Gender Spectrum trainer, Joel Baum, told the students. "Evolution comes up with some pretty funny ways for animals to reproduce."

Yes evolution does. There are for example those female spiders who kill and eat the male who is mating with them. Strangely enough that gender variation is not being presented to kids. And we might consider the male lion that, on taking over a pride, immediately kills all the cubs that aren't his. Perhaps we could teach kids that one of the options nature provides is that if your mom remarries, her new husband might kill you so that more resources are available for his offspring. For that too is one of those "funny ways" that animals reproduce in nature.

I mention these rather gruesome bits of natural lore because you might be surprised to learn that the reason this California school is teaching kids about how things work "in nature" is to make the kids more comfortable.

The lesson on gender differences was one small part of a much larger effort to offer what parents last year said they wanted at the school: a warm, welcoming, safe and caring environment for all children, said Principal Sara Stone.

...

"If we don't have a safe, nurturing class environment, it's going to be hard to learn," she said. "Really, the message behind this curriculum is there are different ways to be boys. There are different ways to be girls."

That's odd because all you really need to do to learn that there are different ways to be boys and girls is open your eyes and look around you.

The real problem for these 'reformers", of course, is not that boys and girls aren't aware that there are lots of choices but rather that in an era where girls and boys have more choices than they have ever had before they overwhelmingly  keep choosing identities these reformers would prefer they didn't choose.