The Michigan Department of Education is promoting gender “fluidity” and transgenderism without parental consent starting in elementary school, according to a new report from Chris Rufo, who was the college’s Eugene C. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Fellow last spring. 

In a City Journal article published Sept. 14, Rufo exposed a series of training videos and documents from the MDE in which presenters claim the idea of binary gender oppresses minorities, and encourage educators to teach “intersectionality” to “dismantle systems of oppression.” 

Rufo taught a one-credit “Journalism, Activism, and Power” course at Hillsdale in spring 2022. He is best known for his investigative journalism on critical race theory and gender theory in schools and corporations. Rufo is a contributing editor for City Journal and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a free-market think tank. 

The teacher training videos say the first step in dismantling oppressive systems is to disrupt the gender binary. Trainer Armorie Robinson in one presentation says “we’ve been conditioned and we’ve been acculturated in this particular culture that gender is binary” and instructs teachers that gender is a spectrum, including identities such as “gender non-binary,” “gender fluid,” “gender queer,” “gender non-conforming,” and “bi-gender.”

Robinson says sexual orientation has a similarly wide range, including “asexual, lesbian, straight, gay, bisexual, queer, questioning, demisexual, demiromantic, aromantic, and skoliosexual.” Next, Robinson and Kim Phillips-Knope, both of whom work for the MDE’s LGBTQ training group, share TikTok videos of adolescents exploring their sexual identities. 

“A rational observer might suspect that these youths are in a state of confusion or distress,” Rufo wrote in his City Journal piece, “but rather than explore this line of reasoning, the education department trainers promote a policy of immediate and unconditional affirmation.”

Both Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her Republican opponent, Tudor Dixon, criticized the MDE for the videos. On Sept. 16, Whitmer’s administration called the department to make changes to “continue bringing parents’ perspectives into the work you do.” Dixon called Rufo’s article “astonishing.”

“Does Gretchen Whitmer agree with me? Will she condemn this radical and dangerous nonsense? She owes parents an answer,” Dixon said on Sept. 15.

Dixon even called for the resignation of Michael Rice, the Michigan superintendent, following Rufo’s report.

The MDE is pushing an ideology that affects a variety of school policies, such as whether teachers can refer to students as “boys and girls,” according to Rufo.

Rufo’s article found that state education officials also used the videos to encourage teachers to help children transition between genders without telling their parents. The trainers told teachers to keep a student’s new name, pronouns, and sexual identity secret, even if the student is experiencing suicidal thoughts. Rufo called this “pure radicalism.” 

“The presenters know that parents would reject their theories in any open discussion, so they go to great lengths to conceal their efforts from the public,” Rufo wrote. “They have chosen to create a secret gender-radicalism pipeline that uses state resources to push a destructive ideology onto public-school children.”

The MDE issued a news release responding to Rufo’s article, calling his allegations “patently false and deliberately divisive.” School staff do not facilitate the sexual transition of children and more than a thousand school staff members seek training to learn how the best respond to LGBT students, according to the press release. 

“Our local educators and support staff care deeply about their students and seek to better understand how to reach students and help them feel accepted, safe, and cared for,” State Superintendent Michael Rice said. “Children deserve safe and inclusive environments to minimize their fears and anxieties and to focus on schoolwork, grow academically, and achieve success.” 

Rufo’s Chief of Staff Armen Tooloee told The Collegian the MDE is attempting to cover its tracks.

“The department instructs teachers to facilitate child gender transitions without the consent of parents, even if the child is suicidal,” Tooloee said. “The MDE is using euphemisms like ‘inclusion’ to hide the true nature of their training program.”