Maryland education officials have approved a proposal to remove gender identity lessons from the kindergarten health curriculum and push the topic to fifth grade amid concerns from parents.
The revised Maryland Comprehensive Health Education Framework eliminates lessons on “gender identity and expression” from early elementary grades, where kindergartners were previously taught to “recognize a range of ways people identify and express their gender,” the journalism collaboration Spotlight on Maryland reported.
Under the new framework, fifth graders will instead be asked to “demonstrate ways to treat people of all gender identities and expressions with dignity and respect.”
The Maryland State Board of Education voted to publish the changes, which will now be reviewed by the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive, and Legislative Review. If the committee does not intervene, the proposal will enter a 30-day public comment period, after which further revisions or adoption may occur.
Raven Hill, spokeswoman for the Maryland State Department of Education, told the media that the revision followed consultation with health education experts who concluded that fifth grade was more appropriate for introducing gender identity topics.
The focus in kindergarten should remain on general themes, such as bullying prevention, rather than identity labels, Hill told Spotlight on Maryland.
Middle and high school curricula will continue to include lessons on gender identity. Sixth graders will define “sex assigned at birth, gender identity, and gender expression,” while high schoolers will learn that these exist “on a continuum” and may evolve.
The topics are part of the Family Life and Human Sexuality unit, from which parents may opt their children out.
Caitlin Edmondson, a parent of two children in the Carroll County Public School system, told Spotlight on Maryland that she believes the voices of parents are “being heard.”
“I’m very happy to see this,” she was quoted as saying. “We need to focus on real education. We need to focus on math, science, social studies and ELA.”
Rosalind Hanson, a parent and a director with Moms for Liberty, said the change aligned with her beliefs.
“This is a common-sense approach to helping to eliminate the idea that you can be anything other than the sex that you were born,” she was quoted as saying.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent a letter in August warning that Maryland risked losing Teen Pregnancy Prevention funding if it did not revise Personal Responsibility Education Program programs that included “gender ideology.” The letter cited examples of concern, like teachers using terms like “someone with a vulva” instead of “a girl or woman.”
In September, the U.S. Department of Education also warned Maryland about Title IX compliance, specifically regarding school policies that allow students to access restrooms and participate on sports teams based on their gender identity.
Maryland State Superintendent Carey Wright said she had no plans to revise those policies.
Tensions over curriculum have escalated in the state’s largest school district in recent years after the Montgomery County Board of Education approved the inclusion of LGBT-themed books in 2022. The selections, used in English language arts classes from kindergarten onward, sparked protests and a lawsuit from a diverse group of parents with different religious backgrounds who say they weren’t allowed to opt their children out of the curriculum.
In August 2023, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman denied the parents’ request to opt out, stating that they had not demonstrated it crossed the line into indoctrination. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed it in June.
Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice Samuel Alito stated that the parents had a likely constitutional claim, arguing that public education cannot be conditioned on “acceptance” of instruction that conflicts with their religious beliefs. The ruling granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the parents, citing protection for religious upbringing.
Separately, Defending Education documented that in October, Montgomery County middle schoolers were given vocabulary matching assignments that taught definitions of “gender identity,” “transgender,” “cisgender” and related terms during a seventh-grade Family Life lesson. The materials described gender identity as “how you feel, girl, boy, both or neither.”
In Carroll County, the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies has filed a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on behalf of a student at West Middle School in Westminster, who claims discrimination due to having to share a locker room with a girl. The legal group claims the school administration is making the students choose between changing their clothes in front of a girl in the boys’ locker room or missing class time because they need to wait in line to change in a single-stall bathroom.
