The Oklahoma Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, is touting transgenderism in public schools as part of its “pride” month messaging this year.

In social media posts on Facebook and X, the OEA declared, “Wishing all 2SLGBTQ+ students, educators, and community members a happy Pride. All are welcome in Oklahoma public schools.”

2SLGBTQ+ is an acronym that stands for “two spirit,” lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, with the + representing “additional” identities, such as asexual and pansexual (a person who experiences sexual attraction to people regardless of gender identity).

The OEA is the state affiliate of the National Education Association, which has also touted transgenderism as part of its recent messaging.

A June 1 post on the NEA’s Facebook page included a message from NEA President Becky Pringle stating, “This #PrideMonth, we are not just celebrating our LGBTQ+ friends and family—we are demanding that their rights be protected and their identities respected.”

The OEA and NEA posts continue a trend that has been ongoing for several years.

At a 2023 national meeting, NEA delegates approved a measure that called for spending up to $580,000 in union funds opposing what the union members characterized as anti-LGBGQ+ legislation, such as bills that prevent boys (who claim to identify as girls) from using the girls’ bathrooms at public schools, laws that limit girls’ athletics to female participants, and measures that prevent children from receiving cross-sex hormones or sex-change surgeries before age 18.

Education Week reported that the measure called for the union to promote programs that provide access to “gender-affirming care,” a euphemism that refers to providing children cross-sex hormones or surgeries intended to make a child look like a member of the opposite sex.

OEA members were among the delegates participating in that NEA meeting.

In 2023, the OEA offered an “LGBTQ+ Advocacy Toolkit” to its teacher members that included NEA material advising teachers on ways to keep parents in the dark if a child expresses interest in a transgender identity, apparently even in situations where the child is in pre-K and/or has intellectual disabilities.

The document stated that children begin expressing gender identity “between the ages of two and four years old” and instructed teachers that they should never encourage a student to express their gender based on a student’s sex even if there is concern that a student “lacks capacity or ability to assert their gender identity or expression (e.g., due to age, developmental disability or intellectual disability).”

[Photo courtesy of the Oklahoma Education Association]