San Diego Unified School District teaches young children about dozens of novel sexual orientations and gender identities, justifying the lessons as age-appropriate because kids "as early as kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades" are "[n]ame-calling and using anti-gay and anti-trans slurs," according to a report by parents' rights group Defending Education. 

"At a very young age, children have already been introduced to information about LGBTQIA+ people, which is often based on misinformation and negative stereotypes," says the FAQ guide for educators and families from the district's Equity and Belonging website, which uses LGBTQ activist materials.

The LGBTQIA+ Terminology-Student Panel Welcome slides share nine gender identities including "demigirl," "demiboy" and "genderfluid," while a slide from The Trevor Project lays out 28 "LGBTQ Youth Sexual Orientations" including "aegosexual," "queer demisexual," "greysexual," "abrosexual" and "heteroflexible."

An entire page responds to criticisms that schools are subverting the wishes of religious parents by teaching about "the gay lifestyle," in scare quotes. "No LGBTQIA person ever stated that they CHOSE to be LGBTQIA ... They simply ARE," the page claims, echoing a suburban Boston district's rationale for exposing young children to various forms of families.

Using a rationale rejected by the Supreme Court's Mahmoud precedent against a suburban D.C. district's no-exceptions LGBTQ curriculum, SDUSD claims it can expose children to such mature and disputed concepts because it's "not trying to change the religious beliefs or ideologies of any person" but rather "to change how we respond to the most vulnerable populations that we serve."

It threatens to sanction teachers for refusing to use students' preferred names and pronouns, because by "validat[ing] each student’s identity" it hopes to "decrease the current dismal statistics around bullying, suicide and homicide." When they "occasionally slip," students and educators can simply "offer a brief apology" and return to the conversation.