SANTA FE, Texas – Parents in Texas are irate after a high school junior taking a college-level psychology class was given a gender-based assignment. The issue has also had some state officials raising eyebrows, with one Texas senator questioning its legality.
Shay Cundiff, a 17-year-old junior at Santa Fe High School, located just southeast of Houston, said her teacher gave students the assignment in their dual credit college-level psychology course that is in conjunction with College of the Mainland. The assignment is called The Genderbread Person, which features a drawing of what appears to be a gingerbread man, but those raising concerns say there is nothing “cookie-cutter” about it.
“It made me feel uncomfortable and distasteful,” Shay Cundiff, a 17-year-old Santa Fe High School Junior said. “We had to fill out our information on a paper-based off of what we identify as and what we’re sexually and romantically attracted to.”
Cundiff says students were also required to write an essay about how they feel about the lesson.
“I didn’t agree with the point of view that are in the paper,” she said.
Before the assignment that was due Sunday, Cundiff says the teacher hadn’t really discussed gender identity, just sex organs. The curriculum caught her and her parents off guard.
“We wouldn’t have really known,” Shad Cundiff, Shay’s father said. “I mean, she was just going through doing the assignment like her teacher instructed her to do, and unless my wife hadn’t seen what she was writing and started talking to her about it, we wouldn’t have really known.”
Not only are Cundiff’s parents upset, but so is TX State Senator Mayes Middleton for District 11. He mentioned that in Texas, gender modification of minors is against the law under Texas Senate Bill 14, and believes this curriculum promotes it.
“That is not right,” Middleton said. “I’m looking at it with our State Board of Education members and to me it sure looks like they’re advocating for something that’s illegal.”
Senator Middleton says he was told by a State Board of Education member the curriculum was developed by Planned Parenthood.
As for, Cundiff, she says she plans to stay in the course because the only way to avoid it is if she were to drop it, which means she wouldn’t get the credits she’s been earning.
On Monday, a Santa Fe ISD official said they do not agree with the assignment, and it is not a part of their curriculum. The spokesperson added College of the Mainland would be the one to reach out to for more comment, as it was their course.
A College of the Mainland official acknowledged a complaint had been filed, and said they are trying to determine specifically what happened.