Parents Fight Back Against California School District’s Secret LGBT Clubs

Parents of students enrolled in Elk Grove Unified School District (EGUSD) will keep their kids home this Friday, California Family Council reports, in protest of the Sacramento school district’s secretive promotion of Gender & Sexuality Alliance (GSA) clubs in at least six elementary schools.

The walk-out follows several families’ retainer of the National Center for Law & Policy (NCLP), who formally asked the district to suspend all GSA-affiliated clubs in its elementary schools last week. The non-profit’s cease and desist letter reads,

EGUSD’s recent rollout of these clubs focusing on human sexuality, including, but not limited to, affirming sexual orientation and gender identity, has been truly egregious. The entire process has demonstrated a complete lack of integrity, transparency, accountability and even the most basic safeguards to protect minor children and their families.

The document specifically addresses months of secrecy and stonewalling at Pleasant Grove Elementary, who invited third- through sixth-grade students to attend a GSA club in January — without their parents’ permission.

Disturbed parents quickly understood they were never meant to find out about the group. Pleasant Grove not only omitted the club — which had been in the works since at least November 2023 — from its monthly newsletters, but bypassed permission slip requirements by holding it at lunch.

What’s more, the school concealed the nature of the club by changing its name. The 8- to 12-year-olds were invited, not to a gender and sexuality organization, but to a UBU club — a place, they were told, for “guys who crush on guys” and “girls who crush on girls” to play board games.

Most parents would not have known that UBU is an alphabetized version of “You Be You” — an alternate name for a GSA club. Teacher-activists use this tactic to deceive parents. In 2021, the California Teachers Association (CTA) hosted a presenter who confessed naming her school GSA club “You Be You” to avoid parental scrutiny.

When parents confronted the school over their children’s secret introduction to gender ideology, Pleasant Grove temporarily stopped the program pending legal review. But while parents waited for final word, the district’s Youth Development Office (YDO) distributed a flyer to teachers offering training in “how to respond to resistance against Rainbow Clubs and GSA’s.”

The YDO, which operates a separate website from the district, clearly illustrates its intention to impart gender ideology to students. As the NCLP’s letter describes,

It is abundantly clear from a brief perusal of YDO’s website that its work, events and resources focus almost exclusively on advocating for, affirming and advancing an extreme LGBTQ+ ideological and political agenda, one which includes viewpoints that significantly diverge from the sincerely held religious and philosophical viewpoints of a significant percentage of families served by EGUSD.

Among these extreme views are:

  • An endorsement of GSA and Rainbow Clubs as “provid[ing] visibility to our LGBTQ+ youth and offer[ing] accessibility to resources they may not feel safe to get somewhere else” — a description alternatively worded as “introducing youth to gender confusion and offer[ing] accessibility to resources their parents wouldn’t approve of.”
  • Claiming “children can articulate their gender identity as early as 2-years-old” — a radical statement backed by a single link to a Mayo Clinic article referencing children’s ability to differentiate men and women by physical appearance.
  • Asserting gender is a spectrum, with requisite links to the infamous Genderbread Person and Gender Unicorn.
  • Promoting a resource entitled “Affirming Gender in Elementary School: Social Transitioning,” which tells educators:
  • Students have the right to use facilities (bathrooms, locker rooms) that correspond to their “gender identity,” rather than their biological sex.
  • Teachers should treat and allow a gender-confused child to be treated like someone of the opposite sex even if the child’s family doesn’t want them to.
  • Only discuss student’s preferred pronouns and name with affirming
  • Use lesson plans to teach students about many gender identities and expressions.

The district’s YTO has influenced more elementary schools then Pleasant Grove — at least five others have hosted similarly secretive GSA clubs. At Markofer elementary, fliers for such a club advertised it only as “’A Safe, Healthy Antibully Space for all Children,’ and a place for ‘fun, games, and learning with friends.’”

Now, parents are fed up and speaking up. The famous conservative TikTok account, @LibsofTikTok, posted this clip of EGUSD parents confronting the school board for cutting them out of their children’s education.

Dean Broyles, the NCLP constitutional attorney representing the families says the district’s conduct violates the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent.

“Children belong to their parents, not the state,” Broyles told California Family Council, continuing,

Parents have the fundamental constitutional right to direct the education, care, and raising of their children. Clubs cleverly cloaked merely as an “anti-bullying” effort is unlawful because it violates my clients’ civil rights. The district seems to think it’s appropriate to hide the existence of these sexuality and gender clubs from parents, secretly recruiting their young children to inappropriately discuss sexuality during lunchtime and also pressuring kids not to tell their parents. As a PGES dad who is a police officer pointed out at a recent EGUSD board meeting, this is what groomers do.

This is far from the first time a public school has used GSA clubs to introduce gender ideology to kids. Colorado mom Erin Lee’s daughter was invited to a GSA “Art Club” in middle school that launched her into a painful era of gender confusion.

Watch the Daily Citizen’s interview with Lee to hear her family’s story and discover resources to protect your kids from indoctrination.

Across the country, Focus on the Family-allied Family Policy Councils (FPC) — like California Policy Council — track threats to parental rights in each state. Contact your local FPC to discover problems facing your community, and how you can get involved to stop them.

Additional Articles and Resources

‘Art Club’ Documentary –One Family’s Escape from Gender Ideology, and the Bigger Trend Sweeping the Nation

Protect Your Kids from ‘Trans’ Activism — Look for These Red Flags

Education Roundup: Queer Science, Drag Shows and Rainbow Clubs

Teachers in California Learn How to Undermine Parents and Recruit Students for LGBT Clubs

Sorry ‘Gays Against Groomers,’ But Gay Activists Helped Start This Transgender Fire

The WPATH Files — Transgender Interventions Are ‘Unethical Medical Experiments’

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