On November 22, Libs of TikTok, a conservative account on X (formerly Twitter), posted a screenshot of the Hillside gender curriculum to its 3.8 million followers. The post received viral media attention, sparking many hateful comments online aimed at the Hastings School District and its administrators. National news outlets picked up the story as well, and Hillside’s curriculum was featured in both Fox News and the New York Post. The nature of the comments caused the district to go into lockout procedure in the week preceding the Thanksgiving break.
The gender curriculum has been in place at Hillside for the past five years. The screenshotted document shared on social media was taken from an email blast sent by the district to all Hillside parents during the week of November 22 describing Hillside’s entire curriculum, not just gender. Within the district, the email blast sparked discourse on Facebook groups devoted to Hastings residents, where people voiced their support for the district’s dedication to fostering an inclusive environment and others questioned the appropriateness of the curriculum for young children.
In a statement at the regular Board of Education meeting on December 4, Hastings Superintendent Dr. McKersie stated, “The gender lessons are intended to help our youngest students better understand children who may be sitting next to them in the classroom and in the school. Respect is a core value at Hillside and respect begins with understanding…we need to establish norms and shared understandings early.”
Despite the mostly negative reactions online from people outside Hastings, Dr. McKersie and Dr. Szymanski, the District’s Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, said that the Hastings community has been mainly supportive of the lessons. Dr. Szymanski said in an interview, “Taking into account correspondence received from Hastings families and residents, we have received a tremendous number of emails of support, and while there has been some variation on that, largely by at least tenfold, we have received support for the gender work in the curriculum.”
Many Hastings High School students have reflected on the recent weeks’ events. Eliza Mulvihill, an HHS junior and a president of HHS’s Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA) club, said, “I felt like it was weird that people online who might not be involved in our school… were getting up in arms about what’s happening inside the school.”
Mulvihill also discussed how the curriculum and its purpose have been warped online. She expressed her frustration that many of the commenters do not know (or choose to ignore) that the gender lessons are only taught only once a year. “That’s not something that you hear about online from conservative media,” she said.
The GSA met on Tuesday, December 3 to discuss the gender curriculum and the pushback online. Mulvihill explained that the goal of the meeting was to be an “open forum” meant to “let people come and talk if anyone was feeling nervous about it, or didn’t quite understand what the gender workshop was.”
An HHS junior also involved in the GSA and who asked to remain anonymous said that Mr. Lopez, the club advisor, had received emails from parents “saying that their kids were having trouble dealing with the situation, so they asked Mr. Lopez to have a meeting to talk about it.” They explained how the GSA decided that “an assembly would be too much [and] not doing anything would not be enough.”
The meeting went well, according to the student. “We talked a little bit about why people are so afraid of their kids learning about trans people, and part of it is that people are worried their kids would become trans. We were talking about why people have that fear, why it’s such a strange thing to be so afraid that your kid could possibly think that they’re trans,” they said.
In the future, Dr. McKersie and Dr. Szymanski are planning to look further into the implementation of gender lessons. “It’s not an if we are going to have gender work,” said Dr. McKersie in an interview, “the issue now is how.”
Dr. Szymanski added, “It’s very important that all students in this district know that we are committed to ensuring that they feel welcome here, that they feel affirmed, that we are committed to dignity and respect and humanity, and that those ideals should be reflected in our curriculum…we want an environment that is physically safe, emotionally safe, and celebrates our diversity.”
