Concerns about transparency, ethics and parental rights in public education are intensifying following a report alleging the San Diego Unified School District is actively promoting ideological concepts while shielding critical information from families.
The findings, released by the parental rights group Defending Education, center on SDUSD’s official “Equity & Belonging” online hub. According to the report, the district’s website guides students on changing their name and gender identity. It promotes instructional materials asserting the existence of nine gender identities and 28 sexual orientations.
The district describes its equity initiative as an effort to “dismantle systems of oppression,” while incorporating resources from organizations such as the Zinn Education Project, Black Lives Matter and GLSEN.
On a page labeled “Youth Advocacy,” district materials outline what they describe as nine gender identities, including “demogirl,” “demiboy,” “third gender” and “agender.” Separate slides list 28 sexual orientations, featuring terms such as “androsexual,” “panromantic sexual” and “graysexual.”
The report also raises alarms about age appropriateness. Lesson packets connected to the initiative are reportedly intended for students in grades three through six and include subjects such as “Trans kids in the Boy Scouts” and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“San Diego Unified is just another example of ideological capture in K-12 and while I suspect most parents and staff aren’t even aware of what’s on this page of their website, it has to be interpreted as the official position of the district,” Erika Sanzi, senior director of communications for Defending Education, said in a statement provided to The Christian Post.
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Sanzi argued that such policies fundamentally undermine confidence in public education.
“Education is not compatible with a district that believes or even entertains the idea that there are nine different gender identities and 28 sexual orientations,” she said. “This lunacy must end, or trust will be lost forever.”
Beyond curriculum concerns, the report highlights district procedures that critics say deliberately exclude parents from major decisions affecting their children. A district “Name & Gender Change Form” states that “all students have a right to privacy,” including the right to decide “when, with whom, and how to share private information.”
The document directs staff not to disclose a student’s transgender or “gender nonconforming” status without the student’s consent, even in conversations with parents or guardians.
“San Diego Unified has turned its ‘Equity & Belonging’ hub into an engine for ideology rather than education,” said Kendall Tietz, an investigative reporter for Defending Education.
Tietz said the district is embedding activist frameworks into classrooms while discouraging parental pushback.
“San Diego Unified is promoting 28 sexual orientations and nine gender identities, declaring its mission to ‘dismantle systems of oppression and inequity’ and pushing these concepts into the minds of the youngest, most impressionable students,” he said.
He also accused the district of misleading families about federal requirements.
“The district is telling families that federal law under Title IX requires gender-identity policies, even though the Biden-era Title IX rewrite was vacated nationwide,” Tietz said, adding that concerned parents are often treated as “‘resistance’ to be managed.”
Under President Donald Trump, federal policy recognizes only two biological sexes and directs agencies to apply Title IX accordingly, including restrictions on male participation in female athletic competitions.
“This is not neutral education or simple kindness, but politicized programming imposed through the public school system,” Tietz said.
The report clearly shows a growing belief that public school systems no longer see families as partners. As districts obscure policies, advance contested ideologies and restrict parental involvement, trust continues to erode, raising serious questions about whether such institutions can be entrusted with children’s moral and intellectual formation.
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a background in journalism from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine.
