Jahana Hayes Demands Her GOP Colleagues Expand Their Understanding Of Gender Ideology

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT) discussed gender ideology support for public school students.

Transcript

00:00Thank you and good morning. I wasn't planning to speak on this but I feel

00:06compelled having spent over a decade in the classroom and listening to many

00:11people who have no idea what happens in a school. Curriculum does not include

00:19teaching students to be something else. Curriculum does not include

00:24indoctrinating students to identify as gay or LGBTQ or other or anything but

00:33federal law mandates that all students have civil rights protections. I don't

00:40really understand what the members of this committee think happens in schools

00:46but my question is what do we do with these children? The children who you are

00:50saying on this committee don't exist. The children who are struggling with their

00:55identity and oftentimes confide in their teachers and ask for support and help. I

01:02can tell you that in the 15 years that I was in the classroom any parent always

01:08had the ability to opt out, opt their child out of any lessons. There were no

01:14lessons taught meant to convert students and much of what we are hearing here

01:20today but I just don't understand what they think is going to happen to these

01:26students if they are in a classroom and struggling and asking a teacher for help

01:33and a teacher says to them you don't exist or the ideology that you're referring to

01:40is not a real thing. I don't know what my colleagues think we're going to do with

01:48those students and I have to tell you just because you don't understand it or

01:52you've never heard of it doesn't mean it's not a thing. I would encourage you to

01:56to increase your body of knowledge or expand your understanding but just

02:01because you don't understand it doesn't mean that you have the ability to

02:05legislate these children away. I can tell you I taught history and you want to

02:12bring everybody into the story you want all students to feel represented. So again

02:18my question is what happens to these students? You are focusing on the wrong

02:251% here. There is a 1% in our population that is literally steamrolling the rest of the country

02:32and what we're doing in this committee is focusing on a small population of

02:40students who are at a point in their life where they are struggling and school may

02:44for many of them feel like the only safe place or the only place where they can

02:49get support or the only place where they can speak to a counselor. These kids are

02:55not hurting anybody. I'm not sure what your experiences in public school were or if you

03:04were always in the majority of the population and never had to rely on a teacher or a peer

03:10or a colleague or a social worker or a support group at school just to make it through the day.

03:16I don't know what your experiences have been but I can tell you that that is not the experience

03:21of a small handful of our students and as a teacher I don't care if it was just one student

03:31that I had to reassure that they were important and they were valued and they belonged here.

03:39I'm going to do it and anyone who has dedicated their life to this profession will do the same.

03:47So the idea that you all feel okay with arbitrarily erasing, disappearing people,

03:57making them think that they don't exist or they don't have a place in schools or the curriculum

04:02should not include them or whatever they're feeling should not be valued, considered, incorporated,

04:10is just wrong. So I will not be supporting this piece of legislation as if that was not already evident.

04:22And I will be using all of my time, my agency, my energy, my advocacy to ensure that every student,

04:34not minus one, not minus one percent, not most, but every student feels valued, respected, important,

04:44and included in the work that I engage in on this committee.

04:49And you can frame that any way you want. I know I don't have the last words

04:53so I know somebody's going to come back trying to shift the narrative on everything I just said.

04:59But when you are in a classroom and you are a teacher and that door closes

05:05and a student falls in your arms and says to you,

05:08I am struggling and I can't go home with this information and I need help.

05:14You have a moral responsibility to help that child or you are in the wrong profession.

05:23I yield back.

05:25I thank the gentlelady.

05:31I now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Representative Fine.

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