São Paulo Governor Orders Removal of School Booklet on Sex and Gender Diversity

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Tuesday, September 3rd, Governor João Doria ordered the removal of some material on science for students in the 8th year of the state network of São Paulo.

According to teachers, the reason could be a page in the booklet that contains a text that deals with sexual diversity, explaining the differences among “biological sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

In the 8th grade, students are at least 13 years old.

“We have been alerted to an unacceptable error in the school material intended for students in the 8th grade of the state school system. I asked the Secretary of Education for the immediate removal of the material and to verify those responsible. We don’t agree and we don’t accept praise for gender ideology”, wrote Doria on Twitter.

In a note, the Secretary of Education of São Paulo states that the term “gender identity” would be in disagreement with the Common National Curriculum Base of the MEC and with the New Curriculum of São Paulo approved in August, and that the workbook is complementary to the study of students.

On gender ideology

The current studies on gender – initiated in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States and Europe – theorizes a difference between biological sex and gender. For this academic school, being a man or a woman does not depend only on genitals or chromosomes, but on cultural and behavioral patterns. Such patterns, according to theorists in the field, are acquired in life in society.

Conservative scholars, however, believe that the conclusions of gender studies have not been validated by the exact and biological sciences.

For them, therefore, the current studies on gender could not even be called a “theory” because it would lack scientific rigor to call it that. In this way, there is talk of “gender ideology”: a set of ideas defending the position that it is up to each person to define himself as a man or woman.

In an interview with GloboNews, Minister of Women, Family, and Human Rights, Damares Alves, defined what she considers gender ideology: “A group of thinkers came to the conclusion that children are born [with sexual designation] neutral, grow neutral, and then decide”.