The bell rings, chairs scrape, and thirty teens drop into plastic seats, half-asleep and scrolling. There is a new title in bright marker on the board where “Shakespeare – Act III” was last week. It says “Inclusive Identities – Unit 1.” The teacher shows the class a shiny textbook with happy, carefully chosen faces on the cover. Some kids don’t react at all. One girl nudges her friend and says, “So no more Gatsby?” A boy in the back raises an eyebrow, takes a picture of the book, and sends it to the family group chat. In less than an hour, his mom has put it on Facebook with a big question in all caps.
Is this still school, or has the classroom quietly become a place where people fight over their beliefs?
From dusty old books to chapters that don’t pick a side on gender
For years, parents half-expected their kids to read the same books that they hated and secretly loved as kids. “Of Mice and Men,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and Shakespeare, with all the confusion and magic. A lot of that is suddenly disappearing from syllabi and being replaced by shiny “updated” materials full of neutral pronouns and “identity journeys.” For some students, the change doesn’t even register. Their parents do.
Screenshots of lesson pages with angry red circles and question marks are being shared in living rooms and WhatsApp groups all over the country. The change seems to happen quickly. Too quickly.
If you go to a suburban middle school in the US or UK right now, you’ll probably see the same thing: the new textbooks are full of stories where the characters are just “they,” or where the family structures are carefully changed in every exercise. A parent in Texas posted a picture of a reading passage that didn’t have any character names, just initials and “they/them.” Another person from a small town in England found out that her son had never heard of “Jane Eyre,” but he could easily explain what “non-binary” means “because we talked about it in English.”
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The numbers support the idea that something has changed. Publishers say that there is a growing need for “inclusive and gender-neutral” content that meets school adoption standards. Some districts are proud to say that 70% of their reading list now comes from “contemporary and socially relevant texts.” Teachers say they want to show students the world they live in now, not the one their grandparents lived in. That pitch sounds different to parents. They can hear the sound of cultural gears grinding.
One father who was angry told me that when he opened his daughter’s workbook, he “didn’t recognize school anymore.” The exercises were not about grammar; they were about “labels and experiences.” He didn’t mind talking about respect or diversity. He didn’t like the idea that classic stories with depth and weight were quietly pushed aside to make room for materials that seemed designed to send a message first and everything else second.
That’s the fear behind the headlines: that reading is no longer a journey into what it means to be human, but a carefully planned tour of accepted identities.
That thin, blurry line between education and ideology
One real-life example keeps coming up in emails from parents and school meetings. A district stops using “The Odyssey” for ninth graders because it is “not very relevant” and there are “concerns about depictions of gender.” Instead, students get a unit called “Journeys of Self” that is based on short, modern texts. Each story is based on a theme, such as “finding your pronouns,” “redefining family,” or “resisting gender expectations.” The language is easy to understand. The pictures are bright. There is no doubt about the message.
Students don’t complain very often. The reading is shorter and simpler. Essays turn into reflections: “Tell me about a time when you felt like your identity was misunderstood.” Some kids really connect and feel like they belong. Some people roll their eyes and write what they think the teacher wants to hear. When parents see the homework, they get a shock. They aren’t asking themselves, “Is this nice?” “Is this balanced?”
These things don’t just fall from the sky. Committees, consultants, political pressure, and publisher marketing decks all help shape them. A curriculum director has to deal with state rules, the fear of being sued, and a culture where one email from a parent can go viral. When the safe choice is to pick “inclusive” content that no one can publicly disagree with without being called out, that choice suddenly seems very appealing. So, instead of big, messy, morally complicated classics, we now have gender-neutral textbooks.
*As a result, students read less about different points of view and more about a single, clear, moral universe. That’s when a lot of parents stop thinking of this as neutral education and start calling it brainwashing.
What can parents really do?
The first thing that comes to mind is to storm the school gates, but that usually doesn’t work. A better, quieter way to start is to just ask to see everything. The lists of books to read. The exact units in the textbook. The worksheets, not just the pretty pictures. Read a passage with your child while you both sit down. Tell them, “What do you think this text wants you to feel?” What do you think it wants you to think? You’re not questioning them. You’re showing them how to pay attention.
Then put the old and the new next to each other. One chapter from a well-known book. One from the new textbook that doesn’t pick a gender. Ask which one feels more like a lesson and which one feels more like a story. That comparison is more powerful than any angry speech at a school board.
Many parents make the mistake of going from calm to angry in a single leap. They see one bolded definition of “gender expression” in a grammar exercise and go straight to social media to say, “They’re brainwashing our kids!” Their child learns two things by watching this happen: school is a war zone and talking about who you are is dangerous. That stops the conversation you really need to have at home.
Honest curiosity is a better way to go. Ask teachers, “How do you balance new texts that are open to everyone with the literary canon?” “Do you think it’s okay to disagree with what the textbook says?” Ask your child. This is important because a classroom that punishes disagreement is no longer teaching. You don’t have to fight every time someone talks about gender. You need to pay attention when gender becomes the main point of every lesson.
There’s something that people don’t say out loud that is true: To be honest, most parents don’t read every page their child has to read. They’re dealing with jobs, laundry, and late emails. They respond to the one screenshot that shocks them. This is something that schools know. This is also known to publishers. There are small framing slips between the big, clear slogans.
That’s where you begin to teach your child to read with a filter instead of a blindfold. Help them ask, “What isn’t in this story?” If every character is written to gently lead them to one way of thinking about gender and identity, who can’t live in that world? Sometimes the best thing a parent can do is not ban a book but bring another one to the table and say, “This is how someone else tells the story of people.”
One experienced English teacher told me, “Curriculum choices are never neutral.” “When we replace hard, brilliant texts with safe, ideology-friendly chapters, we’re not just updating examples. We’re changing our minds about what kids can do.
Request openness
Ask for full reading lists, not just summaries of the topics, and keep them in a place where you can see them at home.
Pair texts at home
Give your child a classic book that looks at the same topic from a different angle for every new, value-rich text they read.
Teach how to read critically
Without turning every homework session into a fight, teach your child how to spot leading questions, one-sided examples, and missing voices.
Don’t let your feelings get the best of you at school.
Bring up specific issues with specific pages, not general accusations, and try to have a conversation instead of making headlines.
Keep the joy of reading safe.
Don’t let this argument turn books into weapons. Let your child still be amazed by stories, both old and new.
So what kinds of minds are we really making?
Go back into that classroom and see that every desk has new gender-neutral books on it. Some students will do well with stories that show parts of their lives that they couldn’t see ten years ago. Some people will quietly believe that every lesson now has the same moral, no matter what the text is about. It’s not just that we might lose the old books. We lose friction. Uncertainty. That uncomfortable jolt when a classic makes you think about something you don’t already agree with.
This isn’t a simple battle between good and evil. Some older texts are awkward, hurtful, or out of date. Some new materials are deep, thoughtful, and really eye-opening. It’s not about old versus new or gendered versus gender-neutral. There is a line between books that raise questions and books that answer them without making them obvious. A lot of parents feel this way when they use the word “indoctrination,” even though the word itself is heavy and divisive.
We all know what it’s like to realize that your child is being influenced by people you didn’t choose. It’s not whether schools get rid of all mentions of gender or put it on every page. The real test is if your son or daughter can say, “I’ve met many ways of seeing the world” when they turn eighteen. I can listen, argue, and make my own choices. Most parents will eventually accept gender-neutral textbooks if they help their kids think that way. If they quietly replace curiosity with compliance, the anger you hear now is only the beginning.
Important pointDetailFor the reader’s benefit
Request to see the real thingsAsk for full units instead of just summaries, and read a sample with your child.Instead of relying on rumors or one screenshot, it gives you real information.
Balance school books at homePut together new readings about identity with classic works that look at the same ideas in a different way.Helps your child see things from more than one point of view instead of just one.
Teach reading that is critical, not cynical.Encourage people to ask questions about framing, missing voices, and allowed disagreements.No matter what the curriculum is, it helps kids become more independent thinkers in the long run.
Questions and Answers:
Question 1: Are textbooks that don’t have a specific gender automatically a way to brainwash people?
Answer 1: No. Some are just updates to the language or real efforts to include everyone. It becomes more worrying when every text supports one set of beliefs and doesn’t allow for disagreement or different points of view.
Question 2: Is it okay for me to ask the school to keep classic books in the curriculum?
Yes, and you should do it in a specific way. Instead of just arguing against new content, suggest specific titles and reasons, such as vocabulary development or exposure to difficult moral questions.
What if my kid likes the new books and doesn’t like the old ones?
Answer 3: That’s normal. Start with easy-to-read excerpts, movie adaptations, or audiobooks of classic books. Make connections between the themes in the old texts and things your child already cares about so they see that it’s not just homework.
Question 4: How can I talk about this without making my child feel bad?
Answer 4: Before you say what you think, ask them what they think. Ask open-ended questions like, “Did you feel free to disagree with that text?” and keep the conversation about ideas, not about their teachers or classmates.
Question 5: Is it possible to have inclusive education without getting caught up in ideology?
Yes, answer 5. A well-rounded curriculum can include a mix of classic literature and texts that are aware of gender, with the goal of starting conversations rather than giving final answers. The goal is to be curious, not to fit in.
