Students as young as five were recommended books celebrating toddlers becoming transgender and cross-dressing.
As school goes back into session, students in New York City’s top private schools head into the classroom having been recommended summer reading lists riddled with books about children transitioning their genders, cross-dressing, attending pride parades, getting secret abortions, and questioning their sexuality.
According to reading lists reviewed by National Review, students as young as kindergartners were recommended books by the elite schools celebrating toddlers becoming transgender and cross-dressing.
Nightingale-Bamford, an all-girls school where annual tuition runs at $59,000, recommends that kindergarteners read books like When Aidan Became A Brother, a story about a girl who changed her gender when she was a toddler; Julian Is A Mermaid, a book about a boy who is celebrated when he chooses to dress in a skirt, flower crown, and necklace; and Pride Puppy, a story about a dog who gets lost at a pride parade and then is chased by a drag queen.
In When Aidan Became A Brother, the main character, Aidan, who was born a girl, tells her parents she was a boy because she “hated” the sound of her name and felt like her “room belonged to someone else.”
After revealing her new preferred gender to her parents, they accepted Aidan as transgender and said they made “mistakes” in assuming that she was a girl. Aidan also says the family’s new baby should not be given a gendered name and should instead just be a “baby.”
Nightingale-Bamford does not mention on the reading list that the main character is transgender.
“Aidan experiences complicated emotions as he and his parents prepare for the arrival of a new baby. He works hard to make sure the baby is welcomed in as inclusive a way possible, and prepares to be a big brother,” the recommendation reads.
Bodies Are Cool, a picture book in which characters adopt the plural pronoun “they,” also appeared on the tony private school’s recommended reading list.
Nightingale-Bamford also suggested that third-graders read Melissa, a book about a boy named George who comes out as transgender.
The description of Melissa, based on the school’s website, reads, “When people look at Melissa, they think they see a boy named George. But she knows she’s not a boy. She knows she’s a girl. Melissa thinks she’ll have to keep this a secret forever, until an opportunity arises that challenges her to be who she is for all to see.”
Sixth-graders were asked by the school to read two books off the recommended list, which included Too Bright to See, a book about a transgender boy who lives in a haunted house.
When asked if the recommended books fit into the school’s mission, Nightingale’s director of communications, Thomas Hein, told National Review, “Our library offers our students a diverse set of highly regarded, academically appropriate books that they and their parents can choose to enjoy throughout the summer and school year.”
The Chapin School, which is also located in the city’s Upper East Side and charges over $59,000 in tuition per year, recommended a similar set of books to students.
Lower-school students at Chapin were recommended “affirming stories,” including Bodies Are Cool and Fred Gets Dressed, a picture book about a naked boy who is celebrated when he wears his mother’s clothing and makeup.
The school’s website states that “the ‘affirming stories’ section in this list provides only a small sample of the many important, necessary, and inspirational books that have been most recently published.”
Students in grades four through seven were asked to read at least two books off the summer reading list, which included titles like Melissa and Different Kinds of Fruit, a book in which a sixth-grader named Annabelle discovers that her father and her new best friend are both trans.
“Together Annabelle, Bailey, and their families discover how these categories that seem to mean so much — boy, girl, gay, straight, fruit, vegetable — aren’t so clear-cut after all,” the description of the book reads.
Upper-school students at Chapin were encouraged to read books including If I Was Your Girl, a story about a transgender teen who, after getting surgery and hormones, comes out to the community.
Chapin did not respond to an inquiry from National Review asking why these books were recommended.
Saint Ann’s School, a private school in Brooklyn with tuition ranging upwards of over $55,000 per year, also recommended Pride Puppy to students entering kindergarten to third grade.
For entering fifth- and sixth-graders, Saint Ann’s suggested Zenobia July, a story about a transgender middl- school student who tries to fit into her new town.
Rising seventh- and eighth-graders were recommended Cemetery Boys, which the school’s website summarizes in the following way: “Yadriel is trans, and feels left out of a very gendered lineage of magic and healing.”
Saint Ann’s suggested that high-school students read Unpregnant, a book in which a minor travels to get an abortion across state lines to evade parental consent.
“When seventeen-year-old Veronica realizes that she is pregnant, she enlists her ex-best friend, Bailey, to drive 900 miles with her to New Mexico — the nearest place to legally get an abortion. (In Missouri where she lives you must be 18 without parental consent). Things don’t go exactly as planned! Funny, heartfelt, and incredibly timely,” a description provided by the school states.
High schoolers were also recommended Gender Queer, the No. 1 most challenged book in the country in 2021, due to its “sexually explicit images,” according to the American Library Association.
A mom in Kentucky challenged the presence of Gender Queer in her district’s public-school libraries this summer, arguing that the book was “pornographic.”
“Accepting and loving children does not mean putting pornography in their hands,” Miranda Stowall said at a meeting challenging the book, Fox News reported.
She expressed frustration that school administrators “disagreed that graphic pictures of oral sex, dildos, stap-ons, advertisements for porn sites are obscene material for children,” she said.
Saint Ann’s apparently found the wide-ranging ban of the book to be a virtue, describing Gender Queer in its recommendation as “an autobiographical graphic novel that tells the story of the author’s lifetime experience with gender. The book — which was one of the most banned this year — offers a powerful perspective which is brought to life with beautiful illustrations.”
When asked whether students should be exposed to stories about minors becoming transgender and to sexually explicit images, Saint Ann’s headmaster, Vince Tompkins, said he was “proud” of the school’s librarians for recommending books “that embrace the range of human experience and identities.”
“Our mission statement at Saint Ann’s School states, in part, that at our school, ‘unfettered by grades, teachers and students embark on journeys of discovery in which the arts are central.’ Through an ambitious curriculum and a culture of inquiry, we question the world. We invite each other to take risks, pursue knowledge for its own sake, and celebrate growth,” Tompkins said.
“I am proud of our librarians for carrying out this mission with care and commitment in their everyday work with children and in recommending books that embrace the range of human experience and identities and help children better understand and question the world we share. Saint Ann’s is an independent school, chosen by families and by those who teach and work here because they know that we are not subject to the urges of politicians and zealots who seek to restrict what teachers can teach and say and what books we choose for our library shelves. This is our mission, and we will continue to pursue it,” Tompkins added.