Texas Republicans Just Got Even Weirder About Your Kids

If they can just keep the kids from finding out about slavery and trans people, they'll finally get their country back.

Jun 26, 2026

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), IYKYK

For all the Right likes to claim that the Left is out to “indoctrinate” children with “woke ideology,” I can honestly say that I have never, at any point, encountered a single person on the Left arguing we should lie to children or cover up aspects of our history or not allow them to learn certain things, just because we want them to grow up and vote Democratic or be more like us. If anything, I think we tend to err on the side of learning more, not less.

But that is, exactly, what the Right has been trying to do for years — especially in Texas. In the Bush years, they were going after the science books, trying to force science teachers to tell kids that the Earth is only 6,000 years old and Jesus rode a T-Rex to the crucifixion or whatever. These days, they’re more focused on the history books, convinced that the real thing that stands in their way is the fact that people know how horrible slavery was and that the “Founding Fathers” owned slaves, know how horrible Jim Crow was, know what we did to Indigenous people, know that Christopher Columbus was a real piece of shit, and know all the other bad shit that has happened in our history.

It’s real hard to convince people they want to go back to a past they know was a pretty bad time for most people. Also, they need to ensure there are enough blindly patriotic 18-year-olds available should they need their bodies for a war.

As such, the Texas State Board of Education has proposed some new curriculum “standards” specifically designed to create a whole generation of Christian, right-wing Republican Charlie Kirk clones.

Much of the new curriculum was created by a panel of nine advisors, only one of whom was actually a teacher in the state’s public school system, and at least three far-right conservative activists. It also includes one David Barton, the “amateur historian” who writes many of the fact-averse historical accounts that Christian Nationalists keep trying to foist upon children. While there have been some revisions, here are some of the more batshit “standards” they came up with.

Requiring children, starting at age six and continuing on through high school, to read from the Bible (specifically Protestant versions of the Bible, because they probably think Catholics are witches there). Because hey, if parents are going to be so rude as to not raise their children to be Evangelical Christians, the least the state can do is to take their money and do it themselves, right?
Describing Japanese internment camps as one of the “changes” that occurred during WWII. Originally, the advisory board had recommended this be described as one of the “contributions” to the war effort. I suppose this means they were going to claim that the Japanese-Americans graciously interned themselves?
Before revisions, the advisory board had left Martin Luther King Jr. entirely out of the section on Civil Rights.
Referring to the “Tulsa Race Massacre” as the “Tulsa Race Riot.”
Removing standards that defined segregation as “keeping people apart based on the color of their skin.” What else it would be, I cannot even begin to imagine. They also removed anything suggesting that slavery in America was race-based, as if it were just a strange coincidence that all of the slaves happened to be Black people.
Eliminating standards requiring that students consider “the perspectives of groups whose voices are less represented in traditional historical accounts.” Because sure, it’s definitely just a coincidence that we hear from white men more than anyone else.
Literally no mention of any women in 3rd and 4th grade history classes.
Teaching students about the mythical “Black Robe Regiment” — an entirely mythical group of pastors who aided in the American Revolution and inspired the Declaration of Independence. This is a thing Christian Nationalists literally just came up with this century and now want taught to children as fact.
Basically teaching students that “Western Civilization” is all there is and just straight up ignoring contributions outside of the United States and Europe.

I could go on, and I hate that I could go on. And the really scary thing about it is that, because Texas is the second-most populous state, textbook companies often take their nonsense into consideration when deciding what to include.

“We just want our students to love our country,” one Republican lady said at a GOP prayer session outside of Monday’s hearing on the new curriculum, somehow forgetting to add, “even if we have to lie to them in order to accomplish that.”

Perhaps they should consider that the problem is theirs, that they are the ones who can’t “love” America while also acknowledging that our government and its people have done some truly horrible things — that, as Al Franken said, they are the ones who need to love America like a four-year-old loves Mommy.

But the Board of Education isn’t the only entity out there trying to brainwash the children — the Republican Party itself is getting in on the action as well. The new GOP platform includes some bizarrely anti-LGBTQ+ nonsense, largely aimed at preventing kids from finding out that trans people exist and preventing anyone under the age of 26 from accessing any form of gender-affirming care.

Behold:

Gender Identity Ideology in Schools: The official position of the Texas schools shall be that there are only two genders: biological male and biological female, which are immutable and cannot be changed. We support the total prohibition of so-called social transitioning. We oppose transgender normalizing curriculum, library materials, and pronoun use. We support the passage of legislation that prohibits any course of instruction, unit of study, library materials, instructional materials, or any other curricular or extracurricular offering that adopts, supports, or promotes gender fluidity or transgender ideology in Texas government schools. We support the passage of legislation prohibiting school staff from engaging in sexualized drag activities, crossdressing, or transgenderism. We hold that biological men should compete only against other biological men and that biological women should compete only against other biological women in all school athletics.

And

Homosexuality: Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice. We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin, and we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values. No one should be granted special legal status based on their LGBTQ+ identification.

Gender Identity: We oppose all efforts to validate transgender identity. We believe gender modification and any form of gender affirming care for minors does not constitute medical care and is, in fact, child abuse. Further, there shall be no attempt to engage in so-called “gender affirming” medical or mental health intervention for persons between the ages of 18 and 26, including:
a) Intervening in any way to prevent natural progression of puberty.
b) Administering or providing opposite sex hormones.
c) Performing any surgery on healthy body parts of that person.
d) Assigning name and/or pronoun changes.

Any agency, individual, or other entity promoting, performing, or facilitating gender-transitioning or gender-modification of a minor child shall be criminally prosecuted for child abuse and exposed to civil actions, enjoying no immunity regardless of profession, relation, or standing.

In addition, there is a wholly confusing section on “religious freedom for businesses” in the party platform that you will not be shocked to learn is the freedom to only say things the Texas Republican Party wants businesses to say. To wit (our bold on item C):

Religious Freedom for Business: We support the removal of laws and regulations that are used to force business owners and employees to violate their conscience, sincerely held beliefs, or core values. Properly defining public accommodation as understood in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires that we:
a) Prohibit any change to the legal definition by any federal, state, or local law to expand government control to restrict any 1st Amendment rights.
b) Proscribe any law that requires any private business or individual to create or provide a custom product or service, any kind of expressive work, enter into a contract, or be coerced into any speech that is not their own.
c) Prohibit businesses from professing, espousing, or adopting any views on sex, sexuality, gender, or gender identity, other than to guarantee that views and positions on these matters are not used as a basis for denial of access to available public accommodations.
d) Pass legislation to ensure that no business or school can be required to provide accommodation for individuals whose religion requires them to interrupt regular business/schedules to pray multiple times per day.

Don’t restrict the First Amendment, no gay wedding cakes, no Muslim employees, and no business may espouse a view on sex or gender? We truly do not understand the basis on which they are arguing for some of these and not others, but we’re pretty sure it’s not us: It’s them.

Granted, this is just their special wishlist, but given the fact that they’re a strong enough majority to do pretty much anything they like … it’s not just pie-in-the-sky dreaming.

It’s almost sad, really, that these people literally think “Well, if we don’t tell kids that LGBTQ+ people exist, beyond telling them how bad and ‘abnormal’ they are, they’ll just be straight and cis and we won’t ever have to hear anything about them anymore!” It’s not a huge surprise that a lot of these people think that queer people did not exist prior to Will & Grace — largely because they grew up in places where such people either had to hide who they were or leave town, but they obviously did. If they hadn’t, it would not even have occurred to Texas legislators to outlaw “sodomy.” The fact is, people just are who they are and no amount of repression and sheltering is going to make a gay person straight or a trans person cis. That’s just not how it works. They can scream all they want about “social contagion,” that doesn’t make it true.

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The irony is, these people are doing the exact things that will make these kids “hate America,” as they like to put it. People get a lot more pissed off when they find out that they’ve been lied to than they do if they’ve been told the truth all along, even if that truth is sometimes unpleasant.

What do they think is going to happen when these kids find out that everything they’ve been taught is bullshit? What do they think is going to happen if they get their way on trans rights when trans kids exist and other kids with good hearts see the cruelty of these policies?

Hard to say for sure, but I can’t imagine they’ll feel too good about that, or about America.

[2026 Texas GOP platform / Erin in the Morning]

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