TOP

Despite Subterfuge, Radical Sex Ed Comes to Light

For years, reports of radical sex education covertly being taught in public schools as well as the secret transitioning of students in deference to transgender ideology have surfaced, despite the best efforts of education personnel to hide them. In September, Project Veritas posted Part One of a two-part video series on X (formerly Twitter) exposing the hidden curriculum of HiTOPS, a New Jersey-based 501c3 organization that promotes itself as offering traditional health and sex education, and social support for youth.

In the first video, HiTOPS Executive Director Lisa Shelby tells the Project Veritas journalist how HiTOPS educators “get through” to students with their sex ed messaging by using the state’s mandate “for racial justice and inclusivity ...” They intentionally use these classes as a means of accessing students because “parents are not able to opt out.” When the interviewer repeats “so parents can’t opt out?” Shelby affirms with a nod and sly laugh: “That’s right. You got it!”

During the interview, the Veritas journalist uncovered what she called “alarming truths” about HiTOPS’ real objectives. Both Shelby and “health educator” Hannah Wiers admitted they “exploit the mandatory Pathways to Racial Literacy class as a hidden channel, a back door to reach children, bypassing the parents’ right to opt out.”

Wiers explained, for example, that when HiTOPS “goes to middle school,” they use the Pathways class, which is “you know, learning a lot about race, ethnicity, and so on.... We come in and we teach for three days in that class and parents are not allowed to opt their children out. That’s I guess, like our real sort of goal — to remove opt-out policies,” she admitted. “Because right now, if we come in as a health class, parents could opt their children out.”

According to Shelby and Wiers, HiTOPS teaches “affirming work, affirming practices ... things like that.” Shelby elaborated: “We’ve found that adults by and large, at least those we work with, want to be supportive and helpful of the kids in their life, but feel confused and ignorant. They don’t have the vocabulary; they don’t want to make a mistake. So we start there and our goal is to create safe, open space. People can make mistakes, ask questions.

“So that’s sort of our initial training. And then we have eight different modules that we go through and get more in depth, more and more to the nitty gritty of the tenets of [sexual] orientation in general. So that’s one big program that we have.”

Project Veritas says HiTOPS is accessing students directly during school hours using school-issued computers to discuss sensitive topics such as the pronouns that reflect the gender of the child’s preferred identity, which HiTOPS educators ferret out through observation during the in-person classes. As Wiers explained: “I don’t know if you have been in a school recently, but they’re all digital, which can be nice because then we can send out a Google form basically. And [we say] ‘hey, I’m just checking in. Remind me what name you like to be called. Remind me what pronouns you like to use.’ I don’t know if a four-year-old is gonna know the word ‘pronoun.’ But they know how [to say] ‘I like to be called she/her,’ or ‘I’m a boy;’ things like that.”

At this point the interviewer asks, “so you send this [form] directly to the student, not the parent?” to which Wiers responds: “That’s what we encourage staff to do, yes.” It’s unclear whether the electronic forms are only sent to children who are able to fill them out themselves.

The first video ends with the narrator noting that “education should be transparent” and that it should help kids achieve academically for their future success.

  • Our investigation into HiTOPS reveals a significant breach of trust where educators exploit loopholes and technology to advance radical sexual education without parental knowledge or consent. These educators admit their goal is to eliminate a parent’s right to opt their children out of classes they may feel are inappropriate or violate their family’s values.

Some observers note that innocent children are, in this instance, being hit with a double whammy. They are subjected to mandatory “diversity and inclusion” classes and also to radical sexual concepts and ideology in those same classes.

For its part, HiTOPS raged against Project Veritas, predictably calling the organization a “right-wing hate group” and accusing it of “deceptive, unethical practices to spread misinformation.” But the true intentions of HiTOPS personnel are clearly implied in the video, with demonstrative smirks and giggles accompanying their own words. The evidence shows who is actually spreading “misinformation.”

HiTOPS offers sex training for tots

On September 20, Project Veritas released Part Two of its HiTOPS exposé, showing additional video footage of employees describing their efforts “to offer sexual and gender identity trainings to elementary aged children.” HiTOPS’ Director of Education and Administration, Stacy Robustelli, shared that one of her “most rewarding experiences” happened in an elementary school, when “five students ‘came out’ as LGBTQ as a result of HiTOPS’ training of students in grades three, four, and five.”

She confided that “the most critical time for [us] to be there is grades five through eight because you want to catch kids when they’re starting puberty ... However, early intervention is key, so we are actually designing a kindergarten through grade two curriculum.... She admitted: “We are intentionally going into younger and younger grades.”

Executive Director Lisa Shelby disclosed that reaching young children is “ideal” because “they are so open and malleable....” Project Veritas points out that this is happening to very young children, often without the awareness or consent of their parents. As Hannah Wiers told the interviewer when asked if kindergarteners could understand gender affirmation: “Oh yes. What we know is that children have a sense of gender identity as young as three years old.”

Wiers continued: “So there’s a difference between ‘we’re figuring out identity at that age, with one-off comments like, ‘I’m gonna be a prince today instead of a princess,’ and [whether] they’re ‘asserting their gender identity.’ If it’s consistent, persistent, insistent; I think those are the three [indicators] ... that’s what you’re looking for if you’re thinking about, sort of, helping....”

In other words, if a preschool or kindergarten girl goes through a period of preferring trucks over dolls, or a little boy imagines for a period of time that he’s a princess rather than a prince, HiTOPS’ employees will begin grooming him or her for a lifetime of confusion and potentially, life-altering drugs and surgeries down the road.

Project Veritas points out:

  • It’s essential to understand that groups like HiTOPS aren’t providing typical classroom teachers. They are external organizations, each with its own specific goals and agendas. As they enter a child’s school, it’s important for parents and the community to be informed about the content they provide and the representatives they send to interact with children. What’s deeply concerning is that parents might be unaware of these groups’ presence in their children’s classrooms.

For example, HiTOPS provides a “gender affirming closet” so that LGBT “youth who need clothes that match their identity, but cannot get them”—implying that they may need to sneak the clothes behind their parents’ backs with HiTOPS’ help and blessing—“they can come to our closet; they can pull pieces completely for free.”

HiTOPS Director of Advancement Judy Walker showed Project Veritas one such closet filled with formal wear. “We just did a ‘pop-up event’ with formal wear to get ready for the prom for the kids,” she enthused, adding that they also have “personal items such as [breast] binders and packers; stuff for non-binary and trans kids to be comfortable in their bodies. They can come get stuff ... try it on, you know, in an affirming space.”

International CSE

While the HiTOPS example of teaching comprehensive sex education (CSE) is specific to the state of New Jersey, similar intrusions are underway in schools across the U.S. and around the world. An organization called the Protect Child Health Coalition (PCHC), based in Gilbert, AZ just east of Phoenix, works to raise awareness about international efforts to indoctrinate children.

PCHC describes itself as “a network of concerned citizens, parents, professionals, leaders, and organizations representing the fields of law, academia, mental and physical health, politics, religion, government, and more, who believe all children should be protected from harmful materials, especially pornographic, obscene, or erotic materials.” PCHC is nonpartisan and welcomes people of all religious faiths and walks of life, “who have an interest in protecting the health and innocence of children.”

The organization opposes “all efforts to advance autonomous sexual rights for children and believes that children have a right to a childhood free from political, sexual, or other adult agendas.” The group asserts that “parents are the ultimate guardians of their children and that the rights of parents to guide the upbringing of their children and to guide their education in all matters are inalienable.”

PCHC is aligned with Family Watch International (FWI) and a coalition of other like-minded individuals and organizations throughout the world who work to:

  • Expose the harmful content of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) programs and materials and the entities behind the CSE movement.
  • Stop the indoctrination and sexualization of children of all ages through widespread school- and community-based CSE programs.
  • Protect the rights of parents and guardians to decide the optimal sexual health messages for their children.
  • Repeal obscenity exemption laws that enable adults to show obscene materials to children in the name of science or education.
  • Oppose the lowering of “age of sexual consent” laws.
  • Promote child-protection anti-pornography initiatives.
  • Equip families, community leaders, and policymakers with the best available research, strategies, and tools to fight harmful policies and curricula.
  • Guide families, community leaders, and policymakers to [find] better sex-ed alternatives such as sexual risk avoidance curricula and/or abstinence outside of marriage curricula.

Videos, films, and resources

The PCHC website includes a number of valuable resources for parents and citizens, including a 10-minute video produced by FWI that provides a comprehensive but concise picture of the threats posed by what it calls “the sexual assault against children.” The video is professionally made and packs a lot of information into its short time frame. Interestingly, it brings out the fact that through digital means in the classroom, as the HiTOPS educators mentioned, children can easily be exposed to explicit sexual materials and propaganda unbeknownst to parents.

An expanded 35-minute version of the video is also available through the website, as is information on some of the most widely promoted CSE programs currently in use in schools and online.

Links to informative documentary films can be found on the About Us tab; these documentaries were produced by FWI, and include “The War on Children” and “The International Politics of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.”

The site further offers a library of webinars, one of which describes research that shows CSE is actually a failure and makes the case for abstinence education. Additional webinars provide tools for defending children, fighting CSE and the transgender agenda, and more.

Another key feature of the PCHC website is its Toxic Ten List, or what it calls “the top ten purveyors of the sexual indoctrination of children.” These groups were primary in the placement of CSE programs in the schools. As observers might expect, Planned Parenthood is ranked #1; the Kinsey Institute #2, SIECUS is #3, and most of the remaining organizations will also be familiar to site visitors. A mouse click on the name of each organization opens a new window with more enlightening details.

Want to be notified of new Education Reporter content?
Your information will NOT be sold or shared and will ONLY be used to notify you of new content.
Click Here

Return to Home PageEducation Reporter Online - October 2023