Private School Accreditor Hosts Conference With Org That Pushes Child Transgenderism

America’s largest private school accreditation agency teamed up with an organization that encourages child transgenderism to host an online teacher training conference.

The Inclusive Schools Network Institute, hosted by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) in conjunction with Gender Spectrum, focuses on building “gender-sensitive” schools. 

The five-day conference, taking place from June 13-16 with an additional session on June 23, costs anywhere from $1,270 to $2,157 to attend, depending on when guests sign up and whether they have a NAIS membership.

The NAIS is a non-profit organization with a membership of more than 1,600 K-12 schools within the United States. It is America’s largest private school accreditation organization.

The online conference will cover several different topics, including “dimensions of gender, key terminology, and the spectrum framework for gender,” as well as “best practices for supporting transgender and other gender-expansive students.”

Other subjects include “gender at the intersection of race, power, and identity” and a “climate assessment and making a case for gender education in schools.”

NAIS notes that the conference is “open to all educators who are interested in creating more gender inclusivity in their schools” but specifically targets “Heads of school,” “Curriculum specialists,” “K-12 classroom teachers,” and “Diversity and equity professionals,” among others.

Gender Spectrum describes itself as “a national organization committed to the health and well-being of gender-diverse children.” The California-based group works alongside educational organizations and has also published a list of educator resources, as well as a “gender support plan” for students. It has a history of working alongside sex change clinics, including those that operate on minors. The organization hosted a series of talks with sex change surgeons last year. 

One session in the “Gender Affirming Surgery Series” titled “Vaginoplasty” focused on “the surgical journey of a young patient as they navigate towards the goal of aligning their bodies with their identity in the form of vaginoplasty.” It included discussions on “picking a surgical team” as well as “preparing for a consultation” and “details of the procedure.” Another session in the series focuses on “top surgery,” while a third discussed facial surgery.

The series was held in conjunction with the Gender Confirmation Center, a San Francisco-based surgical clinic that has provided “gender-affirming surgeries” to adolescents. The clinic offers “top surgery,” “bottom surgery,” “body contouring,” and “gender confirming facial surgery.” 

A different session, called “Navigating a Gender Clinic,” was also held last year. “How do you navigate a gender clinic? What is a gender clinic? At what age can you access it and what services are available?” an Instagram caption on a post advertising the session read. It also promised to provide “Guidance around gender affirming products and techniques such as: binding, packing, tucking and more.”

The session was held in conjunction with the Ann and Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, which has a pediatric transgender clinic that previously received seed funding, as well as an additional million-dollar donation, from transgender billionaire Jennifer Pritzker’s foundation. 

Both the Gender Confirmation Center and Align Surgical Associates, another sex change surgical clinic, were listed as sponsors at a conference held by Gender Spectrum in 2020.

Gender Spectrum also sells a book called “The Transgender Child,” which “has been lauded as the most trusted source of information for families wanting to understand and affirm their transgender, gender-expansive, or nonbinary child.” The book was co-authored by Stephanie Brill, the founder of Gender Spectrum.

The NAIS, which hosted this same conference in 2022, did not respond to a request for comment.

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