The percentage of students in a Yolo County school district who identify as a gender that does not conform with the traditional male-female binary is higher than the national average, according to a recent study.
The Climate Data and Surveys section of the 2020-2021 Main Report of the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) that is posted on the Davis Joint Unified School District (DJUSD) website found that 6% of 7th graders and 7% of 11th graders identified as non-binary or something else when asked, "What is your gender?"
That’s compared to 5.1% of adults younger than 30 years old nationwide who identify as trans or nonbinary, of which 3.0% are nonbinary, according to a 2022 Pew Research report.
Nonbinary is defined as identifying as neither male nor female.
Paul Naleid, president of the California chapter of No Left Turn in Education asserted the relatively large numbers is due in large part to the recruitment of "loners and outcasts" by teachers and others interested in "pushing the LGBTQ agenda." Naleid said they have particularly used "clubs like the Gay Straight Alliance and Prism."
“If you've got kids who are susceptible to being loners and outcasts because they've got a medical condition like Asperger’s, you can invite them into the club and say they’re special," Naleid said.
Naleid also blames Davis' higher percentage of genderless students on local universities that allegedly teach their education majors a liberal agenda, combined with the fact that Davis, California, is a college town, home to the University of California at Davis.
“It's university professors,” Naleid said. “I wouldn't be surprised if they were on the school board. If you look at their school board, you probably will see some university professors on it or somebody that's associated with a university.”
As previously reported in the Southern California Record, for instance, a Monterey County mother, Jessica Konen, sued the Spreckels Union School District alleging that teachers and administrators at Buena Vista middle school, along with the school itself, secretly convinced her 11-year-old daughter, who reported feelings of depression, that she was bisexual and transgender.
"They have Cal State Monterey Bay professors on the Spreckels school board and this is their agenda, to do this, and clubs like the Gay-Straight Alliance are part of it," Naleid said. "They schedule the clubs at noon and the California Teachers Association coached them on how to do that."
The California Teachers Association did not respond to requests for comment.
At least one university professor serves on on the DJUSD school board. Joe DiNunzio, an assistant adjunct professor at UC Davis, was elected to the DJUSD school board in 2022. He also serves as an executive director of the UC Davis Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. DiNunzio did not respond to requests for comment.
“Being transgender is a really easy target for Asperger’s kids because they'll accept anything and there’s a neurodiversity movement around Asperger’s that is crowding out the real autistic kids,” Naleid told the Southern California Record. “Kids are told they don't have to follow Applied Behavior Analysis and they can be who or whatever they want. Schoolteachers have been taught how to recruit them.”
According to Autism Speaks, an advocacy organization for those considered to be on the autism spectrum and their families, Asperger syndrome is no longer used as an official diagnosis. Rather, it became part of one umbrella diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. According to the site, those who may be diagnosed with Asperger syndrome may experience difficulty with social interactions, may have restricted interests and may suffer from depression or anxiety, in part because of difficulty with navigating traditional social interactions.
The DJUSD website indicates the district serves more than 200 special education students.