Maryland education officials have approved a proposal to remove lessons on gender identity from the kindergarten health curriculum and delay the topic until fifth grade, following growing concerns from parents across the state.
The revised Maryland Comprehensive Health Education Framework removes early elementary lessons on “gender identity and expression,” which previously asked kindergartners to “recognize a range of ways people identify and express their gender,” Spotlight on Maryland reported.
Under the new standards, the topic will be introduced in fifth grade, where students will instead be asked to “demonstrate ways to treat people of all gender identities and expressions with dignity and respect.”
The Maryland State Board of Education voted to approve and publish the revisions, which will next be reviewed by the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive, and Legislative Review before final implementation.
Raven Hill, spokeswoman for the Maryland State Department of Education, said the decision came after consultation with health education experts who determined that fifth grade was a more developmentally appropriate stage to introduce lessons on gender identity.
Hill added that the focus in kindergarten should remain on broad and age-appropriate topics such as bullying prevention, rather than identity categories or labels, according to Spotlight on Maryland.
The updated framework keeps gender identity lessons in the middle and high school curricula. Sixth graders will define “sex assigned at birth, gender identity, and gender expression,” while high school students will learn that these exist “on a continuum” and may change over time.
These lessons are part of the Family Life and Human Sexuality unit, which allows parents to opt their children out of participation.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had previously warned Maryland in August that it risked losing Teen Pregnancy Prevention funding if it failed to revise Personal Responsibility Education Program materials that included what federal officials called “gender ideology.” The department cited concerns such as teachers using terms like “someone with a vulva” instead of “a girl or woman.”
A month later, the U.S. Department of Education issued a separate warning related to Title IX compliance, focusing on school policies that allow students to use restrooms and participate in sports based on their gender identity.
Maryland State Superintendent Carey Wright said she has no plans to revise those inclusion policies despite federal scrutiny.
Tensions over school curriculum have been escalating in Maryland’s largest district, Montgomery County, since 2022, when the local Board of Education approved LGBT-themed books for English language arts classes beginning in kindergarten. The move triggered protests and a lawsuit from a diverse group of parents who argued that they were denied the right to opt their children out of the material.
In August 2023, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman rejected the parents’ request for an opt-out, ruling that they had not shown the curriculum constituted indoctrination. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned it in June.
Writing for the 6–3 majority, Justice Samuel Alito concluded that the parents likely had a valid constitutional claim, stating that public education cannot be conditioned on “acceptance” of instruction that conflicts with their religious beliefs. The Court’s decision granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the parents, emphasizing constitutional protection for religious upbringing.
