Vermont urges everyone to replace ‘son' and 'daughter' with 'gender-neutral' terms in schools
The Vermont Department of Health is advising educators and families to forego the terms "son" and "daughter" when speaking to students.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, the department suggested using what they referred to as "inclusive language for families" in the new school year.
"Equity in the classroom is an essential piece of a productive and healthy learning environment," the post read.
The department advised using the terms "child" or "kid" instead of saying "daughter" or "son," suggesting they are more "gender-neutral" words.
Libs of TikTok, a prominent, right-wing social media account known for reposting far-left content that often entails anti-LGBTQ themes, shared a screenshot of the guidelines saying "yes, this is real."
"The Vermont Department of Health says to stop using the terms ‘son’ and ‘daughter’ in order to be more inclusive. This erosion of the meaning of words and the dismantling of family as the building block of society is wrong. Christians must stand for truth and not give in on these issues," the Dansbury Institute, a group of issue-based, nonpartisan churches that focuses on public policy issues, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Asked about the post, the Vermont Department of Health told Fox News Digital that the guide was "intended to encourage using inclusive language when you don't know someone's family situation. "
The state's health department promotes a "health equity glossary" involving similar rhetoric on its website.
The glossary, reviewed by Fox News Digital, defines gender as "social, psychological, and/or emotional traits, often influenced by societal expectations, that classify someone as man, woman, a mixture of both, or neither" and says it is "socially constructed."
The site also defines "internalized racism" as a "set of private beliefs, prejudices, and ideas that individuals have about the superiority of whites and the inferiority of people of color."
The health department says the term "white" is "a social and political, rather than biological, construct" and links to a 2016 video on "The Surprisingly Racist History of ‘Caucasian’ | Decoded."
The glossary also defines "white privilege" as "unquestioned and unearned sets of advantages, entitlements, benefits and choices that people have solely because they are white."