Stephen Miller Promotes Indoctrination of Children Through the Public School System

It was never about “parental rights” or “the children.” It’s fascism.

Gage Skidmore // Wikimedia Commons

Stephen Miller, a political advisor and mastermind of some of Trump’s most insidious policies, took to the pulpit (the White House Press Briefing Room) last week to mark the President’s first 100 days back in office. He celebrated the Trump Administration’s crusade against “the cancerous, communist, woke culture which is destroying this country”—which is Trumpian speak for trans people, immigrants, political dissidents, and so on.

Under Trump’s new vision for public schools, “children will be taught to be patriots,” Miller said. “So as we close the Department of Education, and we provide funding to states, we are going to make sure that these funds are not being used to promote communist ideology.”

Miller said that the Department of Justice is coordinating with state and local law enforcement to fight “child abuse in our school systems”—referencing conspiracy theories that public schools are surreptitiously transitioning children behind their parents’ backs. “It is child abuse to change a child's gender, particularly if you do not inform the parents. It is a gross violation of parental rights,” he said.

In his speech, Miller laid bare the brazen, multi-front attack on trans people, especially trans youth. While they technically (probably) can’t criminalize trans children for being trans, the government has nonetheless targeted trans children by going after their health care providers and medication manufacturers; teachers that call them by their name; schools that give them access to bathrooms and sports teams; private businesses that choose to cater to their needs; and caretakers who affirm their trans or gender nonconforming kids.

While none of this is new, Miller’s speech follows a May 1 report, over 400 pages long, chock full of anti-trans disinformation. Erin in the Morning issued a comprehensive debunking of that report when it was first released.

Miller’s (much shorter) speech offers a neat summation of the Trump Administration’s hypocrisies and paradoxes when it comes to trans people. The GOP is pro-business until that business wants to sell LGBTQ merchandise or support its LGBTQ employees. They are pro-free speech until that speech entails respecting trans people. They are pro-parental rights until a parent wants to seek out gender-affirming care, education, and safe spaces for their children. It was never about liberty; only about government-mandated adherence to extremist, ahistorical, and unscientific notions of gender categories.

When it comes to trans people, Republicans are more than happy to micromanage businesses, restrict speech, hold state funding hostage, and punish parents for making informed choices for their children, all with the threat of an iron fist.

For anyone staying up-to-date on trans politics and rights, this is an old tune. But it bears repeating because these talking points remain to be entertained in the news, by pundits, and by politicians, as if there is a good-faith conversation happening, as if this is a rational debate within the free marketplace of ideas.

It is not. Trump Republicans have successfully shifted the Overton window—the framing of these conversations in popular culture—to the ethics and legitimacy of trans life itself. They have suppressed science, free speech, and academic freedom. The stakes aren’t trans people’s rights versus the rights of parents, schools, or states; it’s trans people and everyone’s rights versus a fascist demagogue amassing power through threats of violence.