Oklahoma State University (OSU) officials provided a training to students that teaches them how to be LGBTQ “all[ies],” according to documents obtained by a watchdog group.
The OSU Office of Multicultural Affairs conducted a virtual training in 2020 which taught students various terms to use when discussing the LGBTQ+ community and trained them on what resources are available to transgender students, according to documents obtained by Do No Harm, an education watchdog group and reported by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA). A section of the training was called “Ally Packet: LGBTQ Safe Zone.”
The office taught students about gender using a “gender unicorn,” which is a tool used to explain gender identity and expression. It also included a section on “LGBTQ Terminology” which included words and phrases such as “AMAB/AFAB,” which stands for “assigned male at birth” and “assigned female at birth,” as well as “gender confirmation survey.”
“Heteronormative” was defined as “[t]he system of power within most (if not all) Western societies that considers heterosexuality to be the expected norm,” according to OCPA.
The office also advises student of resources it offers transgender students including a “clothing closet, scholarship, transgender support group, and all-gender restroom list.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Med School Weighed Residents’ Commitment To ‘Anti-Racist Practices’ In Admissions Process)
“While it’s important to know about how Title IX has an effect on their roles within the university, Oklahoma taxpayers should be concerned that OSU is devoting resources to providing training to teach faculty and staff members about ‘Important LGBTQ Terminology’ rather than focusing on how to develop competent and knowledgeable physicians,” Laura Morgan, Do No Harm’s program manager, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The ‘Gender Unicorn’ has no valid place in sound medical education.”
Another document obtained by the records request referred to “biological sex” as “an ambiguous word that has no scale and no meaning besides that it is related to some sex characteristics,” claimed that “male/female” is “a European construct” and sex ““is not exclusively determined through genitals.”
The documents also revealed the university’s role in training staff members to recognize biases. During a 2020 staff training at Oklahoma State University- Tulsa included sessions about ““unconscious bias and microaggressions,” and during a 2021 staff conference the sessions focused on “restoring racial justice” and “addressing microaggressions.”
The university supported the Oklahoma State GSA Leadership Summit, which is a conference for high school students involved with Gender and Sexuality Associations, according to OCPA’s report.
A snapshot of the Oklahoma State University campus. (Screenshot/YouTube/Oklahoma State University)
The documents revealed another staff training dived deeper into diversity in the workplace by claiming that “there are also diversities among people that may not be so obvious” such as “Religion, Mental/psychological disabilities, Beliefs and values, Sexual orientation, and Personal habits.”
“It’s important that we be aware of these differences, even though they may not come through in the workplace every day,” the presentation claimed, according to OCPA.
Laura Morgan, Do No Harm’s program director, told OCPA that the documents “indicate that the troublesome focus on equity is a university-wide problem.”
“Money spent on staff training in anti-racism, implicit or unconscious bias, and microaggressions is a waste of taxpayer dollars at best and an attack on academic integrity at worst,” she said.
OSU, OSU-Tulsa and the Office for Multicultural Affairs did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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