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Implies others are ‘crooked’

A Seattle high school teacher has stirred up controversy after allegedly telling a class they could not identify as “straight” because it implies other identities are “crooked.”

Chief Sealth High School’s Ian Golash (pictured) also is accused of telling a male student he is the “product of the patriarchy that teaches young boys not to care,” KTTH-770 reports.

Golash had handed out a “Social Identity Wheel” worksheet to his class which supposedly helps determine who has “unearned privilege or oppression.”

The mom of a (male) student in the class had complained to Golash and Principal Ray Garcia-Morales, writing that her son “was told that if he identifies as straight that he needed to pick a term that was less offensive. It is completely inappropriate to dictate what terms a student can and cannot use to identify themselves with.”

Golash said he told the class the notion about being “straight” was just his opinion:

“Because I think language has power and that it shapes the culture that we live in, I did say to the class, in response to a student, that I do not use the term ‘straight’ because it implies that to not be straight is to be ‘crooked’ which could have a negative connotation,” Golash wrote.

He added he wasn’t “interested in telling [students] how they should identify and that the wheel they are completing is for their own reflection, not for me to assess.”

The mom also complained that Golash had “shamed” her boy regarding the matter of Florida taking on critical race theory and LGBTQ-related issues in schools. When her son had inquired about the topic (he was absent the day a video was shown about it), the mom claims “rather than converse” on the matter Golash gave him the line about being a “product of the patriarchy.”

Golash said those remarks too were directed at the class as a whole, not the mom’s son. He added they were “connected to discussions of systems of power” and behavioral issues he had with some boys in the class, including her son.

The same mom previously had taken Golash to task after allegedly giving her son an “F” on a quiz because he wrote that men can’t get pregnant and women don’t have penises. The Seattle Public Schools district is investigating the quiz issue.

MORE: Teachers union to teachers: Destroy evidence of student gender identity surveys

IMAGE: Sue Ellen/X

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