A text circulating on WhatsApp in September 2022, indicating that schools will consult parents and representatives about whether they agree to provide sex education to their children, has been on social networks since at least 2018 and not only in digital platforms related to Venezuela
Text: Alexis Correa
“Please be very attentive next week in the registration period in schools and colleges, they will deliver a sheet where they ask the attendees if they agree that they give sex education to our children in the classroom. Just write NO. The idea is to introduce gender ideology arguing that it is at the request of the parents. This way they avoid the debate in the Assembly of Deputies». A text with these words has been forwarded in WhatsApp groups where there are citizens of Venezuela in September 2022.
First warning signs: the chain does not talk about specific dates (for example, the year 2022) or a specific country.
Taking into account that the 2022-2023 school year will begin on Wednesday, October 5, 2022 (official sources) and that the private education institutes planned to start it on Monday, September 26, it could be understood that this WhatsApp chain refers to Venezuela. But this is false. The chain has circulated —and has already been denied— on digital platforms since at least 2018 and in several countries.
It should also be remembered that in Venezuela the Constitution establishes a (unicameral) National Assembly, not an “assembly of deputies.”
If we write some of these quoted phrases in the Google search engine, we will find that this (identical) message has been circulating on digital platforms since at least 2018, and related to several countries. For example, it was denied by ecclesiastical authorities in Argentina in October 2018.
Some examples of publications that reproduce this text, with their respective date:
*Also read: EsPaja | Does the Constitution establish the original design of a heterosexual family?
Three Venezuelan education experts do not recognize it
Without informing them beforehand that it was a rehash, EsPaja.com consulted three Venezuelan educators about this WhatsApp chain:
- Leonardo Carvajal (text message): «I think it’s one of the typical cretins that some idiots usually invent to sow unnecessary alarm in the educational area. Those cretins don’t know that for decades there have been thematic units in high school subjects and in the primary areas in which sex education is taught (…) Sex education has been taught for better or worse. It is part of the programs, like the equations or the peaks and mountains or the respiratory system»
- Fausto Romeo (text message): “Totally false. Moreover, that writing is not made by an educator and I do not think it is from Venezuela»
- Luisa Pernalete (text message): “It must be a lie, but since classes haven’t started yet we can’t know if that survey is true, or who sent it or what the intentions are. Sex education is not new
Sex education is not new in Venezuela
It would be curious if fathers, mothers and representatives in Venezuela were consulted about whether sexual education should be given to their children and those they represent, when this is not a new concept in national education.
Without going too far, we present information on photographed sexuality in Venezuelan textbooks found in the home of one of the EsPaja.com journalists. These books are available on the Internet, if any user wishes to review the contents of sexual education (click on the images):
What is meant by “gender ideology”?
It is a concept in dispute between social sectors with conflicting positions on sexual diversity. If we review a website of an official institution of the Mexican government that works for gender equality, for example, “gender ideology” is defined as a “term that is used in a negative and derogatory way to cancel or dismiss sexual diversity and gender to which societies, cultures and nations have been opening up». That is, they discourage the use of this expression.
Meanwhile, the Latin American Episcopal Council —a Catholic religious institution— defines «gender ideology» as something real and potentially harmful: «A philosophical system of thought that interprets human sexuality and affectivity as a purely psychological fact (preference and will) and cultural, dispensing with and even nullifying any influence of nature on human behavior (…)” which, if imposed, would have this consequence: “The family, society and culture would disappear.”
The verification portals Newtral and Maldita have warned about disinformation and hate speech directed against sexual diversity.
A Panamanian origin?
Every disinformation campaign usually starts from a real fact that serves as an attraction “hook” and is then distorted or manipulated —otherwise, it would be very unbelievable. If we type in Google the phrases between “assembly of deputies” and “sexual education”, many of the searches point to a political, social and educational debate that took place in Panama on a date similar to that of the beginning of the dissemination of this chain misleading and anonymous (Prensa de Panamá, 01/16/2017).
This real event is probably the origin of the text with false information on WhatsApp that reappears in Venezuela in September 2022, shortly before the start of the school year.
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