Growing up in a military family, I spent most of my formative years in Europe. For families stationed overseas, there’s such a thing called the Department of Defense Education Activity, otherwise referred to as the DoDEA school system. I attended middle school through a DoDEA program, and I absolutely loved it. But as the 2024 Pray Vote Stand Summit made evident, the DoDEA no longer operates the way it used to as LGBT and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideologies are prioritized above all else.

My time with DoDEA was marked by a few noticeable aspects. First, there was immense diversity at my school, and it went relatively unnoticed. We didn’t have to talk about how we were different from one another because none of us thought twice about it. Second, it was a close-knit community. I don’t recall being forced to “accept” or “include” anyone, because it seemed to happen naturally. We were just kids being kids. Third, it was fun. At my school, the students ranged from 6th to 12th grade, and we were all happy just existing and living our lives. This context is important as it helps set up how drastically things have changed in a short timeframe.

According to The Washington Stand’s Ben Johnson, LGBT ideology has been creeping its way into DoDEA schools since at least 2022. Of course, for those paying attention, the fight for parental rights, keeping children’s libraries free from pornographic content (masked as “gender-affirming”), and preventing children from hiding a student’s “preferred” gender-identity at schools has been tough and ongoing. Yet, even with how infectious this LGBT agenda has been in the stateside school system, it’s apparently not enough for the activists. In fact, it was on Friday’s Summit panel that Amy Haywood, a military spouse who’s taught at the preschool and university levels, exposed just how strong the push for transgenderism is in the DoDEA system.

“[I]n 2021,” Haywood said, “my family was given orders to move overseas, and it was sixth grade for my daughter.” At first, this seemed to be an exciting opportunity, especially considering “everything we heard about these schools was just glowing.” However, it didn’t take long for Haywood to notice “the dysfunction” of the school and how behind “the core courses of English and math were” compared to her daughter’s previous school. She knew she had to investigate further.

Long story short, Haywood discovered DoDEA held an “equity and access” teacher training where teachers discussed the importance of hiding a student’s gender identity from the parents. One teacher from a school in Germany said in the training, “We talk about … creating a safe space for our students. We want them … to be safe at school, but we don’t want that to infringe upon their safety at home.” In other words, if a student went by different pronouns at school, or claimed to identify as homosexual or transgender, this teacher felt it was their right to hide that information from the parents in the name of “safety.”

This training was for teachers to encourage one another to teach students that lying to their parents was “brave.” Upon learning this harsh reality, “I couldn't keep quiet,” Haywood remarked. “I had to share it.” But the truth is, as Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon pointed out, this is “the framework that we find ourselves in all across America and including in our Department of Defense schools.”

She continued, “It’s shocking to think that military personnel deployed and in harm’s way would have to be dealing with this kind of situation in the schools they trust to send their children to.” However, “given that this is the landscape we find ourselves in when we deal with education,” it’s necessary to speak up and push against it, she insisted. Also on the panel were Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and Laurie Cisneros, a trustee on the California Kern County School Board. Both were able to share what’s happening in the schools of their respective states.

According to Walters, the fight in Oklahoma has not only been active but successful. “I came into office two years ago,” he explained, and “as early as first and second grade, I found teachers union activists pushing sexuality, homosexuality, [and] transgenderism on kids.” As such, his immediate response was, “None of that curriculum will be in any of our schools.”

As Superintendent of Public Instruction, Walters has made one message clear: “We’re not putting up with this. You’re not going to indoctrinate our kids.” Beyond this, he went on to emphasize the importance of getting “back to the basics.” He urged, “It’s not good enough just to get [LGBT activism] out. … We’ve got to get back to truth. We’ve got to get back to American history [and] patriotism.” As a result, Oklahoma became “the first state in the country to put the Bible back in every classroom.”

Turning to California, there’s still much work to be done. Cisneros, after facing her own challenges within a California school, decided to use her voice to speak truth into her state’s education system through a group called Concerned Citizens for Freedom. “I’m standing for American rights,” Cisneros contended, “and I’m representing the average person out there.” In a state that is overwhelmingly blue, “God basically just picked me up and said, ‘I want you over here.’” And so, “I’m fighting for all of us … kids … parents … grandparents, and teachers … trying to protect kids and protect parents’ rights.”

Some of the specific work Cisneros is focused on is “removing sexually explicit books from the classroom,” keeping tampons out of the boy’s bathroom, and allowing parents to be notified when their children identify differently at school. It’s easy to say a school or a state is “so far gone … there’s nothing we can do,” Kilgannon added, but “that is the lie that the devil wants us to believe.” The truth is, she asserted, “There is always something to be done. And even if it’s just standing up and saying what no one wants to hear, it’s worth doing.”

“Our education system has been hijacked by socialists,” Walters stressed. It is our responsibility “to be aggressive, play offense,” and take back our schools and our children. We must “make sure that parents are the ones who are empowered to make choices for their kids.”

The panel encouraged all concerned Americans to engage in the fight. “[E]ducate yourself on what’s happening,” said Haywood. “When you see something, say something. … Say something because it’s [about] children.” Whatever you do, “Do not keep silent.” For Christians, Cisneros stated, “We definitely need believers to get involved.” If we want change, we need to “pray” and “take a stand.” And as Walters put it, “We have to demand action of every elected official to fight back and win this war.”

It’s likely almost every person reading this has some experience with a world before diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) dominated our everyday lives. As such, perhaps you’re able to see how the more “inclusive” a system becomes, the more it excludes. The more a system tries to enforce “diversity,” the more these efforts crumble any chance for unity. My experience with DoDEA was great because we weren’t harassed by DEI telling us how to think and behave. Life was better that way. It was right that way. The world before DEI was a far better world, and it’s not too late to fight for the return of sanity.