{"id":279343,"date":"2026-05-05T06:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T06:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/279343\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T06:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T06:36:13","slug":"the-new-code-of-silence-texas-tech-university-bans-gender-and-sexuality-teaching-and-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/279343\/","title":{"rendered":"The new code of silence: Texas Tech University bans gender and sexuality teaching and research"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a sweeping attack on freedom of speech and thought and science, Texas Tech University (TTU) in Lubbock, Texas, a public institution that serves 42,000 students, has issued a near total ban on the teaching, research and discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). This is in line with other attacks<\/a> in Texas university systems.<\/p>\n

The draconian directive, announced in an April 9 memo from University Chancellor Brandon Creighton, is an obvious appeal to social and intellectual backwardness and an attempt to shove ultra-right Christian ideology down the throats of faculty, students and staff. This is only the thin end of the wedge, laying the groundwork for a far broader assault on critical investigations of modern society and, ultimately, of capitalism and the oppression and violence that flow from it. The \u201cillegalization\u201d of entire fields of study in this authoritarian manner has only sinister, Nazi-like implications.<\/p>\n

Brandon Creighton [Photo by Charles Shirley \/ CC BY 4.0<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Creighton is a right-wing figure, a former Republican Texas state legislator, in which capacity \u201che earned a reputation as a fiscal conservative and pro-business leader,\u201d according to his official biography. That same jewel of a biography notes that Creighton\u2019s \u201cvision\u201d at TTU centers on \u201cadvancing excellence\u201d in \u201cfree-market enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the university\u2019s new policy, courses cannot include any materials that \u201ccenter on\u201d the topics of sexual orientation or gender identity. The issues cannot be raised in any university setting, no student can engage in research or write on the subjects, undergraduate and graduate courses, certificates, and programs that address sexual orientation and gender identity are now banned, and all future faculty hires must take into account the university\u2019s new code of silence.<\/p>\n

Even \u201cincidental references\u201d\u2014defined as a single sentence\u2014must be avoided and \u201calternate materials\u201d swapped in. If this is impossible, the incidental references cannot be discussed. \u201cThere are no exceptions to the Alternate Materials Rule for core, undergraduate courses,\u201d states the memo.<\/p>\n

AI will be used to search out sexual orientation and gender identity themes.<\/p>\n

Allegedly, students currently conducting research on or enrolled in programs that relate to SOGI can finish their studies, SOGI-related work by faculty already employed at TTU can continue, and references can be made to SOGI legal and political policies and demographic data where necessary. In addition, if the study of the subjects is required to attain professional certifications and credentials, students are permitted to do so.<\/p>\n

However, the limits placed on these circumstances are so extreme as to make it impossible to actually investigate or discuss sexual orientation or gender identity.<\/p>\n

Thus, if a textbook addresses the question, professors are instructed to skip over it. If the issue comes up in relation to another subject\u2014for instance, the fact that James Baldwin, the major 20th century African American author, was gay\u2014it can be noted in passing, but not taken into consideration in discussions of Baldwin\u2019s life story, much less his art.<\/p>\n

Even in instances in which sexual orientation and gender identity are topics that must be learned or a person will be disqualified from his or her profession\u2014such as counseling and the health sciences\u2014TTU bureaucrats first must be notified of the fact and second, reserve the right to determine that the curriculum actually is not necessary.<\/p>\n

The ACS Committee may require changes if, upon further review and consultation with the respective Provost, the committee determines the material is not strictly required by the relevant licensing or credentialing body, or if the content disclosed under patient and clinical care is determined not to be strictly required for such care.<\/p>\n

In short, far-right ignoramuses who know nothing about science or society will be telling future doctors or therapists, for example, what they can and cannot know.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Other carve-outs from the policy that are announced in the memo are equally ominous. Allegedly, it is allowable to discuss intersex people\u2014i.e. individuals whose biological sex is for some reason, whether it be physiological, chromosomal or hormonal, indeterminate\u2014but, \u201cfaculty may not use these biological conditions to advocate for or validate sociological frameworks of fluid gender identities.\u201d This stupidity contradicts the university\u2019s own gag order. According to TTU, biological sex and gender are identical, with the former determining the latter. However, for a group of people whose sex the university acknowledges is neither clearly male nor female, it is impermissible to consider the fact that their gender identity may also not be binary.<\/p>\n

Texas Tech\u2019s Humanities Building [Photo by Johan Hendrikse \/ CC BY 3.0<\/a>]<\/p>\n

The TTU Board of Regents\u2019 absolute equating of sex and gender is one of the most degraded aspects of the policy. Under its \u201cTwo Human Sexes Requirement and Biological Science\u201d section of the memo, the university declares, \u201cState and federal law and TTU System guidance dictate that only two human sexes, male and female, are recognized.\u201d It adds, as part of its \u201cProhibition on Endorsement of a Gender Spectrum,\u201d \u201cInstructors may not teach that gender identity is a fluid spectrum, endorse the existence of more than two genders, or decouple gender from biological sex as a factual or scientific baseline.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is neither a federal nor state law that states that there are only \u201ctwo human sexes, male and female.\u201d And while it is an aim of the extreme right, the First Amendment has not yet been overturned. People are free to say whatever they want about sex and gender.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, historical and contemporary evidence demonstrate that gender norms shift over time and vary across cultures. Homosexual sex was not uncommon among Roman men, and it was not regarded as a violation of male social norms. In Afghanistan today, some segments of society raise daughters as Bacha Pash\u2014that is, female children are treated as boys until the age of puberty. In South Asia, Hijra are formally recognized as a third gender. Even in societies that have traditionally had more rigid categories, what has been expected of men and women has constantly changed, as cultures evolve and people push against, reject, and transform what is considered socially \u201cacceptable\u201d behavior.<\/p>\n

For anyone who has a brain, it is obvious that while the genetic-biological differences that underpin the male-female divide have remained over the course of human history (albeit their complexities now much better understood) and are not simply a \u201csocial construct,\u201d the boundaries of masculinity and femininity have shifted.<\/p>\n

Both gender and human sexuality are fascinating and very complex realms of social reality, bringing together questions of biology, psychology and culture. They are universal, inescapable, and impact everyone. They are deserving of scientific inquiry, social reflection and artistic exploration. When society finally began to throw off the yoke of religious obscurantism, social humiliation and prudishness that for centuries surrounded these realms of the human experience and to understand these subjects as worthy of serious investigation, it took an important step forward.<\/p>\n

At a January 29, 2026 demonstration at Texas A&M, a placard draws parallels between modern censorship and Nazi book-burning<\/a><\/p>\n

The Christian right-wingers who penned TTU\u2019s policy wish to, as Trump revealed in his promise to return Iran to the \u201cstone age,\u201d bring the world back in time. They fantasize about some sort of mythical-biblical age in which, in their mind\u2019s eye, to be a woman means to pop out infants and a man to run around clubbing animals for dinner. The consideration of anything otherwise is blasphemy to be denounced by the priests of the high order.<\/p>\n

An aspect of the memo that is less well-developed but equally, if not more, dangerous, is the attack on those who are not heterosexual. While much of the TTU board\u2019s order focuses on assaulting the idea of gender fluidity, the study, discussion and research of sexual orientation is also banned. The very words \u201cgay,\u201d \u201clesbian,\u201d \u201cbisexual,\u201d \u201cqueer,\u201d can no longer exist at TTU, much less be the subject of investigation and discussion.<\/p>\n

Homosexuality is commonplace in society and widely accepted by the majority of the US population, which generally also believes that LGBTQ+ communities should have special anti-discrimination protections. The ultra-right, however, has always viewed romantic and physical relationships that defy social boundaries with terror, because they bear within them the prospect that people will unite across divides and challenge those in power. At TTU, these layers, knowing that support for the Trump administration\u2019s policies is faltering and they are isolated and increasingly hated, hope they can stoke ignorance and use fear as some sort of bulwark.<\/p>\n

In an effort to win support for its policy, the Board of Regents includes prohibitions that tap into frustrations over the identity-politics approach that has come to dominate academia over the course of the last several decades.<\/p>\n

They write, <\/p>\n

To ensure academic objectivity, faculty are prohibited from teaching as absolute truth that: \u25cf One race or sex is inherently superior to another; \u25cf An individual, by virtue of race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, consciously or unconsciously; \u25cf Any person should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of race or sex; \u25cf Moral character or worth is determined by race or sex; \u25cf Individuals bear responsibility or guilt for actions of others of the same race or sex; or \u25cf Meritocracy or a strong work ethic are inherently racist, sexist, or constructs of oppression.<\/p>\n

The standards outlined here are directed at the reactionary notions, preached widely in the social sciences and humanities, that all whites are racists, all men are oppressors, all heterosexual individuals are privileged and that these hierarchies constitute the social structure, are systemic and institutional, inescapable tools of domination that benefit all within the majority group. The New York Times has been a leading proponent of this view, with its 1619 Project rewriting American history in order to fit this narrative. Concepts like \u201ccolor-blind racism,\u201d propagated by sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, apply these notions to contemporary reality. For years, DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] efforts have become the mainstay of the Democratic Party and what passes for American liberalism or radicalism.<\/p>\n

When applied to the classroom, these racial, gender, and sexuality-based approaches, with zero progressive content, have been enormously damaging, serving as grist for the mill for the far right. For years, sociology courses have, to varying degrees, subjected students to the gospel of \u201cwhite privilege,\u201d terrorizing those who question the validity of the concept, which is rooted in a rejection of economic class as the basis of oppression, bulldozes over all social and historical complexities to arrive at a pre-determined idea that the root of society\u2019s problems has and always will be \u201cwhites,\u201d full stop.<\/p>\n

Research has likewise suffered, with scholars often so busy \u201cqueering\u201d and \u201cgendering\u201d whatever subject matter is under discussion that the most important questions are drowned in a miasma of secondary, tertiary and even less important themes, such that no one could ever possibly understand anything. However much a study of sexuality among Civil War soldiers might be interesting from the standpoint of understanding the men who fought and died, the conflict between North and South was not fundamentally about \u201cheteronormativity\u201d and the matter, to be blunt, is of little importance for understanding the essence of the revolution that destroyed slavery in the US.<\/p>\n

But while the far-right taps into the frustrations within the broader population over these approaches, it seeks to use them not to foster critical discussion, but to set the stage for further and deepened censorship and its own form of even more intense ideological terror. The stupidities of the identity politicians are being used to prepare an assault on the real threat to the wealthy and powerful\u2014the idea that class oppression is the basis of capitalism and thus class struggle the basis for liberation. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Join the Socialist Equality Party! <\/p>\n

The Socialist Equality Party is organizing the working class in the fight for socialism: the reorganization of all of economic life to serve social needs, not private profit.<\/p>\n

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