In a stunning revelation that will fundamentally reshape how we think about high school science, actor Elliot Page has determined that the problem with American education is not failing math scores, deteriorating infrastructure, or student debt—it's that biology teachers are conspiring against queer and trans people by teaching... biology.
Specifically, Page argues that mainstream biology lessons are deeply problematic because they fail to adequately emphasize the extensive sex lives of seahorses and bonobos. This, apparently, is a form of oppression.
Speaking to Democracy Now (a platform apparently dedicated to finding new and creative ways to be serious about everything), Page explained that biology classrooms have been teaching a "cis hetero patriarchal" narrative—one where males are depicted as aggressive and dominant, while females are portrayed as passive. This is not just inaccurate, Page suggests. It is a coordinated effort to harm queer and trans youth by omitting information about seahorse pregnancy and penguin same-sex parenting from the curriculum.
The solution, naturally, is a new documentary called "Second Nature" in which Page narrates footage of animals behaving like animals, interspersed with commentary from evolutionary biologists about how humans have been "taught" false truths about gender and sexuality for generations. It's indoctrination—just not the kind Page is worried about.
To be fair, it's worth acknowledging that animal behavior is genuinely interesting. Clownfish do change sex. Some animals engage in same-sex behavior. Nature is complex and diverse. These are legitimate scientific facts that deserve classroom attention, especially in biology courses designed to illuminate the natural world's actual complexity rather than reducing it to moral simplicity.
But here's the gap in Page's argument: A high school biology class teaching reproduction, sexual dimorphism, and the biological basis of sex differences is not "oppressive." It's not a form of cultural erasure to explain how human and animal reproduction actually works. And conflating the biological reality of sexual reproduction with a "patriarchal structure" requires some serious rhetorical gymnastics.
Most animals do organize reproduction around male-female pairs because reproduction requires sperm and eggs. This is not an ideology. It's a biological constraint. The fact that some animals deviate from this pattern in interesting ways doesn't negate the baseline. Page's documentary may well be entertaining and scientifically instructive. But suggesting that biology teachers teaching biology are committing a form of cultural violence against trans students is not a serious argument—it's a form of ideological overreach that mistakes scientific fact for oppression.
And yet, in the progressive entertainment ecosystem, this claim is being treated as profound rather than preposterous. Because in that world, any limitation of ideology is experienced as oppression. The expectation is not that schools teach science accurately—it's that they prioritize narrative affirmation over factual instruction.
Biology classes will survive Elliot Page's critique. Biology itself certainly will. But the project of reducing all education to ideological therapy, where the primary goal is making students "feel" affirmed rather than teaching them to understand the world, continues unabated.
The seahorses, for what it's worth, remain indifferent to the culture war playing out in their name.
- Article Source:
The Post Millennial
- Photo:
