A California teacher has sparked outrage after he said that childhood innocence is a ‘myth’ and has repeatedly said that sexuality can be discussed with children at ‘any age,’ including toddlers.
William ‘Willy’ Villalpando is a preschool teacher in California who was employed by a Rialto school district. At the same time, he claimed that children as young as 4 or 5 should be exposed to explicitly sexual lesson plans. The last recorded instance of Villalpando working for the school district was in 2021, so it is not clear if he is still employed there, though he is employed at Santa Ana College.
Villalpando deleted all of his social media after he came under attack for his views about exposing children to sexual content in school.
Meet Willy Villalpando. He teaches pre-k kids in California. He says toddlers are not too young to learn about queerness and sex. He says child innocence is a myth. I say he need his hard drives checked by law enforcement. https://t.co/F8f6cWXGtm
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) February 12, 2023
The California teacher said that it is a ‘mythology’ that children live in a ‘world of pure innocence,’ and because of that, children should be exposed to sexual content at a young age.
‘There is a common mythology that children live in this world of pure innocence, and that by introducing or exposing them to the real-world adults are somehow shattering this illusion for them,’ Villalpando previously wrote in a 2020 Instagram post.
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‘Therefore, there is a banning of topics and issues that children should not be exposed to as if they are not experiencing them already.’
"There is a common mythology that children live in this world of pure innocence" — William Villalpando.
Is Villalpando referring to his students only?
Teacher claims toddlers not too young for 'sexuality' discussion https://t.co/L3Ooe6I7ag
— News Tracker Live (@newstrackerlive) February 12, 2023
Villalpando took it one step further and said that not discussing sexually explicit ‘queer’ content in classrooms is telling LGBT people they ‘do not deserve to exist.’
‘Not talking about Queerness in the Classroom is NOT Letting Children be Children. It’s Telling Those people They Do Not Deserve to Exist,’ he said in 2021. ‘Kids are never too young.’
The talking point is one that Democratic politicians and activists have made in response to legislation limiting teachers’ ability to put sexual content in their curriculum for young students, such as DeSantis’ Parental Rights in Education bill.
This is not about partisanship, this is about morality. Ron DeSantis is trying to erase queer people across Florida and he’s doing it by targeting children. He is an enabler of hate and violence and to allow him to speak is to support that hate and violence. https://t.co/jUHLjVbFzA
— Yuh-Line Niou (@yuhline) June 12, 2022
He said that children begin to have a sense of their ‘gender identity’ by as young as three to four months old when they cannot even speak or walk.
‘Around 3 to 4 months old, infants show a sex and gender preference in who they look at.’
He added: ‘At three years old, a child can label their perceived gender identity. By four years old, children have a stable sense of their gender identity and have assumptions about what they can and cannot do based on their gender (i.e., dolls are for girls, cars are for boys).’
Villalpando’s argument, while controversial, has been echoed before in mainstream media outlets, including by teachers who believe that it is their job to ‘protect kids from their own parents’ if their parents do not accept their gender transition.
Non-binary queer teacher at @KHSD_Official told the NY Times in an interview “my job… is to protect kids… sometimes they need protection from their own parents.”
The district will also knowingly hide a student’s transition from parents.
They’re cutting out parents. pic.twitter.com/bGR2KHAicX
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 25, 2023
Olivia Garrison, who is nonbinary, told the New York Times that they felt it was their job as a teacher to ‘protect kids’ – ‘sometimes from their own parents.’
‘My job, which is a public service, is to protect kids,’ Garrison said. ‘Sometimes, they need protection from their own parents.’
At the time of the publication of this article, Santa Ana College, which currently employs Villalpando, has not publicly responded to concerns about his comments.
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