Maine School Administrative District (MSAD) 75 is holding lessons aimed at sexual abuse prevention for students as young as kindergarteners, using a curriculum from a radically pro-gender ideology non-profit that includes excerpts from books like Bodies Are Cool, The Bare Naked Book, and Uncle Willy’s Tickles: A Child’s Right to Say No.
The non-profit Sexual Assault Support Services of Midcoast Maine (SASSMM) prominently boasts that they serve Mainers of “all genders” and hides lesson plans behind a password in an apparent attempt to conceal what they are teaching children.
MSAD 75, which serves Topsham, Harpswell, and Bowdoinham, sent a notice to parents last Monday announcing that the Harpswell Community School (HCS) would be holding lessons for children as young as kindergarten on “healthy relationships and body safety.”
The lessons were developed by SASSMM, approved by the district’s Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment (CIA) Committee, and meet the “key learning requirements” set out by the Maine Department of Education (MDOE).
“SASSMM curriculum is used in many schools throughout the Midcoast region, helping districts meet the statewide mandate to provide child sexual abuse prevention education to Pre-K – grade 5 students. Their programs are also designed to support healthy socio emotional development in students, and provide tools for navigating common social challenges,” HCS Principal Anita Hopkins said in the notice.
Pre-K through second-grade students will be given a lesson based on SASSMM’s Space Bubbles curriculum. According to the notice, the lesson will include an “age-appropriate” discussion of “bodily autonomy” and “consent.”
“In grades K–2, this conversation includes the words ‘private areas,’ ‘penis,’ and ‘vagina.’ Research shows that children who are familiar with anatomically correct terms are better able to disclose abuse and are less likely to be targeted,” said Hopkins.
She revealed that kindergarten classrooms will use excerpts from Bodies Are Cool, The Bare Naked Book, and Uncle Willy’s Tickles: A Child’s Right to Say No as part of the lesson.
“Just as I incorporated a variety of skin colors, hair textures, disabilities, and so on — representing a variety of gender identities and expressions was just another type of diversity on the list. It is my hope that trans and gender-nonconforming readers feel included in the message that their bodies are cool, because they are,” she said during a 2023 interview.
The book includes numerous images of LGBTQ relationships and transgender-identifying people, including an image on the book’s cover that appears to depict a trans-identifying female with surgical scars suggesting that she underwent a double mastectomy to remove her breasts.
The Bare Naked Book appears even more concerning and includes images of explicit nudity featuring multiple images of apparently transgender-identifying people, along with a page that asks children, “Where are your nipples?”
In a communication from school administrators reviewed by The Maine Wire, an administrator claimed that the school has been using the SASSMM curriculum for approximately three years but acknowledged that some of the illustrations are not shown to children because they are too graphic.
The administrator admitted, however, that a student had previously asked about the transgender surgical scars on people in the book. At least in the case of Bodies Are Cool, transgender imagery is present beginning on the cover.
The lesson is being held on an “opt-out” basis, meaning that, by default, children are enrolled in the class unless their parents decide to opt them out. Parents were given a January 12 deadline to opt their children out of the class.
While the names of the books that will be used are available in the principal’s notice, parents would have to do their own research to know what those books actually contain and had only one week between the notice and the opt-out deadline.
The school encouraged any parents looking for more information to visit SASSMM’s website, but the non-profit concerningly hides the actual contents of its curriculum behind a password, so parents cannot easily see what their children will be taught.
As of Monday afternoon, the password can be bypassed and the curriculum viewed via the direct URL to the webpage hosting it. An archived version of the page can be accessed here.
SASSMM’s curriculum begins with three K-2 lessons: “Personal Bubbles,” “I’m the Boss of My Body,” and “Bodies Are Cool.”
In the plan for the second lesson, teachers are instructed to read aloud Bodies are Cool and reminded that it is “important to point out as much diversity as you can in the bodies depicted as you read.”
“Most boys have a penis and testicles (or balls), and most girls have a vulva and vagina, and everyone has a butt,” says the lesson plan aimed at kindergarteners.
The lessons continue in the curriculum for children in 6th to 8th grade, with lessons titled “Healthy Sexuality” and “Understanding Gender.”
The “Healthy Sexuality” lesson suggests that family members might not be the best source of information on sexual education and presents pornography as “a way to explore sexual interests,” with some cons.
That lesson also includes a handout of memory cards for students, featuring a variety of sexual orientations and gender identities.
The next lesson warns children against “gender policing,” claiming that failing to use someone’s preferred pronouns can constitute sexual harassment.
It is unclear from the communications reviewed by The Maine Wire whether all levels of the SASSMM curriculum are currently in use in MSAD 75, and it is not clear how many other school districts partner with SASSMM, though Hopkins specified that it is “many” in the Midcoast region.
According to their most recent Form 990 tax filing from 2024, SASSMM received $914,692 in taxpayer-funded grants, the vast majority of their total $1,144,095 for that year.
