Home Depot partnered with an LGBTQ program that provided elementary students with information on “pansexual” identities and being “nonbinary.”
In 2022, Home Depot announced one of its “Diversity Partnerships” was the Human Rights Campaign’s “Welcoming Schools” program, which is a program to educate students on transgender and LGBTQ terms. The Welcoming Schools program offers K-12 lesson plans and other LGBTQ resources on its website — which were available before Home Depot announced the partnership.
Home Depot announced in June 2022 the company was expanding its partnership with the Human Rights Council.
“The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation works to make transformational change in the everyday lives of LGBTQ+ people,” Home Depot’s announcement said. “While The Home Depot has partnered with the HRC Foundation in the past to advance meaningful change, we’ve expanded our partnership to support multiple initiatives that align with key commitments around advancing education for all, specifically within diverse communities.”
The Welcoming School program is described by the Human Rights Council as “the most comprehensive bias-based bullying prevention program in the nation to provide LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive professional development training, lesson plans, booklists and resources specifically designed for educators and youth-serving professionals.”
One lesson plan in the program had kindergarten to second-grade students read a book titled, “Red: A Crayon’s Story.” After reading the book, the teacher facilitates a session using crayons where students explore their “identity.”
“Each student will create a crayon about themselves that explores their inner identities,” the lesson plan said.
The goal was “to provide students with an opportunity to share some of their identities with classmates and teachers” and “to explore the concept of gender identity with students.”
“It is important to teach young children that we cannot assume someone’s gender identity based upon their gender expression,” it continued. The lesson plan also gave an example of someone who looks like a girl, but identified as non-binary with the pronouns they/them.
Another lesson plan focused on a “gender snowperson” which would “help students understand that there are many ways to be a girl, boy, both or neither.”
“Let students know that gender is your internal sense of being a girl, boy, both or neither. There are many ways that people identify their gender, and there are many genders,” the lesson plan said. “A simple way to explain this to students is that when a baby is born, a doctor or midwife looks at their body/anatomy and says they are a girl, boy or intersex. However, babies can’t talk yet, so they can’t tell us how they feel. When they start to talk, they may say they are a girl or a boy, both or neither.”
A lesson plan for grades 3-5 titled “Social Justice Acrostic Poems” had “students share and explore issues they are passionate about through acrostic poetry.” The plan has the teacher write down a list of social justice movements that the kids can support and included examples: “Black Lives Matter, respect all languages, animal rights, climate change, migration is beautiful, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, water is life, disability rights, gun control or March for Our Lives.”
Students would then choose a topic and write a poem about it and share it with their classmates.
One resource on the Welcoming Schools website includes a “Gender Support Checklist” aimed at non-binary and transgender students.
The checklist told educators to probe into students’ family lives to see if their parents are supportive of their child’s gender identity.
“Always ask the student about family dynamics,” the checklist said. “Some students may not use pronouns at all. You may also have students who use multiple pronouns.”
One resource for teachers is titled “Defining LGBTQ Words for Elementary School Students,” which provides advice on how teachers should talk to students about LGBTQ words and terms.
“Ask questions about LGBTQ words to help students to understand differences and treat others with respect,” the curriculum said.
Some of the words included are pansexual, queer, intersex, and non-binary.
The announcement goes on to list the Welcoming Schools program as one of the two programs it was supporting.
“The Welcoming Schools program focuses on preventing and ending bullying, which is often targeted at LGBTQ students,” the announcement said.
“We are dedicated to intensifying our efforts to make a meaningful, sustainable difference in supporting change in our communities,” Kelie Charles, Home Depot’s senior director of diversity, equity and inclusion, said at the time.
Home Deport also echoed these sentiments in its environmental, social and governance report for fiscal year 2022.
When Fox News Digital reached out to Home Depot for comment, a spokesperson said the partnership ended in 2023.
“The Home Depot stopped working with HRC last year, so we’re not the appropriate contact to comment on their programs. For any questions about HRC, it’s probably better to reach out to them directly. In the past, we had funded … two conferences that trained educators on how to prevent bullying using the Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming Schools program.”
Fox News Digital reached out to HRC and did not immediately receive a response.
