More Corporations Removed From ‘GenderCool’ Website Following State Farm Exit

A person holds a transgender pride flag in New York on June 28, 2019. Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

A day after insurance company State Farm ended its partnership with an organization aimed at promoting transgender ideology among children, multiple corporations and a federal agency have been deleted from the project’s partner page.

State Farm announced May 24 that it had withdrawn support for the “philanthropic” program GenderCool, which pushed for distributing books on gender identity among children, after the partnership became the subject of news and customer inquiries.

“We support organizations that provide resources for parents to have conversations about gender and identity with their children at home. We do not support required curriculum in schools on this topic. As a result, we have made the decision we will no longer be affiliated with the organization,” State Farm said in a May 24 news release.

By that afternoon, nine out of the remaining 22 entities listed on the GenderCool website’s “Partners and Supporters” page were gone. This includes Adobe Inc., Bank of America Corp., Capital One Financial Corp., General Mills Inc., Indeed, NBCUniversal, Oracle Corp., Sprout Social Inc., and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Just The News reported.

According to John Grosshandler, founder and chairman of GenderCool, State Farm is the only entity to leave the partner program this year. The reduction of members on the partner page is due to the fact that the project decided to update the page on May 25, reflecting the changes over the past four years and making it current.

“No one has reached out to us privately indicating they plan to” exit, he said to Just The News. When the media outlet contacted one of the partners removed from the list, the entity confirmed that it had left prior to the State Farm controversy but for unrelated reasons.

State Farm’s support for GenderCool was brought to attention by nonprofit organization Consumers’ Research. Will Hild, Executive Director at Consumers’ Research, posted a leaked letter in a May 23 tweet from “concerned” State Farm employees showing the company partnering with GenderCool to promote transgender ideology.

The letter, sent to State Farm Florida agents on Jan. 18, stated that the GenderCool project’s aim was to “increase representation” of LGBTQ+ books and support “challenging, important, and empowering” conversations with kids aged five and above.

The company sought 550 of its agents and employees to donate books from the GenderCool project to a local teacher, community center, or library of their choice. The books discussed issues about transgender and non-binary identities.

One of the books laid out step-by-step details on how children can learn about transgenderism online and how to come out as a transgender to their parents, Hild said in a tweet.

The book also “encourages 5-year-old children to question their own gender identity and to reconsider their pronouns.”

State Farm backtracked from its association with GenderCool after critics pointed out that the company’s plan might violate Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law if the firm provides instructional materials on gender identity to schools for use among K–3 students.