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SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador. The Salvadoran government canceled a contract with a teacher training institute that broadcast an educational program on state television. This came after public pressure that the program was indoctrinating students with content related to sexual identity.

On Monday the 26th, a video created with digital animations went viral. It explained that, starting in puberty, teenagers could be attracted to other people, including those of the same gender. The video then offered definitions of the words heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual, but some users questioned its content.

“Can someone tell me who’s running Channel 10? Why do they need to force gender ideology on our children? Video shown to 8th graders. Bad things shouldn’t be kept quiet, folks,” wrote a YouTuber named Saúl Montes on Twitter.

Minutes later, President Nayib Bukele posted on his Twitter account his government's decision to suspend the contract with the National Institute for Teacher Training (INFOD), which is attached to the Ministry of Education and the television station.

The channel's management warned that the reasons for the termination of the agreement are due to "failure to meet educational standards" by the Institute in charge of the curriculum development of the program that has been broadcast since May 2020.

Content for education during the pandemic

The television broadcasts began in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused the closure of educational centers in the Central American country.

The program is coordinated between the office of the president's wife, Gabriela de Bukele, and the Ministry of Education. 

The content design is carried out by the specialized center created by an act of Congress approved in 2019. Among its powers is the development of a comprehensive curriculum or specializations that are needed in the educational system of El Salvador.

The broadcast episode is part of the learning guide on sexuality, which has been in place since 2013. It is aimed at eighth-grade students, ages 14 to 15, and recognizes diverse identities and orientations.

Speeches without discrimination

“I liked the video because it explains what it is, without discriminating. It’s wrong for the government to do that because it minimizes a large group of people as if they didn’t exist, because in public and private schools and universities there are always people from the LGBTI community,” Scarleth Camila, a transgender seventh-grade student, Presentes .

Prior to his rise to power, Bukele expressed support for LGBTQ+ rights. However, on his first day in office, he closed the inclusion office, and in subsequent years, he adopted a conservative stance to maintain support for his administration.

El Salvador is deeply conservative. The Catholic and Evangelical churches of various denominations wield significant influence over the executive and legislative decisions of the Central American country.

The Nayib Bukele administration recently sent the draft "Growing Together" Law to Congress. This bill included recommendations from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to include gender identity and sexual orientation in the prohibition of psychological or psychiatric medical treatments. However, anti-rights groups pressured the government, and this provision was removed from the final version.

"The government wants to keep us all under its heteronormative, patriarchal, and sexist ideology."

The Descriptive Diagnosis on the situation of LGBTI people in the Jorge Lardé School Center in the capital, carried out by the Association of Women for Dignity and Life – Las Dignas , indicates that the student population with dissident identity and orientation suffers verbal violence, marginalization, exposure of sexual orientation without their consent, harassment and invalidation.

“The inclusion of sex education topics by the Ministry of Education in primary and secondary education programs is both a necessity and a right. It provides our students with the necessary knowledge to support them in their identity formation processes, in the exploration of their sexuality, in breaking down stigmas that surround them, and in protecting them from the prejudices of our society,” stated the Fresno UCA university network for diversity and gender in a press release.

The people consulted for the preparation of the diagnosis revealed that the bullying at the educational center caused them problems with concentration, non-attendance at classes, insomnia, fear of going out on the street, self-blame and finally school dropout.

“The government wants to keep us all under its heteronormative, patriarchal, and sexist ideology. At my age, many teenagers are starting to discover their bodies; this is a country that treats this topic as taboo,” said Scarleth Camila.

At the time of publication, there was no response from INFOD; its website was deactivated and its director dismissed by ministerial order.