Fox & Friends Mocks Anti-Bullying Book ‘Jacob’s New Dress’ After Conservatives Force Schools to Remove It

‘Imagine Your Child Reading This Book in First Grade’

“Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning mocked a children’s anti-bullying book that was included in the first grade curriculum of North Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools system. Jacob’s New Dress was written to teach young children about acceptance and “valuing uniqueness and difference,” schools superintendent Ann Clark said. 

Conservatives had a different take.

“The purpose of our elementary schools is to teach writing, reading and arithmetic not to encourage boys to wear dresses,” North Carolina Values, an anti-LGBT activist group said in a statement. The right wing group adds the book is part of a policy that “seeks to indoctrinate students in the school district by normalizing transgender behavior.”

“I read the book online,” Tami Fitzgerald, NC Values’ executive director told The New York Times. “It’s clearly geared to young children. The book is meant as a tool of indoctrination to normalize transgender behavior. I think a lot of parents would object to that.”

The book, according to the Times, “opens with Jacob in the dress-up corner of a classroom where students can put on costumes and imagine themselves in different roles.”

Jacob puts on a sparkly pink dress and a crown and declares, “I’ll be the princess.”

A classmate complains that Jacob likes to wear girl clothes, but Jacob’s parents and his teacher are nonjudgmental and supportive. Jacob and his mother make a dress that he proudly wears to school. His father says, “Well, it’s not what I would wear, but you look great.”

Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” in a 30-second condescending and judgmental segment Tuesday morning said: “Imagine your child reading this book in first grade.”

The Fox & Friends segment suggested everyone is against the inclusion of the book in the schools’ curriculum, which is untrue.

“Outraged state lawmaker, parents – they all complained,” the Fox story says, one-sidedly, “saying the book pushes a transgender agenda.”

Of course, that’s false. Also, what is a transgender agenda?

The book’s authors, Sarah and Ian Hoffman, told the Charlotte Observer, “The idea that a book can turn someone gay or transgender is bizarre to us. Reading a book can’t turn you gay.” 

“If a white kid reads a book about Martin Luther King Jr., will they become black? This book is about a little boy who wears a dress, something outside of traditional gender roles, much like the idea of a girl wearing pants was 100 years ago. It’s about following your heart.”

Fox & Friends also mocked the book the school district chose to replace “Jacob’s New Dress.”

“Red: A Crayon’s Story,” which is about a “blue crayon mistakenly labeled as ‘red.'”

“Red has a bright red label, but he is, in fact, blue,” the Amazon book notes read.

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