UNICEF Guide Teaches Censorship to Kids

By | 2026

NEW YORK, February 27 (C-Fam) In a recent guide, UNICEF is encouraging parents to teach their children about identity-based “hate speech”, including that based on sexual orientation and gender identity. According to UNICEF, mere opposition to gender ideology could count as “hate speech.”

“The more you talk to your children about topics like hate speech, racism and xenophobia, the more comfortable they will be to come to you if they experience it,” UNICEF explains.

The guide goes on to define hate speech as “any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior that attacks or discriminates against a person or group’s identity,” including someone’s “gender or sexual orientation.”

By defining hate speech this broadly, UNICEF is teaching parents and kids to justify censorship of speech that threatens an identity-based ideological framework rather than real people. For instance, refusing to use pronouns or to affirm one’s subjective self-identification as the opposite gender could amount to hate speech.

The guide also tells parents to embrace diversity and “[e]xplain to [their] child that we aren’t all the same and that is a good thing” to bring up “hate speech” cases to “school authorities,” and “[r]ecord the evidence and report it to the social media platform.”

In a 2024 publication, UNICEF framed opposition to gender ideology as discrimination and bullying. Meant to guide children aged ten to fourteen, UNICEF explained that, in the context of bullying, “phrases like ‘traditional or nontraditional [sexual] orientation’ are incorrect.”

“You cannot point out to people their rightness or ‘wrongness’. All types of sexual orientation are natural,” the UNICEF text continued.

UNICEF has since retracted the publication after receiving criticism for its sexualized materials for children and for promoting value judgments on human sexuality and morality that run counter to the deeply held beliefs of many people.

The Trump administration has criticized UNICEF for promoting contentious policies instead of focusing on “lifesaving humanitarian assistance.” This past fall, the US refused to endorse the UNICEF strategic plan. Just this past week, the U.S. told UNICEF that it has “veered into progressive ideologies detached from national interests” and must avoid “harmful gender ideology” programs and policies.

UNICEF’s hate speech guidelines are predicated on the idea that gender identity exists on a spectrum and is different from “gender expression,” “sexual orientation,” and biological sex.  However, these ideas and the concept of “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI) more broadly are highly contentious terminologies at the United Nations.

In December, 81 governments, including the US, Egypt, Turkey, Singapore, Russia, and South Korea, rejected the inclusion of SOGI in a resolution on persons with disabilities.

Several governments explained that rejecting mentions of “sexual orientation and gender identity” as a protected category of non-discrimination does not mean endorsement of discrimination and hate but is reflective of a rejection of gender ideology as a concept at large.

Egypt, leading the effort to delete SOGI from the resolution, explained that “the principle of non-discrimination is totally enshrined in international human rights law and applies across the board” and that human rights are universal and indivisible.

Critics of “identity-based frameworks” for anti-hate and bullying programs for kids emphasize that such programs should focus on the inherent dignity of all children and personal responsibility. That way, children will grow to learn how to avoid and respond to bullying without having to embrace a confusing and harmful understanding of gender and other contentious progressive ideologies.

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