Jennifer Siebel Newsom's Radical Gender Documentaries Force Student Viewers To Reveal If They're Gay and ID Classmates Who May Be Derided as 'Fags': Films Are Funded and Promoted by Newsom Donors, Appointees
Documentaries produced by California's "first partner," Jennifer Siebel Newsom, promoting fringe views on gender have been shown to over 2.5 million K-12 students, with an accompanying lesson plan that forces teens to publicly disclose their sexual orientation to their peers and identify which of their classmates violate gender norms and may be labeled "fags," "pussies" and "nasty butches."
The lavishly produced documentaries are funded in part with gifts from Governor Gavin Newsom's donors and corporations that have received handouts from his administration. The California Department of Education, whose members are appointed by the governor, recommended that public schools screen Siebel Newsom's documentaries in California public schools to teach students how to "question the examples of gender and sexuality they see in media," according to a statement from the board in 2019.
The documentaries and accompanying lesson plans are the brainchild of Siebel Newsom, who calls herself "first partner" rather than first lady, and is an "influential thought leader on gender equality," according to the State of California's official website. She has accused the press of fighting a "war on women" and is known for her meandering lectures on toxic masculinity. She also told convicts at the notorious San Quentin prison, while filming one of her documentaries, that she related to them because at age six she had accidentally killed her eight-year-old sister with a golf cart.
Siebel Newsom and her husband are now facing a federal criminal probe, which is said to be focusing in part on Siebel Newsom's taxes, her charities, and her for-profit documentary company, all of which are interwoven in a complex skein that up until now has largely evaded serious scrutiny. Though the probe began when former president Joe Biden was in office, Gavin Newsom has publicly called the investigation a baseless Trump-driven political prosecution of him and his wife. On Thursday, Politico reported that the Newsoms have hired Abbe Lowell, who also represents several other Democratic figures who are facing criminal investigations or charges by the Trump Justice Department.
Siebel Newsom herself appeared Friday on MS NOW to address the investigation, telling the news personality Stephanie Ruhle that the probe is "a fishing expedition" carried out "in typical Trump fashion" and that she and her husband have "nothing to hide."
One of Siebel Newsom's charities, the Representation Project, which is believed to be a focus of the federal investigation according to the Los Angeles Times, is a self-described "gender watchdog" that has made her one of the most influential educators in America. The charity works hand-in-hand with her for-profit film production company, Girls Club Entertainment LLC, on her gender documentaries. Girls Club Entertainment produces the documentaries—which combat "intersectional gender stereotypes"—and the Representation Project licenses and distributes the films, mostly to schools, and prepares accompanying lesson plans for students from kindergarten through high school.
Siebel Newsom claims the lessons have been distributed to 11,200 teachers in over 5,000 schools across all 50 states, reaching over 2.5 million students. The curricula teach that "gendered values" are the root cause of economic inequality and other societal woes.
In one Siebel Newsom-designed exercise for high school students called "The Privilege Walk Activity," high school students are directed to line up shoulder-to-shoulder and to take forward or backward steps corresponding to a series of prompts, one of which reads: "Step forward if you identify as straight." LGBT students are to remain in place. The instructions stress that the exercise works "best if students/participants take large steps so the differences are obvious." When students are finished positioning themselves, they are instructed to look at "who is around them" and reflect on how their personal privilege stacks against their peers. The further forward they are (the more heterosexual), the more privilege they have.
The exercise does not provide students with the option to opt out of publicly disclosing their sexual orientation to their classmates, which appears to violate the broad consensus among legal watchdogs including the ACLU and LAMBDA Legal that public school students have a First Amendment right to privacy when it comes to their personal identity.
In another exercise called "The Box Activity," Siebel Newsom has students identify the traits of the stereotypical man—including "strong, tough, in control"—and the stereotypical woman—such as "emotional, soft submissive." The lesson plan states that some women who remain "inside the box" will be raped and abused by their partners, and asks students to consider whether those stereotypical female traits "really bring them safety or power."
Students are then instructed to write the "offensive words" society has designated for men and women who act "outside the box." The lesson plan offers suggestions for men—"wimp," "fag," and "pussy"—and for women—"butch," "nasty," and "angry."
Following that, Siebel Newsom's exercise has students discuss as a group which and how many of their classmates act inside their respective boxes "all the time," thus prompting students to consider which of their classmates may be labeled "fags," "pussies," and "nasty butches" who exhibit those "out of box" characteristics some or all of the time.
To Siebel Newsom, the "Box Activity" suggests to students they will contribute to economic inequality and the perpetuation of domestic and sexual violence if they stay inside their gendered boxes. But to Rhyen Staley, the research director at the conservative watchdog group Defending Education, the exercise is nothing more than a thinly veiled humiliation ritual for the sorts of vulnerable students Siebel Newsom claims to defend.
"These lessons have absolutely no place in a K-12 classroom," Staley told the Washington Free Beacon. "The radical far-left ideologies at the core of these activities will cause irreparable psychological and emotional harm to young students and will foment animosity between them and their peers. It speaks volumes about the depravity that some on the far-left will stoop to in order to advance their political agenda."
Siebel Newsom says she developed the lesson plans with help of a team of professors, teachers, and film experts, including Dr. Riane Eisler, a "social systems" scientist who writes about gender, Dr. Caroline Heldman, a political scientist who specializes in gender, and Annie Delgado, a Latina high school teacher who sparked a #MeToo controversy in 2019 when she reported being sexually harassed by a white basketball coach at her school.
Siebel Newsom's work with the Representation Project and Girls Club Entertainment—not to mention the criminal investigators believed to be circling them—threatens to overshadow her husband's nascent 2028 presidential campaign. Gavin Newsom is featured in several of his wife's films, where he delivers talking points on government budgets and lectures viewers on their obligation to tap into their "political will" and "step up and solve big problems," Open the Books . In her companion lesson plans, Siebel Newsom has students discuss her husband's public stance against the War on Drugs, which Gavin Newsom says was racist.
Siebel Newsom is unusual for a documentary filmmaker in that she's handsomely compensated for her work. Documentaries are a field that is known to generate little profit, even if they are hits on streaming services.
But since Gavin Newsom took office as governor of California in 2019, the Representation Project has paid his wife upwards of $1.8 million. Siebel Newsom has drawn $913,000 in direct salary from the organization. In that same timeframe, the charity paid an additional $923,000 to Siebel Newsom through her for-profit production company, Girls Club Entertainment, for her documentary writing, producing, and directing services. Since 2019, the Representation Project has reported $2.4 million in total film production expenses, indicating that the films are made on a shoestring budget and Siebel Newsom's compensation appears to have consumed much of the charity's production budget.
Siebel Newsom has her husband's administration to thank for steering revenue and eyeballs to her documentaries. In 2019, Newsom's Department of Education recommended public schools screen them in California public schools. The Representation Project charges schools and corporations between $49 and $1,500 to screen its documentaries, and the charity has reported earning $956,000 from film sales since Newsom took office.
Controversy erupted not long after Newsom's Department of Education gave its stamp of approval to the first partner's documentaries in 2019 when a public junior high classroom of 11- and 12-year-olds in Patterson, Calif., screened The Mask You Live In, which presents traditional masculinity as harmful to young boys. One California father said his 12-year-old daughter was traumatized after seeing the film at school, which contained footage of young men searching for graphic and violent pornography. "Viewers also briefly see a clear picture of sexual bondage and acts of violence against nude or thinly dressed young women," according to the Modesto Bee.
"It is the worst thing my daughter has been exposed to," the father told the Bee. "When I send her to school, I don't want her to see porn. That is what this is."
But film sales to schools represent a small fraction of the Representation Project's total revenue. The charity has raked in more than $7.7 million since Newsom took office, thanks in large part to deep-pocketed corporate donors who have received millions of dollars from her husband's administration, drawing pay-to-play allegations, the Daily Mail reported. The charity's corporate benefactors include media giant Comcast, health care giant Kaiser Permanente, AT&T, and PG&E, a utilities giant which raked in more than $323 million in California taxpayer funds in 2021.
The Representation Project has also brought in contributions from Planned Parenthood, oil heiress Aileen Getty, and Anne Wojcicki, the former wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin.
As for the work itself, Siebel Newsom has developed her documentaries and lesson plans alongside some of the left's most prominent socialites and heiresses. Executive producers on her films include Walt Disney heiress Abigail Disney, Kennedy heiress and former California first lady Maria Shriver, Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon, Microsoft divorcee Melinda Gates, and the ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt's wife, Wendy.
The films themselves feature interviews with some of the most prominent members of the Democratic Party. In addition to Siebel Newsom's husband, the films feature commentary from former 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, former House speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.), socialist activist Dolores Huerta, MS NOW host Rachel Maddow, and the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.). The participants are almost all Democrats (Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, is an exception).
The Representation Project did not return a request for comment.