In May 2026, the Minnesota House and Senate unanimously passed HF 3489, a bill to criminalize the sexual grooming of minors under 18 years of age in K-12 schools. The bill defines the term:
- “Grooming” is the conduct of a person 18 years or older who “engages in a deliberate pattern of conduct to methodically develop a false trusting relationship with the child that is intended to strategically manipulate the child to engage in sexual conduct with the person at a future time, regardless of whether any sexual conduct occurs.”
- A “pattern of conduct” is “two or more instances of conduct.”
- The perpetrator must be “in a current or recent position of authority” and “more than 36 months older than the victim.”
- A “victim” is a minor “under the age of 18 years
It is extremely rare for such a politically divided and politically charged House and Senate to pass a bill unanimously. But the reason is obvious: Sexual exploitation of students by teachers and other school personnel in K-12 schools is exploding and they know the public wants them to do something about it. No legislator dares to be on the wrong side of protecting kids from stealth predators. Every legislator takes the side of the victimized child. And they should.
Pedophiles exploiting their positions of authority and trust to covertly pressure and violate vulnerable young people in our schools is a recurring headline. “Grooming” is only one form of exploitation, and until now, has skirted the law. Groomers have used their positions of influence and authority to manipulate minors into emotionally illicit relationships for future sexual exploitation. And there’s been no way to prosecute them until now.
What is still missing in this bill?
100% of Minnesota legislators are eager to prosecute these predators. But the elephant in the room is that HF 3489, along with similar legislation popping up all over the country, ignores the most prevalent, entrenched and “accepted” sexual grooming of innocent young people– the sexualized content and culture of the classroom!
To this day, well-informed adults have shockingly little understanding of what sex ed, for example, has become. CPL has spent well over a decade exposing the pervasive sexual grooming happening in our schools through Comprehensive Sex Ed (CSE) and can hardly believe legislators still refuse to acknowledge it. Sex “education” hasn’t been limited to just the birds and the bees for decades. Now, it is pornographic images, videos and books, explicit sexual instruction, how-to demonstrations and “practice” sessions, visits to sex toy shops, invasive questionnaires, and continual celebration of the entire gender ideology spectrum which is not rooted in biological reality. ALL of these tear down a child’s natural and moral defenses against sexual predation. In fact, using these tools to normalize such things are precisely the same tactics sexual predators use to groom their victims. See, What is Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE)? And none of these are one-offs. CSE and gender ideology are embedded into school curriculum, creating an on-going if not daily, sexual grooming culture.
Of course, every teacher is not a sexual predator. But through policies of “inclusion,” CSE, and gender fluid ideology, students are all exposed to perversion and to normalizing underage sexual promiscuity and novel gender identities. Teachers are asked to coach children to affirm sexual same-sex relationships, trans identities and, in some schools, conceal from parents that a child is transitioning. These are well-known grooming techniques that weaken a child’s defenses. And because it happens in the classrooms, under the label of “education,” through their trusted teachers, this grooming is especially dangerous. Please understand, simply labeling sexual grooming content and tactics “education” doesn’t magically make them “safe” for children. It doesn’t suddenly “equip” them.
This grooming often lures young people into destructive and unhealthy life choices that close the door to building strong, stable families. The explosion of children who no longer identify as their biological sex is a direct result of this grooming culture which normalizes fantasy genders.
HF 3489 would not have passed at all, much less unanimously, had it addressed the whole grooming culture, because the Democrat Party is committed to “transforming” children instead of educating them. They are strong proponents of sexual grooming in the schools, because it is a primary tool to create a culture shift that breaks down the morals of young people. A grooming culture in the classrooms is an essential part of their roadmap to revolution. This anti-grooming bill is evidence of their hypocrisy.
If you doubt the intentions of the school groomers, take note of the name of the nation’s largest promoter of CSE. The Sexuality Information & Education Council of the U.S.(SIECUS) decided to make its purpose more overt in 2019. They rebranded their name, adding a tag line: “SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change.”
The good news is that HF 3489 creates real legal consequences for individual school groomers who prey on vulnerable kids.
The bad news is that the sexual grooming culture of the schools, which is far more pervasive, continues to operate with no legislative challenges, and no consequences. This grooming is supported and lobbied by an entire movement of authority figures, and it operates invisibly to the public. This grooming operates under the façade of euphemisms like “safety,” “consent,” “bodily autonomy,” “racism,” “white supremacy” and “inclusion.” Some claim that vulgar and obscene books in the classroom are “empowering,” because “marginalized communities” need to read about their history. That’s outrageous.
On September 22, 2019, CPL held a Protect Kids Rally (PDF) at the Capitol to send a message to legislators to protect our children from mandating CSE in all Minnesota public schools! Hundreds of parents and citizens showed up from around the state along with many legislators.
The legislative groomers’ response was to create mandatory state health standards and slip CSE into those benchmarks. For the last two years, CPL worked with other parent groups to expose that content. For that reason, the proposed Minnesota Health Standards, due to take effect this fall, have run into overwhelming public opposition.
The last report on those standards is that the Administrative Law Judge has halted their implementation entirely based on the standards boards’ flagrant violation of procedures presenting them to the public. According to Mike McCarthy from Fixing Stillwater Schools who spearheaded the public opposition, “Minnesota’s Court of Administrative Hearings (CAH) has officially disapproved the MN Department of Education’s (MDE) K-12 Health curriculum rulemaking. Review by the Chief Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) found that the rulemaking had errors which were ‘not harmless’ and could not now be remedied.”
This court ruling has sent shock waves to Governor Walz’ appointed administration. They are appealing the ruling. Stopping these standards in their tracks is a huge victory, and we await the final outcome of their appeal.
In the meantime, please check out this helpful resource: Alert Your Teens to Watch for Coercion & Grooming