A Tucson high school teacher is under suspension after teaching students that males with a certain intersex disorder were actually females.
Marana High School reportedly suspended physics teacher Les Beard after a recording of his lecture on androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) went public.
Beard’s suspension occurred following an investigation by independent journalist James O’Keefe through the O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) and Citizen Journalism Foundation (CJF). O’Keefe publicized a recording of Beard’s lecture on AIS captured by a student, along with O’Keefes subsequent phone calls to the head of public relations for Marana Unified School District.
JUST IN : Mr. Les Beard has been suspended from Marana High School after @OKeefeMedia released a recording of the Physics teacher telling his students that men can be women if they have androgen immunodeficiency syndrome. https://t.co/VASNdoqpIE
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) January 29, 2025
Beard’s lecture is reproduced below:
“All of them have a condition called androgen immoficiency [sic] syndrome. And all of them have an XY chromosome. Now, women, probably everybody in here, all the females have XX chromosomes, and all you guys have XY chromosomes, probably. But all of these women have female sex organs. And what happened is when they were babies, fetuses I guess, this condition that’s supposed to — androgen, if your body is sensitive to androgen and you’ve got XY chromosomes, you develop male sex organs. And if you’re an XX, you develop female sex organs, but if you’re not sensitive to androgen, the male organs will not develop and the female organs don’t quite develop either. But usually all of these women have female sex organs, they do have male sex organs as well. So if you take an x-ray of them, you’ll see what guys have. But if you look, if you were to look at them, they look quite ordinary. So what are they? Are these guys? Mr. Trump says so. None of them found out until adulthood. You usually don’t find out that you’re an XY chromosome person until you’re an adult, and all of your friends in high school have started menstrual cycles and you never have, and so you go to the doctor and you ask, ‘Why have I not started a menstrual cycle?’ And then they give you an MRI and they find a surprise. And they tell you, ‘Well, you’re really a guy,’ but none of them really believe it because they’ve been women all their lives.”
As mentioned by Beard in his lecture, all AIS individuals have XY chromosomes. However, unlike the implication Beard made, XY chromosomes mean the individual’s biological sex is male.
AIS is a genetic disorder, one of more than 30 known intersex conditions. “Intersex” concerns conditions in which an individual has atypical sexual or reproductive anatomy.
There are two types of AIS: complete AIS (CAIS) and partial AIS (PAIS). In CAIS, individuals will have genitals that appear female, but are not; in PAIS, individuals will have genitals that may appear either female (but are not) or male (but not quite as they should be developed).
This is what makes AIS a genetic disorder: AIS individuals have either an incomplete (PAIS) or total lack (CAIS) of response to testosterone, causing the underdevelopment or lack of any development of a penis as well as fully or partially undescended testicles.
As they are males, AIS individuals do not develop a womb or ovaries.
Prior to teaching at Marana High School, Beard did stints as a senior geophysicist for Zonge International and Battelle.