Tammy Bruce (Screen shot) Fox News contributor insults transgender kids: "When I was a child, I thought I was a cocker spaniel" "This is about social engineering," she said, "and it starts very early."

Moral panic was palpable on "Fox & Friends" this morning when co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck interviewed radio personality Tammy Bruce and psychologist Susan Lipkins to discuss a lesson plan that "exposed" young children to transgender issues.

Students at Horace Mitchell Primary School in Maine were read "I Am Jazz," Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jenning's book about a young trans girl struggling with her gender identity. Parents allege that the school should have been required to contact them and obtain their consent before reading this book to their children.

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"Is this some sort of plan of indoctrination to get to kids first?" Hasselbeck asked Bruce.

"This is about conditioning," she replied, "and not just of the children, but the parents as well. You can be the moral arbiter of your child -- that doesn't make you a bigot."

Bruce explained that the school believes that parents, if left to their own devices, will not teach their children to be accepting of their transgender peers -- and that it is the school's responsibility to intervene. "What concerns me," she said, "is that parents are being told that if they resist, if they try to retain control of their family, that they're going to be called a bigot or a homophobe."

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"This is about social engineering," Bruce added, "and it starts very early."

Susan Lipkins agreed, saying that children between the ages of five and eight aren't ready to think about issues as complicated as gender identity -- even if, as she suggests, they are currently wrestling with such issues themselves. "I don't think kids should know this," she said, "it's just confusing to them. As a feminist, I think it's insane to say that somebody has a boy's body and a girl's brain. What's a 'girl's brain'?"

Bruce said that the desire to teach children about transgender equality is projection on the part of adults onto children. "There was a point when I was a child where I thought I was a cocker spaniel," she added, "because this is childhood, and that is why this is particularly troubling."

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Watch the entire segment from "Fox & Friends" below via Fox News.