The U.S. Department of the Interior sent an internal bulletin to employees in September on “Supporting Gender Transition in the Federal Workplace.”
According to documents published on X by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, the department sent out guidelines establishing “gender identity” as a protected class under its federal policy. “Gender identity,”according to the Interior Department, is defined as “an individual’s internal sense of being male, female, another gender, no gender, of multiple genders, or fluid in gender.”
“The document states ‘it is not DOI’s intent to be overly protective,’” the Oversight Project reported, “but then goes on to establish policies governing confidentiality and privacy, dress and appearance, names and pronouns, inclusive language, restrooms and related facilities, workplace assignments and duties, recordkeeping, sick and medical leave, and hiring process.”
“An employee’s transition should be treated with as much sensitivity and confidentiality as any other private or highly personal life experiences,” the department memo reads. “Transitioning employees often want as little publicity about their transition as possible.”
The bulletin also outlines codes for “dress and appearance,” encouraging employees to “evaluate, and consider eliminating, where appropriate, gender-specific dress and appearance rules.”
“Once an employee has informed management that they are transitioning, consistent with the employee’s wishes, DOI dress codes should be applied to employees transitioning to a different gender in the same way that they are applied to other employees of that gender, as appropriate,” the policy reads.
Employees with the National Park Service (NPS) apparently violated the agency dress code during an LGBT “pride” celebration this summer when staff held a parade at Yosemite National Park featuring celebrity environmentalist drag queen Pattie Gonia. While the NPS uniform code expressly prohibits employee participation in demonstrations or public events “wherein the wearing of the uniform could be construed as agency support for a particular issue, position, or political party,” staff draped their uniforms in activist apparel anyway.
In October, the drag queen was featured by the department again with a bizarre clip promoting the false narrative that “queer rights are more under attack than ever” alongside Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
The transgender policy deployed by Interior leadership in September urges employees to “use gender-neutral language in broad communications to avoid assumptions about gender identity.” Examples of “pronouns,” according to the policy, are “they, them, theirs, ze/hir/hirs, ze/zir/zirs, xe/xem/xyrs.” Bathroom use is up to personal discretion, it says, and those who refuse to abide by departmental policies are warned of retribution for “unlawful discrimination.”
“Repeated, intentional refusal to use the employee’s affirming name/gender/pronouns, and/or repeated reference to the employee’s dead name/gender/pronouns by supervisors/managers, or coworkers is contrary to the goal of treating all employees with dignity and respect,” the policy states. “Such intentional conduct could constitute unlawful discrimination.”
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
The Virginia Supreme Court unanimously voted Thursday to revive a lawsuit filed by a teacher who was terminated for declining to use male pronouns to refer to a female student.
In 2018, Peter Vlaming was fired from his job of seven years as a French teacher at West Point High School because he would not address a student by biologically inaccurate pronouns. Vlaming “told his superiors his Christian faith prevented him from using male pronouns” for the student. The student complained, leading to a four-hour hearing with the school board, which ultimately voted 5-0 to fire Vlaming for “discrimination.”
“That discrimination then leads to creating a hostile learning environment,” claimed West Point Schools Superintendent Laura Abel. “And the student had expressed that. The parent had expressed that. They felt disrespected.”
Vlaming sued the school board in 2019. After a circuit court judge dismissed the suit in 2021, the seven justices on the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that Vlaming’s case alleging that his rights to free religious exercise and free speech were violated deserves to move forward.
“Peter wasn’t fired for something he said; he was fired for something he couldn’t say,” said Chris Schandevel, a senior defense counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), who represents Vlaming. “The Virginia Supreme Court rightly agreed that Peter’s case against the school board for violating his rights under the Virginia Constitution and state law should proceed.”
In December last year, another teacher represented by ADF filed a lawsuit challenging her termination for refusing to refer to a student by inaccurate pronouns. Ohio middle school teacher Vivian Geraghty was fired over her religious objections to addressing two students by names and pronouns contradictory to their biology.
“Schools can’t force teachers to set their religious beliefs aside just to keep a job and they also can’t force teachers to say things that are untrue and harmful to students,” ADF legal counsel Logan Spena told the Daily Caller.
In California, a Christian teacher was let go for her refusal to conceal students’ attempts to dress and act as the opposite sex from parents. Jessica Tapia was a physical education teacher who would not permit male students to use women’s locker rooms and objected to district policy mandating that teachers hide students’ gender confusion from parents.
“[The district] called me back to work but presented me with various directives, to which I responded I would not be able to comply with some of them based on my beliefs, such as having to call students by their preferred gender/pronoun and withhold that information from their parents,” Tapia told the Daily Caller. “I believe God is love and the most loving thing we can do is affirm one another in who God made us to be.”
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
There’s a bill sitting on Gavin Newsom’s desk right now that would not only render the First Amendment null and void but also strip parents of their most fundamental rights and responsibilities toward their children. It’s not a matter of if the far-left California governor will sign it, but when.
The bill, the Transgender, Gender-Diverse, and Intersex Youth Empowerment Act (AB 957) — which last week passed the Senate and then, on a party-line vote, the Assembly — dictates that courts must consider “gender affirmation” in child custody battles. The soon-to-be-law states that in seeking to determine the “health, safety, and welfare of the child,” courts must consider “a parent’s affirmation of the child’s gender identity or gender expression.”
While some Democrat apologists in the media pretend it’s absurd to think this means conservative parents would ever lose custody of their children by nature of holding conservative values — It doesn’t say judges *have* to side with the loving, accepting parents, you hateful rubes! — we know how this will go. It’s California, for crying out loud.
But we don’t have to extrapolate much. Other media have dropped the facade and told us exactly where this bill will lead. Here’s CNBC:
Under the proposed law, parents, who fail to acknowledge and support their child’s gender transition, could face potential consequences, including the loss of custody rights to another parent or even the state itself. The bill’s supporters argue that it is in the best interest of children, aiming to create a more inclusive and affirming environment for gender-diverse youth.
There’s the quiet part out loud: A mom or dad who opts not to indulge their child in mental illness, who uses the child’s given name, prohibits the use of puberty blockers, or discourages sterilizing hormones or surgery could lose the child not only to the other parent, which is egregious enough — but to the state.
As Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, has pointed out, this law would stomp on the Constitution’s guarantee to free speech and the free exercise of religion. It would “muzzle” parents and prevent them from rearing their children in accordance with their deeply held beliefs — beliefs, by the way, that have been regarded by both Christians and non-Christians as basic laws of nature and fundamentals of civil society until about five minutes ago. This is more than a legal dilemma for Constitutional scholars and gender-studies midwits to bat around in mahogany rooms and shoddy amici, however. If it feels more nefarious and personal — that’s because it is. We’ve seen it before.
It’s classic Democrat emotional blackmail. It’s the left waging psychological warfare on its ideological opponents with barely veiled threats. Oh, you want to see your own child? Well, that’s interesting because xir needs some hormones xe says you won’t provide. You don’t seem too concerned with xir’s health and safety.
This brand of emotional blackmail has already been tested and perfected with the suicide card. That is, the aforementioned gender-studies “experts,” medical professionals, journalists, and other Very Smart People™ have decided, based on little to no evidence, that transgender medical interventions are the only acceptable course of action for confused kids. In fact, anything short of full “affirmation” is deadly, they say.
With this conclusion in mind — and at the expense of mountingevidenceshowingpro-trans policiescausethe most harm — they’ve devised “research” that Democrats then present as unassailable. The methodology of these biased studies is wildly problematic. Pro-trans ideologues habitually equate correlation with causation, fail to treat gender dysphoria as a mental illness and ignore underlying mental health issues such as depression, discount the potential role of wrong-sex hormones in unhealthy ideations, ignore hard facts about the ways puberty eventually resolves almost all dysphoria in minors, discounts rampant social factors, and turns a blind eye to the growing chorus of detransitioners who fell for leftist lies and are now filled with despair.
But never let bad science get in the way of an agenda. Would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?, they manipulate. A lack of acceptance has driven trans suicide rates and self-harm through the roof.
A law this unconstitutional is bound to wind up in the courts. And I suppose we should be thankful there’s one remaining recourse. But if all conservatives have on their side is a waiting game until the courts eventually slap California lawmakers on the wrist, they have nothing. In fact, getting GOP-opposed laws tied up in the slow gears of the court system is exactly what Democrats are expecting. They’re counting on it. The more they can keep conservatives and jurists busy, the more radical laws and policies they can keep shoving out the door. We can’t stop them all. How many poor parents and children will be casualties in the meantime?
But don’t lose the human element in the legislative games. Rabid ideologues and iconoclasts who want to remake America and its children in their own image aren’t afraid to use the most vulnerable among us as pawns. Self-censorship will only be the start. It’s emotional blackmail, plain and simple. Do what we say, or else.
Kylee Griswold is the editorial director of The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religion, and the media. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Education (ED) are silent after dozens of teachers used an ED-funded online workshop last week to “trade tips” on how to break state laws protecting children from radical gender ideology and help transgender-identifying students transition at school without their parents knowing.
According to the Daily Mail, event host Angel Nathan started the session by telling the teachers they would study new state laws in order to “remedy the marginalizing effects and disrupt problematic policies.”
“Some teachers said they followed the rules, but others discussed being ‘subversive,’” wrote the Daily Mail. One unnamed teacher reportedly stated that his or her own “code of ethics” was above the law and discussed “how to ‘hide’ a trans student’s new name and gender from their parents.”
“The stakes are very high for trans youth,” said Shea Martin, an Ohio-based trans-identifying educator who writes a socialist, feminist, and anti-racist blog called “Radical Teacher.” Martin said, “I think that requires working subversively and quietly sometimes to make sure that trans kids have what they need.”
Kimberly Martin, the DEI coordinator of a Michigan school district, said, “We’re working with our record-keeping system so that certain screens can’t be seen by the parents … if there’s a nickname in there we’re trying to hide.”
The online session was organized by the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center (MAP), an organization funded by the Department of Education under Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Last November, MAP was given $8.5 million in federal funding.
The Federalist reached out to the education department and asked if there would be an investigation launched into both MAP and the teachers who are using federal funds to spread information on how to break state laws. The department was also asked if, given that MAP is encouraging illegal activity, there are plans to defund MAP and revoke the more than $8 million in grant money already awarded to the organization. At the time of publication, a response has not been given.
The Federalist also reached out to the DOJ and asked whether, given that the criminal organizing and activity spans across state lines, it will be launching an investigation into MAP. The DOJ did not respond.
Lastly, The Federalist asked both agencies if, as a policy, they support efforts to give minors medical treatments without the knowledge or consent of their parents or legal guardians. Neither department has returned a request for comment.
To recap, a number of public school teachers have admitted to breaking state laws and are using federal funds to teach their colleagues how to violate laws protecting children. The Department of Education appears content in funding criminal activity, and the DOJ is too busy prosecuting Trump, covering up the Biden bribery scandal, targeting peaceful pro-lifers, and investigating “terrorist” parents at school board meetings to care.
The Daily Mail also exposed the radical views held by educators regarding sex and gender ideology, which, while not illegal, greatly impacts the worldview of the students they teach for eight hours a day. Martin discussed how to present “sexuality” to elementary students between the ages of five and 10, arguing that teachers should be careful about treating ‘reinforced heterosexuality as the norm’ when discussing romantic relationships with their students.
“At no point in the session did any teacher say parents might know what’s best for their own kids,” reported the Daily Mail, “nor question whether affirmation-on-demand was the only way to help a trans-identified student.”
Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.
At the beginning of the school year in 2019, Jennifer received an email from her daughter’s 5th-grade teacher. The teacher, a male, was using a different name for her then-10-year-old daughter. Jennifer thought it was a mistake. The teacher must have accidentally emailed the wrong parent. But then, Jennifer went to her daughter’s room and found a yellow Post-It note stuck to her dresser with that same name, along with the pronouns “they/them.”
“Do you have a new nickname?” Jennifer asked.
Her daughter responded yes.
Jennifer didn’t think much of it beyond harmless identity exploration. But a couple of months later, Jennifer received a more concerning call from a school counselor informing her that her daughter had used the words “suicide” and “cutting” with a friend. The counselor recommended her daughter start seeing a therapist who was contracted with the school. That therapist was free to use, accessible during school hours, and qualified to handle her daughter’s mental health problems, Jennifer was told. Worried about her daughter, Jennifer said yes. But because her daughter was only 10 at the time, Jennifer would have to go into the school and give written permission.
Jennifer lives in a suburb of Washington state, where children as young as 13 years old can access their own medical and mental health services without parental knowledge or consent. Parents in these cases are billed by insurance companies with no explanation of benefits, meaning they’re stuck with the tab but have no ability to know what services or treatments their child received.
When consenting for her daughter to see the school therapist, Jennifer made sure to tell the therapist that her daughter had been talking about her sexuality and gender identity. She shared that while she and her husband believed their daughter was too young to be exploring these ideas, they’d “love her no matter where she ends up.” The therapist made no mention of her own views on the subject or her affirmation-based treatment model where, if a child declares he or she is transgender or non-binary, the therapist would affirm the child’s stated identity.
So, for two and a half months, Jennifer’s daughter was meeting with a school therapist once a week who was treating her as a boy, using male pronouns and a made-up name. When Jennifer would ask how the sessions were going, the therapist acted as though nothing big had come up.
Then in February 2020, right before COVID-19 hit, Jennifer received a phone call from the school therapist with a two-fold purpose: to request that she and her husband come to the school in three days for a meeting where the therapist would assist their daughter in officially coming out to them as a boy, and to obtain parental permission to allow her daughter to stay overnight in the boy’s cabin for an upcoming school trip.
Sensing the meeting wouldn’t go well — and worse, would set them up in an adversarial position with the daughter they loved — Jennifer and her husband called it off.
“We were never going to let her do that, I don’t care who she thinks she is,” Jennifer said. “There are so many reasons not to put a girl in a cabin with a bunch of boys and a male adult teacher. So many safeguarding fails.”
At that point, Jennifer and her husband decided to take more drastic measures. They were skeptical that their 11-year-old daughter was transgender and believed the school and the therapist were actually leading her to identify as a boy. So, they revoked their consent for their daughter to see the school therapist, took away her access to online devices, and soon, unenrolled her from public school altogether.
“I already knew I couldn’t trust the school with my daughter when she was in fifth grade,” Jennifer said. “And going onto the middle school, she would be turning 13. And then I wouldn’t even know. They wouldn’t have to tell me what was going on.”
Identifying as a Boy
Jennifer’s daughter first identified as transgender when she was 10 years old and enrolled in an online drawing program. Prior to that, Jennifer and her husband had restricted their daughter’s access to online devices. But since their daughter was an artist, they agreed to what they thought was a harmless online art program.
Yet, a year and a half later, Jennifer learned it was through that group of online art friends that her daughter was introduced to ideas of sexuality and gender.
“She talked about being asexual at 10 years old,” Jennifer said. “Which of course she’s asexual at 10 years old. But that’s an identity.” She then talked about being demi sexual, gay, non-binary, and finally landed on transgender.
The transgender identity was heightened when her daughter began conversing with a group of girls at school who, at ages 10 and 11 years old, also identified as some form of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. The friends appeared to compete over who could have the edgiest, most unique identity.
“She was trying to fit in. She was trying to have friends,” Jennifer said.
Once her daughter was out of school and no longer communicating online with peers who valued queer identities, her transgender identity lost its importance. Slowly, Jennifer said, her daughter started to let it go.
‘Wasn’t Making Her Happy’
“Her mood changed drastically,” Jennifer said. Identifying as transgender “wasn’t making her happy.”
Since giving up on being transgender, Jennifer has talked with her daughter about everything that happened over the year and a half she spent exploring identifying as a boy. After repeated unanswered requests, Jennifer also obtained notes from the school therapist, which confirmed her suspicion that the therapist was encouraging her daughter’s transition behind her back.
“I was so upset because [the school therapist] was using male pronouns for my daughter from the first moment, from the first notes,” Jennifer said. “He, him. And it seemed like all that she was doing with my daughter was helping her advocate for herself whenever somebody ‘misgendered’ her.”
This included Jennifer’s older two sons, who didn’t even know their sister was identifying as a boy. It also included a boy at the school who Jennifer said got in trouble for “misgendering” her daughter.
“At the school, they’re not just affirming and encouraging my daughter in this delusion,” Jennifer said. “It’s deluding other kids too. They are teaching kids to deny their own sense perceptions.”
More recently, Jennifer felt enough time had passed that she could ask about the idea of staying in the boy’s overnight cabin for three nights without feeling embarrassed or self-conscious.
Jennifer’s daughter told her, “That wasn’t my idea. That was the school’s idea. My teacher asked me.”
“Kids want to please adults,” Jennifer said. “My daughter felt she had to answer yes.”
After that incident, Jennifer said her daughter, who is now 13, decided she didn’t want to go on the 5th-grade overnight trip. Though it wasn’t then, it’s now clear to her why.
‘Going to War Together’
Jennifer feels betrayed by educators, therapists, doctors, and liberal politicians whom she spent a lifetime supporting. That list includes President Joe Biden, who told parents in March that affirming their child’s transgender identity is “one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe and healthy.”
“A lot of people think that using the pronouns and affirming a child who says they’re the opposite sex, that that is about kindness,” she said, explaining:
Everybody’s very confused about this. Because the T has purposefully been attached to LGB, which is a completely separate issue. We know the LGB community was mistreated, and so people don’t want to do that again with trans-identified people, so everybody’s being super careful, and they want to be kind. But it’s a different situation. With LGB people, they’re saying, ‘Just let us be who we are.’ And there’s no medical consequences.
But with transgender-identified people or people who identify as the opposite sex, it’s very much a medical situation and it’s about the harm medicalization causes. Children are cutting off their healthy breasts and testicles and doing things to their bodies that they can’t undo. So that is completely different. Of course parents are concerned when their children identify this way because it carries a heavy medical burden which they will have for the rest of their life. They become sewn to the medical industrial complex. They will have to take drugs. They will probably have to have other surgeries. We don’t even know all the health consequences at this point. It’s an experiment happening right now on children.
In the past, most parents followed the watchful waiting approach. Children were not medically or socially transitioned, and the vast majority became comfortable with their sex when they went through puberty. Today, parents are being told that affirmation is the only acceptable response to a transgender declaration. Jennifer’s story is just one example of how there is another possible outcome if a child is not affirmed.
“They might desist,” she said. “Isn’t that preferable to a lifetime of harmful medical procedures?”
For more from IWF’s Identity Crisis series, click here.
Editor’s note: Last names have not been used to protect a minor’s privacy.
Kelsey Bolar is a contributor to The Federalist and a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Forum. She is also the Thursday editor of BRIGHT, a weekly newsletter for women, and the 2017 Tony Blankley Chair at The Steamboat Institute. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband, daughter, and Australian Shepherd, Utah.
Madison, Wis. — Parents are “not entitled” to know their kids’ gender identity, according to a recent training session in Wisconsin’s Eau Claire Area School District.
Empower Wisconsin obtained a copy of a training slide from a late February staff development session. The 2021-22 Equity session on Safe Spaces reminds teachers that “parents are not entitled to know their kids’ identities. That knowledge must be earned.”
“Teachers are often straddling this complex situation. In ECASD, our priority is supporting the student,” the professional development facilitator guide states. Teachers were encouraged to “Talk amongst yourselves!”
The lesson — that teachers know better than parents about what is best for their kids — is not sitting well with some community members.
“We are appalled that ECASD would display such blatant disregard for the parents and guardians of our community’s children. We are equally dismayed that current school district leadership would pressure teachers into breaking a social contract that we all know and understand—that parents and guardians hold primary responsibility and decision making for the welfare and care of their children,” said parents and school board candidates Nicole Everson, Corey Cronrath, and Melissa Winter in a joint statement.
The district’s training session is also legally suspect. A district court in 2020 issued a partial injunction against Madison Metropolitan School District’s policy allowing children of any age to transition to a different gender identity at school — without parental consent. The full case is now before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) and the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed the lawsuit on behalf of a group of parents challenging the gender identity policy “that violates the rights of parents to make important healthcare decisions on their children’s behalf.” The policy includes the following provisions:
Children of any age can transition to a different gender identity at school, by changing their name and pronouns, without parental notice or consent.
District employees are prohibited from notifying parents, without the child’s consent, that their child has or wants to change gender identity at school, or that their child may be dealing with gender dysphoria.
District employees are even instructed to deceive parents by using the child’s legal name and pronouns with family, while using the different name and pronouns adopted by the child in the school setting.
It’s not clear whether the Eau Claire Area School District has a similar policy.
The school board candidates are demanding district administrators issue an apology to teachers for “placing them at odds with families and also to parents and guardians for breaking the trust and partnership that is critical for thriving students and a stellar school district.”
An apology doesn’t appear to be forthcoming. ECASD Superintendent Michael Johnson issued a statement to Empower Wisconsin asserting the district is upholding its responsibility to maintain an educational environment that is “equitable, safe and inclusive for all students.”
“Our staff often find themselves in positions of trust with our students. The staff development presentation shared extensive data and information to assist our staff members in our ongoing efforts to create a safe and supportive learning environment for all students,” Johnson said in the statement. “The ECASD prides itself on being a school district that makes all students feel welcome and safe in our schools.”
The superintendent said the staff training focused on data showing students who identify as non-heterosexual have a higher incidence rate of mental health issues than heterosexual students. But critics say a school’s commitment to “equity and inclusiveness” does not give license to educators to hide important information from parents and guardians.
Cronrath, Everson, and Winter are among seven candidates, including two incumbents, running for three open seats on the school board next month. The three jumped into the race because they were concerned about the eroding of parental rights in the district. They say Eau Claire schools’ “blatant disregard for parental rights and responsibilities” has been creeping into the district’s classrooms. The latest training session sends three very dangerous messages to parents and the wider community, the candidates assert.
1. Schools are in control of children, not parents and families—When you entrust your child into the walls of ECASD, you no longer have the right as a parent to be informed of major developments in your child’s school life. In fact, you must ‘earn it.’
2. Current Leadership is willing to pit teachers against parents—Open communication between the classroom and home has always been critical to healthy school communities and student development. ECASD is putting teachers in a difficult and dishonest position by instructing them to actively withhold information from parents.
3. What goes on in the walls of ECASD is privileged information—By indicating that information about your child is ‘knowledge that must be earned,’ ECASD is setting a dangerous precedent. If identity questions for your child can be hidden from you, is diet, curriculum, healthcare, inappropriate relationships, mental health concerns, etc. also no longer the business of parents? Just what are parents and guardians allowed to know and when?
The Republican-led state legislature passed a Parental Bill of Rights that would prohibit school policies that infringe on a parent’s or guardian’s role as the primary caregiver of their child. Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat and the former state superintendent, is likely to veto the bill.
Eau Claire Area School District has a history of overreach. Last fall, school officials worked with the local health czar in removing a 14-year-old girl from school after someone in her class tested positive for Covid-19. The girl and her mom resisted, accusing authorities of abusing their powers. The county health director then sought a court order to have the girl forcibly removed from school.
The Oshkosh Area School District in Oshkosh, Wis. will no longer inform parents if their children identify as transgender while at school.
“The Oshkosh Area School District is committed to fostering a safe, supportive and inclusive learning environment for all students,” Matthew Kaemmerer, the district’s director of pupil services, said in a recent memo to staff. “District staff members are no longer required to seek parental consent prior to honoring student requests to be called by their preferred name and/or pronouns.”
To officially change their names in the district’s computer system, students will still need to provide documentation of a legal name change. However, the new policy allows teachers and other district employees to treat students as members of the opposite sex without ever informing their parents that they are doing so.
“This change only impacts how a student who is transgender or gender nonconforming is referred to (name and/or pronouns) during school and school activities,”Kaemmerer explained in an email to parents. “District staff will continue to work directly with students who are transgender and gender nonconforming and their families to maintain ongoing communication.”
“This is outrageous,” said one Oshkosh parent. “So, if my son starts identifying as a girl at school but hides it from me, I will never know about it?”
Oshkosh is not a major urban area, where many people might expect to find far-left policies like this. It is a modest-sized Wisconsin town of 67,000 people. The school district oversees nearly 10,000 students, according to federal data. While the city of Oshkosh voted for Joe Biden in 2020, the surrounding county voted for Donald Trump by four points. The area is represented by Republicans and Democrats in state offices.
Last year, the Madison Metropolitan School District announced a nearly identical policy change and faced an immediate lawsuit from parents. A Dane County Circuit Court judge issued an injunction barring the district from enforcing its policy “in any manner that allows or requires District staff to conceal information or to answer untruthfully in response to any question that parents ask about their child at school, including information about the name and pronouns being used to address their child at school.” A final decision on the merits of the lawsuit is still pending, but in both Wisconsin courts and the federal judiciary, the right of parents to have a significant say in the education of their children is well-established.
In 1923, the U.S. Supreme Court in Meyer v. Nebraska struck down a law prohibiting the teaching of foreign languages in school. The court did so in large measure because the Nebraska legislature “has attempted materially to interfere with the calling of modern language teachers, with the opportunities of pupils to acquire knowledge, and with the power of parents to control the education of their own.” This concept of a fundamental right of parents to exercise control over the education of their children was affirmed two years later when the Supreme Court held in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that parents reserved the right to send their children to parochial schools.
“The child is not the mere creature of the state,” the high court explained. “Those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right and the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”
As recently as 2000, the Supreme Court in Troxel v. Granville upheld this right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, declaring definitively that “the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause has a substantive component that provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests, including parents’ fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”
To make such decisions, parents obviously need to be informed of what their children are doing at school, and thus the Oshkosh Area School District’s deliberate attempt to withhold such pertinent information as the sex with which a child identifies represents a clear infringement of parents’ 14th Amendment rights. It also clearly violates the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which requires that “parents or eligible students have the right to inspect and review the student’s education records maintained by the school.”
In spite of this, the Oshkosh Area School District’s new policy is just the latest in a disturbing trend of districts willfully keeping students’ transgender status from parents. Montgomery County Public Schools in Montgomery, Md. announced in 2019 it would no longer disclose to parents the sex with which their children identify at school, prompting a lawsuit from parents. As far back as 2016, the National Education Association’s Legal Guidance on Transgender Students’ Rights instructed teachers and school administrators to “not disclose a student’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to others, including other students, parents or guardians…unless required to do so by law or unless the student has agreed.”
This guidance isn’t just erroneous; it is patently unlawful and unconstitutional. Parents have a deep-rooted right to control and direct their children’s education, and in order to exercise this right, they must know information as fundamental as the sex their children assume while at school.
Dan O’Donnell is a talk show host with News/Talk 1130 WISN in Milwaukee, Wis. and 1310 WIBA in Madison, Wis., and a columnist for the John K. MacIver Institute.
A Canadian human rights tribunal has ruled that a restaurant wrongfully fired an employee who demanded that the business use nonbinary pronouns, awarding the ex-employee $30,000. The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal released a ruling last week in favor of Jessie Nelson, a former employee of Buono Osteria who prefers the pronouns of they/them. At issue was the restaurant using female pronouns for Nelson, with the business firing her and claiming that she had become too “militant” in the demand to be identified as nonbinary.
Tribunal Member Devyn Cousineau authored the opinion, concluding that the refusal to use Nelson’s preferred pronouns “amounted to discrimination.”
“All employees have the right to a workplace free of discrimination. Trans employees are entitled to recognition of, and respect for, their gender identity and expression. This begins with using their names and pronouns correctly,” wrote Cousineau.
“Like a name, pronouns are a fundamental part of a person’s identity. They are a primary way that people identify each other. Using correct pronouns communicates that we see and respect a person for who they are.”
The decision contrasted the actions of someone who uses a correct pronoun at first before accommodating a person by using the individual’s preferred pronoun and someone who intentionally refuses to use the preferred pronouns of an individual who identifies as nonbinary.
“I order Buono Osteria to include a statement in its employee policies that affirms every employee’s right to be addressed with their correct pronouns,” continued the tribunal. “I also order Buono Osteria to implement mandatory training for all staff and managers about human rights in the workplace. This training should be no less than two hours. I understand that Jessie Nelson has recommended a well‐regarded training provider and I encourage the restaurant to avail itself of this option.”
Tanner Hnidey, a Christian writer from Alberta, penned a column on his website denouncing the ruling as a rejection of objective truth and a disturbing restriction on free speech.
“Now it’s one thing for a person to think they are a different gender than they actually are. It’s one thing for a man to believe he’s plural when he’s singular in reality,” wrote Hnidey.
“It’s quite another thing to force us to believe what another believes; coercing us to say what others want us to say. And that’s precisely what the BC Human Rights Tribunal ruled.”
Democrats Attempt To Erase The Words ‘He,’ ‘She,’ ‘Mother,’ And ‘Father’ From The House
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attempting to excise all references to either sex in House business to “honor all gender identities” and “promote inclusion and diversity.” On Monday, the House of Representatives is set to vote on a Rules Package for the 117th Congress, which Pelosi and Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern promise will be “the most inclusive in history.”
Congress is following in the illustrious example of companies like Twitter and educational institutions such as the University of Michigan in removing language that recognizes the two sexes from their work product and interpersonal communications.
This would mean replacing any instance of “he or she” with the grammatically incorrect colloquialism of “they” as a singular, or the unnecessarily long “such Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner.” Further, “himself” or “herself” becomes “themself,” a word not recognized by several dictionaries, and acknowledged by the New OxfordDictionary as “not widely accepted in standard English.”
Words such as “mother” and “father” would be replaced with “parent,” “aunt” and “uncle” with the awkward “parent’s sibling,” and “grandmother” and “grandfather” becomes “grandparent.” I wonder if Pelosi will bring her commitment to language policing to Twitterand remove “mother, grandmother” from her bio.
The insanity spread to the opening prayer, whereMissouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver ended the opening prayer with “Amen and A-women.” Amen does not refer to males at all. It is a word from biblical Hebrew meaning “so be it.” It appears Cleaver, in the middle of praying to a pantheistic or syncretistic god, didn’t have the cultural literacy to have ever understood the meaning of this basic word from context.
Democrats haven’t said whether references to “congressmen” and “congresswomen” will similarly be removed, nor if Pelosi will continue to be referred to as “Madam Speaker.”
The resolution deserves at least some credit for following its own ridiculous proposed rules, as any instance of singular personal pronoun use was replaced with “they” or “their,” shown under whistleblower protections.
The same bill promises to “give priority consideration to including in the plan a discussion of how the committee’s work will address issues of inequities on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, or national origin.” How can Congress be expected to legislate “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity,” as the new rules require, when they are not permitted to write in terms of sex?
These rules are not helping anyone, but are harming the specificity of language and the unique experiences and basic reality of the sexes in the name of inclusion.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Paulina Enck is an intern at the Federalist and current student at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. Follow her on Twitter at @itspaulinaenck
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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