CCSD laying groundwork to implement radical transgender policies
The Clark County School District is currently holding private meetings on the implementation of new policies for transgender students. The little we know should concern every parent who thinks biology matters.
Be especially worried if you don’t want your teenage daughter in a locker room with a teenage boy.
CCSD won’t say who’s on the working group, but I identified some members. CCSD is putting the documents considered by the working group on its website.
“We chose policies from peer and neighboring districts such as Washoe, New York and Los Angeles,” said Kirsten Searer, CCSD spokeswoman and working group member. “We also selected guidance from national organizations like the National Education Association.”
Predictably, those documents reflect the latest in left-wing doctrine, starting with the premise that sex is assigned at birth, like a name.
Yes, you read that right. Leftist intellectuals want children to view their biological sex as something their parents selected, instead of something parents discovered. Goodbye ultrasounds and gender-reveal parties.
Gender is redefined to a person’s “perceived sex,” and gender identity is something an individual determines based on their feelings.
This is like arguing that age is a number your parents assigned you at birth, and that society should use your “age identity” to determine whether you’re old enough to vote or buy a beer.
No, a 30-year-old should not be able to collect Social Security if he “identifies” as a 70 year-old. Neither should schools allow a biological male — based on his feelings — to use a shower area for biological females. A “safe and respectful learning environment,” which CCSD claims to want, should include privacy from the opposite sex when taking off your clothes.
But if CCSD accepts the flawed premises of transgender activists, it won’t stop at sharing locker rooms.
LA’s policy allows transgender students to participate in “athletic teams and competitions” that are “consistent with (their) gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on a pupil’s records.” Where are the feminists decrying the biological advantages males have in athletic competition?
American Tianna Bartoletta won 2016 Olympic gold in the women’s long jump with a distance of 23 feet, 5 inches. That same year, more than 50 high school boys jumped farther.
The Washoe County School District says transgender students have a “right to be addressed by the names and pronouns that correspond to their gender identity.” It prohibits staff from telling parents a student is transgender without the student’s permission.
There’s more. The New York City Department of Education says its students “must be permitted to participate in all school activities (e.g., overnight field trips) in accordance with their gender identity.” Send your 15-year-old daughter on a field trip, and she could be sleeping in the same room as a 17-year-old biological male.
“Some on the working group said Washoe is good but maybe it didn’t go far enough,” said Liberty Baptist Church executive pastor Matt Teis, a CCSD working group member who thinks biology determines sex. “I think parents need to be informed with what’s happening with their school district. Parents need to understand what their school district is teaching their children. If they are not aligned with those values, they need to speak.”
There are alternatives that protect the rights of all students while allowing transgender students additional options. For example, the Alliance for Defending Freedom has a good student privacy policy.
Teis, however, expects a divided working group to ultimately recommend policies at odds with “the ways we have accepted gender for thousands of years.”
Parents, if you think biology should count more than feelings, CCSD and its trustees need to hear from you — right now.
Victor Joecks’ column appears in the Nevada section each Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on Twitter.
Washoe County School District Gender Identity Policy by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd
NYC Dept. of Education Transgender and Gender Noncomforming Student Guidelines by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd
Los Angeles Unified School District Policy on Transgender Students by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd