Teachers from the Midwest gathered online to criticize new Republican regulations on sex and identity while discussing how to help trans pupils change gender in school without their parents knowing.
Thirty educators from states like Michigan and Iowa and neighboring states like Ohio and Illinois participated in a Department of Education-funded online session held by the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Centre (MAP).
Supporting transgender children in the wake of Republican-led state legislation affecting gender, pronouns, names, parents’ rights, restroom access, and sports teams was a central topic of discussion during the session. While some educators insisted they played by the regulations, others talked about subversion, how their own ‘code of ethics’ superseded the law, and how to ‘hide’ a transgender student’s new name and gender from their parents.
The expose comes at a time of escalating conflict between conservative parents, who are concerned about trans children being bullied at home, and liberal educators, who argue they must shield trans students from the students’ own families.
Teachers, principals, and counselors had a conversation and played out scenarios that would make the parents of transgender children very uncomfortable.
The hidden affirmation of transgender pupils and the teaching of new-wave gender ideology in schools have become flashpoints in the ongoing cultural warfare in the United States. Concerns have been raised by some conventional parents that activist instructors are radicalizing their children’s views on gender and urging them to transition. Across the country, tensions have erupted in lawsuits and violent school board meetings.
More than five hundred anti-LGBTQ measures have been submitted by Republicans in Red states so far this year, and many have been enacted into law. The graphic memoir Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, describing the author’s battle with their own sexual and gender identity, has been targeted for censorship by conservative parent organizations.
There is a lot of pressure on schools to help transgender adolescents in the current political climate, which is increasingly questioning the ‘gender-affirming’ paradigm promoted by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other organizations.
