SCHOOL BOARDS: GROOMING KIDS FOR AN ORWELLIAN WORLD
Seattle’s Gender Identity Shenanigans Don’t Bode Well for Humanity
At first glance a Seattle School Board President comparing critics of Gender Ideology to racist segregationists who attacked a little black girl as she was escorted into school in the 1960s may not seem relevant to humanity’s chances for preventing ecological Armageddon, World War III, and a deepening of economic injustice in the world. Nor may the Board’s Vice President sternly declaring that “students’ civil rights are non-negotiable” as she shamelessly leads the charge to destroy those rights. But all these things are indeed connected.
On September 27th, gender critical activists urged the Seattle School Board to stop promoting Gender Identity Ideology in the schools. See my last article to access the Demand for Action we submitted to the Board.
This follow-up article details the despicable behaviors of School Board members at that meeting, the Orwellian dynamics at play, and resulting harms. It provides important information for people in Seattle dealing with a School Board that has been swallowed by the Gender Cult, for people encountering similarly captured School Boards elsewhere, and for anyone who cares about the future of the world.
Like me, many readers are undoubtedly active on various pressing issues of the day: war, economic injustice, environmental degradation, to name a few. What happened on September 27th in Seattle is a case study in propaganda and authoritarianism of direct relevance to all those issues. The schools are fueling the broader decay of civil liberties and rational discussion that is underway all around us. That decay threatens our very survival as a species.
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE SEATTLE BOARD MEETING: INESCAPABLE CONCLUSIONS
Reviewing the video of what happened at the Seattle School Board’s September 27th meeting, several very disturbing conclusions are inescapable.
1. The Seattle School Board has absolute disdain for anyone who challenges Gender Identity Ideology, and no interest whatsoever in hearing what we have to say.
A school board should show respect for people who sign up to deliver public comments. It should make commenters feel welcome and listen carefully to what they have to say. It should examine any written materials they provide.
The reception given to the five gender critical souls on the public comment list at the September 27th Seattle School Board meeting, however, was not respectful and welcoming in the slightest. It was quite the opposite.
For 30 minutes before public comments, Board members and the School District Superintendent gave speeches maligning us. They made it crystal clear that they had no interest in considering what it was we had come to say—whatever that might turn out to be. They claimed to know in advance what we would say and dismissed us out of hand.
“To our trans, non-binary, and LGBTQIA+ students, you will hear comments during this meeting from people who don’t know you and are nonetheless directing hate towards you,” warned Board Vice President Liza Rankin. (Minute 18:10 in the video of the School Board meeting linked above.) Rankin drove home her disdain for gender critics by telling us we should drop out of the Seattle School System: “If it is so contrary to your values, what is being presented in public schools, in alignment with the will of the voting public, you don’t have to participate. You can withdraw altogether. Public school is a right….but no one is forcing you to participate.” (16:51.) (Rankin’s claim that the voting public understood and had voted for the Board’s gender identity curricula and policies is laughable.)
School Board members effusively thanked those who had assembled to face down the menace of five gender critical people having two minutes apiece to speak. They waxed eloquent about choosing love over hate, supporting civil rights for ALL students; standing for acceptance, inclusion, safety and a welcoming school environment; and standing against violence and bullying. Box 1 includes a sampling of things said during the 30-minute virtue-signal fest. (Board comments made before public comments were heard appear from minute 4:03 to minute 39:00 in the video linked above.)
Box 1. Selected Quotes from the Board’s Virtue-Signal Fest
“Love for each other is the only way forward….hate has no place in this district….we will not accept as a school board and as a school district anything less than a welcoming and safe environment for every single student…..” (Student Board member Aayush Muthuswamy 4:03)
“…as part of our safe and welcoming schools we want to reaffirm our commitment to creating inclusive identity-safe environments for every student….The rights and safety of our LGBTQ+ youth are a priority for this District, let there be no doubt. This District stands for inclusion and belonging in policies and practice.” (Superintendent Brent Jones 11:37)
“We’re committed to students that…they will be welcomed into safe and supportive environments….Thank you to all of those here today who are joining us in fulfilling that commitment to our students.” (Board President Brandon Hersey 12:32)
“I want to state clearly that we, up here, whether or not we know you, love you, and support your rights in Seattle public schools and will continue to fight for them.” (Board Vice President Liza Rankin 18:20)
Our policies support “the rights to public education and to being fully included members of our community.” (Board Vice-President Liza Rankin, 17:01 seq.)
The obvious overarching message was that the Board members had to say these things, because there were people present who were against love, civil rights, inclusion, safety, and all things good and decent. The Board members had established that some about to address the meeting were gender critics, and therefore worthy only of dismissal. Or as people on the lead Facebook page for discussing school issues put it: “TERFs incoming!” (TERF is a slur used against gender critics, women in particular, very often within sentences calling for horrific violence against us.)
There’s a name for pre-judging and denouncing what individuals will say based on them being part of a category of people designated as evil. That word is “bigotry.” School Board members might want to look up the definition and reflect on it.
The table at the end of this article provides more detail, but here let me just note that the things said and implied about gender critics at the Board meeting were false. We’re not hateful, narrow-minded, cruel, sexist or any of the other characteristics they attributed to us. In fact, we are motivated by love and a commitment to civil rights. We want every child to feel welcome and safe, to be accepted and included, to thrive free from unjust strictures and stereotypes, and to never experience bullying or violence of any sort. At considerable personal risk, we stand for the rights of all children, including those who identify as trans or nonbinary, and those who do not.
School Board members stick to their smears of gender critics even when, despite their best efforts, they come face to face with information that contradicts those smears. Board member Chandra Hampson provides a clear illustration of this phenomenon. Before the meeting began, she paid gender critics a visit to lecture us on what she assumed we were about to say. Almost immediately she told us “You’re saying my trans child doesn’t exist,” which we explained in no uncertain terms was not what we were saying at all. Undeterred she repeatedly chastised us for that supposed belief, each time ignoring our protests about her putting words in our mouths.
See the video clip above and read additional details of her exchange with us in Box 2 below.
BOX 2: From Board member Hampson’s visit with gender critics before the Board meeting
Chandra Hampson (CH): You’re saying that my child who is trans doesn’t have the right to exist.
Bruce Lesnick (BL): No, I’m not. Those are your words.
Me (CD): You know, that’s not a rational statement. We’re saying that they can’t require other children to forfeit [cut off by CH]
CH: You’re saying that their identity doesn’t exist in reality, is what you’re saying.
CD: We’re saying that they can’t require other children to forfeit sex-based words [cut off by CH}
CH: So they don’t exist. So you’re saying that we can’t (CD says a few inaudible words, attempting to finish her prior sentence) Let me finish. You’re saying that my child who is very clear about their identity cannot have anybody else even have any indication that they exist and have to be [inaudible] to some binary.
BL: Those are your words, you are putting words in our mouths.
CH: No, that’s what you’re asking for though.
BL: We don’t use those words.
CH: I support trans kids, they’re children.
CD: So do I.
CH: And you don’t support them as human beings to exist in the way that they identify.
BL: That’s incorrect. We support anyone to identify however they want. We just don’t have to agree with their beliefs.
CD: Or be imposed [interrupted]
CH: In order for them to actually exist in space with other students
BL: A boy who identifies as a girl, is still a boy. A girl who identifies as a boy, is still a girl. That’s why I…
CH: Well, you’re going to have plenty of people who are gonna
CD: Oh we know. The mob usually cancels us and doesn’t let us talk. I know about 20 people who are too frightened to come…
CH: I just want you to hear that the things you’re going to say are gonna be extremely harmful to children.
Various people object, asking her how she knows what we’re going to say, pointing out that she doesn’t.
CH: I don’t know what you’re going to say. I’m gonna say, if you say the things that you just said to me which is that they don’t exist.
VOICES: No one has said that except for you. You’re the only one who has said that.
CD: Manipulative. That’s what you are.
CH: I’ll let the students who talk…uh…so now we’re going to have name-calling, is that what you’re going to go to.
CD: Well, it was manipulative of you to say people don’t exist when none of us ever said that.
CH: We just had a conversation, you made it very clear that you think that they don’t exist.
CD: No, you said that, and we said that’s not what we say. You put the words in our mouths. We denied them.
CH: You said there are only males and females, right? And that it’s not ok for my child [BL: we didn’t say anything about ok, not ok] to say to people in a school environment, ‘Hey, I exist too, not under your definitions.’ …..I’m letting you know how I hear what you are saying and I’m telling you that that’s hurtful to children.
Now look at what Hampson said in her speech from the dais during the meeting not long after that exchange. Hampson lamented that the last thing she wants to do before heading off to a board meeting is ask her child for feedback “on the things that I am planning to say and do in response to people that would insist that he not exist.” (Minute 36:00 to 37:00) Hampson so likes the false narrative about gender critics denying the existence of trans-identifying people, that she just keeps delivering it, no matter what.
When Board members had finally completed their speeches, they called the school district’s attorney up to speak. (Minute 41-43:35) This was clearly done to let everyone know that the Board’s hands were tied. They had to let gender critics speak because of a pesky thing called the First Amendment. (We know from the Future of Seattle Schools Facebook page that gender ideologues had hoped to get us bumped from speaking, which was apparently not possible, at least not on short notice. They also considered calling one of our bosses and/or leaving bad reviews for us on-line.)
When the District’s attorney sat down it was finally time for public comments. Five gender critics spoke for 2 minutes apiece, and the Demand for Action and appendices were submitted to School Board members. You can read our statements here and view them in the video from minute 46:20 to 57:39.)
After us, supporters of the schools’ Gender identity curricula and policies spoke. (Minute 57:39 to 1:39:26.) Their comments revolved around the same false perceptions about gender critics that had dominated Board comments. Anyone who doesn’t go along with Gender ideology is hateful and harmful. Those who fail to use wrong-sex pronouns are denying that trans-identifying people are human beings. Gender critics want to oppress, hurt, and erase people who identify as trans or nonbinary.
When public comments ended, we were treated to two final statements by Seattle School Board members.
By phone, Luna Crone-Baron, a Seattle School Board student member who identifies as the opposite sex, thanked people for “the incredible amount of support pouring in since this morning.” Crone-Baron amplified the portrayal of gender critics as horrible people, speaking directly to those in the room who “villainize” trans-identifying people, deny their existence, and want to deny them their “fundamental rights.” Clearly proud of choosing magnanimity towards such awful human beings, Crone Baron then told us: “I wish you love. I wish you more love in your life. I wish you a more loving way of viewing the world.” (1:39:42 to 1:43:18)
School Board President Hersey then wrapped things up from the dais by comparing gender critics in attendance to the racists who “hated on” Ruby Bridges as she was escorted to school in the South during the early days of integration. He mused about whether those racists feel differently now, years later, when they see the photos of themselves and Ruby Bridges. Hersey then mused about how people will feel years from now watching the video recording of the School Board meeting. (1:43:30 – 1:45:60.)
Hersey’s message was clear: we gender critics had “hated on” children who identify as trans or nonbinary. We’re just like the vile racists who attacked Ruby Bridges. Maybe someday we’ll embrace love, like Hersey does, instead of hate.
Hersey made no reference to the concerns we gender critics had expressed in our comments. He didn’t mention plans to read or even glance at the materials we had provided. One got the impression that as a final righteous act closing an ugly chapter in the history of hateful forces attacking all that is just and good, Hersey and the other Board members might well file our materials in their recycling bins.
As of this writing in early November, those of us who submitted our Demand for Action to the Board, have received no response from Seattle School Board members whatsoever beyond an out-of-office automatic reply from one of them. We gave each Board member hard copies of our documents at the September 27th Board meeting and emailed them all digital copies the same day.
2. The Seattle School Board is committed to remaining woefully uninformed about matters of great importance to Seattle’s children.
The Board’s obvious disinterest in hearing what we gender critics had to say is indicative of an even bigger problem: its clear and intentional ignorance regarding Gender Identity issues. Public servants who make decisions that have an enormous impact on the health, safety, and education of youth, have a responsibility to be fully informed as they make those decisions. Being fully informed includes considering materials and perspectives from people who disagree with the Board’s positions. But the Seattle School Board members obviously favor virtue-signaling to impress those who agree with them, over respectful consideration of what those who disagree are trying to tell them.
The School Board’s commitment to ignorance was on display not only via their denunciation of gender critical speakers before we had delivered our comments. To the extent that Board members cited facts at all, they referred to totally discredited data from clearly biased organizations. Reference was made to GLSEN as documenting supposedly high rates of discrimination against trans-identifying youth, but GLSEN is a gender ideology group that produces extremely biased and methodologically shoddy reports. (Its claims about discrimination are particularly unfounded. See pages 41-43 in Appendix B which we submitted with our Demand for Action to the School Board, for an in-depth discussion of GLSEN.) Reference was also made to suicide attempts among trans-identifying youth again using the verbiage of gender ideology groups, which reflected a shocking lack of awareness of actual data on suicidality and its causes. Board members labeled affirmation as “lifesaving” without acknowledging that multiple systematic reviews of the evidence by highly respected institutions have concluded that this adjective is not appropriate. (See Appendix B pages 22-43 for documentation and details. See especially page 39 regarding suicide data and pages 32-35 regarding systematic evidence reviews and other countries reversing course based on them.)
Ignorance of anything beyond the narratives offered by gender ideology groups is, of course, quite evident from the curricula used in Seattle schools. See Appendix A from our Demand for Action for a look at that curricula.
The School Board remains committed to ignorance even as developments all around us cry out for it to reevaluate its positions. As noted previously, multiple systematic reviews have concluded that the evidence underpinning so-called “gender affirmation” is of exceptionally low quality, rendering claims about benefits unfounded. Multiple countries are reversing course on pediatric sex change because of these reviews. Skyrocketing numbers of children are identifying as trans and nonbinary, including disproportionate numbers of girls. Whistleblowers at major clinics in the US and elsewhere have come forward with vital information contradicting the gender ideologues’ narrative. Detransitioners are standing up in droves to try to save other children from their fate. And more. (Documentation for each of these statements is available in Appendix B.)
The Seattle School Board is thoroughly dismissive of insights and data provided by gender critical constituents. They show no intention of considering what we have to say even as the seriously misguided nature of their Gender Identity curricula and policies becomes more evident with each passing day.
3. The Seattle School Board tells vulnerable children that there is a target on their backs, despite the obvious harm that ensues from such clearly inappropriate statements.
Repeatedly on September 27th, School Board members told children who identify as trans that there are cruel people who hate them and want to do them harm. Board-approved curricula fosters ongoing delivery of this message in the schools. Anyone with any common sense knows that saying things like that to children---particularly vulnerable children--is a very bad idea.
The harmful consequences of such statements were evident at the meeting. One mother described asking her trans-identifying child why he or she looked depressed. The child’s response? “I think about how people want to kill me and that I don’t exist.” This mother had just reinforced the target-on-your-back narrative herself telling young people who had shown up at the Board meeting how very brave they were for doing so, implying bizarrely that we gender critics posed a major threat to them. The mother said she hopes that her child will go to a college “where people won’t want to erase his existence.”
It wasn’t just children’s fear and depression from believing there’s a target on their backs that were on display at the September 27th meeting. Reference was also made to children feeling deep distress from any realization that others don’t share their perceptions and beliefs.
In her speech, Board member Hampson described the extreme fragility of trans- and nonbinary-identifying children. Her own child “just wants to go through school being who he is without anyone questioning their gender identity.” Referring to all trans- and nonbinary-identifying children, Hampson then said “when they hear…anything to the contrary, it does cause pain. It hurts. It really hurts.”
Think about this for a second. “Any questioning” and “anything to the contrary” of their beliefs is seen as an assault. This fragility flows directly from adults—including adults in positions of authority like those serving on the School Board—indicating that children have a right to expect everyone else to agree with and participate in their belief system. It flows from adults stoking and validating the idea that when others don’t do this it means they hate trans-identifying children, want to erase them, and don’t see them as human.
Look back at the exchange between Board member Hampson and gender critics before the Board meeting in Box 2 above. Hampson is determined not only to declare that gender critics don’t think trans-identifying children exist, but also that they don’t want to allow anyone to give any indications that they exist. (“You’re saying that my child who is very clear about their identity cannot have anybody else even have any indication that they exist and have to be [inaudible] to some binary.”)
No matter how clearly we explain things (“We’re saying that they can’t require other children to forfeit sex-based words, etc.”) Hampson’s narrative is that we’re out to erase children who identify as trans or nonbinary. This is the message she conveys to children, along with a large dollop of telling them that what we’re doing hurts them. If a student were to say to a trans-identifying child, “I like you, I’m glad you are in my school, but I don’t agree that being a girl is a matter of feelings. It’s a matter of anatomy, and I don’t agree to being required to call you a girl. But please come sit with me at lunch,” Hampson would say that this student is being hateful. Hampson conveys to children that they should consider what this student says as hurting them.
Hampson says it’s not okay for people to state in front of children that there are two sexes: male and female. (See Box 2 above.) (This makes it tough to teach biology and evolution!) Hampson and her child believe in additional sexes, and thus, according to Hampson, statements based in biological reality are hurtful and should be forbidden. This is a member of the Seattle School Board! And the other Board members obviously agree with her. In their view, it’s not sufficient for the schools to teach biological inaccuracies to students, as catalogued in Appendix A to our Demand for Action. They also want to prevent anyone from ever mentioning biological reality where children might hear them, such as in the schools and at a School Board meeting.
An exchange we had with a young woman before the meeting provides another example of this dynamic. She said “I hope when you hear these students stand up bravely in front of adults like you who are trying to shut them down…” At this point, we objected to her characterization, saying we don’t want to shut students down. The woman explained the basis of her statement as follows: “I’m going exactly from the words I hear which was ‘I go for fact. There is a binary. There’s only male and female..’ ”
Like Hampson, this woman conflated contradicting Gender Identity beliefs—specifically stating that sex is binary—with “trying to shut children down.” Incredibly, in 2023, stating biological reality at a School Board meeting is considered by many to be a terrible thing. Ironically, it’s the ones who seek to prevent discussion of biological reality who are trying to circumscribe what can be discussed and seeking to shut other points of view down.
Hampson, other Board members, and gender ideologues in general, infantilize students. “You’re too fragile, dear young people who identify as trans or nonbinary, to hear something different than the one-sided Gender Identity narrative we’ve been feeding you”, they say. “Don’t worry we’ll protect you. We’ll minimize your exposure to other ideas and information.”
That attitude is incredibly disrespectful to children. It also does them a huge disservice by denying them information they need. Unless gender ideologues get their authoritarian way throughout society, children will ultimately meet people who disagree with them on these issues. When they are adults, away from school environments where everyone is muzzled, this will happen on a regular basis. It will be a rude awakening to learn that lifelong beliefs about what others are thinking have been totally inaccurate. It will be an even ruder awakening for students to realize that they’ve mistreated others and can never undo the harm.
Gender Identity Ideology has a problem with boundaries. Children who have been taught that they get to decide what sex they are, are also told that everyone else must agree with them. The boundary between their own beliefs and what others believe doesn’t exist for them. In the absence of grasping where their own lives and rights end, and those of other individuals begin, students are primed to experience distress when some people fail to go along with their declarations and demands.
The School Board and others who promote Gender Identity Ideology are deliberately lying to students about gender critics. They portray us as bogeymen out to hurt trans-identifying people. They are also telling students that there are no boundaries between a child’s beliefs and what others must believe. They are instilling in children the idea that those who don’t dutifully agree with Gender Identity’s tenets are somehow violating the rights of those who do…and that this is an assault on the very humanity of each trans-identifying child.
Children are buying these lies big-time and suffering greatly as a result. Viewing compassionate people as dangerous enemies, they fear for their safety. Viewing failure to agree with Gender Identity Ideology as a personal attack, they feel massive distress upon encountering anyone who has different views on things like the definition of “woman” and whether it’s okay for males to participate in women’s sports.
That a Board responsible for educating and protecting school children condones and delivers such destructive messages to children is shocking. It is especially shocking considering very high rates of mental illness, autism, trauma, and other problems among children who identify as trans or nonbinary, as discussed in Appendix B of our Demand.
4. The School Board foments hatred and suppression.
Students don’t just emerge from Seattle schools deeply fragile and prone to distress upon encountering other viewpoints. They also emerge feeling deep hatred for those who hold other viewpoints and believing that silencing those people is a good idea.
The School Board couldn’t stop gender critics from speaking on September 27th, and fortunately we were not subjected to physical intimidation or assault at that meeting. But censorship and abuse of gender critics happen all the time in Seattle, across the United States, and around the world.
In 2020, a seething mob protested outside the Seattle Public Library where women spoke about the impacts of Gender Ideology on women’s rights. The mob violently pushed gender critics, banged on windows during the presentation, shrieked nonstop, and beat on the car that carried speakers away after the event. This was terrifying for the speakers especially in light of the death threats they had received.
In 2022, an event called Let Women Speak was moved from Seattle to Tacoma out of concern for participants’ safety. Then, in Tacoma, as we began speaking a mob pushed into us, shrieking non-stop to drown us out, spitting on us, and ultimately forcing us out of the park, canceling our event. Many in the mob were high school students. A gender critic sustained a severe injury to her hand and her livelihood as the result of a young man crushing her hand as he tried to take her phone.
Similar scenes of hate-filled mobs attacking peaceful individuals, mostly women, who want to speak about the impacts of Gender Ideology, have unfolded repeatedly in our region and around the world. (See a compilation of such events from the month of September 2023 in Mr. Menno’s video The Tyranny of Transactivism, September Edition. Also see accounts of some events on this Substack.)
Gender critics also endure all sorts of other abuse like being fired, de-platformed, de-published, doxxed, harassed, kicked out of organizations, denied custody of children, threatened with violence, assaulted, and more. (See Part IV of my Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Transgender Galaxy for extensive examples and documentation.) Suppression of dissent on this issue is absolutely staggering.
The School Board and other gender ideologues are directly connected to the abuse endured by gender critics just described. Hearing repeatedly that gender critics hurt children, deny their existence, and otherwise engage in reprehensible acts, Seattle school children learn to hate us. In the Seattle area, repressive mobs attacking gender critics almost certainly include recent Seattle School graduates, and even current Seattle School students.
The curricula and policies put in place by the Board ensure that Seattle students never hear gender critical voices. If the existence of dissent from Gender Ideology is mentioned at all to students, it is via characters in books who are ignorant and/or cruel. See The Anti-Science Disaster of Gender Ideology in Our Schools for a discussion of how children are manipulated by schools into hating those who dissent from Gender Ideology. When children and their parents witness behaviors like those exhibited by the Board on September 27th, it reinforces their loathing for gender critics, and their commitment to shutting us down.
In the parking lot after the Board meeting, a middle-aged woman angrily told me and another gender critic that we are bigots. We asked what we had said that led her to that conclusion. Flustered she couldn’t come up with any specifics. But she KNEW we were evil, and her face was contorted with hatred towards us. She slammed her car door shut and drove off in a huff. It was quite amazing that this woman—someone who is probably generally very pleasant—loathed complete strangers so viscerally that she thought nothing of being extremely rude and hostile to us. Witnessing the School Board’s utter disdain for us and hearing lie after lie about our positions and motivations, she had been primed to hate us. And hate us she does.
Given what happens to adults who stand up together in public spaces to challenge Gender Ideology, one can only imagine how repressive it must be for dissenting children within the Seattle schools. Trans- and nonbinary-identifying children and their allies feel entitled to force submission to their beliefs. And the schools teach those who dissent to cheerfully forfeit their sex-based rights and freedom of speech. Children learn that failure to be submissive makes them cruel and bigoted. It also leads to ostracization and punishment.
The idea that any voices questioning Gender Identity Ideology should be silenced is a given for gender ideologues in Seattle. As noted earlier, people in the Future of Seattle Public Schools Facebook group tried to get us bumped from the public commenters list as soon as they learned we had signed up. They considered calling our bosses and giving us bad business reviews on-line.
In the days after the Board meeting, the moderator for that Facebook group noted “We’ve had a slew of people requesting to join in the last day or so, many of them known anti-Trans activists. We are being extra careful about vetting folks, but some people do slip through the cracks, so please use the report function as necessary.” Note that she labels anyone questioning Gender Identity curricula and policies “anti-trans” which is not accurate. Note also that she considers it perfectly normal to exclude people who disagree with the Gender Identity narrative from a page purportedly featuring robust discussions on how to secure a beautiful future for Seattle schools.
“If they are a parent concerned about the future of Seattle public schools, shouldn’t they be welcome here to discuss even if they have different views, so long as they are civil?” one brave soul ventured in reply. “Having concerns about the schools is not necessarily the same as spewing hate speech.”
To this, another person responded that “anyone who talks about their issues with gender identity, no matter how calm or reasoned, does not get experienced as civil to me. those ‘different views’ provide a real danger to my family.” (Emphasis added.) This statement parallels precisely the mindset inculcated in students by the School Board: if someone doesn’t agree with and participate in Gender Identity Ideology, this is by definition “dangerous” and therefore their voice should be silenced.
The moderator responded: “just so there is no question, we will unapologetically remove anyone who uses this space to express anti-trans views or has publicly expressed anti-trans view.” Another person praised this, thanking the moderator.
People already on the list who have concerns about Gender Ideology have told me that they are too afraid to share those concerns on the list. Now that the moderator has made it clear that failure to toe the Gender Ideology line will result in immediate expulsion, they will be even less likely to speak up.
One can see the stages of demonizing gender critics in the comments offered at the Board meeting. A very young child who testified by phone said that: “Some people are mean to kids and that is not okay.” He has imbibed a simple version of the key concept pushed by school officials and curricula: gender critics are “mean to kids.” Older students’ statements delivered more sophisticated versions of the same false narrative: “I have friends who identify in different ways and they all need to be in school. I feel my education is better when the other students who are with me in class feel safe and welcome,” says one child. All students should “be able to go to the bathroom, participate in sports, be in class with their peers,” he continues. (1:07:01.)
These children’s voices are laced with incredulity and righteous dismay. They have been taught that we want trans-identifying children to feel unwelcome and unsafe. They believe we want to prevent those children from coming to school at all. They believe we want to ban them from using the bathroom and participating in sports. This is all utter nonsense, of course. It isn’t what gender critics are saying at all.
Gender critics want every single child to attend school and feel safe and welcome there. We want every child to be able to use the bathroom and to participate in sports.
School officials are perpetrating a hoax upon the children in their care.
5. The School Board’s supposed defense of civil rights is a hoax based entirely on falsehoods.
Righteous declarations made by Board members on September 27th about defending civil rights ring hollow when one examines what lies beneath them.
Hearing Board pronouncements, one imagines that children who identify as trans or nonbinary are being kept out of classes and other school activities, that bullies are pushing them around, and the like. But the reality is something very different. In fact, if there are bullies in this story, it is those who insist that gender identity beliefs can and should be imposed on other people.
What exactly are the civil rights that are under attack that the School Board is so heroically defending? It boils down to this:
Gender critics want trans-identifying children to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their sex. We believe they should be subject to the same rules applied to every other child in the school. We believe that the sex-based privacy of boys and girls is important, and we don’t agree to exemptions from honoring that privacy. We do not agree that boys walking around naked and watching girls undress in high school locker rooms is rendered okay based on those men “identifying as women.” The School Board, on the other hand, says that everyone must agree to farcical redefinitions of words like “woman” and “man”, so that “identity” rules. It claims that trans-identifying individuals have a civil right to freely enter the spaces reserved for members of the opposite sex. Thus, for School Board members and other gender ideologues, those of us trying to preserve sex-based privacy are absurdly said to be attacking “trans rights.”
Gender critics want trans-identifying males to participate in male sports. We want to keep female-only sports female-only. Male advantage is massive, based in male biology, not significantly diminished by sex change procedures, and irrefutably documented by sports statistics. Without female-only sports, women lack a fair playing field. They forfeit trophies, records, spots in key races, and more. There is also a safety issue in some sports if males are allowed to compete against females. The School Board, however, says that everyone must agree to farcical redefinitions of words like “woman” and “man”, so that “identity” rules. It claims that trans-identifying males have a civil right to compete in female-only sports. Absurdly, those of us trying to preserve female-only sports are said to be attacking “trans rights.”
Gender critics believe that individuals who don’t agree with Gender Identity Ideology shouldn’t be forced to refer to males as female, females as male, and self-described nonbinary people as “they” or with other non-standard pronouns. The School Board, however, believes that trans- and nonbinary- identifying individuals have a civil right to force others to use their language and their non-standard pronouns. Absurdly, those of us who disagree with compelled belief and compelled speech are said to be attacking “trans rights.”
In other words, the supposed civil rights under attack from gender critics are not civil rights at all. No one is saying that people who identify as trans or nonbinary should be banned from classes, denied access to bathrooms and sports, or bullied in any way. We are simply refusing to grant exemptions to these individuals allowing them to ignore the sex-based and First Amendment rights of others. The entire basis of the School Board’s self-congratulatory speeches about defending the civil rights of trans-identifying children is a hoax.
When Board Vice President Liza Rankin righteously declared that “student civil rights are non-negotiable in our public schools” (Rank 17:14), she made a mockery of what civil rights are really all about. Her stern lecture revealed the degree to which she and other Board members are willing to advance a sham in order to score undeserved virtue points for themselves and to smear those who see their policies for what they really are.
As it casually proclaims it a civil right for some to gut the civil rights of others, the Board relies upon resources that are equally duplicitous. GLSEN’s statistics regarding wide-spread discrimination against trans- and nonbinary-identifying children are based largely on those children reporting that they weren’t allowed to enter the bathrooms of the opposite sex, they were referred to with sex-based pronouns, and the like.
This same cynical reversal of meanings is done vis a vis words like “accept.” The School Board handles “acceptance” of gender identity in a very different way than “acceptance” of other identities. While a child belonging to a particular religion like Christianity is accepted and respected, his or her classmates are not required to memorize Christian dogma and adhere to its tenets. When it comes to Gender Identity Ideology, however, everyone in the school is required to memorize and adhere to its tenets. Those who don’t do so are denounced as violating the civil rights of children who identify as trans or nonbinary.
6. The Seattle School Board is so engrossed in its defense of faux civil rights that it doesn’t even acknowledge the actual civil rights it is destroying.
At the September 27th meeting, Board members failed to mention even once the civil rights of any of the following groups of people:
Students and teachers who do not agree with the tenets of Gender Identity Ideology. No mention was made of how these individuals are being forced to engage in compelled speech; forfeiture of sex-based privacy in bathrooms, locker rooms, and overnight accommodations; and forfeiture of the ability to have female-only or male-only clubs or support groups for conditions unique to each sex. No mention was made of the inappropriateness of forcing these individuals to see symbols of the Gender Identity faith throughout schools, and to participate in school events that present demonstrably false “facts” put forward by gender ideology groups.
Lesbians and gay boys. Gender Identity Ideology directly undermines lesbian and gay rights in multiple ways. Teaching kids that homosexuality is attraction to the same “gender identity” has led to pressure on lesbians to be in relationships with trans-identifying males, for example. For more examples, see Part II of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Transgender Galaxy. There’s a reason so many in the LGB community are organizing to get Gender Identity Ideology out of the schools. But the adverse impacts of school curricula and policies on LGB rights didn’t warrant any mention whatsoever by School Board members at the meeting on September 27th.
Girls and women. The Board’s Gender Identity curricula and policies have particularly adverse impacts on the rights of girls and young women. Those impacts include but are not limited to: i) forfeiture of female-only sports, ii) loss of female-only intimate spaces, a matter of particular importance to women in light of the realities of male violence against women, and iii) disproportionate numbers of girls embracing Gender ideology and rejecting their female bodies.
Girls and women are so missing as a class from Board consideration that Liza Rankin even left them off the list of classes of people protected from discrimination under federal law. (17:30.) “Discrimination on the basis of race, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, disability, and religion is not acceptable and is prohibited by federal law,” Rankin said, somehow forgetting to include sex on the list.
If the Seattle School Board wants to talk about “erasure” and saying that people “don’t exist”, it needs to look in the mirror. Those terms are the only way to describe its handling of all the people whose civil rights are trampled by Gender Identity Ideology.
To reiterate, the Seattle School Board never mentioned the groups listed above and the destruction of their rights at its meeting on September 27th. Not even once.
School Board members intoned from the dais that they believe in civil rights for all people, the clear sub-message being that we gender critics don’t because we supposedly deny the rights of trans- and nonbinary-identifying children. They’ve got it backwards. The School Board fights to let people who believe in Gender identity Ideology impose their beliefs on other people. It ignores the existence and rights of virtually everybody else.
Gender critics, in contrast, fight for civil rights for all.
7. The School Board’s disdain for girls and women is so great, that it is actively lobbying the federal government to further eviscerate their rights.
When Liza Rankin informed gender critics that we should leave Seattle Schools if we don’t like what they do related to Gender Identity Ideology, she implied that the School Board’s hands are tied by state and federal policies. That’s nonsense. While there are some bad policies coming down from above, they by no means require the Board to do all the bad things it’s doing. Moreover, our Demand for Action urges the School Board to lobby higher governmental bodies to amend any policies that require or encourage the promotion of Gender Identity Ideology.
In fact, the School Board already actively lobbies higher levels of government on Gender Identity issues. It is pushing the feds to make things worse for girls and women.
In her speech on September 27th Chandra Hampson talked at length about the lobbying she has been doing on behalf of the Board to throw girls and women under the bus with respect to Title IX. That federal statute is of great importance to the rights of females in education, including sports.
New rules for Title IX were delayed this year, Hampson noted, without mentioning that the delay was precipitated by an overwhelming number of commenters, an estimated 82% of which were not happy about facilitating the entrance of men into women’s sports. Noting that “these students exist” (by which she meant “trans and nonbinary students”) Hampson cheerfully spoke about the work she’s been doing to gut federal protections for girls and women, who of course were never mentioned by her at all. Hampson said that trans-identifying students “need every support to thrive in our school environment and we’re hoping that the additional changes that include the athletics environments will be coming soon.” Hampson encouraged “everyone who supports our students” to help. She noted that “these are tough battles happening throughout the country that, you know, they’ve come here to our doors at Seattle public schools.” I believe she was referring to the fact that gender critics were about to say something in the public comment period, but if there’s some other challenge going on in Seattle that defends female-only sports or the like, readers, please let me know!
8. Gender identity indoctrination has been extremely effective.
The events of September 27th in Seattle showcase just how deeply entrenched Gender Identity Ideology has become. Indoctrination strategies employed by the forces behind that ideology have been extremely effective.
Within hours of discovering, horror of horrors, that five people who have opinions not in sync with the District’s Gender identity curricula and policies had signed up to give public comment, a large crowd of people had been recruited to attend the Board meeting. Sixteen had gotten on the public comment list and another 14 were on the waiting list. The Board had been alerted and members had prepared opening statements to deliver before we spoke—something that doesn’t usually occur before other public comment sessions.
Large cadres of Gender Identity believers are primed and ready to confront heretics like us, wherever and whenever we stand up to speak. They are eager to denounce us, and if possible, get us shut down. They didn’t succeed in silencing us at the meeting on September 27th, but they made sure we won’t be able speak up in key school Facebook discussion forums. Nor will anyone else with questions or concerns about Gender Identity be able to speak in those forums. The commitment of gender ideologues to censorship, cancelation, and narrow-minded one-sided discussion is breath-taking.
At the School Board meeting, we heard the exact same informational memes one hears everywhere from gender ideologues, all delivered with “gotcha” certainty and strikingly shallow capacity for follow-up to our responses. For example, a young woman who spoke with us before the meeting responded to our statement that sex is binary this way: “That is biologically untrue. Intersex people do exist.” There are as many intersex people as there are people with red hair, someone nearby added. Wherever you go, these are precisely the statements that are made in response to anyone mentioning the sex binary.
We hastily explained that the 1.7% figure (red heads, intersex conditions) pertains to a range of disorders of sexual developmental, almost none of which involve any sexual ambiguity whatsoever. As for the less than 0.018% of live births where there is some ambiguity, that ambiguity is often swiftly resolved, and in any case, none represent a 3rd sex. The existence of extremely rare anomalies also does not logically lead to the conclusion that the 99.98% of humanity with crystal clear sexual anatomy should get to declare themselves whatever sex they “feel” like.
It was obvious that the people we were speaking with had never heard the information and analysis we provided. If only, we could speak with them at length in censorship-free public forums. But no, the people with whom they are affiliated make sure that we are demonized and the information we have is hidden from view.
Presenting only one view is key to propaganda and indoctrination. Demonizing and silencing all other views is essential.
The effectiveness of Gender Identity Indoctrination was evident at the Board meeting in the extremity of the views expressed. Whole swaths of the population have lost any connection with rationality and common sense. Their most basic instinctual responses to horrific abuse of children have been replaced by nonchalant and even enthusiastic acceptance of that abuse. Any acknowledgment of the important role adults have to play in protecting children has been washed away.
A young woman at the Board meeting told us that our concerns about “gender affirmation” care for children are overblown. Not only are puberty blockers reversible without adverse impacts—a view she has reached without any knowledge of various critical pieces of information we attempted to bring to her attention—but double mastectomies are reversible as well. The woman seemed confused as to why we were so concerned about teen girls having their breasts cut off. If they change their minds they can get new ones, she said. As to losing the ability to ever breastfeed, she was confused as to why we care about something like that. This chilling attitude is typical among those inculcated into the Gender Cult.
A woman at the Board meeting told us that double mastectomies are reversible and therefore not a big deal. She echoed Dr. Olson-Kennedy whose published research provides documentation of the fact that so-called “top surgery” is regularly done on minors. Adults should recoil in horror at doctors amputating the healthy breasts of teen girls. We should recoil in horror at healthy children being given chemicals that keep their bodies and brains from maturing. These and other things being done to children’s bodies in the name of Gender Identity are an absolute atrocity. Adults should instinctively step forward to shield children from the harm being done to them. But those who have been indoctrinated applaud extremely invasive and destructive procedures done to children to “align” their bodies with their “identities.” They are so indoctrinated that they see anyone who questions what’s going on as a nosy busybody who is hopelessly out of touch with the liberatory adventures of young people.
Various public commenters lectured gender critics about how repressive it is when adults don’t step back and let children lead. “My kiddo knew who they were long before starting school,” declared one mother. “The idea that children don’t know who they are is insulting and disrespectful of young people,” she said, as people applauded her for handing major decisions with life-long consequences over to a young child. Other parents echoed the same sentiments, some casting angry looks our way as they did so.
A trans-identifying high school student told gender critics that we should support schools keeping parents in the dark about at-school transitions because otherwise children will go through something very hard alone, presumably having opted to not talk to anyone if parents are notified. To this adolescent, it makes perfect sense for children to explore hugely impactful matters in the absence of the people who love and know them best. What could possibly be wrong with pulling children away from parents, and leaving them in the hands of adults who don’t know them, their histories, their diagnoses, and their tendencies, and with peers who are all steeped in Gender Identity Ideology? This high schooler displayed all the ignorance and hubris of a typical adolescent, but nonetheless triggered massive applause as if imparting profound wisdom.
It was remarkable to see how thoroughly Board members and other gender ideologues in the room bought into the idea of handing major decisions over to children. There was no discernable understanding of the basics of children’s developing brains, the ill-advised risks they may take, and the important role parents have in guiding and protecting children. This was the case even though the data is very clear that a substantial percentage of trans-identifying children have pre-existing mental health diagnoses, eating disorders, autism conditions and/or histories of trauma. (See Appendix B for details.) Moreover, at the Board meeting itself, trans-identifying children were repeatedly described as extremely fragile and in a very bad state emotionally.
Except for the gender critics in the room, adults were proudly committed to abdicating their responsibility to guide and protect children—even with respect to very young children. And the biggest pushers of the children-must-lead-and-make-their-own-decisions mantra were members of the Seattle School Board—the people responsible for protecting children in our schools.
At the Board meeting, people repeatedly scoffed at the idea that there’s any indoctrination going on.
Several denied that Seattle schools push Gender Identity Ideology and that children are taught that some people are born in the wrong body. We included Appendix A with our Demand to counter precisely this misconception. It lays out relevant school curricula and policies, thereby contradicting denials regarding the extent and nature of what’s being taught.
In her statement at the Board meeting, the School District’s Manager of Health Education, Lisa Love, reinforced the fact that our Appendix A reveals only the tip of the iceberg. Love announced that even more Gender Identity books and lessons are being added for K through 5 classes. She proudly reported that there are “lots of activities and events that happen throughout the school year that families and students can participate in.” (35:20) According to Love, grant funding has been used to purchase more pride flags (undoubtedly the “trans intrusion” version with the prominent Gender Identity triangle on it that is flying at most elementary schools I pass in Seattle.) Love also noted: “we do have a course that was developed partly because of the Board Resolution. So that course is offered at some of our schools and that was one of the things that came up as a high request from students as well.” (The District did not tell us about such a course in its response to our public disclosure request late in 2020. Anyone with information about it, please, contact me.)
My child knew they were trans, without having been influenced by anyone, various parents testified. Those referring to preschooler announcements were tragically unaware of society-wide influence—and the impact of parents themselves—in triggering such announcements. They seemed unaware of the weak grasp preschoolers have on the difference between reality and play. Others, whose children “came out” as trans later in life, were equally oblivious to the forces influencing their children including, of course, the Seattle Schools curricula.
One mother noted that she responded to her child’s trans identification announcement by googling. This led her to a gender clinic, Trans Families, and networks of people who believe in Gender Identity Ideology. Her child was put on puberty blockers, which the mother credits with saving the child’s life. There was no indoctrination, this mother declared.
She has no understanding of the fact that Google and other social media platforms severely limit the information to which people are exposed. Any voices presenting views and data that conflict with the Gender Identity Ideology narrative are canceled outright or at a minimum, shadow banned. She was undoubtedly kept in the dark about all sorts of alternatives to medical transition, support groups for parents who don’t go down the medical pathway, the major hazards of medicalization, and the irrationality of Gender Identity Ideology’s core tenets. She was not led to articles like The Anti-Science Disaster of Gender Ideology in Our Schools which discuss the emotional manipulation techniques employed by schools that steer children towards Gender Identity Ideology.
The thing about indoctrination—if it’s working—is this: no one realizes they’re being indoctrinated. And that is most assuredly the case regarding Gender Identity Ideology indoctrination in the schools and in society as a whole. Thus, on September 27th, School Board members and the large crowd of Gender Identity enthusiasts swiftly mobilized to attend the Board meeting, all uttered the mantras of Gender Identity Ideology without realizing that they are missing most of the picture. In lockstep they denounced those of us who are attempting to provide information they lack. They declared us to be hate-filled bigots to whom no one should ever listen. They exhibited the signs of extremely effective indoctrination, while confidently declaring themselves indoctrination-free.
How many Seattle school children identify as trans or nonbinary? I await a response to a public disclosure act request to the schools, which has already been delayed once. So far, official records I’ve seen address only those who select “nonbinary” for themselves as they enroll. Those children alone represent nearly 1% of the student population!
In the lobby at the School Board meeting, someone had set up easels with poster boards on them featuring photos of School District children who identify as trans or nonbinary. During the meeting, trans-identifying children spoke, and many parents referred to their trans-identifying children in their statements. We met at least two high school aged girls in the audience who appeared to believe they’re not girls.
Are things as far gone here as they are in other school districts like Pittsburgh, where even a few years back, surveys revealed that 9% of the students identify as trans or nonbinary? We don’t yet know, but clearly the numbers in Seattle are quite substantial.
The School Board and others who believe in Gender Identity Ideology should be asking themselves “Why?” When well-defined, scientifically-established sexually ambiguous intersex conditions are incredibly rare, why are there so many people with these poorly defined self-proclaimed gender identity conditions? From what we know already, the rates of children with these conditions in Seattle, dwarf the rates of various intersex conditions. Isn’t that something worth pondering? Isn’t it a bit jarring that local pediatric gender clinics—clinics that only came into existence recently—are medically altering the healthy bodies of large numbers of children each year? Shouldn’t there be at least a glimmer of doubt about enthusiastically promoting Gender Identity Ideology in the schools and viciously denouncing its critics?
For the Seattle School Board, which has been swallowed by the Gender Identity Cult, the answer to these questions is clearly No. It is committed to pushing onward, expanding Gender Identity Ideology promotion in the schools, while demonizing anyone who questions it. As it does so, throngs of people swallowed by the same Cult are there to root the School Board on.
Indoctrination is happening in the Seattle schools and all around them. It is aggressive, relentless, and clearly extremely effective.
9. The Dystopia of Orwell’s 1984 is upon us.
The dystopia Orwell wrote about in his novel 1984 is fully and truly upon us.
“Two Minutes of Hate” rituals play out on a nearly daily basis around the world as those who question the madness of Gender Identity are reviled and denounced. There are the mobs dominated by young people, their faces contorted with hatred, shrieking “Go Home, Nazis” as they oust gender critical dissidents from parks. There’s the more sanitized version wherein public officials like School Board members deliver pompous speeches about love and inclusion, glaring self-righteously at heretics whose very brief statements the Board members will patriotically ignore. In this sanitized version, people cheer the School Board on, and add their own hatred insidiously wrapped in the words of compassion and virtue.
Doublethink—the “power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”—abounds. In Orwell’s novel, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. In our Gender Ideology-drenched world:
Men are Women.
Women are Men.
Crushing Civil Rights is Defending Them.
Pretense is Authenticity.
Pretending to Be Someone Else Is Being Yourself.
Delivering Children to Harm is Protecting Them.
Rejecting Your Body is Loving Yourself.
Maiming Your Body is Loving Yourself.
Feminism is Embracing the Destruction of Feminism.
Hatred is Love.
Crushing Free Speech is Fighting for Justice
Just as the people of Oceana in 1984 are taught to believe that 2 + 2 is 5, and whatever else Big Brother tells them, giant swaths of the population today fervently believe that there are sexes beyond male and female. They believe that women include men, and men include women. Children are groomed to look at an obvious male and agree that he’s a female. They learn that Title IX was passed to help males compete in female sports.
In the 1984 novel, Big Brother’s minions are developing and enforcing “Newspeak.” They are changing or eliminating certain words, substituting one word for another, and creating new words. This is all “designed to diminish the range of thought.” It is intended to rob people of the ability to think and to say things contrary to the official narrative.
Gender Identity Ideology has fully embraced the Newspeak concept. It has produced a lexicon of new mystical terms ranging from words like “cisgender” and “genderfluid” to words created for various so-called gender identities. Concurrently it has moved aggressively to gut the meaning of vital words that have existed for millennia, and to erase the use of those words altogether. Students learn that a “woman” is anyone who identifies as a woman, for example, which is circular, and therefore renders the word “woman” meaningless. Schools tell teachers to never say “woman”, using terms like “people with a cervix” instead. Even lessons on reproductive anatomy avoid the words “woman” and “man.”
“In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it,” a character in Orwell’s 1984 declares. The impact of modern-day Newspeak in the context of Gender Ideology is the same.
Now, when a boy stands on top of the podium in a female-only sports event, news stories refer to him as a “girl” and “she.” When a male prisoner rapes a female prisoner in a female-only prison, newspapers and the judge refer to him as “she.” His victim is punished if she uses “he” instead. A woman trying to create a woman-only support group learns the hard way that vital words no longer have meaning, when someone invites men (who say they’re women) into the group. An article comparing women’s pay to men’s incorporates into the calculations of women’s salaries the extremely high pay of female-identifying men in high positions, thereby skewing results.
There is no end to the chaos that already exists as the result of Gender Ideology Newspeak. It has already successfully robbed people of the ability to discuss, research, and organize around sex.
Orwell noted that “the most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” One of the things underway as Gender Ideologues hold the reins is a rewriting of human history to create the impression that Gender Ideology has always been with us, and declaring key historical figures as trans-identifying. Joan of Arc is no longer an amazing woman defying sexist stereotypes; she is a trans man. The Stonewall riots heralding an era of LGB activism were supposedly led by trans-identifying men, not lesbians and gays….no matter what people like gay activist Fred Sargeant who were there say.
The Orwellian nature of Gender Identity Ideology is part and parcel of the fact that this ideology is indeed a Cult. Like other Cults, it has its own special words and rituals. It has mantras people chant over and over again like “Trans women are women” as if by virtue of repetition an assertion will become fact. It fosters extreme hatred for people who don’t agree with the Cult. It intentionally severs ties between children and gender-identity-questioning parents. Once a person has joined the Cult of Gender Identity, it is difficult to leave. Those who decide to detransition find themselves expelled from the “community” that had love-bombed them when they adhered more faithfully to it’s teachings. They may find themselves not only shut out of the seeming love that had encircled them, but also actively derided and denounced.
The Seattle School Board has been swallowed by the Gender Identity Cult. Countless other school boards across the U.S. and around the world have been swallowed by it as well. These schools are deepening the stranglehold that the Cult has on society via tactics that can only be described as Orwellian. They are overseeing curricula and school policies that aggressively indoctrinate children from a very young age onward to embrace Gender Identity Ideology and loathe its critics. The indoctrination underway has already been extremely effective and is become more effective by the day. The implications for all of humanity are huge.
WHY WE NEED TO FIGHT BACK. AND YES, THIS STRUGGLE IS CONNECTED TO OUR LARGER QUEST FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE.
Some people don’t understand why I care so much about Gender Identity Ideology in the schools. Part of their confusion over my activism flows from them not realizing just how aggressive, widespread, and destructive the indoctrination is. Part of their confusion flows from seeing huge crises all around us and seeing what’s happening in the schools as a minor side-show.
The real question is not why do I fight Gender Identity indoctrination in the schools, but rather why do they not? Standing up against the horrors of war, economic injustice, impending ecological disaster, and the threat of nuclear holocaust does not require silence about Gender Ideology. And the harm being done by that Ideology is simply too egregious to ignore: evisceration of women’s civil right, girls taught to be docile and accepting in the face of that evisceration, huge numbers of children maimed in order to “align their bodies with their gender identities”, public education reduced to the promotion of a mystical religion and jettisoning accuracy in basic biology lessons, and so much more. This is all simply too horrific to overlook. Indeed, people will not overlook it, particularly those who have children whose educations, rights and physical safety are under attack. Even as I continue to work on other issues, I personally will not ignore it.
Just as importantly, what’s happening in the schools is directly tied to the situation we find ourselves in with respect to our environment, war, economic injustice, and other major issues of our day. The schools are grooming children to be brainwashed, Big Brother-loving, authoritarian servants. They emerge from their educations believing that being a good citizen means keeping an eye out for those with divergent views and forming mobs to get them canceled. They have been trained in fragility, seeing those who disagree with them as literally “hurtful”, and therefore deserving to be shut down without debate of any sort.
The propaganda techniques on display at the September 27th Board meeting are certainly not new. I’ve personally been demonized before for my views on issues ranging from the environment to war. And the basic tactic of attaching one’s product (whether it be a gadget you want to sell, or a public policy) to a noble sentiment or cause, and riding that to victory, has been around forever. People have long been manipulated into cheering for things that are the exact opposite of what they believe them to be.
But what’s happening in the school and around Gender Ideology in general reflects a new and chilling level of propaganda, censorship, and authoritarianism. Reality is right there in front of their eyes to see, not far away in a different place. And yet, people are dutifully, agreeing that lies are truth. They are dutifully cheering for harm to children that is being inflicted in plain view—in their own schools and in their own homes. The harm being inflicted is extreme and gruesome.
“Good for you!” people shout approvingly as children are sterilized and rendered sexually dysfunctional for life, and as teen girls have their breasts amputated. That people can be so manipulated that they will cheer for things like this and accept without question the shallow incoherent irrational basis on which they are based, is of grave concern. It bears on everything else happening in our world.
I personally never saw this coming. Ten years ago, despite my awareness of the power of Big Money and propaganda, I never would have believed what is happening now to be possible.
Yes, indoctrination is not new to the schools. But what’s happening in the schools, at the very heart of society today, is now so aggressive and so egregious, that it is difficult to find the words to adequately describe it. What’s happening is of great importance to everyone.
The schools are teaching children that sex has nothing to do with anatomy, and therefore men are women, and women are men. They are convincing children that it is cruel and ignorant to embrace material reality.
Schools are teaching children to focus on a mystical never-ending quest for the proper gender label, and to see everything as revolving around that. They foster fragility and its twin, authoritarianism, training children to see anyone who thinks differently as hurtful and therefore to be canceled. They are grooming children to see compelled speech and forfeiture of basic rights as things one must accept, and acquiescence as the only moral and nice thing to do. They are proudly delivering children, including very young ones, to a rapacious and destructive medical industrial complex that clearly has no moral compass, and does irreversible harm to children without any credible evidence of benefit.
As I work on issues of ecological sanity and war, I am struck by the parallels to what is happening in the Gender Identity realm. As the potential for World War III looms in both Ukraine and the Middle East, state sponsored censorship of views that don’t match the official narrative has escalated, for example. Many people join in that censorship demonizing and canceling those who express different views from the narrative. This polarization, this destruction of the solidarity we need among working class people, parallels what is being taught in the schools through Gender Ideology. And what is being taught in the schools helps fuel that polarization and narrow-mindedness.
In the realm of Gender Identity Ideology, I have felt hope, as people from across the political spectrum have worked together, defying dictates that we cancel each other instead. I have experienced a real willingness from people who come from different political perspectives than me, to talk about issues beyond Gender Identity. There is a shared understanding that we must all be aware of the Orwellian lies put forth by those who profit from despair and destruction in our world on other issues. Many grasp that the tactics we experience on gender issues are being employed on other issues as well. I have experienced a shared sense that we must all respect each other, and work with each other, to find a way forward. This all seems to me to be key to having any chance of forming a movement capable of demanding and winning real change. If we are to have any hope of stopping nuclear and ecological Armageddon, alliances like those I’m part of on gender identity, seem crucial.
Thus, it is BECAUSE I care so deeply about preventing environmental and war-induced disaster that I work on Gender Identity issues. It is BECAUSE I am fighting for a just and sustainable world that I stand up against Gender Ideology indoctrination in the schools.
It is time for people who have been ignoring Gender Identity indoctrination—or worse, encouraging it—to review their stance. Look at what’s happening. Connect the dots. Recognize the harm done to your cause by letting Gender Identity’s tyranny and destruction spread. Recognize that it’s naïve to expect people to ignore that tyranny and destruction. Recognize the opportunity within the fight-back against Gender Identity Ideology for the movement we need to address the major threats that confront humanity.
LOOKING BACK, WHO WILL FEEL ASHAMED?
Board President Hersey mused about how people will feel looking back at the video of the School Board meeting in future years. He hopes that we gender critics will see ourselves speaking at the meeting and feel deep shame.
It hasn’t occurred to Hersey that it will be he and his colleagues on the Board who hang their heads in shame looking back on today from the future. They will be correctly seen as the ones akin to the racists who yelled at Ruby Bridges. People will ask:
How could they have transformed Seattle’s schools into places where children were taught that men have babies and male sex organs are sometimes female?
How could they have delivered vulnerable children during a time of mental health collapse, to a medical industrial complex that did unspeakable harm to their beautiful bodies and psyches?
How could they have applauded as healthy and liberatory young women binding their breasts, or even worse, having them amputated?
How could they have so resolutely failed to look at the mountains of evidence all around them that made clear the depravity of the medical scandal they fueled, placing their hands over their ears and chanting “We can’t hear you, we can’t hear you” whenever anyone attempted to share the data with them?
How could they have told vulnerable children that there’s a target on their back, that mean people want to hurt and erase them, and that suicide is also a distinct possibility if those mean people have their way?
How could they have praised children for authenticity and for “being their true selves” in response to children rejecting their bodies as wrong and out of alignment with their so-called gender identities?
How could they have lied so brazenly to children, leading them to believe that it is possible to become the other sex? How could they have failed to let children heading down a path of medical harm know that one can never have the body of the other sex---that at best one gets a superficial imitation of that body, along with an array of dysfunctions and medical problems?
How could they have encouraged children to take on a twisted project of seeing everything they did as a “gender expression” as they poured time and energy into figuring out which gender label to apply to themselves?
How could they have told children that it’s wrong to refer to “women” as “women” and that demeaning and inaccurate terms like “people with cervixes” must be used instead?
How could they have treated the civil rights of children as something to be ignored and trampled—including the right to free speech, the right to not be sterilized as a child, the right to a fair playing field in sports, the right to sex-based privacy, and more?
How could they have cynically cast their destruction of civil rights as championing civil rights?
How could they have lobbied against the interests of girls and women, begging federal agencies to gut their rights, particularly at a time when the mental health and civil rights of girls had been revealed to be in such a bad state?
How could they have “hated on” those who courageously stood up to defend children’s health and their rights, to point to the science, and to advocate rationality? How could they have encouraged others, especially children, to join in that hatred?
How could they have inculcated entire generations of children into an authoritarian mindset of treating people with different opinions as pariahs who don’t deserve to be heard? How could they have stood by applauding themselves as heroes, as young people participated in seething mobs that screamed epithets at gender critics as they forced them out of parks.
A day of reckoning is coming. May we not have to wait decades for that day. May it be only a year of two from now that people watch the video of the September 27th School Board meeting and shake their heads in horror at the despicable actions and positions of the Seattle School Board. May the Orwellian nightmare of the promotion of Gender Identity Ideology in schools come to an end very soon.
Whether they read our materials or not, Seattle School Board members have received them. When their outrageous actions are revealed to the world, they will not be able to pretend they didn’t know what was going on.
THE END
P.S. Click on the Download button below to see a table I hope will be of use to people dealing with School Boards and other Gender Cult-captured institutions. It contrasts the smears leveled against gender critics with the reality of what we actually stand for. Feel free to tweak, add to, and delete from the table, and to make copies of it to hand out as you attend events where you will be misrepresented.
You're brave. And that inspires more bravery, in me and others.
Reading your report on this meeting helped me realize that we must be willing and able to bear people hating us and lashing out as we speak up. Some aren't able but will be soon. We know the hatred will point our way, but we also can be sure that children who are swimming in this indoctrination need to know that not everyone agrees, there is dissent, and then they can find out why. At this point it is starting to seem like juvenile adults are driving the bus...the teachers, therapists, "clinicians," activists and the parents who refer to their children as "kiddos."
They are driving the bus smugly, with absolute surety, and, as you point out, unaware of their indoctrination.
But the wheels are coming off with every child, youth and adult who desists and detransistions, and with every brave doctor and whistle-blower who sounds the bell of reasoned truth that gets through to one more person.
As more and more young people grow into realization they were harmed by smug, shallow, criminally-irresppnsible, greedy ghouls who couldn't care less about brutal, off-label drugs and irreversible body modification that leaves them sterile, incontinent, and with no sexual function, there will be hell to pay. Glad you documented this so well...
Carol, thank you so much for what you are doing. Most people have no idea what is going on and think any objections to gender ideology in schools are just coming from a bunch of hysterical right wingers who don't want books about gay parents in the school libraries. As if! The kids themselves have grown up with it, so they don't know there is anything strange when the risk assessment survey that the guidance counselor makes them all take asks what sex they were "assigned" at birth and what gender they identify as now. Can you imagine never knowing anything else? Funny how when we criticize the subversion of language we're told it's only words, but if we say biological sex is real we are COMMITTING TRANS GENOCIDE!