New VA trans policies for schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I taught middle school 10 years ago and there were queer kids who had to stay closeted at home because their parents tried to “beat the gay” out of them. It was horrifying, and of course I told those kids there was nothing wrong with them, they were perfect just the way they were. I also did not disclose anything about their sexuality to their parents.

I think some of the PPs have no idea what goes on behind closed doors in too many households.

Promoting medication and surgery is the problem. It's a smaller number of teachers, but there are teachers and librarians promoting this and the rest of the staff is complicit.

Thanks for demonstrating that Republicans are liars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the rules really that bad? Don’t socially transition a child without the parent’s knowledge and permission? Sports that are segregated by sex continue to be segregated by sex rather than gender identity?

If you're a right wing conservative and anti trans then I guess the new rules are perfectly fine.

I'm neither, but women's rights don't get trumped by biological boys who don't want to compete against other biological boys.

Mom of a straight cis girl here. I don't think she wants to share the girls bathroom with trans boys who everyone considers to be boys. What about her rights?

+1 there are moms here in VA that are listening to their girls at home say they don't want to have to change a pad or tampon with a biological boy in the next stall or have to change clothes with them in the locker room. These girls have rights too.

Believe me - a trans girl is going to have to be a lot braver than your cis daughter when it comes to navigating bathrooms and locker rooms. Boys don’t just walk around living as girls so they can spy on your daughter changing her pad.

DP. I agree. But that doesn't mean the cis girl's "rights" and feelings don't matter. All this stuff is merely a matter of whose rights trump whose and come first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the rules really that bad? Don’t socially transition a child without the parent’s knowledge and permission? Sports that are segregated by sex continue to be segregated by sex rather than gender identity?

If you're a right wing conservative and anti trans then I guess the new rules are perfectly fine.

I'm neither, but women's rights don't get trumped by biological boys who don't want to compete against other biological boys.

Mom of a straight cis girl here. I don't think she wants to share the girls bathroom with trans boys who everyone considers to be boys. What about her rights?

+1 there are moms here in VA that are listening to their girls at home say they don't want to have to change a pad or tampon with a biological boy in the next stall or have to change clothes with them in the locker room. These girls have rights too.

There were a lot of white girls uncomfortable with sharing a bathroom with black girls too. Sometimes things make us uncomfortable but that doesn't mean that it is wrong or we should make laws banning it.

Really what year 1920?

Bigots exist in 2023. They aren’t born, they are formed by their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

NP. I wonder if there is a way to allow for judgment based on likelihood of medical intervention. I don’t think it’s workable to ask teachers to not call kids by their preferred names, just on a practical basis. And, I think it’s good for kids to have an outlet to experiment with identity. Who cares if Rebecca wants to be called Rex by her favorite teacher?

However, I also think it’s very problematic for schools to hide full gender transitions from parents, because of the medicalized potential outcomes. A parent can’t just find out their kid has adopted a trans identity when the child demands puberty blockers. That’s too late, and by then the child has probably absorbed a bunch of overtly wrong propaganda about medical transition. There is just so much coming out about how much misleading medical information has been promoted in the name of gender affirmative care. (Personally, given how things are going, I think that medicalized transition for youth is well on its way to being the lobotomy of our times.) It isn’t right for parents to only find out after their child has absorbed enormous amounts of misinformation about medical transitions.

Maybe there could be a judgment call: parents are notified when authorities at the school think the transition is enough that the child may ask for medical intervention. Idk, just thinking out loud and trying to bridge a tricky problem.

Mom of trans child again here. I want to address this post because I feel that you are trying to understand and come from a good place, but I also think you are doing harm to families and have some misinformation. First, to be clear, parents always control the decision and pace of any medical transition in any minor. A child who waits to inform parents would not be able to get medical transition and would have to wait longer because they would not have completed the pretransition steps that are required such as therapy and living full time in the gender. In any event, your concern would exist whether or not the child is outted by the school because all this policy will do is to make kids keep it to themselves longer rather than talk about it at school (none of which prevents them from doing their online research if they want).

Second, as a family facing this challenge and whose child has medically transitioned, please realize that the off hand comments like comparisons to lobotomies are extremely hurtful to us. Believe me, I did not want to have a child in this situation and was skeptical and questioning. We are doing the best we can and making decisions the best we can with love for our children at the forefront of it. We have relied on the expertise of medical professionals at the most respected medical institutions throughout. To suggest that we have (either deliberately or through stupidity) hurt our kids when you don't know that and to use the example of something that destroys people's personalities is simply mean. My child is still (and always will be) a wonderful person regardless of his body and we have always acted with the best intentions to do the best by him. If that turns out over the course of his life to be the wrong decision, I will be sad but at least I will know that we did the best we could. I would ask that you consider whether you have the same feelings about schools reporting kids when they or teachers know that the parents would likely refuse to accept their trans children or would kick out a child or (god forbid) abuse that child.

I’m the PP. Thanks for the thoughtful response. You have given me a lot to think about.

I do want to say one thing: nobody (well, nobody who isn’t insane) can ever doubt the love and caring of parents who followed the expertise and advice of the physicians who recommended medicalized transition for their children. NOBODY. I think there are a lot of questions as to how we ended up where we are now in the US, but that’s not at all a reflection of the dedication and love of parents like you for their kids. Those questions have to do with a profit-driven medical system, and are not at all about the clear and obvious love parents have for their trans kids. You are clearly and obviously a wonderful parent who had done the best possible for their child.

When I use the analogy to lobotomy, I was thinking more about the systemic faults that allowed the lobotomy to ever exist in the first place. The systemic failure that permitted the lobotomy also happened other widespread medical treatments that turned out to be very harmful overall but that started with positive and good intent: for instance, opioid clinics, or thalidomide. And it is those systemic failures that are alarming.

But I appreciate that it’s painful to hear the comparison as a parent as a trans kid, and I am not in your shoes. So, I won’t use that comparison any more. I think that there must be a way to talk rationally about some of the systemic failures in gender affirming care without comparing gender affirming care to lobotomies. And, as you correctly observe, there isn’t a loss of personality with medicalized gender affirmative care, so it’s probably a sloppy analogy anyhow even if my intent was only to talk about the systemic failures I see in both. In any event, I won’t use the comparison again.

I am very uncomfortable with the idea of teachers putting themselves forward as trusted adults with the idea of keeping secrets from parents. “Don’t tell your parents” is the prime directive of all abusers, and I’ve been uncomfortable for years with the increasingly aggressive bent towards that position that I’ve seen from schools. It does feel like there is the potential for enormous abuse here, and I don’t know how to manage that. I don’t think these rules are workable for teachers, but I also think that some schools across the country have really overstepped their boundaries.

Thanks again for the thoughtful answer. I’m not sure we will agree on everything, but I won’t use the comparison to lobotomies again.

A teacher telling a kid to keep a secret from their parents is bad, yes. A teacher complying with a kid's request to be called a certain name or use certain pronouns isn't doing that. Teachers have always served as trusted adults to kids, since forever. Demanding that schools report this stuff to parents regardless of the situation is setting kids up for abuse, rejection, and stress.

TEACHERS NEVER TELL KIDS TO KEEP SECRETS FROM THEIR FAMILIES. What the hell are you talking about??? If ANYTHING, the kids reveal stuff to us that as legally mandated reporters we *have* to pass on to admin, counselor, parents and then the kids get mad at us because they think we violated their trust. Stop acting like teachers are groomers who encourage secrecy between themselves and kids from parents, it’s literally the opposite.

+1

More anti-teacher sentiments from the open schools a-holes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the rules really that bad? Don’t socially transition a child without the parent’s knowledge and permission? Sports that are segregated by sex continue to be segregated by sex rather than gender identity?

If you're a right wing conservative and anti trans then I guess the new rules are perfectly fine.

I'm neither, but women's rights don't get trumped by biological boys who don't want to compete against other biological boys.

This also though prevents bio girls from competing on bio boys teams. Meanwhile they get misgendered on bio girls teams because they have transitioned and look like "boys". Arlington Karens asking why there's a boy on the team LOUDLY. This happens all the time.

Yes. The anti trans people don't want trans kids to be anywhere. They are just supposed to "conform" or disappear I guess.

Or just select a gender appropriate sport where they are good enough to make the team.

What’s a gender appropriate sport? If a person born female is good enough to make the boys team, these rules don’t allow her to be on the team.

Is this true? I honestly don't 'know. When I was in HS in the late 90s we had a girl on our football team. Can girls not try out for boys teams at all?

These new rules no longer allow this. There are many girls on boys teams, as there has been for years. But these rules make girls only play girls sports on girls teams. Wake up people. Don’t you see what’s happening to women? White men in power are telling them where they belong and what they have rights to do?

This! LGBQT+++ is just the low-hanging fruit distracting from the next steps. The Christian right that is pushing the hardest on these things is a very patriarchal society. Women will be put back in their place by the end of it all, if people keep their eyes fixed on the current step in the ladder and don't start looking up at the next rung.

Nope. This is just about trans, gender expansive, gender fluid, nonbinary. Not LGB.

If you don't know what this is about, you won't know what you're talking about. You'll talk about something else, fight about something else.

You really believe that the people pushing this agenda are perfectly fine with homosexuality and bisexuality? Really?!
Those things just aren't easily addressed with separate bathrooms or sports teams. At some point, some parent is going to sue some teacher for not telling them that their daughter is holding hands with another girl in the hallway and during lunch in the cafeteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the rules really that bad? Don’t socially transition a child without the parent’s knowledge and permission? Sports that are segregated by sex continue to be segregated by sex rather than gender identity?

If you're a right wing conservative and anti trans then I guess the new rules are perfectly fine.

I'm neither, but women's rights don't get trumped by biological boys who don't want to compete against other biological boys.

Mom of a straight cis girl here. I don't think she wants to share the girls bathroom with trans boys who everyone considers to be boys. What about her rights?

+1 there are moms here in VA that are listening to their girls at home say they don't want to have to change a pad or tampon with a biological boy in the next stall or have to change clothes with them in the locker room. These girls have rights too.

There were a lot of white girls uncomfortable with sharing a bathroom with black girls too. Sometimes things make us uncomfortable but that doesn't mean that it is wrong or we should make laws banning it.

Really what year 1920?

That's kind of a stupid question. If people were comfortable with it all back then, it wouldn't have taken until 1960's to de-segregate. and, oh, desegregation all went really smoothly and everyone immediately celebrated with each other because they finally could. Yeah.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the rules really that bad? Don’t socially transition a child without the parent’s knowledge and permission? Sports that are segregated by sex continue to be segregated by sex rather than gender identity?

If you're a right wing conservative and anti trans then I guess the new rules are perfectly fine.

I'm neither, but women's rights don't get trumped by biological boys who don't want to compete against other biological boys.

This also though prevents bio girls from competing on bio boys teams. Meanwhile they get misgendered on bio girls teams because they have transitioned and look like "boys". Arlington Karens asking why there's a boy on the team LOUDLY. This happens all the time.

Yes. The anti trans people don't want trans kids to be anywhere. They are just supposed to "conform" or disappear I guess.

Or just select a gender appropriate sport where they are good enough to make the team.

What’s a gender appropriate sport? If a person born female is good enough to make the boys team, these rules don’t allow her to be on the team.

Is this true? I honestly don't 'know. When I was in HS in the late 90s we had a girl on our football team. Can girls not try out for boys teams at all?

These new rules no longer allow this. There are many girls on boys teams, as there has been for years. But these rules make girls only play girls sports on girls teams. Wake up people. Don’t you see what’s happening to women? White men in power are telling them where they belong and what they have rights to do?

This! LGBQT+++ is just the low-hanging fruit distracting from the next steps. The Christian right that is pushing the hardest on these things is a very patriarchal society. Women will be put back in their place by the end of it all, if people keep their eyes fixed on the current step in the ladder and don't start looking up at the next rung.

Nope. This is just about trans, gender expansive, gender fluid, nonbinary. Not LGB.

If you don't know what this is about, you won't know what you're talking about. You'll talk about something else, fight about something else.

You really believe that the people pushing this agenda are perfectly fine with homosexuality and bisexuality? Really?!
Those things just aren't easily addressed with separate bathrooms or sports teams. At some point, some parent is going to sue some teacher for not telling them that their daughter is holding hands with another girl in the hallway and during lunch in the cafeteria.

Look at which books they want to ban.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the rules really that bad? Don’t socially transition a child without the parent’s knowledge and permission? Sports that are segregated by sex continue to be segregated by sex rather than gender identity?

If you're a right wing conservative and anti trans then I guess the new rules are perfectly fine.

I'm neither, but women's rights don't get trumped by biological boys who don't want to compete against other biological boys.

This also though prevents bio girls from competing on bio boys teams. Meanwhile they get misgendered on bio girls teams because they have transitioned and look like "boys". Arlington Karens asking why there's a boy on the team LOUDLY. This happens all the time.

Yes. The anti trans people don't want trans kids to be anywhere. They are just supposed to "conform" or disappear I guess.

Or just select a gender appropriate sport where they are good enough to make the team.

What’s a gender appropriate sport? If a person born female is good enough to make the boys team, these rules don’t allow her to be on the team.

Is this true? I honestly don't 'know. When I was in HS in the late 90s we had a girl on our football team. Can girls not try out for boys teams at all?

These new rules no longer allow this. There are many girls on boys teams, as there has been for years. But these rules make girls only play girls sports on girls teams. Wake up people. Don’t you see what’s happening to women? White men in power are telling them where they belong and what they have rights to do?

This! LGBQT+++ is just the low-hanging fruit distracting from the next steps. The Christian right that is pushing the hardest on these things is a very patriarchal society. Women will be put back in their place by the end of it all, if people keep their eyes fixed on the current step in the ladder and don't start looking up at the next rung.

Nope. This is just about trans, gender expansive, gender fluid, nonbinary. Not LGB.

If you don't know what this is about, you won't know what you're talking about. You'll talk about something else, fight about something else.

You really believe that the people pushing this agenda are perfectly fine with homosexuality and bisexuality? Really?!
Those things just aren't easily addressed with separate bathrooms or sports teams. At some point, some parent is going to sue some teacher for not telling them that their daughter is holding hands with another girl in the hallway and during lunch in the cafeteria.

I mean these are the same people who are fighting to remove certain books from the library. So clearly they want to control more than this one issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the rules really that bad? Don’t socially transition a child without the parent’s knowledge and permission? Sports that are segregated by sex continue to be segregated by sex rather than gender identity?

If you're a right wing conservative and anti trans then I guess the new rules are perfectly fine.

I'm neither, but women's rights don't get trumped by biological boys who don't want to compete against other biological boys.

Mom of a straight cis girl here. I don't think she wants to share the girls bathroom with trans boys who everyone considers to be boys. What about her rights?

+1 there are moms here in VA that are listening to their girls at home say they don't want to have to change a pad or tampon with a biological boy in the next stall or have to change clothes with them in the locker room. These girls have rights too.

There were a lot of white girls uncomfortable with sharing a bathroom with black girls too. Sometimes things make us uncomfortable but that doesn't mean that it is wrong or we should make laws banning it.

Really what year 1920?

Bigots exist in 2023. They aren’t born, they are formed by their parents.

I'm tired of this. SOME parents who are bigoted influence their kids in their likeness. Yet some of those kids don't turn out like those parents after all. And vice versa. I have two children who are very different in their views. I did not form them differently. Peers and social media and other people have a tremendous influence on individuals' formation of viewpoints and attitudes. Only parents whose children are perfectly wonderful blame the parents for other kids who aren't. Well, good for you. Congratulations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the rules really that bad? Don’t socially transition a child without the parent’s knowledge and permission? Sports that are segregated by sex continue to be segregated by sex rather than gender identity?

If you're a right wing conservative and anti trans then I guess the new rules are perfectly fine.

I'm neither, but women's rights don't get trumped by biological boys who don't want to compete against other biological boys.

Mom of a straight cis girl here. I don't think she wants to share the girls bathroom with trans boys who everyone considers to be boys. What about her rights?

+1 there are moms here in VA that are listening to their girls at home say they don't want to have to change a pad or tampon with a biological boy in the next stall or have to change clothes with them in the locker room. These girls have rights too.

There were a lot of white girls uncomfortable with sharing a bathroom with black girls too. Sometimes things make us uncomfortable but that doesn't mean that it is wrong or we should make laws banning it.

Really what year 1920?

That's kind of a stupid question. If people were comfortable with it all back then, it wouldn't have taken until 1960's to de-segregate. and, oh, desegregation all went really smoothly and everyone immediately celebrated with each other because they finally could. Yeah.

Also why 1920? Brown vs. Board of Education wasn't until 1954 and Arlington didn't desegrate all of its schools until 1971 (when it was forced to). Sometimes we have to make people uncomfortable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the rules really that bad? Don’t socially transition a child without the parent’s knowledge and permission? Sports that are segregated by sex continue to be segregated by sex rather than gender identity?

If you're a right wing conservative and anti trans then I guess the new rules are perfectly fine.

I'm neither, but women's rights don't get trumped by biological boys who don't want to compete against other biological boys.

This also though prevents bio girls from competing on bio boys teams. Meanwhile they get misgendered on bio girls teams because they have transitioned and look like "boys". Arlington Karens asking why there's a boy on the team LOUDLY. This happens all the time.

Yes. The anti trans people don't want trans kids to be anywhere. They are just supposed to "conform" or disappear I guess.

Or just select a gender appropriate sport where they are good enough to make the team.

What’s a gender appropriate sport? If a person born female is good enough to make the boys team, these rules don’t allow her to be on the team.

Is this true? I honestly don't 'know. When I was in HS in the late 90s we had a girl on our football team. Can girls not try out for boys teams at all?

These new rules no longer allow this. There are many girls on boys teams, as there has been for years. But these rules make girls only play girls sports on girls teams. Wake up people. Don’t you see what’s happening to women? White men in power are telling them where they belong and what they have rights to do?

This! LGBQT+++ is just the low-hanging fruit distracting from the next steps. The Christian right that is pushing the hardest on these things is a very patriarchal society. Women will be put back in their place by the end of it all, if people keep their eyes fixed on the current step in the ladder and don't start looking up at the next rung.

Nope. This is just about trans, gender expansive, gender fluid, nonbinary. Not LGB.

If you don't know what this is about, you won't know what you're talking about. You'll talk about something else, fight about something else.

You really believe that the people pushing this agenda are perfectly fine with homosexuality and bisexuality? Really?!
Those things just aren't easily addressed with separate bathrooms or sports teams. At some point, some parent is going to sue some teacher for not telling them that their daughter is holding hands with another girl in the hallway and during lunch in the cafeteria.

Look at which books they want to ban.

Yes, those books include homosexuality and lesbianism. The "LGB" is absolutely part of the agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a teacher. I'm calling a kid by the (reasonable) name they ask me to call them. Period. And if they ask me to use a different name with their parents I'm doing that too.

**LGBTQ youth who report having at least one accepting adult were 40% less likely to report a suicide attempt in the past year.**

I'm sure as F going to be that accepting adult without hesitation. It's quite literally the least I can do.

Fellow teacher. Same here.

Thank you both. You are saving lives.

x a million. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I taught middle school 10 years ago and there were queer kids who had to stay closeted at home because their parents tried to “beat the gay” out of them. It was horrifying, and of course I told those kids there was nothing wrong with them, they were perfect just the way they were. I also did not disclose anything about their sexuality to their parents.

I think some of the PPs have no idea what goes on behind closed doors in too many households.

Promoting medication and surgery is the problem. It's a smaller number of teachers, but there are teachers and librarians promoting this and the rest of the staff is complicit.

Thanks for demonstrating that Republicans are liars.

Yes, I’m still waiting for them
to cite their source.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the rules really that bad? Don’t socially transition a child without the parent’s knowledge and permission? Sports that are segregated by sex continue to be segregated by sex rather than gender identity?

If you're a right wing conservative and anti trans then I guess the new rules are perfectly fine.

I'm neither, but women's rights don't get trumped by biological boys who don't want to compete against other biological boys.

Mom of a straight cis girl here. I don't think she wants to share the girls bathroom with trans boys who everyone considers to be boys. What about her rights?

+1 there are moms here in VA that are listening to their girls at home say they don't want to have to change a pad or tampon with a biological boy in the next stall or have to change clothes with them in the locker room. These girls have rights too.

There were a lot of white girls uncomfortable with sharing a bathroom with black girls too. Sometimes things make us uncomfortable but that doesn't mean that it is wrong or we should make laws banning it.

Well said. Maybe moms should be working with their daughters to be more comfortable with the natural functioning of their bodies. Periods are nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the rules really that bad? Don’t socially transition a child without the parent’s knowledge and permission? Sports that are segregated by sex continue to be segregated by sex rather than gender identity?

If you're a right wing conservative and anti trans then I guess the new rules are perfectly fine.

I'm neither, but women's rights don't get trumped by biological boys who don't want to compete against other biological boys.

Mom of a straight cis girl here. I don't think she wants to share the girls bathroom with trans boys who everyone considers to be boys. What about her rights?

+1 there are moms here in VA that are listening to their girls at home say they don't want to have to change a pad or tampon with a biological boy in the next stall or have to change clothes with them in the locker room. These girls have rights too.

There were a lot of white girls uncomfortable with sharing a bathroom with black girls too. Sometimes things make us uncomfortable but that doesn't mean that it is wrong or we should make laws banning it.

Well said. Maybe moms should be working with their daughters to be more comfortable with the natural functioning of their bodies. Periods are nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about.

Well don't worry soon they will try to change policies on that too.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/19/florida-republican-bill-girls-periods-school/11504099002/#:~:text=As%20local%20bills%20on%20gender%2C%20sexuality%20and%20diversity,and%20changes%20in%20their%20bodies%20before%20they%20occur.

It must be exhausting to be so afraid of everything all of the time.