Reply to Arlington Parents Coalition keeps strange bedfellows

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't see us making any progress on this front.  There are two things the sides would have to agree with.

1. There is no such thing as hate speech.
2. Gender dysphoria is a mental illness.

Until there is common ground on these two topics there is very little that can be done.

I attended the school board meeting last night, and was deeply saddened to observe parents who are unwilling to teach their children these facts but go beyond basic negligence and teach the opposite.  It is child abuse at the very least.

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I suppose homosexuality is a mental illness too? The American College of Pediatricians, which is a primary source for the Arlington Parent Coalition, believes that too, and supports conversion therapy: https://keepkidshealthy.com/2017/09/06/what-is-the-american-college-of-pediatricians/

No, we are not going to agree that gender dysphoria or homosexuality is a mental illness, and they are not "facts." [/quote]

Gender dysphoria is listed in the DSM as a mental illness and the American Psychiatry Association refers to it as such.  https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria

I''m not the poster who said this, but I completely agree it is a mental illness.  I don't understand 2- there is such a thing as hate speech.  I don't view stating that gender dysphoria is a mental illness as hate speech, and I think the term 'hate speech' has been dramatically abused in this conversation- but I don't think pretending that hate speech doesn't exist is useful either.[/quote]

My bad.  Yes, gender dysphoria is an illness. The illness is the conflict, though, not the fact that an individual doesn't feel like their birth gender.

The goal of treatment isn't to "make a person live with their birth gender" - that's the issue here, and the ACP/APC are definitely not in favor of APS being supportive of some treatment options. The goal of treatment is to resolve the conflict, not to make people live with their birth gender and all the societal conventions (such as having to use a certain bathroom) that go along with it. From the article:

"Treatment options for gender dysphoria include counseling, cross-sex hormones, puberty suppression and gender reassignment surgery."
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It is an important first step, acknowledging it is an illness!  I appreciate that you provided some of the treatment options for gender dysphoria.  They are probably very valuable options for a person who is struggling with gender dysphoria.  The current PIP goes well beyond the non-discrimination policy put in place by the school board some years ago.  The PIP must include provisions to cover highly probable scenarios and it does not in its current state.  In fact it leaves almost no common sense options for students/staff.  There are are some rules that need to be bent, and then there are some that can not.  In its current state the PIP would allow an 18 year old boy to enter the common dressing/locker/shower room of 14 year old girl?  I would also allow superior athletes of the opposite birth sex to compete where it might impact the other students in how they are evaluated against competition or awarded because of success.  It would also allow for students/teachers/administrative staff to be penalized for incorrectly using the pronouns that are required on the days old whim of a 6 year old.  At the conclusion of the school board meeting last night the speaker for APS admin staff could not address any of these three scenarios appropriately when question by the board and there are so many other impacts that have not been assessed.  Full disclosure, she kicked the can on the title ix violations over to the governing body of high school sports...

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