Part 4: Public Schools and Charter Schools

The Coming Nightmare of a “Transsexual Rights
and Hate Crimes" Law in Massachusetts:
Why Bill H1728 Must Be Defeated

by Amy Contrada, MassResistance

PART 4: Public Schools and Charter Schools
Bill H1728, Sections 3-6

Normalizing "transgenderism"

What will Bill H1728’s ban on discrimination on the basis of “gender identity or expression” mean for our schools? All public schools will be required to permit – and encourage -- unimaginable perverted transgender behaviors by students (and teachers, under the employment sections of the law). Even private and religious schools may eventually be affected since they could be considered “public accommodations.”

Massachusetts public school curricula, special programs (diversity assemblies), and activities (GLBT clubs) will be forced to normalize transgenderism in all grades, K-12. There is no mention of “conscientious objector” exemptions for teachers and staff, or any respect for their freedom of religion on this issue. Counseling offices will be forced to support children identifying as “transgender” or “bisexual” (as they now are forced to support homosexual identities). Restrooms and locker rooms will have to be opened to opposite-sex students.

Teachers will indoctrinate children to accept transgenderism, transsexuality, sex-change procedures, and cross-dressing as normal. Elementary-grade stories will move beyond King and King marrying, to stories of Cinderella transitioning into Prince Charming (because she knew from the time she was little that she had nothing in common with her stepmother and stepsisters!). Schools are already using story books such as Jesse’s Dream Skirt about a 5-year-old boy who wears a skirt to kindergarten. Some Massachusetts public schools show “Ma Vie en rose” (about a six-year-old boy who thinks he’s a girl) to junior high and high school students. Documentaries like this from England, “My mums used to be men,” will be shown.

Health classes for older students will include information (who knows how graphic) on sex-change “transitioning” or cross-dressing. Even young children will be introduced to the concept of “sex change” being possible, as family stories reflecting the community’s diversity are told. In Newton, Mass. in 2006, third-graders were subjected to a discussion of a father who’s undergoing a sex-change operation to become a classmate’s second “mommy” -- and the school social worker led this class without parental notification.

As has happened with the homosexual-themed “fairy tales” and picture books in the Lexington, Mass. school system, the parental notification law covering human sexuality issues (allowing parents to opt their children out of such lessons) will be sidestepped. The activists will argue that “transgenderism” does not deal not with “human sexuality issues,” but with “diversity,” “different types of families,” or “gender identity” issues. Parents would not have to be informed by the schools about any such behaviors by “transgender” students in their child’s school, and most will never know it’s happening.

Protecting bizarre behavior

Children who make fun of a boy who wears skirts, makeup and fingernail polish to school will be the offenders, and charged with “bullying.” Already the Massachusetts Department of Education and Department of Public Health have run a pilot program to reduce “middle school transgender bullying” incidents. And the radical GLBT groups are pushing hard for an “anti-bullying bill” in the legislature which will inculcate the idea that anything goes, and all people must be accepted for “who they are” and however they dress or act.

The "Massachusetts Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth" at their Dec. 2007 meeting at the Brockton Holiday Inn. This independent Commission will add “bisexual” and “transgender” to its name and charge, if H1728 is passed. [MassResistance photo]

In 2000, a horrific court ruling led the way in Massachusetts (as reported by NARTH):

In October, a judge in Brockton, Massachusetts ruled that a junior high school boy must be permitted to attend classes while wearing girls' clothing. The boy had been suspended three times for using the girls' bathroom and wearing padded bras, wigs and high heels to school. School officials said the boy's behavior was disruptive. UPI reported that "school officials said [the unidentified student] sometimes wore tight skirts and high-heeled shoes, blew kisses to a male student, and once grabbed another boy's buttocks." The boy's therapist had diagnosed him with gender-identity disorder. She said it was "medically and clinically necessary for [him] to wear clothing consistent with female gender." If he was not allowed to dress as a girl, the therapist told the court, he would experience psychological trauma. The judge in the court case, who is a self-identified lesbian, agreed with the boy's therapist. When reporting her ruling, the judge referred to the gender-disturbed boy as a female.

The (allegedly) lesbian activist judge in that Brockton case (argued by GLAD transgender attorney, Jennifer Levi) appealed to disability law: The “trial court denied the school's motions to dismiss Pat Doe's disability and due process claims. In a first of its kind ruling, the court held that Massachusetts disability law, unlike federal law, does not exclude transgender people from its protections.” But if H1728 is passed, there will be no way of legally challenging such behaviors in the schools, and no lack of clarity in state law. (Note that transgenderism’s clinical status as a disorder was used to further the radicals’ own ends, claiming the disorder requires special privileges.)

“Transman” (female-to-male) activist Leslie Feinberg (right) preaching antiwar message at Massachusetts Youth Pride in Boston, 2005. GLBT activists push the whole leftist/socialist program to students. [PFLAG photo]

Pushing the envelope

Already in our schools, many groups are pushing transgenderism, alongside homosexuality and bisexuality (especially the Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, PFLAG, and GLSEN). High school students in Newton were lectured by a young woman identifying as a man, who told them how her school encouraged her to “transition” to “male” and how she began male hormone injections at age 12. This was at Newton North High School’s “ToBGLAD” Day in December 2006. Back in 2004, that event included transgender propaganda, with a lecture on “Life Outside the Gender Norm” and pamphlet on “Transgenderism.” At the Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in October 2007, the gay club’s “Ally Week” (promoted by GLSEN nationally) included “Transgender Day” and “Inbetween Day.”

Poster for Ally Week at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in October 2007, including “Transgender Day” and “Inbetween Day.” This took place just weeks before the GLBT propaganda play “The Laramie Project” was produced at the school, complete with “Erase Hate” wristbands leading students to the MatthewShepard.org site, which in turn leads them to radical groups supporting transgenderism/transsexuality, including BAGLY, PFLAG, and GLSEN. [MassResistance photo]

Even young pre-pubescent children (who are not “intersex” – a very rare condition) are being pushed to “transition,” with doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital injecting them with hormone blockers to make their “transitions” as teenagers easier. In 2005, the doctor involved in that shocking program at Children’s Hospital (Dr. Norman Spack) spoke out in support of a fourth-grade girl in a Methuen, Mass. school who decided (with her parents’ and doctor’s support) that she was a boy. She wanted to change her name, wear boy’s clothes, and be considered by all to be a boy. The school complied, though there was outrage in the community (outrage which would be criminalized by H1728). As the Boston Globe reported:

Dozens of parents flooded the Methuen school system with phone calls yesterday after a local newspaper reported that a fourth-grade girl had returned from the February school break requesting to be treated as a boy.... The child's parents told the Eagle Tribune on the condition of anonymity that their child, who was born with the body of a girl, has never identified as a girl. After consulting with medical professionals, they have decided to let him [sic] grow up as a boy and wanted teachers and other students to treat him as a boy. Dr. Norman Spack, clinical director of the endocrine division at Children's Hospital in Boston, said gender identity is formed at birth and is not a product of the environment.
"Methuen school faces parents' queries on student's gender issue," Boston Globe (3/5/2005)

Going after parents who object

If H1728 passes, parents and community members who publicly object to transgender students in their schools could be considered to be “inciting” discrimination against them – a crime punishable by fine, imprisonment, or damages under the “public accommodations” law. And schools could be considered public accommodations.

GLAD (the legal group that drafted Bill H1728) earlier published a pamphlet for Massachusetts public school students, “Transgender Students! …You have the right…” It tells “transgender children” that they are already protected under Massachusetts and federal laws. Students are told they have the right:

To attend school in safety on equal terms as all other students. This means no discrimination, sexual harassment or harassment based on your gender identity or expression by peers or faculty.
To express your point of view, even on controversial issues, and to feel safe in doing so!
To wear clothing and otherwise present yourself in a way that fits your gender identity.
To have access to bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with your gender identity.

This confirms that their bill H1728 will bring cross-dressing and bathroom confusion to schools all over Massachusetts. Students get to decide their “gender identity” and which bathroom or locker room they want to use – not the administration. Students will be able to join opposite-sex athletic teams. A boy can run for homecoming queen, and if he’s not chosen, he’ll say it’s discrimination.

The Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth (see below) is already handing out a pamphlet by PFLAG to school children called “Coming Out as Transgender.” PFLAG also publishes a propaganda booklet for parents, Our Trans Children.

The Commission supports the “Gay-Straight Alliance” (GSA) clubs in Massachusetts high schools, which send children to GLSEN and PFLAG sponsored events, as well as to dangerous organizations such as BAGLY (the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth), and the annual Youth Pride event in Boston. As the Commission becomes more serious, we will see more diversity assemblies including cross-dressers and transsexuals. So they’re not charged with discriminating against “transgender” (or homosexual) youth, schools will give such efforts their full support.

Drag queen (man dressed as woman) "Raquel Blake" was the Master of Ceremonies at Massachusetts Youth Pride 2007, supported by the Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. (background info) [MassResistance photo]

Public school lessons (in health class? social studies/government?) will soon include radical sexual or “gender” models that see no limit in “gender variants” and “sexual orientations.” Planned Parenthood handed out the diagram below to school children at the GLSEN-Boston Conference in 2005. How many parents will be taken in by such nonsense, and told by school counselors and psychologists that their child may be or is “transgender”?

Diagram handed out to high school students from around Massachusetts by Planned Parenthood representative at the GLSEN Boston conference in 2005.

Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth

Massachusetts Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, swearing-in ceremony at State House, January 8, 2007. [AP photo]

Sections 28-31 of bill H1728 deal with the Commission on Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Youth.

Bill H1728 would insert the terms “bisexual”, “transgender”, and “gender identity and expression” into the new statute that created the independent “Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth” in July 2006. The Legislature sneaked this Commission in as an amendment to a budget item (so that it could not be repealed), without defining “gay,” “lesbian,” or “youth,” what exactly the mission of the Commission was, or how its effectiveness would be measured.

The Commission began under Governor Bill Weld in 1992 as the “Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth” to address the supposed epidemic of “gay teen suicide” (which has never been validated). And no impact on “gay teen suicide” (positive or negative) has ever been reported due to the Commission’s existence. The former chair of the Commission, Kathleen Henry, said several years ago that the Commission needed to pay more attention to “bisexual and transgender youth” after GLSEN gave Massachusetts a low grade in 2004, because of that omission.

Guarding the door at the BAGLY Queer Prom at Boston City Hall, part of Youth Pride, May 2007: “Grace” Sterling Stowell, man dressed as a woman (with sunglasses), is BAGLY’s executive director and co-chair of the Mass. Commission on Gay Lesbian Youth.

The Commission is working hand in hand (and shares personnel) with Mass. Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC), BAGLY, GLSEN, and PFLAG. MTPC’s director and also a Commissioner, female-to-male transsexual Gunner Scott, is pushing to extend the “youth” under the Commission’s authority to include all school children, grades K-12. The Commission is also going after college students, distributing MTPC talking points and an organizing handbook on transgender issues to high schools and colleges.

This man, expressing an unusual gender identity, was wandering around taking pictures at Youth Pride 2007 in Boston. He's hired by Fenway Community Health Center (GLBT community) to pass out condoms and anal lube in the Fenway to gay "cruisers." What was his reason for being at Youth Pride? The Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth will only intensify such efforts if H1728 passes. (MassResistance photos)

The Commission will be required to include people from diverse “gender identity or expression” backgrounds. (Section 29) Appointments to membership on the Commission “shall be made in consultation with gay, and lesbian, bisexual and transgender organizations.” (Section 30)

A new appointee to the Commission (in December 2007) gave his bio as follows (note that he is speaking of his daughter who has “transitioned”):

Kenneth Garber - Thank you in advance for consideration of my application to the Massachusetts Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth. My name is Kenneth Garber I have been a member of the Waltham Fire Department for 27 1/2 years. I'm a member of Greater Boston PFLAG, MTPC and Dignity Boston. My wife Marcia and I are the parents of a 19 year old transgendered male. My son CJ is a freshman at Lasell College studying Criminal Justice. CJ underwent a double mastectomy in the summer of 2006 and a total Laproscopic hysterectomy this past summer. During this past summer I have been witness to how difficult it is for trans people to make changes to various documents and also to harsh treatment we received from various agencies. I applied to the Commission because I know how difficult it is for trans people and their families to deal with the issue and people involved. I hope that some of our experiences will allow me to help other transgendered people and their families to get through some difficult times. I'm going to try and attend tomorrow evening good luck to all the candidates. [emphasis added]