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After first-term Sunol Glen school board Trustee Linda Hurley offered public comments at a San Ramon Valley Unified School District Board of Education meeting two months ago during a discussion about that district’s book acquisition guidelines and complaint processes, some stakeholders in small-town Sunol were left scratching their heads.
The meeting in Danville on Feb. 21, which had around 30 public speakers in attendance, garnered local media attention as several parents spoke out against “Gender Queer”, a 2019 graphic memoir by Maia Kobabe, being made available to students in a school’s library. The book, which is centered around the author — who identified as asexual and non-binary as an adult — coming out to friends and family, has come under scrutiny in several school districts across the nation for its blunt illustrations of some explicit sex acts.
“One would hope that those who are screening and recommending instructional material would reflect healthy uplifting values, but sadly this is not the case,” Hurley said to the San Ramon Valley school board. “Providing graphic pictures and instructions on how to have anal sex is plain and simple pornography.”
But it was her next few statements to the other district’s school board that really concerned dozens of Sunol residents in the following weeks.
“Why would we subject our children to this?” Hurley asked. “We are elected trustees because our electorate put their trust in us to protect their children and make wise decisions on the curriculum used to teach their children. Do you not realize this harmful material can subject our children to a lifetime addiction of porn?”
“We have the ability and responsibility to defend our children at all ages, from these assaults,” she added. “Our school has a parent committee that will review all materials and I personally will be reading as many of them as I can to make sure they are suitable for our children. We should be jealously guarding the innocence of our children and hope that you will be too.”
Those were the statements that sparked outrage from several Sunol Glen School parents who spoke at last week’s Sunol Glen Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting.
“As a parent of two longtime students at Sunol Glen, I am deeply troubled by recent comments made by school board member Linda Hurley at a discussion surrounding the removal and censoring of books from school libraries under the guise of protecting children,” Sunol resident Anna Berns said.
Berns, who read off a statement that was written by her husband and represented nine other Sunol parents who shared the same views, told the Sunol board that the comments Hurley made were “hysterical nonsense” and that someone who is directly involved in children’s education should know better.
“As a parent, I simply will not stand for censorship for the banning of books and a blatant attempt to push some misguided exclusionary ideology,” Berns said. “I can only assume that when a Sunol Glen School board member begins to raise such possibilities in public, that they have nothing less than that in mind for our school.”
That’s why Sunol Glen Trustee Peter “Ted” Romo said he authored a resolution, which he presented to the rest of the three-member board during their meeting on April 4, that was meant to clarify how board members present their views in situations such as other school board meetings. Both Romo and Hurley were elected in November to the board overseeing the small district that serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade in the unincorporated community south of Pleasanton.
Romo said that the resolution was meant to serve as a clarifying document to help board members comply with the existing requirements under the district’s bylaws and included recommendations on how to do so for the board members.
He also said that the resolution would help board members from making false statements such as the one Hurley made about a parent committee that reviews books, which he confirmed did not exist.
The bylaws that he referred to state that “all public statements authorized to be made on behalf of the board shall be made by the board president or if appropriate by the superintendent/principal or designee or other designated representative.”
“Our district bylaws state that when speaking to community groups, members of the public or the media, individual board members should recognize that their statements may be perceived as reflecting the views and positions of the board,” Erin Choin, a parent of two Sunol Glen School students, told the board as she read from a statement that was supported by 41 Sunol parents.
“Board members have a responsibility to identify their personal viewpoints as such and not the viewpoint of the board,” Choin added.
Romo said that the resolution was drafted with the intention to make that point clear to board members.
Constance Degrange, a member of the Sunol Citizens’ Advisory Council, was one of the residents who supported the resolution after she said she went to an award ceremony at the State Capitol and met with Assembly members who knew about Hurley’s comments.
“People were talking to each other before the meeting and they were saying ‘Where are you from … and I said Sunol. It was a hushed silence,” Degrange said. “I realized what an impact it has all across the state and how it reflects on us and how embarrassed I was being there and having to explain that the people of Sunol don’t support that.”
She said the resolution would have been the first step in rectifying Hurley’s mistake of making those comments.
But while there were many who agreed with the resolution and defended the idea of not removing books like “Gender Queer” in schools, there were as many parents on April 4 who defended Hurley and called everyone who spoke against her actions a “bullying mob”.
“I think there’s a lot of hearsay going on,” Sunol resident Debbie Ferrari said. “If this is a concern, get the actual books, read and have a discussion. But to have this mob bullying Linda, I mean, it’s really disheartening.”
Ferrari said what a lot of other residents echoed that evening which was: the book in question is not age appropriate and should not be made available to children.
And for parents like David Selinger, he went as far to say that he even agreed with Hurley’s viewpoint. However, he said that those decisions shouldn’t be up to the school, it should fall on the parent.
“I do not want my daughter to learn how to perform anal sex in the school curriculum. But I want that to be my choice for my daughter, not Mrs. Hurley’s, not anyone else’s,” he said.
Another point of view that was applauded at the meeting came from James Lowder, who said that the resolution was pointless because Sunol isn’t even talking about removing books and that Hurley’s comments, which he listened to, didn’t come across as her speaking as a member of the Sunol school community.
“Whether I agree or I don’t agree with what she’s saying, I think she has a right to her opinion and she has a right to voice it,” said Lowder, who was a candidate who lost in the school board race last fall. “I don’t believe she was acting in that manner and I think that this resolution, while it may or may not be needed, It’s totally punitive.”
Hurley doubled down on that point when she was allowed to speak after public comments saying that when she used the words “we” in her comments, she was only referring to herself as an individual and the San Ramon Valley school board.
“I was trying to touch with them … that our electorate — meaning their electorate and my electorate — put their trust in us to protect their children and make wise decisions to teach their children,” she said. “I had never, at any point, stated that I was representing (Sunol).”
She also wanted to clarify that she wasn’t talking about LGBTQ+ community at all, that she was only talking about age appropriate content in books.
“The information I was talking about was a specific book that gives diagrams and pictures and very explicit instructions to children on how to sext, how to have anal sex, how to have oral sex … and I just find that really deplorable,” Hurley said.
By the end of the discussion, Romo’s resolution failed to get a second motion in support and was not advanced for approval.
However, Sunol Glen Superintendent Molleen Barnes told the Weekly that the resolution having failed does not change the board’s policies or bylaws.
“Although Trustee Romo’s resolution — which he stated (during the Board meeting) he had written, in order to provide clarity, regarding Board Members protocol to ensure, when they are out in the public, they are not acting as representatives of the entire board — did not get approved on Tuesday night’s board meeting; I feel confident that through the discussion of this topic at Tuesday’s Board meeting, the Sunol Glen Board members do indeed understand their role in this regard,” Barnes said.
It’s disheartening to see Malloy and SRVUSD resort to personal and professional attacks against those who question their policies, instead of engaging in constructive dialogue based on merit. Sadly, Malloy’s “equity” agenda seems to prioritize political expediency over objective evaluation of data and evidence. As an example, the decision to remove merit-based grading suggests a desire to arbitrarily pick winners and losers, without any regard for the value of achievement or academic rigor.
However, let’s not forget that the First Amendment protects free speech in this country. Trustee Hurley had every right to express her views independently of her school board, and it’s disappointing to see her opponents resorting to personal attacks rather than engaging in substantive debate. This is a common tactic of extremists: when they lack a solid argument, they try to silence and intimidate their opponents.
Fortunately, such tactics are losing ground in California. We’ve seen how bullying and intolerance led to the recall of some politicians who relied on these tactics. We should continue to uphold the principles of free speech and open dialogue, and reject any attempt to stifle dissent or suppress alternative viewpoints. Only through respectful engagement and a commitment to reason and evidence can we find the best solutions to the challenges facing our schools and our society.
I attended both the Feb. 21 SRVUSD and Apr. 4 Sunol Glen USD Board meetings. As in reports elsewhere, the primary book under objection is misidentified above. It wasn’t “Gender Queer,” which is bad enough. Instead, it was “Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human,” which is considerably worse.
This latter text is an illustrated how-to handbook for sex of all kinds, involving every available aperture. SRVUSD personnel say it’s needed so that “LGBTQ+” students “can see themselves” [as porn objects, evidently] in high school library books. (There are other such depraved guides in SRVUSD high school libraries, including “This Book Is Gay.”)
“Let’s Talk About It” also advises that “a great place to research fantasies and kinks safely is on the Internet,” going on to tell teen readers that “porn can help you discover new aspects of your sexuality.” Teens are also to “look up interviews with fave porn performers, go to the sites they recommend, and pay for your porn.”
Sexting is called a “saucy something from a partner” that “can be the highlight of your day.”
And so on…. Linda Hurley made clear for those at the Sunol Glen meeting who hadn’t paid attention that “Let’s Talk About It” was the book she’d condemned, by holding up a picture of its cover.
And at the SRVUSD meeting, the irresponsible Board majority and Supt. Malloy had scheduled the porno book discussion very late in the evening — at what turned out to be nearly 4 hours along — probably hoping that those opposing library pornography would give up and go home.
Linda Hurley, one of those who patiently waited, spoke unmistakably about herself and the SRVUSD Board as fellow educational trustees, with responsibility in common for assuring developmentally appropriate materials in schools under their charge.
What was and is difficult to understand is ready acceptance on the part of teachers, librarians, and even some parents for degenerate materials in schools.
Many fail to acknowledge the hypocrisy of those who advocate for the free speech protection of all books while simultaneously advocating for restrictions on the speech of those who disagree with them.
Trustee Hurley is entitled to her opinions but she should not be bringing SRVUSD policies and conflicts into the discussion.
@Loren Bach
Why do you want to ban free speech?
Conscientious school-board members like Linda Hurley recognize the contagion of grossly inappropriate and outright pornographic filth being targeted at schoolkids across the nation. What’s contaminating SRVUSD classrooms and libraries today will be washing into Sunol Glen schools tomorrow, if it hasn’t already.
Dutiful school trustees work to prevent such toxic intrusions — rather than react after the fact — in their own school systems and statewide, recognizing and condemning the noxious pollution of young minds that is advocated by radical teacher unionists (including librarian members), and sometimes by libertine parents.
Some of those who spoke at April 4’s Sunol Glen Board meeting, in fact, echoed the American Library Association’s “banned books” shrieks. See the corrupted ALA’s statement on “Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors” ( https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/minors ). It shows that ALA wants no age or content restrictions on library materials or circulation thereof. See also https://www.srvexpositor.com/pornography .
Many school personnel seem to believe that children think like adults — perhaps because they are adults who think like children.
In any case, the perversion corrupting education these days can only be fathomed by understanding that school personnel who despoil youthful minds, hearts, and souls must be stupid, ignorant, or evil.
And as in SRVUSD, schools across the country have sought to keep their gender-bender activism and other sexualized programs and practices concealed from parents.
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Corey Jackson’s AB1078 would disallow removal of books, materials, or curricula by local school boards without approval by the State Board of Education ( https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1078 ). It’s a no-brainer that even the worst local Boards must resist that cynical assault upon their discretion and accountability.
I agree with Mike Arata…contagion is the right word and in the case of LGBTQ advocacies, it is being promoted by those who believe that anything goes in America because of perceived constitutional freedoms and entitlements.
As a parent, I am more concerned with the transgender issue because children are now being advised by some educators that it is OK to choose one’s gender regardless of what it says on their birth certificate.
This in turn has created a plethora of ‘imaginary’ civil rights issues and conflicts that will plague American society for years to come.
Social media is also to blame because it endorses social deviancy by preying on adolescent insecurities and peer pressures.
The public educational system should not be actively involved in promoting imaginary and potentially self-destructive gender identities.
As parents, we have an obligation to protect our children from radical indoctrinations and the school districts should be supportive of these concerns rather than encouraging further acceptances of LGBTQ lifestyles and advocacies.
Some parents and local citizens might be over-reacting to this issue.
Isn’t a general acceptance of different kinds of people and their respective cultures and lifestyles the key to societal unity?
Concerned parents also have the option of removing their children from these pro-LGBTQ public schools and enrolling them in private schools.
That would seem to be the most plausible remedy rather than endless debates with the SRVUSD over this controversial topic.
It’s not overreacting when parents and other taxpayers tell school districts like SRVUSD to stay in their lane — i.e., neither to crash through guardrails nor to swerve into adjacent parental lanes.
I’ve repeatedly reminded SRVUSD’s Board of 20 U.S. Code § 3401(3): “parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children, and States, localities, and private institutions have the primary responsibility for supporting that parental role.”
But not content with delegated tasks (teaching/learning of designated knowledge and skills), militant teacher unionists have decided instead that they must “take on religion, free enterprise, patriotism, and motherhood.” (CTA,1984, in “Guidelines for Academic Freedom in the Public Schools”; see https://www.srvexpositor.com/srvea-cta-nea ).
School boards routinely dance to the tune of the radical unionists whose dues money and concentrated political activity elect them. “Doctor” so-and-so administrators, with fatuous EdD credentials and silly theses underlying those degrees, go along to get along, very comfortably indeed.
Were genuine school choice the rule — i.e., tax dollars following students and parents to the schools of their choice, public or private (as with the G.I. Bill) — then indeed, parents could remediate depraved indoctrination in public schools by sending their kids elsewhere. That avenue is otherwise infeasible financially for many families.
As a chemistry teacher and swim coach in the 70s and 80s with multiple state-champion teams in both disciplines, I still had to retrofit my honors chemistry degree with mind-numbing “education” courses. Only one common-sense reminder stood out in those: the fact that children do not think like adults.
Kids’ perceptions of self are fluidly plastic, and they are generally insecure. That’s why captive-audience classroom brainwashing in gender-bender ideology should not be tax supported. Nor should vile pornography in school libraries, obviously.
Like Mike Arata, I too am concerned about teachers and school administrators overstepping their boundaries when it comes to promoting what some parents perceive as controversial curriculum.
On the other hand, ‘wokeness’ can be synonimous with cultural and scientific enlightenments that have advanced and enhanced humanity as a whole.
We should be far past the earlier days of Scarlet Letters and witch burning by self-righteous cabals.
Acceptance of historical truths and personal identity should not be determined or restricted in a truly free society.
Unfortunately, the kind of “wokeness” forced upon kids in captive-audience classrooms these days is directly antagonistic to “cultural and scientific enlightenments that have advanced and enhanced humanity as a whole.”
Presumably, “acceptance of historical truths” is a reference to critical race theory rather than the actual history (of slavery, the Civil Right Act, and everything before, in between, and afterward).
In contrast, CRT represents the overtly racist “anti-racism” which presently saturates schools, and falsely casts even the youngest kids as white oppressors vs. everybody else. See, for example: https://www.srvexpositor.com/racist-anti-racism .
The result is such scandalous outcomes as SRVUSD Supt. Malloy’s defaming of the California High School Stunt Team in his falsely framed “Cal High Racist Incident 5.23.22” ( https://www.srvexpositor.com/stunt-team-defamation ). Malloy should have been fired after that episode. Instead, the radical, union-backed SRVUSD Board of last year extended his contract and raised his salary/benefit package well above $400,000.
“Personal identity” refers to “wokeness” of the worst sort: the crazy myth, the individual and societal psychosis actually, that men and boys can become women and girls, and vice versa — via self-declaration, hormonal treatment, and/or mutilating surgery.
In fact, sex is binary, and there are not multiple genders. Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright (his real-world doctorate from UC Santa Barbara) has written on the topic. His recent Wall Street Journal post is instructive: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-biologist-explains-why-sex-is-binary-gender-male-female-intersex-medical-supreme-court-ketanji-brown-jackson-lia-thomas-3d22237e .
In a truly free society, tax dollars would follow kids and parents to schools of their choice, so that the kids would not have to confront teachers with gender-bender pronouns and behaviors at odds with reality. See https://www.srvexpositor.com/lgbtq-activism .
…And parents who want their “LGBTQ+” kids to see themselves as porn objects in library books could choose high schools such as those in SRVUSD. (For those unaware, SRVUSD administrators have in fact rationalized porn in the District’s high school libraries as being necessary for “LGBTQ+” kids to “see themselves.” See https://www.srvexpositor.com/pornography .
Mr. Arata…
To some, ‘wokeness’ represents a deeper and clearer understanding of our nation’s history and culture…both the perceived good and the questionable.
Times change and over time, the social climate along with social acceptances often change as well.
At one time, inter-racial marriages were unlawful as was the use of recreational marijuana. There were laws against gay interactions and private gatherings, laws promoting racial segregation and Jim Crow edicts etc.
Eventually and with growing public acceptance (or calls for reform), many discriminatory laws are overturned as American society becomes more open and receptive to social change.
CRT and LGBTQ education is merely a reflective window of our past in an effort to create a more cohesive American society. Given the current divisiveness that currently plagues our nation, we need to further accept people for who they are providing they are not involved in any criminal activities.
CRT and LGBTQ courses are consciousness raising efforts to unite our country through a better understanding of those who may differ from more traditional, conservative, binary, evangelical, and/or non-white backgrounds.
Let’s work together and bridge any societal conflicts by acceptance of diversities.
Well stated Ms. Davenport…CRT teachings can also be applied to the Holocaust where 3 million people of Jewish ancestry, Romanis, and suspected homosexuals were exterminated because they did not fit a certain mold preferred by those in power at the time.
We cannot erase history nor the emergence of the LGBTQ community as a vibrant and influential aspect of American society.
Let’s stop the hatred and fear of those who simply want to live their lives as per the doctrines of the American Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Education is our light out of the darkness.
Kudos to Mike Arata for his outspoken stand on this highly controversial issue.
For the uninitiated, Mr. Arata is a Hall of Fame swimming coach from St. Xavier in Ohio. An acquaintance who swam for an opposing prep school once mentioned that Coach Arata is a straight shooter who always strived to bring out the best in his swimmers.
That said, my 13 year-old daughter has recently quit her high school swim team because the school district is now allowing transgender males to compete in the girls division.
This has created an unfair competitive advantage because there are no guidelines for defining a female competitive swimmer other than that of one’s personal choice.
As a result, she has been forced to dress/undress with un-neutered male>female transgender swimmers in the women’s gym which creates a certain degree of discomfiture on her part.
To some, swimmer Lia Thomas of Penn is a pioneer in this endeavor but whether this is competitively fair remains questionable.
BTW…Mr. Arata, my great uncle is Art Lambert a former Stanford and US Olympic team water polo coach. You may have heard of him.
Thanks to “The Fast Lane” for compliments! I utilized a copy of Art Lambert’s “The Technique of Water Polo” when I amateurishly coached water polo in run-ups to high school swimming seasons, wherein I was more adept.
Marcie Davenport and Myron Steinberg may be unfamiliar with SRVUSD’s many abuses in its CRT and LGBTQ programs. These include adoption of “Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism, and You” (for 7th graders), which begins with a misrepresentation of violent crime rates and sentencing proportions. It urges readers to “check out” such depraved, rape and murder-celebrating “rap” as “Straight Outta Compton” as a source of “change and empowerment.”
“This Book Is Anti-Racist,” another adoption, is in fact an overtly racist caricature of “anti-racism.” Author Tiffany Jewell says she “can have a prejudice against white people,” and that “REVERSE RACISM IS NOT REAL.”
Jewell capitalizes every racial designation but white, as in “Richard Loving was white and Mildred Loving was Black Indigenous biracial.” She doesn’t mention that statement as referring to the Supreme Court’s eponymous “Loving v. Virginia” (1967) decision, in which bans on interracial marriages were themselves outlawed — perhaps because that would further contradict Jewell’s racist assertions. See https://www.srvexpositor.com/racist-anti-racism for extended text reports, other details.
“LGBTQ+” indoctrination programs begin by forcing inapposite pronouns upon 4 and 5-year-olds, including ungrammatical plural references to singular persons. An example is SRVUSD instructional coach Korby Saunders (“they/them”), who along with Country Club Elementary principal Christy Glaser spoke to the “National Council of Teachers of English” (???) on “Queering the Classroom.” See https://www.srvexpositor.com/lgbtq-activism .
By high school, “LGBTQ+” students can “see themselves,” claim the shameless SRVUSD Board majority and its administrators, in library pornography ( https://www.srvexpositor.com/pornography ).
To be clear: Art Lambert was a consummate professional as a water polo coach. I was a rank amateur in coaching that sport, grateful for the advice in Art’s book!
Slightly off-topic but getting back to competitive swimming for a moment.
Mike Arata…during the early 1960s, my parents enrolled me in the Santa Clara Swim Club which was coached by George Haines.
The key swimmers at the time were future Olympians Don Schollander, Dick Roth, Donna de Varona, and Pokey Watson.
I was never of that upper-tier caliber but the rigorous training instilled by Coach Haines better prepared me for playing water polo in high school where we had to swim 5 miles just to be considered for a tryout.
Competitive swimming is a very fast and linear sport while water polo requires fewer stroke styles but a lot of endurance (treading water and back and forth swimming) plus proficiency in scoring techniques.
I was never really good at either aquatic discipline but the rigorous training came in handy for my surfing pastime.
Back to topic…while some school administrators believe that advocating radical left-wing curriculum like CRT and LGBTQ entitlements are keys to an open minded K-12 education, have they even bothered to investigate the potential psychological and emotional damages that might occur in a younger person’s mind?
What the overly progressives don’t seem to understand is that by promoting their radical gender identity and LGBTQ agendas, they are creating even more local and national disunity which was supposedly their professed goal to eliminate.
As parents it is our responsibility to raise our children so that they can make sound decisions as adults.
It is not up to the school districts to promote or advocate alternative lifestyles and biased (aka extremist) viewpoints on American history.
@100 Meter Man:
Mike Arata can correct me if I am mistaken but I believe the late George Haines also coached some USA Olympic Swim Teams in the 1960s.
Another noteworthy swimmer of that era was Claudia Kolb who also won gold in the Olympics.
As for the SRVUSD educational agenda..I am grateful that my kids are grown and not being subjugated to this highly controversial subject matter.
Thanks for the memories, 100 Meter Man and Richard Johnson. I had the privilege of visiting George Haines and Santa Clara Swim Club for two weeks 50 years ago, when the vaunted East German team visited there also. (There were rumors, later validated, of East German athletes being drug enhanced.)
Indeed, George was a 3-time Olympic Head Coach, three other times Assistant Coach. He coached 53 Olympians of his own. I eventually concluded my own coaching career as head age-group coach at SCSC, after a coaching friend became senior head coach there and temporarily needed help. Deciding to remain in California, I then became an industrial water-treatment consultant for another 28 years.
I certainly agree with you guys and Danielle Wick that CRT and “LGBTQ+” indoctrination programs intrude upon parental authority — and are harmful to kids and to society at large.
I’m reviewing some SRVUSD emails presently. In one, first grade teacher Blaire Wyatt expresses satisfaction with the District’s removal of nicknames from student records “so parents cannot see the student’s [gender-] affirming name.”
Wyatt was later exposed, along with instructional coach Korby Saunders, in a video which discussed ending parental permission slips for “PRISM Clubs” (“LGBTQ+” Clubs for 4th and 5th graders) and hiding club meetings from parents by holding them at lunchtime ( https://www.srvexpositor.com/lgbtq-activism ).
In another email, Saunders exults over a middle school student’s entry in a New York Times essay contest. The student approvingly cited a false ACLU claim that “For a trans woman [i.e., male] athlete who meets NCAA standards, there is no inherent reason why her physiological characteristics related to athletic performance should be treated differently from the physiological characteristics of a non-transgender woman.”
Tell that to the actual women displaced by “Lia” (Will) Thomas, “winner” of last year’s Women’s NCAA 500-yard freestyle and tied for 5th in the 200 free.
“Tell that to the actual women displaced by “Lia” (Will) Thomas, “winner” of last year’s Women’s NCAA 500-yard freestyle and tied for 5th in the 200 free.”
^ Former All-American collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines (an actual female) lost to Lia Thomas and has been an outspoken critic of allowing transgenders to compete in women’s athletic events.
She was booed and nearly physically assaulted while trying to express her views on this issue during a recent conference held at San Francisco State University.
The progressives have conveniently (and incorrectly) mislabled anyone who questions Critical Race Theory and LGBTQ school agendas as racists and homophobes.
This is simply not true. Though the progressives say they are advocating for a level playing field, they are actually seeking special privileges and entitlements for the groups they are endorsing.
The City of San Francisco is currently studying a proposal to gift all descendents of African slaves $5M each but have yet to establish where the estimated billions of dollars will be sourced. Governor News on (and former SF mayor) heartily endorses this concept.
And it appears that the SRVUSD is falling prey to the same kind of left-wing mindset except that the topic pertains to the promotion of self-defined gender identities and further acceptances of the LGBTQ culture and lifestyle.
This controversy is not going away anytime soon.
Today Americans will have an opportunity to see just how extreme the House Democrats have become.
Congressman Greg Steube’s “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act” (HR 734) will come up for a vote just before members go home.
On April 6, the Biden administration released a proposed pro-transgender regulation which would effectively undo Title IX, which established protections for women’s sports.
As U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-NC, said, “It destroys a level playing field and makes women second class citizens in their own sports.”
When the America’s New Majority Project asked Americans how they feel about the left’s efforts to replace sexual identity with cultural gender, the results were pretty straight forward.
Seventy-three percent believe a teacher or school should notify parents if a child says he or she wants to identify as the opposite gender. Seventy-three percent also disagree with those who say that children should be able to receive so-called gender-affirming care without the permission of parents.
Further, 72% oppose schools teaching children they can change their gender, and 71% favor banning surgery on children to transition them from one gender to another. In fact, 67% do not want teachers in kindergarten through third grade discussing gender identity with their students at all. Finally, 60% say it is a form of child abuse if a teacher or school encourages a child to change his or her gender identity.
Swimmer Lia Thomas’ perspective…
“It breaks my heart to see trans kids across the country lose out on these opportunities. “All transgender kids deserve the opportunity to compete and play in the sports they love without compromising who they are.”
@Emily Pierce:
It should be noted that the New Majority Project is a conservative group which means their polls are biased to a certain extent.
Lia Thomas’ heartfelt declaration says it all…”All transgender kids deserve the opportunity to compete and play in the sports they love without compromising who they are.”
Let’s show some compassion for those who are merely seeking to be acknowledged for who they want to be.
This is America, not some fundamentalist country that suppresses human rights and opportunities based on conformity.
President Biden is doing his best to support and encourage LGBTQ and CRT education.
@Emily Pierce
I am curious why University of Kentucky All-American swimmer Riley Gaines would choose San Francisco State University to deliver her address on this contentious issue.
San Francisco is a predominant blue-progressive city and a mecca for the LGBTQ community.
Wouldn’t her message have been better received in a conventional red state situated in the Midwest or Deep South?
That said, I fully understand her position as well as that of Lia Thomas’ and am somewhat torn on this issue as it involves discrimination VS a level playing field based on biological gender identity.
Mike Arata:
The 2024 Paris Summer Olympics for the first time in history will have men’s artistic (formerly synchronized) swimming competitions. It’s ardent followers are promoting this novel competition as a showcase for a man’s natural sense of grace and artistic expression.
I would imagine that specific gender would not be an issue whether a biological male chose to participate in the men’s division or the women’s division (as a transgender athlete).
In any event, the presumed ethereal aquatic choreography on the part of all participating nations will hopefully open the door for more male swimmers to consider artistic swimming as another potential outlet.
@Barry Wasserman
Seeing Title IX get destroyed because some people can’t handle losing is the antithesis of everything supporters of Women’s athletics has fought for these past 50 years. Extremist progressives often destroy good programs because they are imperfect or “unpure.” To extremists, good is the enemy of perfect. But, perfect will never happen. Instead, with title IX gone, we may see half the country just eliminate women’s athletics all together simply because some dude couldn’t handle finishing 20th at the swim meet.
It’s not just America’s New Majority Project which shows generalized American opposition to biological males competing in female athletic events. See, for example, the NPR/Ipsos poll of last June, wherein 63% oppose such insanity, three months after the shameful “Lia” Thomas NCAA episode: https://www.npr.org/2022/06/29/1107484965/transgender-athletes-trans-rights-gender-transition-poll ).
To be sure: doddering Joe Biden, his handlers and scriptwriters, and their Democrat Party have somehow calculated politically that indulging the psychosis of transgenderism will enhance their fortunes. Shame on them for taking such cynical advantage of actual women and girls.
In 2018-19, male college sophomore, 6 ft. 4 in. swimmer “Lia” (Will) Thomas’s 500 yd freestyle ranked 65th among NCAA men.
But that left him “miserable,” Thomas reported last May on “Good Morning America.” So he decided he’d “transition.” Having thereby “won” the Division 1 NCAA Women’s 500 free in March, “the biggest change” is that he’s now “happy,” declared still-baritone Thomas.
How about happiness (and FACT-BASED compassion) for ACTUAL women whose finishes were all dropped a spot by Thomas, despite their patient years of tough training?
In Connecticut: Selina Soule, Alanna Smith, Chelsea Mitchell, and Ashley Nicoletti were four girls whose top and high-level state track rankings were displaced by biological males competing as “females.” Their attorneys have asserted violations of Title IX, whose “whole purpose was to ensure that girls had equal athletic opportunities to compete – and win – in girls’ sports events.”
“Two males,” they continue, “were permitted to compete in girls’ athletic competitions beginning in the 2017 track season. Between them, they took 15 women’s state championship titles (titles held in 2016 by 9 different Connecticut girls) and more than 85 opportunities to participate in higher level competitions from female track athletes in the 2017, 2018, and 2019 seasons alone.”
The U.S. House of Representatives, led by the Republicans, passed a bill Thursday (today) that would prohibit biological-born males from participating in girl’s and women’s teams of schools that get money from the federal government. While it passed in a party-line 219-203 vote in the House, it is unlikely to advance pass the Democratic-led Senate.
^ It appears that a 52-48 Democrat-controlled Senate will block this partisan House bill.
As a result, transgender male athletes will be able to freely compete in women’s athletic events.
Congratulations to GOP House members for today’s important vote concurrence. Meanwhile, biological male participation in women’s and girls’ athletic events remains for now a matter of state and local jurisdiction — and common sense or lack thereof.
In fact, Biden and his Education Department helots proposed a rule on Apr. 6 which they summarized as saying that “For older students, especially at the high school and college level, the Department expects that sex-related criteria that limit participation of some transgender students may be permitted, in some cases, when they enable the school to achieve an important educational objective, such as fairness in competition, and meet the proposed regulation’s other requirements.”
The rule awaits a 30-day comment window.
Actual policy/practice remains to be seen if the rule stands. World Aquatics (formerly FINA), swimming’s international governing body at Olympic and club levels, has stated that “male-to-female transgender athletes… and athletes with 46 XY DSD [differences in sex development]… may compete in the women’s category in FINA competitions… if they can establish to FINA’s comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 or before age 12, whichever is later.”
Tanner Stage 2 = onset of puberty.
The NCAA, governed by timid college-connected individuals, has indicated tentative intent to go with sport-by-sport rules of the IOC and USOC (International and U.S. Olympic Committees), but has delayed that approach for 2023-2024 collegiate seasons, presently requiring instead just one year of testosterone suppression.
I expect swifter/stronger “transgender women” (male) college athletes to be advised to hold back (“bag”) their 2023-2024 performances (as I suspect Thomas did, even in “winning” the women’s NCAA 500 free and taking 5th in the 200 free, based on his early-season 2021-2022 times), in PR hopes of “transgender” advantage over the longer term.
The new IOC Framework makes clear that no athlete has an inherent advantage & moves away from eligibility criteria focused on testosterone levels, a practice that caused harmful & abusive practices such as invasive physical examinations & sex testing.
Transgender athletes regardless of their natural gender identity and/or male hormone levels have been acknowledged by the International Olympic Committee and are now allowed to compete in athletic events based on their chosen gender.
Some records will obviously be broken but aren’t all athletic records destined to be broken by outstanding athletic performance?
A successful male transgender athlete competing in traditional women’s events will need to possess a certain degree of humility and decorum so as not to offend the binary runner-ups…then again, some of the runner-ups will most likely be transgender as well in this newly accepted competitive configuration.
For some it will represent a fulfillment of dreams and hard work towards the pursuit of athletic excellence.
For others it will remain a source of resentment and contempt.
The quest for equality will always require some sacrifices on the part of those embracing traditional athletic practices.
Not so fast on IOC’s Framework. It leaves transgender participation criteria up to each international federation — of which World Aquatics (FINA) is one example, its science-determined standards = those I mentioned them above.
IOC’s Principle #4 (of 10) now “recognizes that sports organizations may at times need to issue eligibility criteria for sex-segregated competition to maintain a fair and proportionate distribution of competitive advantages among participants. It also recognizes the particular importance of advancing equality for women in sport and preserving fair and meaningful competition for elite women athletes, which may require criteria that limit eligibility in some cases” ( https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/57/1/26 ). See also https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2022-06-24/olympics-each-sport-must-set-transgender-rules-says-ioc-despite-criticism .
“Caitlyn” (Bruce) Jenner illustrates the absurdity of allowing biological males to compete in female athletic events. Though Jenner was 1976’s Olympic decathlon gold medalist with a record point total, none of his 10-event individual performances would have come close to medaling (top 3) in corresponding individual men’s events.
But at least 4 of Jenner’s 10 performances would have taken individual gold in women’s events.
Had women’s pole vault been contested in the 1976 Games, Jenner’s vaulting would have won that competition also. And had Jenner used women’s lower-weight shot put, discus, and javelin — and shorter distance and lower bars for women’s sprint hurdles — he would likely have won those individual women’s competitions as well.
Jenner’s 400 meter time, slower by 2.6 seconds than the individual 400-meter men’s 1976 bronze medalist, would still be a women’s world record today. A contrast (as of 2017) of women’s performance in track and field vs. men and under-18 boys is posted in a Duke Law analysis ( https://law.duke.edu/sports/sex-sport/comparative-athletic-performance ).
I understand the points that Mike Arata has conveyed regarding the differences between male and female athletic performance but who is going to inform Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy that the basketball rim in women’s basketball is not lower than the one used in men’s basketball?
He was trying to make a point (albeit incorrectly) that a transgender playing women’s basketball would have an unfair advantage due to the lower rims.
Seriously?
@Frank Lehman:
An all-inclusive synchronized swim team comprised of both women and male transgender petformers would garner a lot of interest among the LGBTQ community and adpirant transgenders seeking an athletic and artistic identity.
And since the scoring is not based on time or strength factors but rather fluid movements and choreography, I am assuming that the majority of anti-trans proponents would have no issue with this joint athletic endeavor.
In Great Britain there are amateur men’s synchronized swimming teams but the event was not sanctioned by the Olympic Committee until recently. It will now be a part of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics and will have many followers.
Synchronized swimming has been an Olympic event since 1984 but was limited to female competitors.
Now we have another positive example of sports equality in that males will finally be able to compete in this utterly breathtaking and lovely sport.
I have been an avid devotee of synchronized swimming ever since I saw a movie starring Esther Williams and her entourage of graceful aquatic mermaids.
As others have mentioned, the highly controversial topic of transgenders competing in women’s athletic events should not be an issue when it comes this particular event and hopefully it will open the doors for other Olympic competitions like pairs figure skating and ice dancing.
Carrie James mischaracterizes Kevin McCarthy’s press-conference question following passage of the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act: “How many basketball players would love to play with the hoop a little shorter, too?” (He continued, “So it’s not about whether do we know somebody…. And when we know ’em, we also understand, biologically they’re different. And it’s about muscle mass and it’s about fairness.”)
The context was volleyball player Macy Petty’s noting that women’s nets are 7 inches shorter than men’s. She’s now having to play against biological men who benefit from that difference.
I recommend watching the entire press conference: https://www.c-span.org/video/?527544-1/house-republicans-protection-women-girls-sports-act .
Track star Selina Soule (mentioned further above) and professional skateboarder Taylor Silverman spoke themselves of material harm caused them by inclusion of biological males in their own sport experiences.
As Steve Scalise (R, LA ) said (since no Democrat supported the bill), “it should have been a unanimous vote…. The whole intention of Title IX was to create more opportunities for women to compete in sports.” As Tom Emmer (R, MN) added, “the left’s lunacy is robbing women and girls of equal opportunities in the name of ‘inclusion.’”
Virginia Foxx (R, NC): “American women and girls deserve better than what Democrats are doing to them.”
Sponsor of the bill, Greg Steube (R, FL) includes Olympian Emma Weyant as a constituent. Emma’s championship in the Women’s NCAA 500 freestyle was denied by the NCAA’s cowardice, amorality, and insanity in permitting “Lia” (Will) Thomas to be handed the win instead.
As for Grant Winslet’s breezy dismissal of concern about women’s records? What good are women’s (XX chromosomal) records if XY men can set them? Why should women and girls make all the sacrifices, and have THEIR fulfillment of dreams shattered by males and their physical advantages, intruding in female competitions?
Mike Arata presents a strong case for preserving the integrity of women’s athletics and maintaining a level playing field for its participants.
That said, is there a place for transgender athletic participation anywhere in sports competition or should it be relegated to a separate category?
If so, would this measure be construed as discriminatory?
Republican Alabama Governor Kay Ivey recently fired Barbara Cooper as head of the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education over a teacher training manual that allegedly promotes woke concepts pertaining to inclusion and systemic racism.
The manual was identified as the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Developmentally Appropriate Practice Book, 4th edition.
It is a guide for early childhood educators and supposedly not a curriculum taught to children but…
The governor’s office, in a press release, cited two examples from the book — one discussing white privilege and that “the United States is built on systemic and structural racism” and another that Ivey’s office claimed teaches LGBTQ+ inclusion to 4-year-olds.
Cooper responded that the manual promotes, “applicable skills for teaching through developmentally appropriate practices that build brains during the critical first five years of life.”
While Alabama is a far cry from California in terms of politics, race relations, and diversity acceptances, was the governor overreacting?
Governor Gavin Newsom would probably not have taken issue with this teacher training manual.
Some folks are being overly reactionary and turning these issues of K-12 woke theory and LGBTQ education into an unnecessary and major controversy.
Progressive educators are merely trying to promote cultural acceptance and transparency. No one should be branded a pariah just because their personal lives differ from mainstream norms.
Young children should be provided with an awareness that if they see one (or more) of their classmates with gay parents that this is not an abnormal practice subject to ridicule and/or further scrutiny. The LGBTQ community should be viewed as a curiosity or freak show.
And the same applies to the teaching of woke theory. In addition to some of our nation’s greatest achievements, the societal treatment of African Americans, Native Americans and other people’s of color has been abysmal and due to what enlightened educators call widespread systemic racism on the part of America’s white majority regardless of their north-south continental geographies.
I do agree with Mr. Arata that transgender males competing in traditional women’s athletic competitions raises some serious issues pertaining to overall fairness and equality for biological females.
It will be up to the sanctioning athletic commissions to make the final decisions regarding transgender athletic participation in women’s athletic events.
It is not for ordinary citizens to decide but everyone is entitled to their opinions.
World Aquatics (FINA) is considering an “open” category to accommodate “transgender” swimmers.
Meanwhile, plaudits for Gov. Ivey’s effort to remove race hustlers and “LGBTQIA+” brainwashers from early childhood education.
NAEYC’s “Developmentally Appropriate Practice” book advises that “systemic and structural racism… has permeated every institution and system through policies and practices that position people of color in oppressive, repressive, and menial positions.”
Those are straw-man CRT pretexts. Black achievement is tragically impeded by family disintegration, welfare-state disincentives, Democrats’ infantilism of blacks — and the failing, union-bossed money pits which inner city public schools have become.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 report for LBJ on “The Negro Family” ( https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Moynihan%27s%20The%20Negro%20Family.pdf ) noted the rapidly worsening “tangle of pathology” that results. Then, 23.6% of black households were fatherless. Today, that rate has tripled. See also https://www.srvexpositor.com/racist-anti-racism .
By 1911, Booker T. Washington had already exposed the race racketeers: “There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they… do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”
The NAEYC’s book says also that “Children from all families (e.g., single parent, grandparent-led, foster, LGBTQIA+) need to hear and see messages that promote equality, dignity, and worth.”
In practice, that has meant developmentally INAPPROPRIATE “LGBTQ+” and “transgender”-themed read-aloud picture story books for even 4 and 5-year-olds (graduating to depraved “LGBTQ+” pornography in high school libraries). See https://www.srvexpositor.com/lgbtq-activism and https://www.srvexpositor.com/pornography .
In 2004, Japan passed a law requiring trans people who want to change their gender marker to have sex reassignment surgery and be sterilized, be single, and have no children under age 20.
This law was upheld by Japan’s Supreme Court in 2019.
Couldn’t this concept be adopted in the United States?
@Roberta
You wrote –
“No one should be branded a pariah just because their personal lives differ from mainstream norms.”
Yes they should! Child molesters and pedophiles should absolutely be pariahs. Attempts to suggest that there isn’t a line is helping normalizing perverts. I won’t have any part of it and disagree with your premise in every way possible. While not all transgender people are concerning in this regard, there is no doubt that there are many actual criminal perverts that are eager for these lines to be blurred thanks to blind progressive extremism.
Last month, Japan’s Supreme Court again took up the case described by Harrison Tamaki. A decision awaits. Meanwhile, “The Mainichi” Japanese newspaper explains current reasoning: “if a man were to change his sex in the family registry without removing male reproductive function and then have a child, that person would be a woman in the family registry while also being the biological father of the child.”
California and its schools contrast diametrically: when gender-dysphoric individuals (or perverse pretenders) claim a “gender identity” at odds with XX or XY chromosomal reality (their actual gender markers), everyone else is supposed to play along with sport-team, restroom, and locker-room access — and other demanded accommodations.
I’m closer genetically to being Joe Biden — or even Barack Obama — than all but about 0.0067% of XY chromosomal males (those with irregular sexual development, including androgen insensitivity) will ever be to becoming female. But I don’t demand that I be addressed as “Mr. President,” nor do I expect access to the Oval Office on my say-so.
As Dr. Paul McHugh (Distinguished Service Psychiatry Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, from 1975 until 2011, as well as Psychiatrist in Chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital) has written, “gender dysphoria… belongs in the family of similarly disordered assumptions about the body, such as anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder” (https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/06/15145 ).
Instead, public schools here groom very young, impressionable children, beginning in transition kindergarten, with notions of gender plasticity. SRVUSD implements “gender support plans” from the activist outfit “Gender Spectrum” whenever kids request them; it’s not clear whether parents are informed.
Dr. McHugh has long counselled psychotherapeutic intervention instead. And now the Scandinavian countries and the UK have themselves begun tapping the brakes on “gender affirming care” for minors.
According to USA Today, here is a complete list of the 13 most-targeted titles of 2022:
“Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe.
“All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson.
“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison.
“Flamer” by Mike Curato.
“Looking for Alaska” by John Green.
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky.
“Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison.
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie.
“Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez.
“A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas.
“Crank” by Ellen Hopkins.
“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews.
“This Book Is Gay” by Juno Dawson.
^ I am not familiar with any of the above titles or authors.
I would imagine that many adults and parents have never taken an opportunity to read or review those books prior to passing adverse judgement.
Some of those publications might actually help us and our children to better understand the world around us.
Good point Kate Winslow. I am thinking of ordering one or two of these children’s books and reading them myself before passing judgement.
To censure or restrict the human thought process is the most egregious societal crime of all.