This article originally appeared here, at fairfaxschoolsmonitor.com

A recent post on this site, “FCPS Moves Closer to Gender Ideology Instruction in Elementary Schools,” has precipitated an all-out attack from one member of FCPS’s Family Life Education Curriculum Advisory Committee (FLECAC). The article, posted on the 4PublicEducation website, is filled with ad hominem claims against the editor of this blog as well as inflammatory misrepresentations of the views of many who oppose indoctrinating young children with transgender ideology. See “Is Family Life Education Under Attack? Despite its negative purpose, the article may actually have a positive result, for it brings more attention to the important issues being considered by FLECAC.

Ms. Vanessa Hall describes me as an “octogenarian” (“ageism” is okay?) with questionable qualifications to opine on how the youth of Fairfax County should be educated, given that I have “no children in FCPS, little knowledge of 21st Century sex education curricula, and no training in this area.” According to her, my motivation must be “political” because the Fairfax GOP has republished some of my articles in its newsletter. Also, I supposedly “actively work with dark money groups.” (I have no idea what that’s supposed to refer to.) I am accused of using “angry rhetoric” and “threatening language” (not identified, of course), and “name calling” (pot calling the kettle black,” perhaps?). And, my blog is “filled with anti-LGBTQIA dog whistles,” which tell “anyone who is NOT cisgender and heterosexual to “just stay in the closet.”

I won’t respond to all the inflamed rhetoric in Ms. Hall’s lengthy article, but a couple of points should be refuted.

Opposing Gender Ideology Is Not Transphobic

The accusation that this blog has called for transgender individuals to “just stay in the closet” is false and without basis in anything published on this site. As stated in the past, students experiencing gender dysphoria (which may or may not be a temporary phenomenon) should, without doubt or equivocation, be treated with respect and be protected from bullying. Schools should instill respect for, and oppose bullying of, fellow students who differ from themselves. At an appropriate age, transgender students can appropriately be identified as among the groups that should be respected and protected from bullying. “Full stop,” to use a term used by some these days.

“Gender ideology” is another matter. Ms. Hall says she had no idea what Fairfax School Monitor meant by using that term until she recently did some research, during which she found a trans-support website that says the term “arises from anti-trans extremists who seek to delegitimize and dehumanize trans people by implying that being trans is an ideology rather than an identity.” Ms. Hall then jumps to the conclusion that since someone, somewhere, has attributed an anti-trans meaning to the term “gender ideology,” anyone who subsequently uses that term — including Fairfax Schools Monitor — is transphobic.

Twisted logic, and wrong. There’s a big difference between the identity of being a transgender person and transgender ideology. A person can have transgender friends and/or loved family members, and can treat with respect all who identify as transgender, while opposing the ideology of the radical transgender advocates. What that ideology boils down to is the notion that the rights and interests of a tiny minority are superior to the rights and interests of everyone else. The “ideology” of transgenderism is exhibited incessantly these days. Examples:

• If a school has a biological male who identifies as a female, the ideology assets that he has a “right” to use the girl’s locker room, and all the girls who object must find alternate facilities. (Note: this is current policy in FCPS.) Likewise, he can play on girls’ intramural teams, and can be housed with a girl in a hotel room when on an school function requiring an overnight stay. No prior parental notification or consent should be required. (FCPS policy.)
• If a student uses the word “he,” when someone else says the pronoun “she” should have been used (as I have done in the preceding paragraph), he or she is using hate speech and can be disciplined. (FCPS policy.)
• If a student shares his or her feelings of gender dysphoria with a teacher, the school system should hide that important psychological issue from the student’s parents unless the student consents, and should provide gender-affirming counselling to the student without parental consent. (FCPS policy, again.)
• Sex-ed lessons that have traditionally been taught in gender-separated classes should be eliminated in favor of gender-combined classes as early as Grade 4 or 5, so that a student experiencing gender dysphoria won’t have to choose whether to attend the boys’ class or the girls’ class. This should be done even though gender-combined classes have been overwhelmingly opposed by parents, teachers and students in a community survey. (Note: This was a FLECAC recommendation last year, and it is being implemented by FCPS this year in a modified “pilot” program.)
• These are among the troubling “gender ideology” arguments that this blog has addressed. Advocates on the left have a habit of thinking that their preferred policies are the only ones that are just, equitable, fair and legal, and that differing views can only be described as “phobic” and “anti-civil-rights.” Ms. Hall’s article is a prime example. She likens the policies opposed by this blog to controversies in past generations involving equal rights for women, racial minorities, or gay marriage. What she misses is that the civil rights movements advocated treating people equally, whereas the current controversies center on the notion that transgender interests and rights are superior to the interests and rights of others.

The issue being considered by this year’s FLECAC is whether elementary-level students should be taught that some boys aren’t really boys and some girls aren’t really girls. Are these kids ready for this? Might they be confused? Do they need this at these early ages? Are there downsides to such teaching? These are real issues, despite the “civil rights” rhetoric of the advocates. Citizens of Fairfax County, even “octogenarians,” have a legitimate interest in opposing educational policies that are wrong-headed and dismissive of the rights and interests of others.

Fairfax Schools Monitor Has Threatened No One

Although Ms. Hall begins her article with the statement that the Fairfax Schools Monitor article and letter to FLECAC “sound somewhat reasonable” by using “calm, lawyerlike language to describe policy differences and significant confusion about the FLE curriculum and FLECAC,” she quickly reverses course and claims that the article and letter are filled with “angry rhetoric,” name-calling, and calls for intimidation and even violence. I am including links here to the article and letter. Readers can judge the truth of the accusations for themselves. Then read Ms. Hall’s article in 4PublicEducation, and compare the rhetoric there.

I will respond to two particular accusations of my “threatening” activity. First, when Ms. Hall first saw my article via a link on the Fairfax GOP website, she responded by saying, “It would be regretful if your [link] of his blog harms the safety of volunteers on the committee.” She doesn’t specify anything I said that encouraged violence. She now states in her article that it was “intimidating” for me to send my letter to the FLECAC members. Huh? Aren’t they supposed to be public servants, willing to listen to the views of Fairfax County citizens? If they are so thin-skinned that they need to be protected against receiving “calm, lawyerlike” input from they citizens they are supposed to be representing, they obviously should resign from the committee.

Second, Ms. Hall states that at the October FLECAC meeting she observed me taking a photo of the sign-in sheet of committee members. I did this because I didn’t know the committee members by their faces and wanted to identify which members were in attendance. Perfectly innocent, one would think, but Ms. Hall says she felt “intimidated” by it. (I have no recollection of her approaching me or any conversation between us.) Again, if this intimidates Ms. Hall, she isn’t fit to serve. FLECAC members shouldn’t think they are entitled to function in a cocoon.

As an almost-octogenarian, I’m old enough to know that expressing one’s opinions on controversial subjects is likely to bring all sorts of abusive, misleading responses in reply. Nevertheless, I was a bit surprised by the over-the-top rhetoric of this one FLECAC member. The good news is that more people are learning about what’s transpiring in this committee. Hopefully, more people will make their voices heard. If this call for citizen participation is “intimidating” to some committee members, so be it.

Reminder: The remaining meetings of FLECAC will be on February 12, March 12 and April 9, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., at FCPS’s headquarters, 8115 Gatehouse Road in the Merrifield area. Entry for these after-hours meetings must be through the parking garage at the rear of the building, not through the front door.