Seattle School Board is on the Wrong Side of History
Just like the Dover, PA School Board that in 2004 mandated “creationism” be taught as an alternative to evolution.
In 2004, the Dover, PA School Board declared that Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection was flawed and that middle school students needed to be taught the faith-based, unscientific story of “creationism” alongside evolution. Some brave teachers rebelled. The issue was eventually settled in federal court. The decision in the case, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, sided with the dissident teachers and vindicated scientific rationalism.
Today, the Seattle, WA School Board, following in the footsteps of Dover, laces the curriculum with gender ideology, claiming that people can be born in the wrong body, and that biology has nothing to do with whether a person is male or female. Any boy who chooses to identify as a girl is allowed to use girls’ bathrooms, girls’ changing rooms and join girls’ sports teams. To do otherwise, the Board absurdly insists, would be to “deny the existence” of children who identify as trans.
To be sure, some children dislike their bodies and are distressed about their sex. No one denies that there are children who suffer from body dysphoria and associated depression. But contrary to what is taught in the Seattle Schools, one’s sex is determined by biology, not feelings. And sex in mammals is immutable. There is not a smidgen of scientific evidence to the contrary. Pretending otherwise—lying to troubled children and forcing others to ignore science and the evidence of their eyes—does not alleviate dysphoria. To tell the truth is not to deny the existence of confused, dysphoric children.
At this point in the discussion, proponents of gender ideology will typically resort to word games: “We’re talking about gender, not sex!” But what is gender? Until the early part of this century, gender was nothing more than a polite euphemism for sex. Ask a proponent of gender ideology today to define gender in a non-circular way that does not rely on sexist stereotypes, and you get blank stares. The modern concept of gender is a ruse meant to confuse people into believing that something other than biology determines a person’s sex.
There is no good evidence that affirming someone’s belief that they were born “wrong” helps them in the long run. But there is plenty of evidence that pretending that some boys are girls and vice versa causes immense harm to the rights and wellbeing of all girls, women, gays and lesbians. It also poses serious harm to dysphoric children who are steered toward a lifetime of injurious medicalization. For more details, see Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist's Guide Out of the Madness; With Gender Ideology, The Left Is Shooting Itself in The Foot; The Difference Between T and LGB; and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Transgender Galaxy.
The Meeting
On September 27, in the spirit of those who spoke up against creationism in the Dover, PA schools 19 years ago, I and others delivered a Demand for Action to get Gender Identity Ideology Out of Our Schools to the Seattle School Board. Because speakers had to sign up in advance, trans activists who routinely monitor the School Board site were alerted and the gender identity grapevine was activated. Board members and others encouraged transgender advocates to add their name to the speakers list, set up a table in the lobby, and attend the meeting to root for their side. No attempt was made to encourage similar input from critics of gender ideology. Evidently the board’s mind was made up before the meeting took place.
The meeting began with a long prologue by various board members, defending their curriculum and doubling down on support for every aspect of gender ideology—from children being born in the wrong body, to denying the biological basis of human sex, to glorifying medicalization of gender dysphoric youth, to backing boys who “identify” as girls accessing girls’ bathrooms, sports teams, etc. The board included a dishonest warning to the audience that some of the upcoming speakers would put forward hateful, bigoted ideas and “deny the existence” of trans people.
The audience was told by board vice president Liza Rankin that,
If your locally elected board adopted curriculum that meets state standards but is not aligned with your personal values, state law allows you to opt your child out of that instruction. If it is so contrary to your values what is being presented in public schools, in alignment with the will of the voting public, you don’t have to participate; you can withdraw altogether…All students are entitled to a public education that includes identity affirming curriculum.
Echoing the caustic, discredited slogan from the 1970s that was used to vilify anyone who challenged official policy, Rankin’s message was: our curriculum, love it or leave it. She then continued, smearing as hateful comments she had not yet heard,
To our trans, nonbinary, and LGBTQIA+ students, you will hear comments during this meeting from people who don’t know you and are nonetheless directing hate towards you.
So, after making it clear that they were just going through the motions and that the board was not inclined to seriously consider any criticism, five gender critics and twenty-some supporters of gender ideology were allowed to speak for two minutes each.
As skewed as it was, this is not how the board and their allies in the trans community hoped the meeting would go. Their secret hope was that gender critics could be prevented from speaking altogether. Some even entertained the idea of interfering with the employment of gender critics who had submitted their names to the speakers list. How do we know? Because they chatted about it on Facebook.
One commenter lamented that one of the gender critics on the speakers list could not be easily fired or disciplined at work. “Looks like she is a named partner in her firm, so calling the boss won’t work. How about we all leave some reviews for this hateful person?”
Some ruminated about booting all gender critics from the list by having students sign up and preempt them. A different commenter delivered the sad news: “…I don’t think speakers can be bumped off the list once they’re signed up. Students can be moved to the front of the list if they identified as students. And some types of speech are not permitted.” No one argued that it was wrong to try to silence people, only that they didn’t see how it could be done.
Terms like “anti-trans” and TERF were used to peremptorily dismiss an opinion they might not like. (TERF, a slur, stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. It is akin to using the c- word.)
If you’re not a member of the Catholic Church, does that mean you’re anti-Catholic? Clearly not. But if one disagrees with gender ideology you are labeled as “anti-trans”.
After the public comment period, board president Brandon Hersey summed up by equating gender critics with racist segregationists who tried to prevent Ruby Bridges from attending an integrated New Orleans school in 1960. Wow! Leave aside the fact that I personally marched against Nazis outside Skokie, IL, organized against Apartheid South Africa, organized busses from the Midwest to protest school segregation in Boston in the 1970s, marched for gay rights, marched with Black Lives Matter, and so much more. To argue that failure to embrace a scientifically unsupported belief—that a biological man who “feels” he’s a woman truly is a woman—makes you a bigot, is redolent of The Crusades, where to express disbelief in Christianity was the greatest of crimes, and an apostate was the lowest of the low. Is this the standard the Seattle School Board wants to set? Is this what they mean by being “loving” and “inclusive”?
As I’ve stated many times in previous articles,
It should go without saying that transgender people, like all others, deserve full civil and human rights. But full rights does not mean super rights. Rarely have the special accommodations demanded by one group been so injurious to others including women, gays, lesbians, children and all who value rational thought.
While walking to my car, a woman who attended the meeting shouted that I was a bigot. I asked her if she could recall any specific bigoted thing I said. She said she couldn’t remember and stormed off.
To promoters of gender ideology, the boy in the Emperor’s New Clothes is not the hero of the story but the villain.
To fully appreciate the reactionary zeal of gender ideology supporters, one should note how, time after time, they act to suppress speech and discussion. They cannot abide any challenge to their doctrine, even when fact-based and offered in good faith. In the Hans Christian Andersen story, The Emperor’s New Clothes, a boy points out what everyone can see but most are afraid to say: the emperor is naked! To promoters of gender ideology, that boy is not the hero of the story but the villain. Understand this and you are a long way to understanding what we’re up against.
My Remarks
Below is the text of my short presentation to the board. You can watch the entire board meeting here.
My name is Bruce Lesnick. I am one of the signers of the Demand for Action to get Gender Identity Ideology Out of Our Schools.
Schools should be teaching science, not religion. The sciences of biology and evolution are as relevant today as they were at the time of the 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial when schools were trying to introduce “creationism” and so-called “intelligent design” into the curriculum. There are only two sexes because there are only two types of gametes and two different body types that produce them.
The curriculum today lies to children, telling them that sex is not binary; that whether you are male or female is based on feelings rather than biology; that a boy who likes stereotypical “girl” things must actually be a girl; that hating your healthy body and attempting to alter it with harmful drugs and surgery is a way of being your true self.
As the governments and medical establishments of Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK and others have attested, there is no science and there are no good studies supporting the precepts of gender ideology. And let’s be clear: Dogma without data is religion. No one is born in the wrong body. The board should immediately:
Eliminate gender religion from the curriculum.
Stop socially transitioning confused children.
Drop the pronoun madness.
Reaffirm your commitment to science, material reality and the teaching of biology and evolution.
I want to also point out that I was a witness to and participant in the Million March for Children up in Canada where thousands and thousands of people across Canada were marching for the same ideas that I just outlined. And that gives you a sense of where our continent really stands, I think.