Many of us took advantage of the public comment period during January to register our rejection and/or comments about the Transgender Students policy mandated for Virginia public schools. The final document, Model Policies for the Treatment of Transgender Students in Virginia’s Public Schools, was released on March 4 and e-mailed to all who submitted comments.
Essentially, contents of the original policy and the final release are the same. Areas addressed include compliance with nondiscrimination laws that will assure transgender (TG) students have a safe and supportive learning environment free from bullying and harassment. This is certainly advocated by the Prince William & Manassas Family Alliance (PWMFA).
Students also are to be given privacy about their gender identity as the student and/or family chooses, and their school records are to be treated with confidentiality. If and when an alumnus/a of the school adopts a gender identity different from when a…
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Citizen Tom 
@marmoewp
Of course not. And that’s a ridiculous extreme. We don’t have to teach our children that this is a proper depiction of a black person. That’s absurd. We teach them that some of these stories were written 70-80 years ago, that he was product of his time. Besides, all of Dr. Seuss’s characters were exaggerated caricatures in the extreme. Even of white people, using exaggerated features, often depicting them as animals.
What I’m fighting for is the right for our classical literature and history not to be canceled just because people in history didn’t have our modern sensitivities. Are we now going to stop playing Monopoly because white people are depicted as roly-poly fat white men with a monocle and cane? Are we going to block out everything else that might offend us, so now our children have no ability to deal with seeing things in the context of history? Are we now going to cancel every caricature ever drawn by an artist because it might offend someone? I personally find what The 1619 Project teaches our children very offensive and constitutes anti-white racist propaganda, not to mention, a total distortion of our country’s founding. Why is that allowed to be published? And that’s not a children’s fantasy book. It’s taught as actual history! That will far more damage to our children than Dr. Seuss!
So, no, I’m not for those depictions. I’m for letting our history being what it is and learning from it without canceling everything that might offend us. I don’t think we should make our children that fragile. They can be allowed to be smart enough to know the difference.
Btw, I’m of Irish descent. Here’s how my ancestors were often depicted in the 19th century. This one was from the famous political cartoonist, Thomas Nast. Should we cancel him now, too?
@Mel Wild
There was a good reason Jonathan Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal.” I wonder if that is still part of what is taught in school.
@ Tom.
Exactly! But I don’t think satire is allowed anymore by the snowflake generation because it may offend the woke white liberals. 🙂
“The essay suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food to rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocked heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as British policy toward the Irish in general.”
– Summary of “A Modest Proposal” (Wikipedia)
No, that’s political history. I would point out, it’s not targeted at the 3-7 years age bracket, either.
@ Marmoewp
“…it’s not targeted at the 3-7 years age bracket, either.”
I’m not advocating exposing potentially racist imagery to 3 year old’s, but they are certainly old enough to understand the context when they’re 6-8 years. Kids are playing rather complicated video games on their iPads before they’re five. And it seems the radical left doesn’t have any problem having children choosing their gender at this age. I would think that’s more troubling.
“And it seems the radical left doesn’t have any problem having children choosing their gender at this age. ”
I do not know, what the “radical left” is saying, but both the Mayo Clinic and the NHS acknowledge, that children identify their gender at young age. There may simply be phases, where children identify other than their gender assigned at birth, but the parents ought to take the children serious in any case.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/childrens-health/in-depth/children-and-gender-identity/art-20266811
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/think-your-child-might-be-trans-or-non-binary/
If children can’t discern historical context in a Dr. Seuss book, then they certainly aren’t mature enough to identify anything. And they should also be taught that there are biologically only two genders. Multiple genders is utter anti-science nonsense. I doubt that Mayo is advocating that.
Not to mention, schools aren’t the children’s parents. They ought to be doing what they’re paid to do—train our children how to be proficient in reading, math, real history, and science. As it is, the public school system is abysmal in those areas.
@marmoewp
The issue with book burning is who decides which books “need” to be burned. We should not want some politician, somebody we would be idiots to trust with such power, to decide which communications are good and which communications are bad for us. Yet the elites in the USA are trying to seize such power over everyone else.
Our elites know using the government censorship would be unconstitutional. So, they are using the “cancel culture,” which is tantamount to government censorship. The big corporations driving the cancel culture are so tied to government via crony capitalism the difference between these corporations and the government has become rather thin. However, in a legalistic world this distinction, censorship via the cancel culture, does get them around our Constitution.
What about children choosing their gender identity? The idea is so reckless and foolish I wonder how you can take it seriously. When a child has not even reached puberty, we want a CHILD to choose their “gender identity”? We want a CHILD to “choose” their gender with drugs and surgery? What kind of insanity would drive a parent to do that to their CHILD? What kind of government official would allow or REQUIRE a parent to do that to a CHILD?
Gender is a foolish, make-believe social construct. Gender is ideological babble we are suppose to take seriously if we want to be socially acceptable to leaders mad with their thirst for power. Sex is a biological fact that exist in every cell. Gender is an ambiguous preference. Because gender is not real, there is no end to the number of gender “choices.” Sex is an unalterable set of three choices: male, female, and broken.
Broken is not a gender choice. Broken is a sexual defect. Our bodies are imperfect. Sometimes our genes are messed up. Sometimes, even when are genes would otherwise work properly, the environment in which we grow is somehow toxic. Nevertheless, it is easier to learn how to be what we are than it is to mangle ourselves and try to be something we are not.
Are there exceptions? Is there a time we should try to be something we are not? Yes. Because the alternative is so dreadful, we should try to please our Creator and be good, to love Him and each other. To mutilate a CHILD is hateful, not loving.
@Mel
“Multiple genders is utter anti-science nonsense. I doubt that Mayo is advocating that.”
Why don’t you simply read, what they write?
So the Mayo Clinic mentions four relevant aspects:
1) sex assigned at birth
2) gender identity
3) gender expression
4) sexual orientation
which “can happen in many combinations”
So yes, the Mayo Clinic clearly does state that what you try to press into the single, binary distinction which you label “gender” is in fact a non-binary, multi-dimensional property.
@Mel Wild
“Gender” is defined by two words, “I want.” Sex is defined by observation, “I am.”
So, it’s okay for little Johnny to self-identify as a transcendent mermaid Queen-King, but make sure you keep the little tike away from classical literature at all costs!
To quote Ebenezer Scrooge, I’ll retire to bedlam.
@Mel Wild
That was well said.
I suppose we should also cancel Bill Cosby now since he’s obviously a racist, depicting black children this way…
Missed this reply.
I think you will be happy to learn, that the publisher and rights owner is only disontinuing six of the books, while still printing those 54 books without racist imagry.
As much as I am with you that we should not whitewash the past and discard the evidence thereof, and that we should teach how people erred in the past, and we are likely erring in other respects today, the books we are talking about are children’s books. I’d wager that 95% of the buyers read it with their children without giving them this lecture.
@ marmoewp
I still think they should publish all of the books, even if they don’t have the most controversial ones in elementary school libraries, for the reasons I mentioned. Most parents probably wouldn’t read this particular book to them anyway, but at least it’s available to the general public.
I could come behind a commented edition (one or two pages explaining the historic setting), but I doubt that would be something commercially worthwhile for the publishers. Moving the books in question out of the children’s books section of libraries, but keeping them available, could be a sensible solution, IMO.
Lord have mercy
Public schools are being taken over by the radical woke left—the teacher’s unions and school boards. They cancel Dr. Seuss and teach anti-science, anti-biological subjects like transgender studies. They are truly at war with reality. As I’ve said before, until school boards are reclaimed by sane people, our children are better off being home-schooled or going to a private school. We should not be sacrificing them to this beast in the name of convenience.
@Mel Wild
Frankly, at this point I am ready to shut down the school boards and slowly shut off government funding for them. The schools are doing more harm than good.
I couldn’t agree more.
Re Dr. Seuss: So you are fighting for your right to teach young children that this is the proper depiction of Africans, Mel?
@marmoewp.
Apparently, I didn’t put my comment below yours. My reply ended up here:
https://citizentom.com/2021/03/07/virginia-transgender-school-policy-is-final/comment-page-1/#comment-100140