Now Normal people are starting to catch on that ANY Progressive agenda items, specifically the Gilford School Board and Superintendent Kirk Beitler trying to ram Policy JBAB on transgenders, declaring its love for “inclusion” is lying about the inclusive parts:
“They seem intent on making this happen irrespective of people’s concerns,” said Angelo Farrugia, a parent of two Gilford students. “It’s not that we’re against transgender people. We would like to make this policy made fair for all. Inclusion means including someone in what you do, not changing what you do to suit someone else.”
And that’s the problem – Progressives talk much about “inclusion” but the effective result is to “Other” (another pet epithet of the Left)
Today’s Laconia Daily Sun has two articles concerning the push in public schools for Transgender policies, both by Roberta Baker of the Sun. I give her props in trying to deal with this subject in a “down the middle, straight up and down” manner without much of a slant at all (as opposed to Michael Kitsch, a former Sun reporter, whose Progressive biases were easily seen). She tried to pack in a lot information in these two articles:
If you are concerned about this redefining and separation of “sex and gender” means in the local schools, go read them both as they bring out some of the concerns that those opposed to how the policies are being brought into the schools believe they are being treated. While this started back in August for the Gilford School Board and now it is January, there has only been a small handful of meetings, split between the Gilford School Board and its Policy Committee – and most of the concerns of Normal Parents (e.g., further dilution of Parental Authority, letting biological boys compete on girls teams [sure, pit a senior boy against freshman girl – guess who wins?], and locker room / bathroom problems [the latter documented in the first article]).
And no one in their right mind didn’t realize at the outset that teenagers were going to take advantage of the locker room hijinks, simply because the “adults in charge” decided to no longer be in charge (emphasis mine):
“No one mentioned there was a new policy. I was in the girls’ bathroom and a male walked in. In my opinion, you’re a (transgender male) now, and you look like a male,” said the girl from Gilford High. “It’s not fair that they can go into a male bathroom one day, and a female bathroom the next.”
She described other girls’ experiences: “They had no heads up. They walked into a locker room and there was a boy sitting there.” Much of the chaos during the first weeks of school involved some boys and girls going into each other’s locker rooms, she said.
Well done, Superintendent Kirk Beitler – great communications skills. I bet that the Parents of these kids got a real practical “teaching moment” apart from your original and politically correct email back at the beginning of the year. His fault, but I’m betting that the kids were the ones held responsible. The Gilford School Board also should be castigated for its Ready, Fire, Aim process that enabled the problems enumerated above. What they have done is to emulate the Democrat Identity Group Totem Pole and the usual result, the Normals, are on the bottom.
Anyways, go read them. I was interviewed by Roberta after her initial meeting for these two stories and we spent about an hour talking back and forth. An active listener, she is! Thus, my part in this was this and I have SLIGHTLY reformatted it for emphasis:
“My emphasis is on good government, open and transparent. Are local governments doing what they’re supposed to be doing and doing it right?” said Murphy of Gilford, a member of the town’s budget committee, and conservative activist who runs the statewide website, GraniteGrok.com.
Community criticism of the policy’s required pronoun use according to a student’s preferred gender identity recently got the school board to change it to a strong recommendation that should be followed.
“The school board doesn’t have the Power to grant a new Right to an individual that causes a Legal Obligation
toon others,” Murphy said. “When does a state statute or a policy at a local level outweigh enumerated Constitutional rights” to conscience or free speech?
As I have written before, we are a Dillon’s Rule state which means that the subdivisions of the State of NH (municipalities, School Boards, Water Districts, et al) only have Powers specifically given to them by State law (a case of “you can only do what we give you permission to do – and nothing other than those). Governments (and their entitites) have Powers, Individuals have Rights – it was my several Right To Know demands (RSA 91:A) that had them give up on the facade that they had the Power to enforce their preferred speech on designated pronouns. Guidance C was changed because, well, the Emperor’s New Clothes showed they had no Power at all in this matter.
The question will be “strong recommendation that should be followed” will be still taken as coerced speech and worldview discrimination – both of which are illegal. What will also need to be seen is if a tyrannical Administration will be hell bent to force their preferred speech on others using Policies JBAA and JICK (Harassment and Discrimination) as substitute proxies to get what they want.
Anyways, I did record my interview with Roberta (Part 1):
Why do I do so? I grew tired of being misquoted during the early years of GraniteGrok. They stopped when I made it MY policy that if a reporter didn’t like being recorded, I wasn’t going to do the interview in the first place. Then they got upset when I called them out when they did and I proved it with the recordings (I have found the most of journalists I have met, while desiring to “hold others accountable”, hate being held accountable themselves). However with Roberta, other than the bolded emphasis above, she played it straight.
Again, Good Job.
