#and they want to require teachers to report students who ask to use different pronouns

[goldenstorm0]

Also fuck people who talk about parental right in regards to education, they just want to out kids to their parents

[higherlearningtvshow]

No parents allowed: Minnesota funds sexualized trips for kids

Minnesota is funding sexualized nature trips for middle and high school children where parents are not welcome.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has given a $10,500 grant to an environmental non-profit called Clean River Partners for its QUEERY program. In QUEERY, “queer” children ages 11-17 are led on monthly excursions by Heron Mahr, a “trans non-binary naturalist” who uses “they/them” pronouns. Mahr teaches the children about “queerness in nature,” such as female wood-frog tadpoles which can reverse their sex. 

“As humans, we think in a very binary sort of way: ‘You’re a man or a woman,’” Mahr said. “We have examples in nature, all around us, that there can be so much more abundance and so much more diversity. And that’s something that I think more young people could benefit from knowing, that it’s not weird to feel different. You know, it’s okay to not fit all those little checkboxes. It’s actually a great thing.”

The Daily Wire reports that Mahr has asked parents not to attend these trips “so participants have the chance to build their independence outdoors.” Mahr promises “ample adult supervision, including myself, a Carleton student who is supporting the program, and occasional guest instructors.” The student is reported to be Vio Csedrik, who runs a student drag group at Carleton College. 

Clean River Partners Executive Director Jennifer Tonko said parents are not exactly forbidden from the program “but it is meant to be a space for youth and it’s designed as such.” 

Secret LGBTQ clubs

Parental absence appears to be a central feature of gender ideology. Several elementary schools, for example, hold secret LGBTQ clubs where students can “crush” on each other. Parents are deliberately kept in the dark about the clubs.

Secret curricula

Last month, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that teachers can withhold information from parents about what their children are being taught in the classroom. Carol Beth Litkouhi has been trying to obtain information from a Rochester public school about a course being offered called “A History of Ethnic and Gender Studies.” The school has refused, arguing that teaching materials developed by teachers are private and therefore not subject to FOIA law.

Secret identities

In July, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law that allows schools to hide information about students’ gender identities from their parents. School employees will no longer be required to tell a child’s parents if he or she identifies as “LGBTQ+,” according to the new law, and schools are forbidden from taking action against an employee who keeps that information from a child’s parents.

The bill claims that “[p]arents and families across California understand that coming out as LGBTQ+ is an extremely personal decision and want to support their children in coming out to them on their own terms.”

“LGBTQ+ pupils have the right to express themselves freely at school without fear, punishment, or retaliation, including that teachers or administrators might ‘out’ them without their permission. Policies that require outing pupils without their consent violate pupils’ rights to privacy and self-determination.”

‍

[refusing-domain]

Refusing 3

Refusing synonyms. Top synonyms for refusing (other words for refusing) are refuse, refused and refusal. Refusing a request: writing a refusal notice (Section 17). 20121206. Version: 1. Refusing a request: writing a refusal notice. Freedom of Information Act. Contents. Feb 11, 2019 - This introduction outlines an aesthetic of refusal as it emerges from instances of racialized exhaustion. Described as an aesthetics of ... Refusing unsafe work. Workers have the right to refuse unsafe work. If you have reasonable cause to believe that performing a job or task puts you or someone ... of Delay. But it can't be. put off now. On the sacred branch. of my only voice – I insist. Insist for us all,. which is the job. of the voice, and especially. of the poet. Oct 31, 2019 - JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's environment ministry said on Thursday it would report countries to the Basel Convention, an international ... Oct 2, 2019 - A Virginia teacher has filed a lawsuit saying he was wrongfully fired for refusing to use male pronouns for a transgender student. Refusing To Be A Man. I'm not going to try to tell you that I'm different from all the rest. I've been subject to the same de-structure of desire and I've felt the same ... Jan 22, 2020 - Hunter Biden renting $12,000-per-month Hollywood home while refusing to pay child support. by Alana Goodman. | January 22, 2020 05:53 ... Oct 28, 2019 - A once-popular loan Americans use to finance home renovations and college tuition is slowly dying, slashing a lucrative source of revenue for ... 72-17-201. Making, amending, revoking, and refusing to make anatomical gifts by individual. (1) An anatomical gift of a donor's body or part may be made during ... Mar 8, 2019 - ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who served years in prison for leaking one of the largest troves ... Introduction. Refusal to eat and drink is a common and distressing precursor to malnutrition for older adults in both institutional and community settings. Refusing requests. Although a person's right to access information about himself or herself is very strong, agencies can refuse requests in certain circumstances. Refusing. Sometimes people ask us to do things and we don't want to do them. ... will not change their mind; Phrases 9 and 10 are quite polite ways of refusing. (1) A person is guilty of refusing to summon aid for a peace officer if, upon request by a person he or she knows to be a peace officer, he or she unreasonably ... Refusing, an album by Luis Álvarez on Spotify. ... Listen to Refusing in full in the Spotify app. Play on Spotify. Playing. Refusing. ℗ 2019 Sonder House. Legal Definition of refusing in the Definitions.net dictionary. ... Information and translations of refusing in the most comprehensive dictionary definitions resource on the ... Procedure For Refusing Unsafe Work. Report the unsafe work condition to your supervisor; Your supervisor must immediately investigate and ensure that any ... Oct 1, 2019 - Peter Vlaming was fired from his job at West Point High School for refusing to use the pronouns requested by a transgender student in his high ... Rebellion is brewing against the Common Core educational standards. Testing for the new standards began in March, and some students have refused to take ... Jan 3, 2020 - Telegram is refusing to give the SEC details on how the $1.7 billion raised in its ICO has been spent. Journalists jailed or fined for refusing to identify confidential sources, as of 2019. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press monitors subpoenas and ... Sep 25, 2019 - Refusing to Talk With Iran Is a Mistake. Donald Trump should use the U.N. General Assembly as an opportunity to open dialogue with ... 1 day ago - Woman Refusing to Leave Burning OH House Leads to Mayday. An Ashtabula firefighter became trapped during a house fire after he tried to ... Refusing to Work because Conditions are Dangerous. Workers have the right to refuse to do a job if they believe in good faith that they are exposed to an ... Reasonable reasons for refusing to provide a service include: you do not undertake that type of work,; the client is unable to fund the work required,; you are too ... Refusing to Treat Patients. Physicians do not have unlimited discretion to refuse to accept a person as a new patient. Because much of medicine is involved with ... Hi everyone,. My mum has recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She's been unwell since February, and I felt that it was cancer, but ... Nov 26, 2019 - Babies refusing the bottle can be very frustrating and stressful for mamas at any time, but especially when you have to return to work. There are ...

[srta-jax-blog]

NTPRS Day 1

So what had happened was...

We laid some groundwork. Von Ray gave an overview of what Comprehensible Input is and why we should be doing this in broad strokes with some great examples. Then, Linda Li demonstrated some basic TPRS skills she uses in her Mandarin class for an hour. Then we debriefed what exactly happened during that lesson and broke for lunch. When we came back, we dug into the process of circling and triangling and practiced those skills with a partner.

Circling and Triangling, the bread and butter

Okay, circling is a process of repeating a statement and asking questions about it. When I haphazardly implemented TPRS, I did steps 1-4 of circling reasonably well. 1) Make a statement, 2) ask a question with a yes answer, 3) one with a no answer, and 4) one with a “either or” thrown in, and restate that statement after every single answer. Repeat for each chunk of the sentence (Subject, verb, object)

What I learned today was that there are more steps. We made the statement, asked the yes question, then the either or one. Then we stated the negative, then the correct answer, and then asked the no question. Once I’ve done the three questions above, I ask the question with a question word, and then ask an open-ended question to get new details, and repeat the process with the new details. The more I’ve circled, the more unpredictable the order I ask them should be.

Triangling is the process of exposing students to the first and second person forms of the verbs and giving them an opportunity to produce (and let you assess that production). A statement is made, the actor is asked a circling question about the statement, the teacher coaches this answer as needed then confirms the detail, then reports the statement to the class (again).

I tried to implement some of this in my classroom with mixed success. I have a much better idea of how to do it and how to elicit details from my students.

Mandarin?

Yes, I learned some Mandarin… and thoroughly enjoyed it! It’s actually one of the things I’m most excited about being at NTPRS. After 1 hour of TPRS, I can say “clap”, “yes”, “no”, “good”, “not good”, “gives chocolate”, “gives coffee”, “looks at”, “wow”, and “My name is” with reasonable confidence and can understand and react to a fair bit more (things like stand up, sit down, likes coffee/chocolate, and different subject pronouns). It was AWESOME. That hour ended and it hadn’t felt like that long at all and I wanted to keep going! (Then again… I really, really like learning languages.)

How did Linda Li do that?

Weellllllll… first of all, she used RICH input. It was Repetitive, Interesting, Comprehensible, and used High frequency vocabulary. There were about 30 words/phrases posted in the room at the start of the lesson. We used maybe 20 of those and added 8 more. So for an hour, she almost exclusively used about 30 words/phrases over and over and over.

Second, she asked A TON of questions, and repeated statements a lot. In one hour, she asked at least 80 questions. (Circling is the heart of TPRS). Statement. Question. Restate the statement. Another question. These questions allowed her to “circle” the statement, which she repeated after we chorally answered each question.

Third, she kept it interesting by bringing in new “characters.” In one part of the lesson, half the room was called Beijing and the other half was called Taiwan (And Singapore and Hong Kong and a few others on accident). She used singular subjects for quite a while to establish the meanings of the verbs “look” “give” and “like” then she started adding plural subjects. She compared two “characters”, one who liked chocolate (and looked at it romantically) and one who liked coffee. She had us stand up, sit down, clap, and do various hand gestures with her. She did quite a bit more than that as well, because she kept the pace up and when things started to get stale she spiced it up.

Fourth, she kept us feeling safe. How? 1) She taught us to use cues to show that we needed help. A fist smack on an open palm to say we didn’t understand, another to ask her to slow down. Other gestures were used to illicit a response or to show we understood what she said, even if we didn’t have the words to say it. 2) The only words we were required to say were yes, no, and people’s names. Most of us said “coffee” and “chocolate too since they were cognates.

Major takeaways from today:

1)   For not having any real training in TPRS and CI… I didn’t actually do too bad of a job at doing it during my first semester!

2)   Use gestures to cue students, and be diligent about training the students to use these cues! (Especially to show that they don’t understand or need me to slow down).

3)   Questions help make slow processors fast processors, and fast processors into speakers.

4)   Keep asking questions. I don’t have to remember the details because either the students will, or the details weren’t interesting enough and we will make more interesting details.

5)   The more characters I add, the more questions I can ask, the more repetitions I can get while still keeping things interesting.

6)   Shelter the vocabulary, because you don’t need a lot of vocab to communicate. Don’t shelter the grammar, use what you need when you need it to convey meaning.

[friend-clarity]

Indiana Teacher: I Was Forced To Resign Because I Won’t Pretend Boys Can Be Girls

Joy Pullmann, June 14, 2018

An Indiana orchestra teacher says public school administrators gave him three options at the end of this school year: refer to students as the opposite sex, resign, or be fired. He decided to resign at the end of the school year because the school would not budge, but at a local school board meeting Monday pleaded to have his job back. The board voted instead to accept his resignation.

Local public officials have so far refused to publicly discuss the policies they put into place at the beginning of 2018 that John Kluge says led to his resignation in May. Brownsburg Community School Corporation, the district that employed Kluge, put out a transgender policy document in January instructing staff to call students by their chosen names and pronouns once they are so designated on school records. Kluge opted instead to address students by their last names to avoid either referring to his apparently several transgender students with pronouns and names of the opposite sex, or offending them by not doing as they wished despite its contradiction of reality.

That wasn’t good enough. At the school board meeting, students accused Kluge of saying that transgender persons “are not an actual human being” and “actively disrespect[ing]” them for not using opposite-sex pronouns to describe them.

“Mr. Kluge’s religious beliefs have absolutely no place in a public high school. I think what he believes is morally just conflicts with what not only I believe, [but] what my parents believe, what my psychiatrist, therapist and doctor believe and the school board believe are morally just,” said student Aidyn Sucec. Kluge’s beliefs are not merely moral, but also scientific. Scientifically, there are only two sexes. “Gender” is a linguistic term for a non-physical concept.

Parents Flood Board Meeting: ‘Why Weren’t We Notified?’

The school district’s policy document says students may change their sex designation and name on school records with parental permission and “a letter from a health care professional.” It also says teachers and staff who refer to such children with the pronouns and name that correspond to their biological sex will be liable for unspecified professional consequences if the teacher did so on purpose or  more than once.

“lt is the employee’s professional responsibility to follow the expectations and guidelines” of the school district, the document says several times. ” lt is our expectation that teachers use the pronoun associated with the gender as it appears in PowerSchool. lf they/them is requested, we expect that pronoun to be used as well,”  the document says.”

More than 200 parents flooded the local school board meeting Monday at which Kluge was allowed the usual two minutes to plead his case. “Many of the parents at Monday night’s meeting said they were unaware that this accommodation was in place for transgender students and are uncomfortable with its implications for their children,” reported the Indianapolis Star. “Landon Chapman said he’s not comfortable with students who were born male being able to use the same female restroom as his daughter. ‘Why is it that parents weren’t notified?’ he asked the board.”

During the two-hour public comment period, school board members merely thanked people for their comments and refused to talk about the district’s pro-transgender policies, which include allowing students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex. The district’s policy document says their policies are a direct result of court decisions and federal regulations.

Yet courts have so far handed down mixed decisions on transgender students and the Trump administration rescinded the Obama administration’s push for transgender preferences in public schools. Most courts forcing transgender policies on schools are reinterpreting the word “sex” inside the federal Title IX law to mean “self-description of gender” instead, despite the lack of precedent or sense for doing so.

Republican-Run Legislature Refuses to Protect Kids

In February, Indiana’s Republican-controlled House gutted a bill that would have required schools to get parents’ informed consent to teach children LGBT ideology such as sexual orientation and gender identity. The controlling committee also deleted a requirement that parents be allowed access to all sex-related instructional materials that might be used with their children. So, thanks to this act of legislative cowardice, as Margot Cleveland wrote here at the time:

[Indiana public] Schools may teach children as young as age five that a boy can become a girl or a girl can become a boy. Teachers may tell students that they must refer to a transgender student as belonging to a false sex and using incorrect pronouns. In other words, it allows exactly what transpired in a California kindergarten in August.

Republican leadership told constituents they didn’t protect kids by passing the bill because there was no reason to. They said it was utterly ridiculous to think schools in red-state Indiana might use taxpayer dollars, facilities, employees, and other resources to indoctrinate kids with LGBT gender politics.

Yet the Brownsburg policy says its schools will allow boys to compete in girls’ athletic and music events, and vice versa. It says boys will be allowed into girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms, and vice versa. It says the school will facilitate cross-dressing for gender dysphoric students wearing uniforms for athletic, musical, and other activities. These actions teach children just as fully and boldly as a direct statement of them in sex ed class would. By allowing this behavior, the school endorses it.

Brownsburg’s policy also requires and communicates highly ideological and scientifically false ideas about human sexuality, such as this: “What does transfluid mean? This gender identity is described as a mix between male and female. People who are transfluid report feeling more male at times and at other times more female.”

The document also suggests parents be kept in the dark about whether their children will be exposed to transgenderism merely by attending public school: “By federal law, the School is prohibited from disclosing any student’s personal information with members of the public. This includes answering questions about whether a transgender students is enrolled in the School or at a specific building.”

Too bad if you wanted to preserve your child’s innocence and sense of stability as long as possible. Other people get to determine your child’s exposure to highly complex, personal, and troubling psychosexual behavior. And they don’t care about the possible social contagion effects, either, even though that means a dramatic increase in mental health problems and even plastic surgery for children. In fact, they might want those kind of effects. Lifelong medical dependency is extremely profitable, after all.

Here’s What Else Is In that Policy Document

Here are some other selected quotes from the Brownsburg schools’ policy document about transgenderism. It says that working for public schools requires, as a condition of employment, that people do things that contradict basic biological reality plus core teachings of the majority of the world’s religious adherents. Yes, it really is saying that people who are employed by taxpayers must give up their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion and freedom of speech.

It says students who are uncomfortable with lying about another child’s sex are bullies. It says teachers will not be notified that a transgender student will be in their classroom if the child enters the year after going transgender.

Elsewhere, the policy repeatedly refers people with questions to the school counselor, presumably for politically correct re-education. It’s not clear whether minor students who make such visits would be accompanied by their parents, or their parents even notified, if the visit happens during school hours. One can easily presume that the demand for school counselors will go way up. Good job security, if you can get it.

How do teachers break from their personal biases and beliefs so that we can best serve our students? We know this is a difficult topic for some staff members, however, when you work in a public school, you sign up to follow the law and the policies/practices of that organization and that might mean following practices that are different than your beliefs.

How do we address other students who are uncomfortable, who laugh, who call names, etc.? (5) This is bullying and should be dealt with in the manner we deal with other bullying situations.

How do we deal with a student exploding in anger with being called the wrong name or gender? lf it’s the fifth time this week the staff member has messed up the pronoun, then the staff member needs to get on board. However, if the student explodes on one small mistake, we would address the student behavior as we normally would.

What is the policy on informing teachers about the students who are identified as transgender? ln the year the change takes place, once we have parent permission, we then notify the teachers. Once the change in PowerSchool, etc. has taken place, there would no further notification of future teachers unless requested by the student and/or parents.

Below is a clip from a local TV station interviewing Kluge about his resignation.

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist and author of "The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids," out from Encounter Books in 2017. Get it on Amazon.

[teacherequality-blog]

An Interview With a Trans Substitute

“Missoula district was really supportive and accommodating. MISSOULA.

I grew up in Columbia Falls

There were two students in big sky high school (brothers) who’s parents called in and rose a big stink over my teaching any of their classes at all.

The school’s response was “well, miss class then.” I was told at the beginning of the day that I had one student in two different periods that I was required to send to the counselor’s office immediately. Heard from another teacher (prior friend) about why. The admin never even told me about it. There was NO change to how, when, or where I could do my job over it.

When I first started subbing, I was covering my tattoos b/c I wasn’t sure their stance. When I called and asked district coordinator about it, she said they didn’t care at all. I never had to cover them at all. Especially nice given that while I used to be able to EASILY hide them all, girl shirts are all designed for cleavage whether you have any or not, so almost none of my shirts could cover the ones on my chest. always wore my sleeves rolled up all day, so everyone saw my tattoo sleeve. Aaaaall the kids know I have tattoos and gauges. When I started with MCPS, Missoula county public schools, they have a checklist sheet you mark all the classes you’re willing to sub for. Grades and subjects. I could give a damn, I can BS my way through anything so I just checked them all without thinking about it. Then I got an assignment to teach gym. Oops. So I dropped the job and called sub coordinator to ask about it, since many gym teacher offices are IN the locker rooms…..  She said she didn’t know, she had never thought about it either. She said she’d look into it and get back to me. Got a call a couple of days later. Ver batim, she said I “could move through any bathroom or locker room in the entire district. Whatever you’re comfortable with.” Frenchtown is not so…. Free. When I asked them, he said that he knew what he had to say, and what was “probably the right answer.” They were implied as not the same thing. I told him that Missoula didn’t care about me and bathrooms and locker rooms at all. He said “yea, that’s probably the right answer. There’s a gender-neutral bathroom by the front office…” I told him no, flat out. Then pointed out that behind me were the FACULTY restrooms. Which, btw, are SINGLE Person bathrooms. One room. One toilet, one sink. I’m honestly not sure I understand the point of separating them at all. What’s it fucking matter if there’s only one person allowed in? after I pointed that out, he conceded I may have a point and didn’t push the matter, but I could tell it made him uncomfortable. He didn’t even respond to the gym issue. But, I found out later that every gym period in the junior high, there is an extra (female) faculty to be there at the beginning and end of every period. Bc the jr high him teacher is male, and they require the locker rooms be “checked in on”. Can’t trust kids to change their own clothes, naturally. Except, when *i* teach gym. Then, there are two extra faculty assigned to be there. I’m not allowed in either locker room. Not that I at ALL want to go into the boy’s locker room, but it just goes to show they don’t have a stance beyond “no, you can’t exist in here.” I stopped trying. Beyond that, Frenchtown has never done anything outright against me. But from the beginning I felt like the entire school staff were watching me. Not keeping tabs, just always cautious. Less welcoming. Missoula was ALwAYS welcoming and kind to me. Never an issue at all. The admin never once even mentioned to me that they had ever been contacted about me. At all.  No changes. It’s not that they were hiding anything, it was just such a non-issue, they didn’t feel the need. If I had to guess given my experience speaking and interacting with the admin, I don’t feel offended at all. It just more than anything feels like “it affects nothing, so we didn’t want to bother you about it.” I heard about it second hand from other faculty. Though, I had noticed that every admin in all the buildings greeted me by my first name. I had never met them. They all just knew who I was on sight. They’ve had board and admin meetings about me. Its not that they didn’t address it before… those meetings were never because THEY needed to talk about it. It was to deal with the parents. Or, more rather, to decide how to respond to parents when they got angry (they were) phone calls about me. I only know any of this because I heard it second hand from other teachers. I have no idea how many times they were contacted over it, all I know for sure was that at least 3 schools got at least 2 calls. I get the feeling there were a lot more…. From what I heard (again, second hand info. Take as you will), that the jist of their “pre-determined formal response” was along the lines of: “we understand you have an issue with this. Please understand we don’t care. We are not going to discriminate against an effective substitute for these reasons. If you don’t want your children to attend class with this substitute, then you can come and pick them up from school for that period, and drop them off again after. We’re not in the business of babysitting kids who don’t want to go to class.” Second hand jist. But that’s how it was told to me. The only incident I have specific knowledge of (big sky), I was also told by teacher friend that the kids could have cared less. It was only the parets raising a stink.

As for the students in general, I for the most part haven’t had any real issues. Sometimes I think I may have heard the purposely misgender me, but they’re pretty quiet about it. No outright defiance (for that reason, at least implicitly. They’re still teenagers). I’ve been told by students on a few occasions that other kids had been making fun of me or being disrespectful when they knew I couldn’t hear, but I never really heard anything. At least not that I was sure enough of that I could say anything. My hearing is juuuuuust bad enough that I cant always tell for sure what pronoun someone uses. Especially if its under their breath. But nothing outright disrespectful to my face about it. I think they know what would happen to them if they did…. Its so hard for districts to get and keep good subs that they take any reports of behavior issues VERY seriously, for any reason or sub. If i said that they disrespected me in that manner, the whole world would come down on their head and they know it. I’ve gotten a few questions in poor taste, but its due more to benign curiosity than any kind of prejudice. It’s also an interesting pretense…. Everyone knows, apparently, they ALL talk about it (students), they all know I’m trans. Mostly. They’re fairly sure, they all know it’s the rumor. But no one has ever been actually TOLD about it. Its ignored. They THINK they know, but not enough to be sure. So, I get the occasional question. “is that a wig?” is one. There was one incident where they seriously raised their hand in the middle of class lecture to ask “are you trans?” My favorite response, is to point out that that’s NOT a question they want to be wrong about….. its like asking someone when the baby is due. If I’m NOT trans, that’s reaaaaaally insulting and worrisome. Once I point out to them the nature of the question they asked, they get this reeeaaaaally horrified look on their face…. Its fucking hysterical. I love it. Its aaaaaalmost worth it. But my usual response otherwise was “no, I’m a woman.” So, they know. Sorta. Mostly. But not for sure…… its awesome. I generally raise my eyebrows at them and make them consider their question. Most of the worst insults and misgendering by students is mostly perpetrated by the trouble students I’m already being stern with.  I do not take their shit. And they KNOW it. Its part of my legend….. But a lot of students think I’m plenty amusing, and I get stopped all the time around town by kids saying hello and asking when I’m coming back. So, yea. The kids being douches, were already douches. Worst kids are still Frenchtown, but again. They’re still teenagers. Anyone is going to have some bullshit. And if they don’t insult with trans, they insult with something else equally offensive. My teaching experience in MCPS has been truly stellar. Not one concession has ever been made on the point, and not once has ANYone employed by MCPS EVER brought the fact that I’m trans up at all. On the FEW times its been a topic, *i* was the one to bring it up. They’ve been phenomenal. Kids have been pretty chill. All things considered, even Frenchtown has been at least moderately reasonable. The never said I COULDN’T teach gym, they just needed locker room people. To be fair. Just a different feel, and they were aware of the more rural attitude of the parents in general, and seem more nervous over it. No faculty has ever insulted me on purpose. Although, I have mixed feels over the woman faculty (ftown art) who approached me to express her support and that she was glad they had a trans teacher, and she’d heard about me and had to meet me. Mixed, because her saying so pretty well proves that she picked me out cold from a crowd….. but people don’t think about that implication. They’re usually always trying to be nice and supportive, in any case. Nice lady, though. She likes me.

Oooooo, one other thing to bear mentioning. I HAVE been approached by several students (quietly, away from other kids), who wanted to ask me about being trans. But, because they thought they may have been trans themselves….. they wanted to know what to do/go/talk to/proceed in general. I always pointed them to anne harris and mentioned that I didn’t point them to anyone. But they’re the only ones I’ve ever not denied it to. They’ve been pretty chill, and just trying to reach out because they were confused about themselves. In that respect, I’m glad I was in the schools particularly. Even, almost, a little, MAAAYYYYYYYYBE glad they could tell. So they knew they could ask. I met one little girl in 6th grade who came to me at start of period to tell me that the role sheet had the wrong name, and what to call her. The knowing look of gratitude was really rewarding. I’ve even been left notes from kids who wanted to support and express gratitude for having me. A couple were totally anonymous. They just showed up on top of my paperwork. So, in that respect, I’m really happy to have been a part of the schools systems in that age group of “flux”. When they really needed an adult that they could actually KNOW wouldn’t judge them for it. I never told anyone I was a “safe resource” or commented on “safe space.” Never had to. At least two of the kids who approached me on the topic were in Frenchtown. They obviously had no idea what to do. So, I’m pretty grateful I could be that for people. For most everyone else, it’s still a good thing to have a visible (hesitate to call myself a “role-model”) adult in their school/non family who is an obvious source of support/info/encouragement/comfort. I think its really good for them to interact with people that way in a CASUAL manner, NOT implicitly for that reason. I’m not a novelty alone, I’m just THERE. Novelty, but it’s not WHY I’m there, or WHY I’m talking to them. Its not even discussed or mentioned. No need for (so this is trans person, be respectful, who knows what trans means? Be sure to treat her normally. Don’t single her out anyone, that would be passé….” The pretense is half of what makes it so damn perfect. Not SURE. Not talked about. Not special. Just….. there. No different. Esp. when I do teach gym. It shows them that its perfectly NORMAL, benign, and simply a fact of life. Nothing to make any kind of issue over. No different. Just real people. Professional adult. Not pointing it out or trying to bond over it. Just Being there is plenty educational.

It’s one of the main reasons I liked doing it. I was terrified at first. I’ve subbed before in great falls, pre-trans. I know I can do it, am good at it, respected for it by faculty. I know I’m good at my job. I was terrified they wouldn’t even consider hiring me for fear of “putting their neck out.” Not wanting to stir crap with the parents. (enemy of ALL faculty and admin). But they surprised me. Not even Frenchtown ever brought it up first. Ever. It was MY question about what policy was. I was never told I couldn’t or shouldn’t teach ANY subject by EITHER district. Even ftown gym. I was especially impressed by them, given their rep for history toward lgbt students. No student group of their own, not allowed, they’re lumped into “diversity group”. But it was never mentioned, not even during hiring or interviews. It was never truly a problem for anyone. So no real “bad” experiences at all. They’re trying to be better. “

- Shannon Sorensen