Too often it was like waiting on the second floor of a mall for your friend to meet you even as he attempts to go up the down escalator. Oh, he will eventually get to you, but it would have been a lot quicker if he ‘scoped out the area to see the up escalator was just around the wall with the artwork on it.

In Oklahoma, swift progress in adding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity to school district policies was slowed by the rotating door of the central administration whose conga-line of out-going and in-coming administrators either really had the need to get up to speed or used it to stall progress in the name of getting up to speed.

There were for a variety of reasons, mostly political, 10 superintendents either interim or actual in 12 years, and lower-level administrators kept shifting around in the hope of becoming the holder of a higher paying position.

The ongoing objections to treating Gay and Lesbian students with respect and protecting them, as all students should be, from bullying. harassment, and discrimination when at school and regarding inclusion in school activities was that to do so would begin the slippery slope toward the destruction of society as we knew it, multiple nuisance lawsuits that would be filed so Gay and Lesbian students could make money off the district, the dissolution of all things religious and heterosexual, and an assumed permission to get openly involved in sexual activity on campus with sexual assault being the preferred way for students to exercise their new found freedom.

As time went on and as the country and its knowledge of sexuality matured, the same arguments were made when Transgender and Non-binary students became part of the conversation.

Gay and Lesbian was getting acceptance and fewer raised eyebrows, probably because none of the warnings about the evils of equality came true, but the old tropes about the end of society as we knew it, the corruption of children, wanton and open sexual activity on campus, and the fear of rampant sexual molestation, got shifted over to the newly discovered students who, actually, had always been there.

Old anti-Gay policies. practices, and ungrounded fears were dusted off and reapplied to Transgender students.

In the pervious years the tropes had to be addressed and re-addressed with each administrative change, and here it was taking on a new presence as the old tropes were simply reapplied almost word for word as if the hope was that eventually at some time one of them might prove true for some group.

Transgender students have now become the targets of the prophesies that, in realty had been applied in one form or another to Black people wanting their Civil Rights, Jews who were the evil Shylocks until the world saw how this attitude led to the killing of six million of them, and even Catholics, believed to be the destruction of America until the church started acting more Baptist.

The warnings don’t change, who the target is does.

In the current uproar about Transgender students wanting to be acknowledged, respected, and having a positive school experience reveals not only people’s chosen ignorance about what it is to be Transgender as the facts weaken the chosen arguments, and, worse, people’s not accepting the realities of these students’ existence in a society that is too quick to find the bad side of things while ignoring the good.

And this love of ignorance is best illustrated by Tom Cotton’s latest attempt to save America.

In justifying conservative efforts to bar trans girls from participating in school sports and to prevent trans people from using the correct bathrooms and locker rooms both in and outside of schools, the new tactic is to erase reality in the name of “Parental Rights”.

The traditional response to someone’s “coming out” has been rejection by family and society, loss of housing and jobs, and the exclusion from certain careers and places to live. Sadly, many students who come out to family enter the huge number of homeless GLBT students since they are thrown out of their homes and become victims of the dark side of society with a desperate need to spend a night out of the cold with the only way to make a buck and get inside, tricking.

Attending school becomes impossible without a steady residence, and academics hold little sway over basic survival. For most Gay kids, they can only live their true selves out of sight and earshot of their families knowing what would happen if mom finds out the chance of her having grandchildren has been severely reduced.

Tom Cotton has proposed a bill to stop what he calls the overstepping of “parental rights”, even if part of those rights is the rejection of children and endangering some in the unproven attempts, usually church related, to get the Gay out.

His bill would ban public schools from affirming a Trans student’s gender identity without permission from the student’s parents or guardians including using a student’s preferred and affirming pronouns, allowing the use the bathroom or locker room that matches a student’s gender identity, or using chosen names.

Further, if a school was found to be affirming the student without parental permission, the school would lose federal funding. 

He calls it the “Empower Parents to Protect Their Kids Act, which truly does not protect students, but sets them up for the horrors of parental reaction to their truth in a state not open to accepting realities beyond what has been passed along by those who are uninformed, refuse to become informed, and are easily influenced by politicians and religious leaders who scare people to their way of thinking and acting because it keeps the power structure in place for those who profit from it.

The bill is overly broad as support of Transgender students in “any form” would be illegal. No forms are listed, so it is up to the perception and claim of others who may not have the welfare of the student s motivation.

School dress codes must forbid anything that might be seen as respecting the Trans students. Teachers or anyone at school, after a student has gone to them for help, will be banned from making referrals to any third-party organizations that could supply the required help.

There are reasons a student would prefer talking to an understanding school staffer than their parents they know all too well.

Like with the Texas abortion bill that deputizes every Texan to spy on, report on, and make money from turning people in connected in any way to the abortion including the Uber driver who just drove someone somewhere with no interest in why, Cotton’s bill would also allow people to sue a school that affirmed a trans student’s gender without telling the parents.

Presently, teachers are required to report signs of physical abuse when seen even if nothing comes of the report after investigation. To not do so, could mean loss of job and certification. Sometimes the abuse is at the hand of a parent and the existence of the report could cause further harm to the kid. After a student began showing up at school, with ever increasing bruises and after writing a rather disturbing essay that contained references to harm by a parent, I brought this to the principal who, instead of respecting the confidentiality of the student and teacher, brought the alleged abuser to my classroom to explain my complaint which was the first the parent knew that evidence of abuse at home was seen. The student was absent the following two days and returned on the third sporting a large number of new bruises.

Sometimes parents are not the best people to tell things to.

The bill, written by someone who loves to constantly refer to his military service, but who has no medical training, claims that gender affirmation is an “experimental intervention”.

To emphasize the evils of affirmation, Cotton also claimed that “powerful” teachers’ unions and advocacy groups are “pressuring” schools to create more trans-inclusive policies.

And why not, if that helps Trans kids have positive school experiences and a chance for a good future.

In the bill gender is determined by “reproductive potential”. Apparently, you are not a full human who has been endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights and equality if you don’t have babies or are in a position not to.

Because of societal pressure, Trans and Non-binary kids have a high rate of depression, anxiety, and even suicidal ideation. How could they not when society and people like Tom Cotton speak only of them as evil rejects from God and the Founding Father’s ideals especially at that time of life the little human pupae go through the cocoon of puberty and come out the other end someone they had never been before.

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Support can be lifesaving for marginalized kids.

Outing trans youth (or anyone) against their will can be seriously dangerous—for example, it could lead to abuse at home or youth homelessness. Republicans are spewing talk about parental rights, while apparently more than happy to take away a young person’s right to a safe school and home experience.

For Cotton, gender-affirming school policies impose “radical, harmful ideologies” on youth making schools “indoctrination camps.”

Unlike what the anti-Trans student crowds are demanding they should be allowed to do.

Anyone who has ever come out knows the potential danger of doing so and the horror of coming home to angry parents or guardians who have been told without your knowing they have been told by a meddling third party that you are anything other than heterosexual.

Now, Tom is relatively new and like the administrators I had had to deal with, has come up with a collection of old tropes dusted off, and repurposed.

After she traded teaching her white, Christian nation version of American History because God told her to do that for a seat in the Oklahoma state legislature, again another thing God told her to do, Sally Kern introduced a number of anti-GLBT bills at the beginning of each legislative session while continuing her appearances at conferences and churches to spread lies about the GLBT Community, often presenting her cause as a defense of Christianity against the onslaught of Godless, Gay attacks.

That was almost 20 years ago.

While attempting to victimize others, she attempted to play the role of the victim when her attacks were rebuffed and her lies exposed.

Among her attacks she came up with a bill to allow unregulated conversion therapy, which is a bit of debunked quackery that attempts to make Gay kids straight by promoting a relationship with Jesus, her version of him anyway, and relies heavily on induced guilt and self-loathing. Regardless what is best for the kids, they could have been sent to conversion therapy for any reason a parent might choose even if it was only because of the embarrassment having a Gay child could cause a family, or because the preacher man saying being Gay is the devil’s work.

Her proposed bill would have made it illegal for those who are trained and work impartially with children, like Child Welfare, the Oklahoma Commission on Youth, the Department of Mental Health, and the Health Department, to voice any objection to a kid being sent to unregulated and uncertified “therapists” who would take the Gay out and put the Jesus in.

There would have been no oversight of services defined as Conversion Therapy, and without inspection and oversight, including the ability to investigate a complaint, children sent to conversion therapists could have been exposed to quackery, snake oil salesmen, religious charlatans, and even child abuse and molestation conveniently passed off as therapeutic techniques.

She wanted to make legitimate therapy more difficult to obtain.

“No counselor, therapist, social worker, administrator, teacher
or other individual who provides counseling, guidance or
instructional services for a public school, public school district
or technology center school district may refer a student under the
age of eighteen (18) years to, nor provide the contact information,
business card, brochure or other informational materials of an
individual, organization or entity not employed by or under the
direct control of the school district in which that student is
enrolled if the referral or information provided pertains to human
sexuality without notifying the parents or legal guardians of the
student either by email, personal phone call or text message
at least twenty-four (24) hours prior to making the referral or
providing the information”.

This would have harmed more than GLBT kids, and, considering that a very broad definition of “Human Sexuality” can be applied, and will be, if history and experience count for anything, to any positive GLBT information and the advertising of GLBT student friendly things like PFLAG, Community events, sources of information, or anything to do with safe spaces. It could be used to deny GLBT students necessary information not denied equally to religion, even though religion deals with human sexuality in many ways.

Students would have been forced into harmful silence as they may have feared having whomever they talked to call their parents and outing them, or, worse, avoid asking important questions as they might feel they would have been putting whoever the school related adult is in a terrible position and could have been responsible for any adverse action taken against that person by school administration.
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Sally was asking to be able to legally abuse students mentally and emotionally. She wanted to scar them for life and be excused for doing it.

What she, and hopefully Cotton, is not able to accomplish by preaching their interpretation of the Gospel that would be bringing people closer to the God of their making, she attempted to do by legislation as he is now.

She wanted to ruin children’s lives and adversely affect their future all in the name of her god, using the state legislature to do it.

Cotton wants to do that now.

Oklahoma City Schools added Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity twelve years ago this month to school district policies. All the terrible things that were supposed to happen with this, never did. As a matter of fact, life became more positive for the students and slowly the district has taken up educating itself about the realities of gender as opposed clinging to what information existed before new facts were found.

Perhaps, some day, Tommy will too

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