Maine
Fight over gender identity and schools hits small Maine towns
TURNER, Maine — Adam Blake was nervous about his nation and his 5 children. That’s why he confirmed up to a faculty board assembly on Thursday.
“It’s only a sluggish degradation of society, and it’s simply the course we’re moving into,” he mentioned.
Everybody was there to speak about one e-book within the Leavitt Space Excessive College library — “Gender Queer: A Memoir.” Printed by a non-binary writer to early acclaim, the graphic novel has been on the heart of a nationwide debate about gender id in colleges since 2021.
For these on Blake’s facet, the e-book was pushing depravity on impressionable youngsters. However its supporters mentioned the lives of transgender college students have been on the road. After the board determined to maintain the e-book on the shelf, critics threatened to drag their children from colleges.
Different Maine cities have seen extra dramatic fights. In Paris, a college board member was recalled after backing a gender id coverage. After a mom got here ahead in Damariscotta to allege that an educator overstepped boundaries by offering her 13-year-old with a tool utilized by transgender males to make their chest look much less female, the varsity district obtained bomb threats.
These debates have pitted dad and mom towards one another and even led to some accusing college officers with out proof of “grooming” youngsters, corroding a fraught relationship between dad and mom and colleges lingering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Within the crossfire are a small variety of transgender and gender non-conforming college students.
“The agricultural Maine I grew up with was a lot about autonomy and self-determination,” mentioned Syd Sanders, a 20-year outdated transgender man who was the valedictorian at Belfast Excessive College and now attends Harvard College. “I don’t perceive it.”
The Damariscotta story took off in December after the information arm of the conservative Maine Coverage Institute reported on it, prompting articles in nationwide retailers like Breitbart, The Every day Wire and The Blaze. The eye spurred two bomb threats towards Nice Salt Bay Group College on Dec. 21 and Jan. 13, college board members mentioned in a letter this month.
Whereas they mentioned confidentiality legal guidelines barred them from going into element, college board members mentioned these allegations have been “grossly inaccurate” and pushed by these bothered by non-discrimination insurance policies. Many particulars concerning the scenario stay unclear. The lady and her lawyer declined to remark, and Superintendent Lynsey Johnston mentioned the district was not presently concerned in litigation.
Parental rights additionally have been a flashpoint in an try by the Paris-based college board to create a coverage affirming help to transgender college students. The principles would have directed employees to check with college students by their chosen pronouns whereas preserving that from dad and mom if a scholar requested it. That outraged some dad and mom, who efficiently recalled college board member Sarah Otterson and drove one other, Julia Lester, to resign.
Lester, a transgender woman herself, was considered one of quite a few contributors within the Paris debate who declined to be interviewed. Reached by telephone, she repeatedly mentioned it was a “college board concern” and that she didn’t need to remark. Otterson didn’t reply to calls.
“On this polarized nation, I feel Paris has adopted the developments of the nation,” mentioned Alex Myers, a well known transgender writer and advocate who grew up within the Oxford County city however now lives in Vermont. “There’s lots much less passive tolerance, which is what I skilled as a child.”
For Sanders, acceptance from lecturers could be a life-or-death concern. Solely about 1,200 Mainers between ages 13 and 17 determine as transgender, in keeping with June 2022 estimates from the Williams Institute on the College of California at Los Angeles. 4 in 10 transgender individuals try suicide, in keeping with a 2015 survey of roughly 28,000 trans People. It’s round 9 occasions the nationwide price.
In Turner, Christine Duplissis shook her head when district instructor Marlene Aguilar and others referenced these sorts of statistics whereas arguing that the best choice was supporting transgender college students by means of illustration and respect for his or her id.
Duplissis insists her struggle towards the e-book isn’t about transgender rights, noting an in depth homosexual member of the family. Her concern is the specific content material in “Gender Queer,” which incorporates depictions of masturbation and simulated fellatio. The e-book shouldn’t be the one e-book gaining consideration. In Hermon, dad and mom have recognized 80 books containing what they see as questionable sexual content material in class libraries.
“When you attain the age of consent, you may learn no matter you need,” mentioned Hermon Councilor Richard Cyr, who helps a coverage that may display screen books for sexual content material. “However that’s completely inappropriate.”
Whereas specialists suggest towards publicity to graphic sexual content material at too early an age, in addition they say that gender id may be decided by age 3. Sexuality usually develops after the onset of puberty, with research more and more pointing to predominant organic influences together with hormonal and environmental ones.
On Thursday, college board members in assist of preserving the e-book mentioned opponents have accused training officers of making an attempt to show college students transgender or homosexual or known as them pedophiles. Staffers are going through immense strain, Leavitt Space Excessive College Principal Judith Lashman mentioned, including she had by no means seen a push for restrictions like this in many years on the job.
“Our job is to fulfill youngsters precisely the place they’re,” mentioned college board member Tammy Fereshetian, who sided with the bulk in a 6-2-1 vote to retain the e-book. “As an grownup studying this e-book, it helps me to do that.”