Virginia high school teacher fired for refusing to use transgender student's new pronouns

A Virginia high school teacher was fired Thursday for refusing to use a transgender student’s new pronouns, a case believed to be the first of its kind in the state.

After a four-hour hearing, the West Point School Board voted 5-0 to terminate Peter Vlaming, a French teacher at West Point High School who resisted administrators’ orders to use male pronouns to refer to a ninth-grade student who had undergone a gender transition. The board met in closed session for nearly an hour before the vote.

Like a similar transgender rights case in nearby Gloucester County that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Vlaming’s situation could present a novel legal case as public bodies continue to grapple with how to reconcile anti-discrimination policies with the rights of religious employees.

FWIW

Transitioning is sometimes confused with sex reassignment surgery (SRS), but that is only one possible element of transitioning. Many people who transition choose not to have SRS, or do not have the means to do so. Whereas SRS is a surgical procedure, transitioning is more holistic and usually includes physical, psychological, social, and emotional changes. Some transgender and non-binary people have little or no desire to undergo surgery to change their body but will transition in other ways.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitioning_(transgender)

From: Sean Taeschner
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2018 9:27 AM
To: pdiggs@wpschools.net; ejenkins@wpschools.net; pdorsey@wpschools.net; klawson@wpschools.net; dolsson@wpschools.net
Subject: We Are All Held Hostage-What the Hell is Next?

Dear School Board Members of West Point High School, Virginia:

How conveniently you have collectively caved to those who would hold hostage our freedom of speech and religious beliefs out of fear of being sued by students who have decided to run the schools, rather than the adults. SHAME ON ALL OF YOU!
What is next, ISLAM holding us hostage to their religious beliefs? What about the NAZIS and their political beliefs? Who are you really, ultimately protecting?
Your decision to fire teacher, Peter Vlaming, for misusing a gender pronoun for a student who decided to change her gender and force all of those around her to do the same, is insanity. You have just committed an act of public cowardice and shown that you do not support your teachers or staff when it comes to upholding ALL of our freedoms under the U.S. Constitution. You are, in effect, protecting a NEW CLASS of people who have decided that RULES NO LONGER MATTER, nor anyone else’s rights! Your cowardice screams of Judas betraying Jesus for thirty pieces of silver...then doing it again! How will you explain this to God at your judgment(s)? He will hold you ULTIMATELY ACCOUNTABLE.
Where is your courage in the face of the enemy? Why the cowardice? Why have adults running your schools? Just surrender to the students and their parents and close the school buildings and just let the students make up their own rules!
As I learned it in teaching school, the formative years of Kindergarten through third grade were about teaching all students to follow rules, be considerate, not hurt others’ feelings (what about the teacher’s?), line up, and learn SOCIETAL RULES, and GET ALONG. If this can no longer be done, then all students should be home schooled, as well as become online learners. No offenses there!

I hope this matter gets resolved in the Supreme Court of the United States and that ALL OF YOU lose your positions on the school board BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.
Bullies and Pussies....all of you!

Respectfully,

Sean T. Taeschner, M.Ed.
School teacher in Seattle

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