Posted on 02/22/2013 4:21:31 AM PST by IbJensen
BOSTON, February 19, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester has issued orders to the state’s K-12 public schools requiring them to permit “transgender” boys and girls to use the opposite sex’s locker rooms, bathrooms, and changing facilities as long as they claim to identify with that gender.
Many elementary schools in smaller Massachusetts towns include children from kindergarten through eighth grade, making it possible for boys as old as 14 to share toilet facilities with girls as young as five.
Under Chester's leadership, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) released an 11-page document on Friday outlining this and other new guidelines giving “transgender” students special status and privileges in Massachusetts schools. Some family advocates are calling the document, which was prepared with assistance from homosexual and transgender advocacy groups, “the most thorough, invasive, and radical transgender initiative ever seen on a statewide level.”
The policy does not require a doctor’s note or even parental permission for a child to switch sexes in the eyes of Massachusetts schools. Only the student’s word is needed: If a boy says he’s a girl, as far as the schools are concerned, he’s a girl.
“The responsibility for determining a student’s gender identity rests with the student,” the statement says. “A school should accept a student’s assertion of his or her gender identity when there is … ‘evidence that the gender-related identity is sincerely held as part of a person’s core identity.’” That evidence, according to the document, can be as simple as a statement given by a friend.
That means, according to the newly issued school policies, that boys who say they identify as girls must be addressed by the feminine pronoun and be listed as girls on official transcripts.
They must also be allowed access to girls’ facilities and be allowed to play on girls’ athletic and club teams. The same is true for girls who say they are boys.
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The document was issued to clarify the schools’ obligations in light of “An Act Relative to Gender Identity,” a law that went into effect last July. That bill amended Massachusetts law “to establish that no person shall be excluded from or discriminated against in admission to a public school of any town, or in obtaining the advantages, privileges and courses of study of such public school on account of gender identity.”
However, Brian Camenker, spokesman for government watchdog group MassResistance, told LifeSiteNews the DESE’s new directives go far beyond what the law requires.
Camenker pointed out that the only requirement the Gender Identity bill imposed on schools was to add “gender identity” to their non-discrimination policies, alongside other protected groups such as religious or ethnic minorities. Under the DESE’s policy, however, self-identified transgendered students will have more rights than other students, including the right to access bathroom and changing facilities of the opposite sex and play on the opposite sex’s sports teams.
Not only that, but students who object may be subject to punishment under the state’s new “anti-bullying” law, which, like the new school policy, was written with the help of homosexual and transgender activist groups.
Under that law, any outwardly negative reaction against transgenderism can now be considered bullying, and subject to discipline and punishment, according to Camenker.
“The directive is clear that there is to be no tolerance for students who become uncomfortable or upset at these situations being pushed on them,” Camenker wrote. “The school's approach is to be unyielding to any such discomfort, and to re-educate those students to have more ‘acceptable’ reactions and values.”
“[It] is completely natural for a child to feel very uncomfortable using a female name for an individual they know to be male, seeing a boy in girl’s clothing, or feeling it’s unfair that a boy is competing athletically as a girl,” Camenker added. “These feelings are now considered by the school to be backwards and disruptive.”
Andrew Beckwith, attorney for Massachusetts Family Institute, called the document’s definition of transgender “extremely broad.”
“If a male student tells his teacher he feels like a girl on the inside, the school has to treat him in every way as if he actually is a girl,” Beckwith said. “School personnel may be forbidden from informing the parents of their child’s gender decisions, and students can even decide to be one gender at home and another at school.”
Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, worries that the new policy could put girls at particular risk for violations ranging from privacy invasions to sexual assault.
“The School Commissioner’s first duty is to protect all students, from kindergarten to grade 12, not endanger them,” Mineau said in a statement. “The overriding issue with this new policy is that opening girls’ bathrooms to boys is an invasion of privacy and a threat to all students’ safety.”
The DESE expressed awareness that parents and students would likely have concerns, but they dismissed such feelings as invalid.
“Some students may feel uncomfortable with a transgender student using the same sex-segregated restroom, locker room or changing facility,” the document concedes, but then admonishes administrators, “this discomfort is not a reason to deny access to the transgender student.”
The Massachusetts Family Institute reminded the public that during debate, the gender identity law that led to this new policy had been called the “Stealth Bathroom Bill” by critics. At the time, the part of the law explicitly opening all public bathrooms to self-identified transgender people was removed in response to concerns about safety and privacy.
In schools, however, the bathroom provisions will now effectively be put back in.
Democratic State Rep. Colleen Garry has introduced amending legislation to the current law intended to force people to use restrooms and locker room facilities consistent with their anatomical sex.
“Like many of my colleagues, I am very concerned about Commissioner Chester’s directive to open public school bathrooms to all genders,” said Garry. “This was not the intent of the Legislature, and we need to pass legislation that clearly defines the use of such facilities.”
For all the people that have “no problem” with homosexuality... the slide continues to their ultimate goal! Everyone will bow to THEIR belief system! No exceptions allowed. If you freak out over this, you are “intolerant.”
What could go wrong?
Someone needs to just slap some sence into that woman.
And they want to teach the six year old girl that that is OK?
There is something truly evil and disgusting about this. How far does it have to go before people rise up?
Not surprising at all to see Deval's officers of state coming out as pedophiles and perverts. It's also not surprising to see that they are totalitarians with a grudge against females.
That second revolution folks are talking about might well begin in Massachusetts this weekend ~
If his pants are down, then I bet that 100 out of 100 girls would say "he's a boy".
That OUGHT to count for something.
Is it any wonder that American children are confused? Transgender is a perversion, NOT NORMAL. But when you normalize everything, there is simply no right or wrong. Heartbreaking for the kids in Massachusetts.
A republican sponsored the law that created this fiasco: Richard Tisei.
So how long will it take for some creative high school guys to say they are transgendered lesbians so should be allowed to use the girls locker room...
5 seconds
homosexuality is so “yesterday”
budding adolescent pedophiles now need to realize that transgender is where the action is
Why can’t elementary bathrooms just be single toilet stalls? I remember when I was in elementary school—a row of six to eight toilets lined up side by side without anything in between.
If we want to humor the freaks, we should at least do it sensibly. Have one restroom labeled “boys and girls with dangling genitals” and the other labeled “boys and girls with internal genitals”. That way we are not denying the self-assigned gender identity that modern perverts think is a personal choice.
The Neo Europa states from New York north and east should be purged from the Union. They are not American and are just no longer required.
And like a typical female, what happens if he/she chooses to change their mind?
ROMNEY MUST BE SO PROUD.
Bills are being filed to stop this:
http://massresistance.com/docs/govt13/mr_bills/mr_bills_filed_0113.html
Homeschooling is difficult to do in Massachusetts. Massresistance should also try to have the homeschooling laws repealed so parents can easily homeschool their children without government interference.
I imagine after more parents here of this, they will want to consider other options.
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