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U.K.: Two Teens Lure Transgender Girl to Her Death

By dianeravitch
December 29, 2023 //
10

When I read this story, I was horrified by its brutality. What struck me was that this teen who was murdered wasn’t bothering anybody, was loved by her parents, but somehow somehow thought she was an easy mark and didn’t deserve to live. It made me think of how certain politicians are endangering kids like this by their rhetoric. I don’t know anyone who is trans, but I wonder why the politicians are stirring up fear and hatred about them. Can’t we just live and let live?

The New York Times reported:

Two teenagers were found guilty on Wednesday of murdering Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old transgender girl who was stabbed 28 times at a park in northwest England in February, local prosecutors said.

The two, both 16 and referred to by prosecutors only as “Girl X” and “Boy Y,” had carefully planned the killing in a series of WhatsApp messages, before attempting to cover up their crime, the Crown Prosecution Service in the United Kingdom said in a statement.

The two had pleaded not guilty, but were convicted by a jury after an 18-day trial in Manchester Crown Court, local authoritiessaid. Their lawyers could not be immediately reached for comment on Wednesday evening.

Justice Amanda Yip told the two teens, who will not be named because of their age, that she would “have to impose a life sentence” but would need to consider the minimum time they would be required to serve before being considered for release, the BBC reported.
“The planning, the violence and the age of the killers is beyond belief,” prosecutors said in the statement, noting that Brianna, a student in the town of Birchwood, had been stabbed in a public park in broad daylight in a “frenzied and ferocious attack.” Prosecutors described the “deadly influence” of the two teens upon one another, as their fantasies of torture and murder manifested into a reality that left Brianna dead.

Speaking after the trial, Brianna’s mother, Esther Ghey, said that she was glad the two teens, who she said had failed to “display an ounce of remorse,” would spend many years in prison. “To know how scared my usually fearless child must have been when she was alone in that park, with someone that she called her friend, will haunt me forever,” Ms. Ghey said.

According to court documents, Brianna was discovered on the afternoon of Feb. 11 by a couple walking in Culcheth Linear Park, about 12 miles west of Manchester, when they noticed the two teens standing near what they believed to be a dog. As the couple approached, the teens fled, and they instead found Brianna, stabbed multiple times in the head, back, chest and neck.

The extent of the wounds, which included deep and severe lacerations to Brianna’s veins, heart and bones, prosecutors added, left “no doubt that she was the victim of a sustained and violent assault.” Shortly afterward, emergency medical workers arrived at the park, and pronounced Brianna dead.

According to prosecutors, “Girl X,” and “Boy Y,” who were both 15 at the time, were close friends who often texted about their crushes and relationships. They were also “preoccupied with violence,” prosecutors added, sharing violent videos of torture, debating the merits of various nerve agents as means to murder, and plotting how to kill people.

In December 2022, “Girl X” also confided in “Boy Y” that she was “obsessed” with Brianna, whom she had met about a month earlier, according to prosecutors. Brianna was born as a boy, but was living as a girl and using female pronouns, they said. By January, however, “X’s fascination with Brianna had turned darker,” prosecutors said, leading her to confide in “Boy Y” that she had tried to kill Brianna with an overdose of ibuprofen tablets.

People “already know she is depressed,” “Girl X” wrote in a message to “Boy Y” on Jan. 23, indicating that she believed others were likely to get suspicious. But “for some reason she has a high tolerance like I gave her some today that should have been enough to kill her,” she added. Although Brianna had felt ill and vomited, “she didn’t die,” “Girl X” said in the message. According to the documents, Brianna’s mother confirmed her daughter had been sick that week, and that her vomit had contained what she thought were grape skins but could have been the remnants of ibuprofen tablets.

In the following days, the two teens continued discussing various methods for killing Brianna, as well as four other people they knew, according to prosecutors, and by late January, had formulated their plan to stab her in the park. On Feb. 10, “Girl X” told “Boy Y” that she had sent a message to Brianna encouraging her to come to the park the following day to take drugs, and that Brianna had confirmed she would be there at 1 p.m. “Boy Y” confirmed he was bringing his hunting knife, prosecutors said.

Brianna, who had red hair and glasses, and that day wore a short gray tartan skirt, long white socks and a fluffy white hooded jacket, left home around 12:45 p.m. on Feb. 11, according to prosecutors. About an hour after leaving home, Brianna, who according to her mother, rarely went out alone, texted her mother: “I’m on the bus by myself, I’m scared.”

Categories Gender

Maurice Cunningham on the Rise and Fall of Moms for Liberty

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2023 //
5

Maurice Cunningham, a retired professor who is a specialist in dark money in education politics, surveys the meteoric rise and fall of the rightwing group Moms for Liberty in The Progressive. First, the recently formed organization gathered plenty of publicity as a fearsome force censoring books, accusing teachers of “indoctrinating” students, attacking anything in the schools that acknowledged the existence of gay students or families, and opposing teachers unions. The Moms launched with a big budget, more than anyone could gather at a bake sale. But came the school board elections of 2023, and their candidates took a shellacking. Recently came news that one of their prominent co-founders, Bridget Ziegler, was caught in a sex scandal—a threesome—and the organization was publicly humiliated.

Maurice Cunningham wonders how this checkered organization will survive.

He writes:

On June 30, 2023, a Washington Post headline declared “Moms for Liberty didn’t exist three years ago. Now it’s a GOP kingmaker.” On November 10, 2023, after a raft of school board elections across the country, the Post ran another headline: “Voters drub Moms for Liberty ‘parental rights’ candidates at the ballot.” Moms for Liberty (M4L) not only didn’t make any kings, it didn’t even make many school board members. What happened?

The pre-election headline reflected the messaging skills that M4L has carefully honed to make itself more palatable. By November, however, the reality on the ground became clear.

To learn the origins and context of this group, open the link and read on. The article doesn’t mention the Ziegler sex scandal. Cunningham wrote about that in an article in the Tampa Bay Tribune, but it’s behind a paywall. The Moms are on a downhill slide as a result of their election losses, followed by Bridget’s bisexual tryst. Her ex-friends removed her name from the Moms website.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Cruelty, Dark Money, Democracy, DeSantis, Elections, Extremism, Failure, Florida, Freedom to Read, Gender, Hypocrisy

Josh Cowen: 2023 Was a Banner Year for Vouchers, Censorship, and Attacks on LGBT Kids

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2023 //
7

Writing in the Washington Spectator, veteran voucher researcher Josh Cowen reports that 2023 was a good year for some very bad ideas, many supported by prominent rightwingers and Dark Money, whose sources are hidden.

He finds it unsurprising that the voucher movement works closely with book banners and efforts to humiliate LGBT youth.

Cowen is a professor of education policy at Michigan State University who has studied vouchers since 2005.

He writes:

Over the past 12 months, the decades-long push to divert tax dollars toward religious education has reached new heights. As proclaimed by EdChoice—the advocacy group devoted to school vouchers—2023 has been the year these schemes reached “escape velocity.” In strictly legislative terms, seven states passed new voucher systems, and ten more expanded existing versions. Eleven states now run universal vouchers, which have no meaningful income or other restrictions.

But these numbers change quickly. As late as the last week of November, the Republican governor of Tennessee announced plans to create just such a universal voucher system.

To wit: successful new voucher and related legislation has come almost exclusively in states won by Donald Trump in 2020. And even that Right-ward bent required substantial investment—notably by heiress and former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and the Koch network—in state legislative campaigns to oust voucher opponents. Instructively, many of those opponents were often GOP legislators representing rural districts with few private schools to benefit.

As a scholar who has studied voucher systems—including through research funded by conservative organizations—I have been watching these developments with growing concern. It can all be difficult to make sense of, so let’s walk through it.

Vouchers Hurt Kids, Defund Public Schools and Prop-Up Church Budgets

First, why are these new voucher schemes such bad public policy? To understand the answer, it’s important to know that the typical voucher-accepting school is a far cry from the kind of elite private academy you might find in a coastal city or wealthy suburban outpost. Instead, they’re usually sub-prime providers, akin to predatory lenders in the mortgage sector. These schools are either pop-ups opening to cash in on the new taxpayer subsidy, or financially distressed existing schools desperate for a bailout to stay open. Both types of financially insecure schools often close anyway, creating turnover for children who were once enrolled.

And the voucher results reflect that educational vulnerability: in terms of academic impacts, vouchers have some of the worst results in the history of education research—on par or worse than what COVID-19 did to test scores.

Those results are bad enough, but the real issue today is that they come at a cost of funding traditional public schools. As voucher systems expand, they cannibalize states’ ability to pay for their public education commitments. Arizona, which passed universal vouchers in 2022, is nearing a genuine budget crisis as a result of voucher over-spending. Six of the last seven states to pass vouchers have had to slow spending on public schools relative to investments made by non-voucher states.

That’s because most new voucher users were never in the public schools—they are new financial obligations for states. The vast majority of new voucher beneficiaries have been students who were already in private school beforehand. And for many rural students who live far from the nearest private school, vouchers are unrealistic in the first place, meaning that when states cut spending on public education, they weaken the only educational lifeline available to poorer and more remote communities in some places. That’s why even many GOP legislators representing rural districts—conservative in every other way—continue to fight against vouchers.

Vouchers do, however, benefit churches and church schools. Right-wing advocacy groups have been busy mobilizing Catholic school and other religious school parents to save their schools with new voucher funding. In new voucher states, conservatives are openly advocating for churches to startup taxpayer-funded schools. That’s why vouchers eventually become a key source of revenue for those churches, often replacing the need to rely on private donations. It’s also why many existing religious schools raise tuition almost immediately after vouchers pass.

The Right-Wing War on Public Schools

Victories for these voucher bills is nothing short of an ascendent Right-wing war on public education. And the link to religious nationalism energizes much of that attack.

Voucher bills have dovetailed almost perfectly with new victories for other priorities of the Religious Right. Alongside vouchers, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation has also increased: 508 new bills in 2023 alone, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. As has a jump in legislation restricting book access in schools and libraries, with more than half of those bans targeting books on topics related to race and racism, or containing at least one LGBTQ+ character.

It is also important to note the longstanding antipathy that Betsy DeVos, the Koch Network, and other long-term voucher backers have toward organized labor—including and especially in this case, teachers’ unions. And that in two states that passed vouchers this year—Iowa and Arkansas—the governors also signed new rollbacks to child labor protections at almost the exact same time as well.

To close the 2022 judicial session, the Supreme Court issued its latest expansion of voucher jurisprudence in Carson v. Makin, holding that states with private school voucher programs may not exclude religious providers from applying tax dollars specifically to religious education. That ruling came just 72 hours before the Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson removed reproductive rights from federal constitutional protections.

To hear backers of vouchers, book bans, and policies targeting transgender students in school bathrooms tell it, such efforts represent a new movement toward so-called “parents’ rights” or “education freedom,” as Betsy DeVos describes in her 2022 memoir. But in truth this latest push was a long time coming. DeVos is only one part of the vast network of Right-wing donors, activists, and organizations devoted to conservative political activism.

That network, called the Council for National Policy, includes representatives from the Heritage Foundation, the influential Right-wing policy outfit; multiple organizations funded by Charles Koch; the Leadership Institute, which trains young conservative activists; and a number of state policy advocacy groups funded by a conservative philanthropy called the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

It was the Bradley Foundation that seeded much of the legal work in the 1990s defending early voucher programs in state and federal courts. Bradley helped to fund the Institute for Justice, a legal group co-founded by a former Clarence Thomas staffer named Clint Bolick after a personal donation from Charles Koch. The lead trial attorney for that work was none other than Kenneth Starr, who was at the time also in the middle of his infamous pursuit of President Bill Clinton.

In late 2023, the Institute for Justice and the voucher-group EdChoice announced a new formal venture, but that partnership is just a spin on an older collaboration, with the Bradley Foundation as the tie that binds. EdChoice itself, when it was called the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, helped fund the data analysis cited by Institute lawyers at no less than the Supreme Court ahead of its first decision approving vouchers in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002).

From these vantage points, 2023 was a long time coming indeed.

And heading into 2024, the voucher push and its companion “parents’ rights” bills on schoolbooks and school bathrooms show no sign of weakening.

Prior to his political career, the new Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, was an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom. That group, which itself has deep ties to Betsy DeVos’s family, has led the legal charge to rollback LBGTQ+ equality initiatives. It was also involved “from the beginning,” as its website crows, in the anti-abortion effort that culminated with Dobbs.

The Heritage Foundation has created a platform called Project 2025, which serves as something of a clearinghouse for what would be the legal framework and policy agenda for a second Trump Administration. Among the advisors and funders of Project 2025 are several organizations linked to Charles Koch, Betsy DeVos, and others with ties to the Council for National Policy. The Project’s education agenda includes dismantling the U.S. Department of Education—especially its oversight authority on anti-discrimination issues—and jumpstarting federal support for voucher programs.

A dark money group called The Concord Fund has launched an entity called Free to Learn, ostensibly organized around opposition to the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. In reality, these are active players in Republican campaign attacks around a variety of education-related culture war issues. The Concord Fund is closely tied to Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society chief, Council of National Policy member, and architect of the Roe takedown. Through the Leo connection, the Concord Fund was also instrumental in confirming Donald Trump’s judicial nominations from Brett Kavanaugh on downward.

And so while the 2023 “parents’ rights” success has been largely a feature of red state legislatures, the 2022 Carson ruling and the nexus between Leonard Leo, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Institute for Justice itself underscore the importance of the federal judiciary to Right-wing education activism.

Long-term, the goal insofar as school privatization is concerned appears to be nothing short of a Supreme Court ruling that tax-subsidized school vouchers and homeschool options are mandatory in every state that uses public funding (as all do) to support education. The logic would be, as Betsy DeVos herself previewed before leaving office, that public spending on public schools without a religious option is a violation of Free Exercise protections.

Such a ruling, in other words, would complete the destruction of a wall between church and state when it comes to voucher jurisprudence. Earlier Court decisions have found that states may spend tax dollars on school vouchers but, as the Right’s ultimate goal, the Supreme Court would determine that states must.

Closer on the horizon, we can expect to see each of these Right-wing groups acting with new energy as the 2024 campaign season heats up. The president of the Heritage Foundation—himself yet another member of the Council for National Policy—has recently taken over the think tank’s political arm, called Heritage Action. At the start of the year, investigative reporting linked Heritage Action to earlier voter suppression initiatives, signaling potential tactics ahead.

And the money is going to flow—they have all said as much. After Heritage’s merger of its policy and political arms, Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children followed suit by creating the AFC Victory Fund—a new group to spearhead its own campaign activity.

Their plan includes a $10 million base commitment to ramp up heading into 2024. “Coming off our best election cycle ever,” AFC’s announcement declared, “the tectonic plates have shifted decisively in favor of educational freedom, and we’re just getting started.” And, they warned:

“If you’re a candidate or lawmaker who opposes school choice and freedom in education – you’re a target.”

In that threat lies the reality of the latest voucher push, and of this moment of so-called parents’ rights. None of this is a grassroots uprising. “Education freedom” is a top-down, big-money operation, tied to every other political priority of religious nationalism today.

But coming at the end of this past year’s legislative successes, AFC’s warnings are also a very clear statement of what is yet to come. The push to privatize American education is only just getting started.

Vouchers have turned into a campaign to subsidize the tuition of affluent parents while cutting the funding of public schools. This does not augur well for the health and future of our nation.

Categories Bigotry, Billionaires, Catholic Schools, Censorship, Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, Extremism, Fraud, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read, Funding, Gender, Home Schooling, Ignorance, Librarians, Libraries, Literacy, Literature, Privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Florida: One Transgender Girl

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2023 //
82

An anonymous tipster called the superintendent of Broward County schools in Florida and told him that a trans girl (born male) was playing on the Monarch High School girls’ volleyball team. The superintendent suspended the principal and assistant principal of the high school, as well as the student’s mother (who worked in information technology), and members of the athletic staff—five in all.

The student has identified as female since second grade. As punishment for allowing her to play on the girls’ volleyball team, in defiance of state law, the Florida High School Athletic Association fined the school $16,500, ordered the principal and athletic director to attend rules seminars and placed the high school on probation for 11 months; further violations could lead to increased punishments. In addition, the association barred the girl from participating in boys sports for 11 months. It’s easy to predict that she will not play on the boys’ team.

The students at Monarch High School have walked out twice to protest the loss of their principal, who was well-liked and accessible.

What a frenzy because one student played on the girls’ volleyball team and was not an unusually strong player. Governor DeSantis and Commissioner Diaz succeeded in humiliating this one child. What brave men they are!

The following story by Brittany Walkman appeared in The Miami Herald.

When Daisy was 10, she stood in front of a microphone in a green dress, her long hair pulled back in a purple headband.

“Living in Broward County has given me the sense of safety,” she said to the Broward County School Board members, who were honoring LGBTQ History Month, “knowing that the school board has my back.”

Daisy, a transgender girl, seemed to be growing up in an era of unprecedented acceptance.

That was 2017, two years before Gov. Ron DeSantis would take office. In a short time, she crossed a cultural chasm.

Schools in Florida — and even Broward, the most Democrat-leaning county in the state — have been remodeled under DeSantis and the Republican-led Legislature.

In the years Daisy aged into her teens, taking estrogen to affirm her identity as a girl, Florida’s schools became a cultural battleground, with legislative spears lobbed at the books students read, the classes they take, the history they learn, the topics they discuss in classrooms, the bathrooms students like Daisy use, the gender-affirming healthcare they receive, and the team sports they compete in.

Though transgender people are a small fraction of the population – an estimated 0.8 percent, according to the U.S. Census, and 2.3 percent of Broward’s student body — they’re an outsized target, much to the disappointment of LGBTQ advocates.

“These attacks have not come from real issues,” said Nic Zantop, deputy director of Transinclusive Group, a South Florida service and advocacy organization. “These are manufactured issues.”

Daisy’s presence the past two years on a girls’ volleyball team at Monarch High School in Coconut Creek now threatens the jobs of her mother, information management systems employee Jessica Norton; and four others at her school, including Principal James Cecil.

They’re under investigation by the school district for potentially violating a state law prohibiting a person born with male anatomy from playing on female sports teams.

When Daisy’s family sued Florida over the law two years ago, it drew little attention — in stark contrast to last week’s events, when her plight exploded across national headlines.

Even the Democrats on the Broward school board — known for embracing LGBTQ causes — remained silent about her last week. Only her classmates offered support, staging two days of walkouts.

“It was very heartwarming to see that the generation that follows us understands acceptance, inclusiveness and diversity,” said Michael Rajner, a longtime LGBTQ activist who serves as chair of the Broward County Human Rights Board. “I can’t tell you how proud these students make me.”

Daisy’s family declined to be interviewed for this story.

Jessica Norton identified herself publicly on Monday as the athlete’s mother. The Miami Herald is using a pseudonym for the student to protect her identity.

‘I’M A GIRL’

When she learned to talk, Daisy gave voice to it. “Mommy, I’m a girl.”

The Nortons weren’t sure what to think, Jennifer Norton recounted in a social media post in 2017, when she was honored with a diversity award.

“What started out as us thinking we had a gay son turned into something much more,” Norton wrote.

When it came time to find a pre-school, Norton said “we chose the school that made the least comments about the pink sparkly flip flops that I let her wear.”

Daisy adopted a feminine name, and started using it in second grade. That year, she played soccer on the girls’ team.

A doctor diagnosed her with gender dysphoria, an internal dissonance between one’s biological sex and gender identity.

Daisy played girls’ sports for years, the lawsuit says, and her social life revolved around it: basketball, softball, soccer and — fatefully — high school volleyball.

Her family — parents Jessica and Gary, a brother and a sister — embraced her as a girl.

In one family photo posted on social media, her older sister wears a shirt that proclaims, “My sister has a penis. Get over it.”

Another shows family members celebrating Pride Month at Walt Disney World, wearing clothing with rainbows. Norton added the hashtags #ProudMom #ProudDad #TransIsBeautiful.

Norton joined the PTA to make sure her daughter wasn’t bullied. She was looking forward to Monarch High.

“I recently was hired at the high school she will eventually attend and will be working with the teachers and staff to bring awareness to the school about transgender students and their rights,” she wrote when she was honored as a transgender advocate.

Daisy registered at school as a girl, with a birth certificate to prove it. (Florida allows birth certificates to be amended.) She used the girls’ restrooms, girls’ locker and changing rooms, all without incident, court filings say.

She’d avoided male puberty by taking testosterone blockers starting at age 11 — a gender affirming care that included later putting her on estrogen, the female hormone, for life, her parents’ lawsuit said in court pleadings.

She delighted in dressing up each Halloween in elaborate Katy Perry outfits, and finally came face to face with the pop star at a concert one year.

“She is not a boy,” her lawyers wrote.

IN BLACK AND WHITE

Daisy might have avoided the turmoil that upended her life if Broward school leaders had paid attention to what she was telling them in court.

Her family sued the school district, governor and state Board of Education, among others, in the summer of 2021, when she was still in middle school.

They knew the law was about to take effect, and said Daisy planned to play soccer on the girls’ team in middle school. She also dreamed of playing high school volleyball, her lawyers wrote in lawsuit pleadings.

They thought the new law violated her civil rights. In March of this year, when Daisy was a freshman, her lawyers put it clearly: “Throughout this litigation, Plaintiff has played on a girls’ team with the threat of enforcement hanging over her head, day in and day out.”

Nevertheless, Daisy’s participation in several years of girls’ sports passed without consequence.

Until last week.

Just after a federal judge dismissed the Norton lawsuit — leaving open the possibility for it to be amended — someone tipped off Broward schools Superintendent Peter Licata on Nov. 20 that Daisy had broken the state law. Licata has not identified the tipster.

The state Department of Education said it ordered the district to “take immediate action.”

Florida Sen. Rosalind Osgood, a Democrat who sat on the Broward school board, blamed the vagueness of the state’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act for what happened at Monarch.

“Many education laws are made that are not executable and create implementation disasters,” she said.

Zantop said because the laws are nuanced, “in many places, we’ve seen maybe even over-compliance, going beyond what laws require. … I would like to see all our school officials pushing back, sticking up for their students.”

Broward schools spokesman John Sullivan said Licata, selected for the job in July, was unaware of the lawsuit, and it had no bearing on his actions. He hadn’t known Daisy had played girls’ volleyball there until he was notified in November, Sullivan said.

Others at the school district — Norton, for example — did know. The school district’s investigation, Sullivan said, will uncover “who knew what, when.”

COMPLICATED ISSUE

In the court of public opinion, the quandary of transgender athletes transcends political leanings.

A majority of Americans believe athletes should be required to play on the team that corresponds to their birth gender, according to recent polls by the Pew Research Center and Gallup,

The federal government’s approach, under Democratic President Joe Biden, would disallow one-size-fits-all bans in public schools like Florida’s.

But it would allow male-to-female transgender youth like Daisy to be prohibited from playing on girls’ teams in some circumstances, particularly competitive high school or college teams.

Schools would be required to minimize harm to the student. The proposal is still being studied. Florida opposes it.

Nearly half the states in America filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Norton lawsuit, on the Florida Board of Education’s side.

So did a Christian group and a sports advocate who opposes transgender female participation. The Christian Family Coalition, a non profit that said it lobbied heavily for passage of Florida’s law, argued that “persons born biologically as males have intrinsic and irreversible biological and physical advantages over persons born biologically as females in terms of skeletal mass, muscle mass, and lung capacity.”

Florida education officials argued that even if the transgender athlete in question isn’t a very good player, the fact that a biological female is potentially displaced from a team is enough to warrant the law.

While some sports bodies have adopted compromises like allowing an athlete to play if testosterone levels are sufficiently reduced, Florida enacted a broad ban that doesn’t take into consideration whether the person experienced male puberty.

Legislators rejected a bill that would have adopted testosterone-based criteria like that of the International Olympic Committee.

Florida’s law applies to public middle and high schools, colleges and universities.

Though he ruled against the Norton family, U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman acknowledged that Florida’s broad ban might be unfair to Daisy.

Altman, an appointee of former President Trump, said he tried his best to “honor” her pronouns in his rulings, and “acknowledge[d] that the statute creates a difficult (and perhaps unfair) situation for D.N., who identifies as a girl in all respects and who may be prohibited from playing on the teams of her choice.”

He said she could try out for a boy’s team, or play co-ed sports. He went on, in his Nov. 6 decision dismissing the case: “Our job isn’t to decide whether a law is good or bad, smart or silly, fair or unfair. We don’t even get to say whether we like the law—whether, in short, we would’ve voted for it if we had been in the legislature. Our job is to apply the law as it’s been expressed through the will of a democratically-elected legislature and the signature of a democratically-elected governor— unless (of course) the law violates some more fundamental (call it constitutional) law.”

And on that note, Judge Altman said, it doesn’t. The family has until Jan. 11 to amend its lawsuit.

NOT A ‘MISTAKE’

A fifth grade transgender girl followed Daisy to the microphone that day in 2017. She got the giggles and had to compose herself before praising her school and the district for making sure she wasn’t seen as “a mistake.”

She said her school read “I Am Jazz,” by transgender girl Jazz Jennings, a former student in Broward schools, a book that was pulled from the shelves in seven Florida counties in the last two years.

It is one of the most commonly banned transgender-themed books in America’s schools, according to PEN, a non profit authors’ advocacy group.

Florida now leads the nation in banning books at school, according to PEN. Nearly a third of the books banned nationwide last school year had characters with LGBTQ identities, according to PEN, and 6 percent had a transgender character.

Daisy said she’d had the support of her teachers when she’d transitioned. “It was the best time of my life,” she said in the televised meeting, flanked by her parents. “I got to be who I was born to be. … I know I’m one of the lucky ones.”

Though she was open about her trans status back then, her lawyers argued in recent court filings that she feared being outed in high school, where it wasn’t commonly known.

Her coach, Alex Burgess, said she didn’t stand out physically. He had no idea she was ever considered a boy.

“It’s not like she was some superstar athlete, to that extent. She was just one of my players,” he said Monday. “She was just sweet and innocent. It was just, I don’t know, it’s hard to explain, but I just can only imagine what she’s feeling.”

She’d feared being outed by a person suing under the new state law, her lawyers wrote in filings. Instead, it appeared to be the school district’s launching of an investigation — and transferring her mother and four others to off-campus jobs — that inadvertently exposed her gender history.

On Nov. 28, the day the news broke, Daisy’s mom changed her Facebook profile photo to a meme: “Life. What a f***ing nightmare.”

Daisy hasn’t returned to school since.

Staff writer Jimena Tavel contributed to this report.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article282762388.html#storylink=cpy

Categories DeSantis, Florida, Freedom, Gender

Alexandra Petri: If You Need Medical Advice in Texas, Call State Atty-General Ken Paxton

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2023 //
13

Kate Cox of Dallas, Texas, learned recently that the baby she is carrying has a genetic condition that is typically deadly, trisomy 18. She asked a court to allow her to have an abortion, and the judge agreed to permit the abortion (the judge is female).

But Ken Paxton, the State Attorney General, has threatened to punish any doctor and hospital that participate in the abortion. The Texas Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction blocking an abortion. Fox has had two caesarean births and fears that she may never be able to conceive again if forced to deliver a baby that has little chance of survival.

Who decides? Kate Cox’s doctor? Ken Paxton? The Texas Supreme Court?

Alexandra Petri, humorist for The Washington Post, comments on Paxton’s intervention:

“Judge Guerra Gamble is not medically qualified to make this determination and it should not be relied upon. A TRO is no substitute for medical judgment.”

— Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, writing to doctors who have received a court order allowing an abortion to end a nonviable pregnancy

There is no substitute for medical judgment, except the judgment of me, Ken Paxton.

Am I a doctor? No. I’m something better than a doctor: a Ken. My accessories include: no medical expertise and a boundless reservoir of cruelty. And one time, I saw a horse. I have also been told that my handwriting is bad and that I am not patient. This all screams “doctor” to me.

If we were on a plane or in a theater and someone yelled, “There is an emergency! Is there a doctor in the house?” I would absolutely raise my hand. “I am a man in a position of political authority in Texas happy to make life hell for all pregnant people. In the state of Texas, that’s better than a doctor!”

Indeed, the process for obtaining an abortion in Texas is simple. All you have to do is get a recommendation from your doctor that one is medically necessary, hire a legal team, get your case in front of a judge and obtain a court order! And then a man named Ken gets to say, “No! Let’s take this to the Supreme Court. Also, if you proceed, I will threaten your doctors!” And then the Texas Supreme Court gets to affirm Ken’s preference and halt your order. Simple. Routine. Elegant.

Texas Supreme Court temporarily halts order that allows pregnant woman to have an abortion

“This seems like a horrible, ghoulish way to behave when a person needs to access emergency medical care,” you might say. Sure! But we are not talking about a person in this case. We are talking about a woman. Totally different, in my medical opinion.

Am I a doctor? Look, I’ve always felt that nothing should limit what you can be or do, except the objections of a man named Ken in the state of Texas. Well, I’m a man named Ken in the state of Texas, and I think I am probably a doctor. And the state Supreme Court agrees.

I mean, of course, in all ways that count (chiefly, I get to make medical decisions for you), I am a doctor. Actually, maybe it would even be better if I weren’t! That would keep me from being unduly hidebound and unimaginative when faced with questions like: Which pregnancies are viable? Which are life-threatening? For too long, we’ve been constrained by what was medically possible. No more. I always try to bring an open mind and lots of questions. Should blood really be inside the body rather than outside? Maybe, instead of an epidural, we should try prayer? If a body has a uterus, then is there any room in it for legal rights? Questions of that kind!

What I don’t know about women’s health could fill a book! A book that I would refuse to read, on principle.

I am a small-government conservative. I believe that the government should be so small that it can fit into your uterus and make all medical decisions for you. Don’t try to expel it! That’s not allowed. Not in Texas! I am not a doctor, but, as a doctor, I will tell you: It is not medically safe.

I can’t believe that these judges are trying to interfere in a medical decision, as we have forced them to do under Texas state law. The effrontery! The gall! A substance I believe that I know a lot about, from my years practicing medicine! It’s what the brain is made of!

TO BE CLEAR, I AM TECHNICALLY NOT A DOCTOR, but I do get mad when people call Jill Biden one. I am only not a doctor in the sense that I haven’t been to medical school, was never a resident and think that there is a strong chance babies are carried by storks. Teach the controversy! I also have not read an anatomy book. (I hear they contain inappropriate pictures! More information requested from those in the know!) But in every other sense, I am a doctor: I am a male Republican Texan in a position of authority.

Want an abortion? In Texas, we believe in bodily autonomy and control over your medical choices. For me, Ken. Not for you, yourself. You can’t be trusted with it! But don’t worry. In Texas, there is no substitute for medical judgment. Oh, sorry! Typo. In Texas, there is no (substitute for medical judgment). The “No!” is from me, Ken Paxton.

Categories Gender, Health, Stupid, Texas

Pennsylvania: New School Board Tosses Out Rightwing Policies

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2023 //
6

In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, voters elected a new school board pledged to reverse the policies of their Moms-for-Liberty style predecessors. That meant ending censorship of library books and ending the ban on gay-friendly displays, among other things. The old school board gave the retiring superintendent a $700,000 going-away gift; the new one is trying to recover the gift.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

The new Democrat-controlled Central Bucks school board moved quickly Monday to roll back some of its GOP-led predecessors’ most controversial actions — from suspending policies restricting library books to authorizing potential legal action into the former superintendent’s $700,000 payout.

What shape the new board’s actions will ultimately take isn’t yet clear. The board’s new solicitor, for instance, said earlier Monday that he needed to learn more about the separation agreement reached between the prior board and now-resigned superintendent Abram Lucabaugh before pursuing a lawsuit.

But the crowd that lined up outside the Central Bucks administrative building to witness the swearing-in of new members Monday was ready to celebrate regardless — cheering new leadership after what numerous speakers described as two years of “chaos,” bookended by highly contentious, big-money elections.

Republicans who cemented their majority in 2021 enacted bans on teacher “advocacy” in classrooms — including the display of Pride flags — and “sexualized content” in library books, and faced a federal complaint alleging the district had discriminated against LGBTQ students.

But Democrats swept the Nov. 7 school board elections — as they did in a number of area districts where culture-war issues had dominated debate.

“Two years ago, I stood in this room a broken woman,” said Silvi Haldepur, a district parent. But “this community banded together and stood up against the hate.”

Keith Willard, a social studies teacher, told the board it was “incredibly difficult” to work for the district when the previous board had “actively marginalized people” and pushed the “belief that staff are indoctrinating kids.”

“What I ask of this board is that you help steer the ship… and return the stewardship to the people that do the real work every day” — teachers and staff, said Willard, who drew a standing ovation.

The room again broke into applause as the board voted to suspend the library and advocacy policies,as well as a policy banning transgender students from participating in sports aligned with their gender identities — a measure the former board passed at its final meeting in the wake of last month’s elections.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Censorship, Curriculum, Democrats, Education Reform, Elections, Extremism, Freedom to Read, Gender, Pennsylvania

Florida: Orlando Philharmonic Fined $5,000 for Drag Show

By dianeravitch
December 1, 2023 //
12

Governor DeSantis is teaching the nation that “parental rights” are limited. They are respected only when you agree with his ideology. For example, he hates anything related to gay people. He especially hates drag queens. So, parents do not have the right to take their children to a drag queen show, even if the show has zero sexual content. This is peculiar behavior for a short guy who wears white go-go boots to tour hurricane damage.

DeSantis is cracking down on drag queen performances. How dare parents exercise their “parental rights!”

The Orlando Sentinel reported:

The Orlando Philharmonic has settled with state regulators over its “A Drag Queen Christmas” show, agreeing to pay a $5,000 fine and to not allow children into such performances in the future.

The settlement, reached in August but only publicly announced Wednesday, came even though undercover agents reported that they found nothing lewd about the event.

The Plaza Live, owned by the Philharmonic, could have had its alcohol license revoked in the wake of the complaint filed in February by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation over the Dec. 28 show at the theater.

The agency claimed The Orlando Philharmonic Plaza Foundation, which oversees the Plaza Live, had a responsibility under Florida statutes to make sure no minors were in attendance for the show which allegedly featured “simulated sex acts.”

There was a sign at the entrance warning of potentially unsuitable content for those under the age of 18, according to the complaint.

While undercover agents took photos of three minors at the show, all apparently accompanied by adults, an incident report obtained by the Miami Herald stated that nothing indecent had happened on stage.

The Philharmonic admitted no liability by settling the dispute and agreed not to permit minors into such shows. The Philharmonic and state agency also waived all claims against each other.

A spokesperson for the Philharmonic did not respond to requests for comment on the agreement or whether the event would be held this year. No such show was listed on the calendar on the Plaza Live website on Thursday.

In Miami, the city-owned James L. Knight Center agreed to a similar $5,000 fine for a Drag Queen Christmas event the day before the Orlando show. That settlement did not find any violations of administrative or criminal laws, the Herald reported.

The show toured several Florida cities including Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Clearwater in December 2022. The Orlando show drew in large crowds of supporters who backed parents’ rights to take their children where they wish and to protest the conservative movement’s attacks on the LGBTQ community.

The show also drew protesters who claimed it exposed children to “sexually explicit” content and accused organizers of “grooming,” an allegation often baselessly directed at LGBTQ people to suggest a link between them and child abuse.

A later law criminalizing “knowingly” admitting children to “adult” live performances, signed earlier this year by Gov. Ron DeSantis, was temporarily blocked from taking effect in July by a judge who ruled that it targeted drag show performers’ free speech rights. The ongoing suit was brought by Orlando restaurant Hamburger Mary’s.

Publicity photo for the “Drag Queen Christmas Show” at the Broward Center for Performing Arts

I sent a gift of $50 to the Orlando Philharmonic to thank them for defending freedom of expression. If 99 others do the same, we can make up the ridiculous fine they were forced to pay to pander to DeSantis’s homophobia.

https://orlandophil.org/ways-you-can-give/

Categories Accountability, Censorship, DeSantis, Florida, Gender, Parents

Florida: School Officials Removed for Allowing Trans Girl to Play Girls’ Volleyball

By dianeravitch
November 28, 2023 //
36

The Florida State Education Department applauded the superintendent of schools in Broward County for taking swift and stern action when he learned that a transgender girl was allowed to play on the girls’ volleyball team at Monarch High School. The superintendent received an anonymous tip about the student and reacted by removing the principal, the assistant principal, and members of the athletic staff.

When the word got out, students staged a protest by walking out.

Following the removal of a Broward County high school principal and four employees in response to “allegations of improper student participation in sports,” Florida education officials on Tuesday said they expect “serious consequences for those responsible” and accused them of violating state law.

The comments came hours after Broward County Public School officials confirmed the reassignments of the Monarch High School employees occurred because a transgender female athlete played volleyball at the high school during the fall season and after hundreds of students staged a peaceful walkout during school hours to protest the decision. The students, who gathered on the football field and walked to the parking lot on the north end of the school, shouted, “Let her play,” “Trans rights are human rights” and “Free Cecil now,” referring to Monarch principal James Cecil, who was among the employees reassigned. Kenneth May, the assistant principal; Dione Hester, the athletic director; Jessica Norton, the girls’ volleyball coach; and Alex Burgess, a temporary athletic coach, were also reassigned.

The reassignment of the five staff members is “ridiculous,” said Alexandra Almeida, a senior at Monarch, who participated in the walkout to support her friends. She hoped the walkout, which she heard about through social media Monday, would “bring more awareness to the situation so that people see what’s happening in our Florida schools.”

Safe Schools South Florida in a statement said it is “appalled” by the district’s decision. The organization works with LGBTQ students to promote inclusivity and diversity within the education system “The reassignment of faculty is a measure typically reserved for the gravest of infractions. In this case, it is not only an overreaction but also a glaring misjudgment,” the statement read. “Furthermore, the potential inadvertent outing of a minor, who may not have publicly disclosed their transgender status, is deeply troubling.”

But state officials, in response to a Miami Herald inquiry, said department officials “instructed the district to take immediate action” upon being notified of the issue “since this is a direct violation of Florida law.” During a brief news conference Tuesday, Broward County schools Superintendent Peter Licata said officials spoke to the Florida Department of Education on Monday.

“Under Governor DeSantis, boys will never be allowed to play girls’ sports. It’s that simple,” said Cailey Myers, communications director for the state Department of Education.

There was no mention of the win-loss record of the girls’ volleyball team.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article282411498.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, DeSantis, Florida, Gender, Students

Arkansas Recruits Students to Enroll in Fundamentalist Christian School

By dianeravitch
November 22, 2023 //
9

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has wasted no time in pushing her evangelical, fundamentalist Christian views and diverting public money to religious schools that teach her views. Sanders, who was Trump’s press secretary, is the daughter of fundamentalist pastor Mike Huckabee, who also was governor of Arkansas.

Sanders pushed through a voucher law, and now the state will pay tuition for students at private and religious schools. As in other states, the overwhelming majority of vouchers were claimed by students already enrolled in nonpublic schools.

The state education department went a step beyond making vouchers available. It’s now using taxpayer money to advertise on behalf of a fundamentalist school that does not admit LGBT students, and is certainly not likely to enroll students who are Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, or modern Protestants.

David Ramsay of the Arkansas Times wrote:

Last week, we noted that the Arkansas Department of Education had released a video promoting Cornerstone Christian Academy, a K-12 private school in the southeast Arkansas town of Tillar.

It’s not unusual for a state agency to promote a new law or policy initiative, which this video does by highlighting the voucher program available under Arkansas LEARNS, the state’s new education overhaul. But what is unusual is for the state’s education department to use public resources to create such an explicit advertisement for a private school. As Josh Cowen, a professor at Michigan State University and a nationally prominent expert on education policy, told us: “[U]sually they pretend it’s about parental choice more broadly. What’s less common — what I’ve yet to see, in fact — is a state agency leaning this heavily into promotion of private education. And Christian education at that.”

The publicly funded promo for a private school is made even more awkward given the religious affiliation: Cornerstone uses a Bob Jones University curriculum known for teaching “young-Earth creationism,” the belief that the planet and universe are only a few thousand years old. It requires students to take a Christian studies class and attend chapel. The application asks parents about church affiliation and about their child’s “personal experience and faith in Jesus Christ.”

The application also asks about whether a student has ever been involved with “sexual immorality” and requires that parents agree to “maintain the basic principles of biblical morality in my home.”

I left a message with the school’s administrator to find out whether its admissions policies explicitly discriminated against LGBT students. I never heard back, but after a little further digging on their website, I found a student handbook that directly states LGBT students are not allowed to attend the school:

The significance the Bible places on the severity of sexual immorality, and our commitment to a “Christ-centered” environment demands certain standards for admittance to CCA. Therefore, students will NOT be permitted to attend CCA who professes any sort of sexually immoral lifestyle or an openly sinful lifestyle including but not limited to: promiscuity, homosexuality, transgenderism, etc.

This sort of policy is not uncommon at some Christian private schools, but it raises some thorny questions about the state’s voucher program. LEARNS vouchers are  funneling somewhere in the neighborhood of $419,000 in public funds to Cornerstone this school year, part of $32.5 million projected to be spent on private school vouchers across the state. It remains unclear whether the Cornerstone promo video was made directly or funded by the education department, which has not responded to questions.

The video sells vouchers as a vehicle of parental choice, but ultimately it’s the schools themselves that decide who can — or cannot — attend. The only obligation these schools face in terms of admission is that they cannot discriminate based on race, color or national origin, which would violate federal law. But unlike traditional public schools, they are under no obligation to take all comers. 

They are free to discriminate against LGBT students. They are free to impose religious requirements. They do not have to admit students who struggle academically or have behavior problems. They do not have to offer necessary services for disabled students. We have no way of knowing how many students might be rejected from applying to a school, or what the reasons were. There is no transparency and there are almost no rules. To receive a publicly funded voucher under Arkansas LEARNS, a student must gain admission to a private school — but the entire admission process is an unregulated Wild West. 

Kicking a student out of a private school likewise leaves wide latitude to the schools. To expel a voucher student, a private school must follow clear, pre-established disciplinary procedures. But so long as they don’t discriminate based on race, color or national origin, schools are free to follow their own policies.

Among the 94 private schools participating in the voucher program, many are Christian. It’s likely that a significant number, like Cornerstone, close their doors to LGBT students. That has been found to be the the case in voucher programs in Wisconsin and Indiana. The vouchers are publicly funded, but not all schools are open to the public: The vaunted principle of school choice is, in fact, the school’schoice, and some families may find themselves shut out.

Categories Arkansas, Bigotry, Curriculum, Education Industry, Extremism, Freedom to Read, Funding, Gender, Ignorance, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Texas Suburb Removes Ban on Gender Roles in Student Production of “Oklahoma”

By dianeravitch
November 15, 2023 //
19

The school board of Sherman, Texas, was faced with a dilemma. The theater department of the high school had planned for months to put on a production of “Oklahoma,” a standby of American musicals. The cast was selected, the students built a set, the play was scheduled. But when the lead left the cast, the director replaced him with Max Hightower, a transgender student. The district superintendent promptly canceled the production; the set was demolished. But then something amazing happened.

The New York Times reported:

A school district in the conservative town of Sherman, Texas, made national headlines last week when it put a stop to a high school production of the musical “Oklahoma!” after a transgender student was cast in a lead role.

The district’s administrators decided, and communicated to parents, that the school would cast only students “born as females in female roles and students born as males in male roles.” Not only did several transgender and nonbinary students lose their parts, but so, too, did cisgender girls cast in male roles. Publicly, the district saidthe problem was the profane and sexual content of the 1943 musical.

At one point, the theater teacher, who objected to the decision, was escorted out of the school by the principal. The set, a sturdy mock-up of a settler’s house that took students two months to build, was demolished.

But then something even more unusual happened in Sherman, a rural college town that has been rapidly drawn into the expanding orbit of Dallas to its south. The school district reversed course. In a late-night vote on Monday, the school board voted unanimously to restore the original casting. The decision rebuked efforts to bring the fight over transgender participation in student activities into the world of theater, which has long provided a haven for gay, lesbian and transgender students, and it reflected just how deeply the controversy had unsettled the town.

The district’s restriction had been exceptional. Fights have erupted over the kinds of plays students can present, but few if any school districts appear to have attempted to restrict gender roles in theater. And while legislatures across the country, including in Texas, have adopted laws restricting transgender students’ participation in sports, no such legislation has been introduced to restrict theater roles, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The board’s vote came after students and outraged parents began organizing. In recent days, the district’s administrators, seeking a compromise, offered to recast the students in a version of the musical meant for middle schoolers or younger that omitted solos and included roles as cattle and birds. Students balked.

After the vote, the school board announced a special meeting for Friday to open an investigation and to consider taking action against the district superintendent, Tyson Bennett, who oversaw the district’s handling of “Oklahoma!,” including “possible administrative leave.”

Suddenly, improbably, the students had won.

“I’m beyond excited and everyone cried tears of joy,” Max Hightower, the transgender senior whose casting in a lead role triggered the ensuing events, said in a text message on Tuesday. He and other theater students were at a costume shop on Tuesday, a class trip that had been meant as a consolation after the disappointment of losing their production. Instead, it turned into a celebration. “I’m getting new Oklahoma costumes!!” he said.

Before the school board vote Monday night, high schoolers and their parents had gathered at the district’s offices along with theater actors and transgender students from nearby Austin College. Local residents came to talk about decades of past productions at Sherman High School of “Oklahoma!,” which tells the story of an Oklahoma Territory farm girl and her courtship by two rival suitors. Many scoffed at the district’s objections to the musical, which school officials complained included “mature adult themes.”

“‘Oklahoma!’ is generally regarded as one of the safest shows you could possibly pick to perform,” said Kirk Everist, a theater professor at Austin College who was among those who came to speak. “It’s almost a stereotype at this point.”

Every seat in the room was filled, almost entirely with supporters of the production. Some lined the walls while others who were turned away waited outside. Of the 65 people who signed up to speak, only a handful voiced support for the district’s restrictions.

The outpouring came as a shock, even to longtime Sherman residents.

“What you’re seeing today is history,” said Valerie Fox, 41, a local L.G.B.T.Q. advocate and the parent of a queer high schooler. Ms. Fox said she was taken aback by the scene of dozens of transgender people and their supporters holding signs and flags outside the district offices. “This is one of the biggest things we’ve seen in Sherman.”

The town, a short drive from Dallas, has been a place where many conservatives have gone to escape the city. Some were supportive of the superintendent’s initial decision to restrict the musical.

“Adult content doesn’t belong in high school; they’re still kids,” Renée Snow, 62, said earlier on Monday as she sat with her friend on a bench outside the county courthouse. “It’s about education. It’s not about lifestyle.”

Her friend, Lyn Williams, 69, agreed. “It doesn’t seem like anyone is willing to stand up for anything anymore,” she said.

At a local shoe store, no one needed to be reminded of the details of the controversy. One shopper, shaking a pair of insoles, said that she believed that God made people either male or female, and that the issue was a simple as that.

Inside the courthouse, Bruce Dawsey, the top executive for Grayson County, described a rural community coming to terms with its evolution into a place where urban development is altering the landscape. Not far away, more than a half-dozen cranes could be seen towering over a new high-tech facility for Texas Instruments. The high school, with more than 2,200 students, opened on a sprawling new campus in 2021, its grass still uniform, its newly planted trees still struggling to provide shade. With all the growth, the school is already too small.

“The majority is Republican, and it’s conservative Republican,” Mr. Dawsey said. “But not so ultraconservative that it’s not welcoming.”

Still, some in and around Sherman have chafed at the changes. When Beto O’Rourke, a Democratic candidate for governor, campaigned through the county last year, he was met with aggressive protesters who confronted him over gun rights, some carrying assault-style rifles. A few wore T-shirts suggesting opposition to liberal urban governance: “Don’t Dallas My Grayson County.”

But the controversy over “Oklahoma!” came as a surprise. The musical had been selected and approved last school year, casting was completed in August and more than 60 students in the cast and crew — as well as dozens of dancers — had been preparing for months. Performances were scheduled for early December.

Max, 17, had been cast in a minor role. But then, in late October, one of the leads was cut from the production, and Max got the part, the biggest he had ever had. He was elated.

Days later, his father, Phillip Hightower, got a call from the high school principal, who told him that Max could not have the part because, under a new policy, no students could play roles that differed from their sex at birth. “He was not rude or disrespectful, but he was very curt and to the point,” Mr. Hightower recalled.

The district later denied having such a policy. But the principal also left messages for other parents whose children were losing their roles, one of which was shared with The New York Times.

“This is Scott Johnston, principal at Sherman High School,” a man’s voice said on the recording. “Moving forward, the Sherman theater department will cast students born as females in female roles and students born as males in male roles.”

The message diverged from the rules for high school theater competitions in Texas, which allow for students to be cast in roles regardless of gender.

The district did not make Mr. Johnston or the superintendent, Mr. Bennett, available for an interview.

In his previous role as an assistant superintendent, Mr. Bennett had objected to the content of a theater production by Sherman High School, according to the former choir director, Anna Clarkson. She recalled Mr. Bennett asking her to change a lesbian character into a straight character in the school’s production of “Legally Blonde” in 2015, and to cut a song entitled “Gay or European?”

At the school board meeting on Monday, theater students from the high school described how things had become worse for gay and transgender students at school since the production was halted. Slurs. Taunts. Arguments in the halls.

“People are following me around calling me girl-boy,” said Max.

Kayla Brooks and her wife, Liz Banks, arrived at the meeting bracing for a tough night. Their daughter Ellis had lost a part playing a male character, and they had been actively working with other parents to oppose the changes.

“We were both nervous, because we live in Sherman,” said Ms. Banks. Then they saw the large, supportive crowd outside. “We began weeping in the car,” Ms. Brooks said.

The school board sat mostly stone-faced as dozens of people testified in support of the theater students, sharing personal histories. A transgender student at Austin College said he had not before come out publicly. Sherman residents lamented the way the school district’s position had made the town look.

“I just want this town to be what it can be and not be a laughingstock for the entire nation,” one woman, Rebecca Gebhard, told the board.

After nearly three hours, the board went behind closed doors. The crowds left. Few expected a significant decision was imminent.

Then, after 10 p.m., the board took their seats again and introduced a motion for a vote: Since there was no official policy on gender for casting, the original version of the musical should be reinstated. All seven board members voted in favor, including one who had, months before, protested against a gay pride event.

“We want to apologize to our students, parents, our community regarding the circumstances that they’ve had to go through,” the board president, Brad Morgan, said afterward.

Sitting in their living room on Tuesday morning, Ms. Banks and Ms. Brooks recalled how their daughter delivered them the news. “She just said, ‘We won,’” Ms. Brooks said. “She was beaming, smiling ear to ear.” The musical would be performed in January.

The couple decided, for the first time, to hang a pride flag in the window of their home. For now, they felt a little more confident in their neighbors than they had a day before.

Categories Arts Education, Bigotry, Censorship, Courage, Creativity, Gender, Parents, Students, Texas
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