Transgendered Student Policy: Threat or Menace?

Filed in National by on November 28, 2017

I’ve been warning for weeks now that Delaware’s Republicans — the party so stupid it loses to Delaware Democrats — intend to make the Department of Education’s transgendered student policy, known as Regulation 225, the centerpiece of next year’s elections.

That tub is being thumped especially hard in Sussex County, where, this Delmarva Now story tells us, parents turned out to protest at an Indian River school board meeting. All the usual fears were raised about the state taking power away from parents, but the story never says something the photograph makes clear: This outrage has fired up, oh, tens of parents.

That won’t lessen the media’s attempts to make this a hot-button issue, though. Expect vast overcoverage of this “controversy” for the next 12 months, despite the small number and towering ignorance of its critics. My favorite part was the woman who said that if the regulation does pass, she’ll pull their children out of public school and would home school instead them.

So let me get this straight — you’ll take your children out of the public schools, removing my need to pay tax dollars to educate them? That just proves you don’t understand how incentives work. I’m all in favor of you mouth-breathers taking your kids out of public schools, so now I’m even more in favor of Regulation 225.

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  1. Home School Em Then says:

    She’ll homeschool rather than use the public school system? Double win. Taxes paying for fewer public school students = more resources per student.

    She still keep paying into the system she’s opting not to use anyway because “Muh parents rights!!”.

  2. jason330 says:

    These parents who are so afraid that public schools will turn their kids into vegans or “transgenders” should remember that they went to publics schools and turned out to be perfectly ordinary racist & chowderheads.

  3. Alby says:

    Agreed. Should be noted, and I have, that Nicole Theis and her “Delaware Family Policy Council” — a group whose membership undoubtedly rivals the number of people in that photo — are behind this push. Look up the early articles and you’ll find her quoted in every one. Look her up and learn her children go to a Christian school, so this doesn’t affect her personally in the least.

    Theis is a Christine O’Donnell wannabe. Her “council” is officially affiliated with James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, listed as an extremist group by the SPLC.

  4. Dave says:

    I doubt that very many people have read the entire regulation. It’s pretty benign in that the student can request that they be referred to by a “preferred name.” Student’s real name will still be used on all official records, diplomas, databases, etc. There are other things in the reg, such as participating on the team that is consistent with the student’s gender identity regardless of the student’s assigned
    sex at birth. Ultimately, it is about prohibiting “unlawful discrimination in educational programs and activities for students.”

    Now, I’m not up on the minutiae of what is happening in the schools regarding the obstacles of student participation in education programs and activities. So from my perspective, this seems to be a solution looking for a problem. However, there are many areas of government engaged in solution generation when there is little evidence of a systemic problem. Why should the Delaware DOE be any different?

  5. Alby says:

    I think the idea was to address it before the cases came up, so they weren’t being decided on an entirely ad hoc basis.

    Conservatives enjoy seeing this in unrealistic terms, as if Jack could show up in class one day and announce he’s Jill. In reality, Jack would have to present as Jill to even have that considered seriously, and how would that happen without the parents noticing?

  6. jason330 says:

    Or, in even more unrealistic terms, the outrage appears to be over this nonexistent scenario:

    Jack showing up in class and being encouraged by liberal school administrators to take up the gender identity of Jill. Jack saying, “Okay, I guess.”

  7. Jay from Philly says:

    I happen to know the woman who said she would pull her children from the public schools and homeschool them. She is concerned over how neither the legislature nor the public were consulted about this and how parental notification is not required. She also is concerned about the privacy of her children in the shower and the locker room. She’s not homo- or transphobic. If the number of people who showed up to protest this numbered in the tens and that is something to be ridiculed, then it should be noted no one showed up to speak in favor of Reg 225.

  8. Alby says:

    “If the number of people who showed up to protest this numbered in the tens and that is something to be ridiculed, then it should be noted no one showed up to speak in favor of Reg 225.”

    Nice try, but that’s all the “outrage” her side could manage after two weeks of constant attempts to rile up the public.

    Nobody has to speak in favor of the policy for it to be legitimate. We are talking about a tiny minority of people. Protecting that minority from the majority is the legitimate interest of government.

    “She is concerned over how neither the legislature nor the public were consulted about this and how parental notification is not required.”

    If she agreed with it, she never would have noticed. I certainly wouldn’t want the legislature involved, as they would be more concerned with coddling the bigots who vote for them than they would be with protecting the minority. They have no input on most education policies.

    If we are going to have public input on every school policy — we don’t — this isn’t where I would start. Since it affects so few people, it’s actually a made-up controversy. I’m sorry your friend fell so hard for it.