Do our local Christian nationalistic heroes love trans kids?
I'm guessing no. But maybe I'm wrong (I'm not wrong).
In case you missed this one, a few days ago Judge Roger Benitez ruled that California parents have a constitutional right to be informed whether their child might be transgender and that public schools within the state are not allowed to prevent employees from notifying mothers and fathers.
And at the risk of losing some of my liberal street cred, I get where Benitez is coming from. As a parent of two kids, I’d be fairly annoyed (aka: extraordinarily pissed off) if I found out a teacher was keeping secrets from me—about my children. It would feel like a violation, as well as a determination of life inside a household that most educators are certainly unqualified to make. And this isn’t, oh, “Your son is obsessed with caterpillars” or “Your daughter thinks aliens are real.” No, this is, “Your child presents as a different gender at school than at home.” It’s a huge deal.
It’s also a complex deal. Nancy Young, a Murrieta school board member, told the Orange County Register that students who hide gender identity from parents are usually doing so for a justified reason. “I do think personally that the parents should know,” Young told the newspaper’s Kristen Taketa, “but that is assuming that the parents are going to support their kid.”
Anyhow, the ruling came down and the left bemoaned it and the right cheered it and the New York Jets kept losing and earth continued to rotate on its axis.
However …
I don’t want to let certain people off so easily. See, while it’s fair to argue right v. wrong, and it’s fair for liberals to take conservative stances and conservatives to take liberal stances, and it’s fair to admit these issues are overflowing with complexities and layers, there are unique folks among us who—come Benitez’s decision—surely whooped and hollered and stomped and cheered and bellowed and danced because they are (bluntly) hateful assholes.
To them, I believe, this was never about parental notification nearly as much as it was about God. Their God. Their Christian God. Their white Christian God. Their white Christian God who surely views trans kids as vile pieces of regurgitated oxen phlegm best left charred and melting atop the depths of Satan’s BBQ pit. From jump, it has always felt like a movement fueled by hate, not love. In particular, for me, the collective awfulness can be surmised by the time earlier this year when Sonja Shaw—fringe-right candidate for State Superintendent/ReformCapo superhero/Botoxed Bandit1—attended a high school track and field meet to berate a trans athlete and the athlete’s mother. There was no compassion in that behavior. Certainly no Christ. It was cruelty for the sake of cruelty. Raw. Piercing. Calloused. Intentional.
And yet, so many on the local MAGA scene cheered her on. Encouraged her. Saluted her. Not for taking a stand on behalf of so-called parental rights, but for doing so in the most look-at-how-awful-we-can-behave! way possible. Hell, find me a local right-wing school board member, I’ll find you someone clamoring for Shaw’s attention and affections.
So people can feel how they want about Benitez’s ruling. Truly. But it’s always righteous to take some time to ask oneself—Why am I behaving this way?
And what, deep down, do I truly represent?
PS: Something I’ve been thinking about a lot: Having run this site for nearly a year, I’ve learned a ton—including the number of hard-right local culture warriors who have either gay children, trans children or closeted gay husbands. It’s actually remarkable. And while I would never, ever, ever out anyone, there is something to be said about morphing into a culture warrior because, deep down, you’re experiencing a certain level of self-loathing. Like, why would someone hate gay or trans kids t-h-i-s much? There has to be something broken in you. Something missing.
I actually have no problem with Botox. Do what makes you happy. But the audacity of shooting stuff into your head to chance your appearance, while ridiculing trans kids, is startling.
As a teacher to middle school students and a parent to a high schooler, you missed the mark on this one. Kids only confide in teachers if they need a safe adult and they don’t have one at home. I guarantee if a kid feels safe and trusts their parent, their parent would know before their teacher. My kid is in band and has had the same teacher for four years. He sees my kid in school and outside of school for marching band. If my kid went to him to talk about something he didn’t feel comfortable talking to me about, I’d be thankful that my kid had someone else to trust. I don’t know why people don’t trust teachers to do the right thing. While I know there are bad teachers who don’t deserve our trust (just like cops, doctors, journalists, influencers, presidents), most are good and most would do the right thing by our kids. By mandating that teachers need to tell parents, we are taking away a potentially safe adult for kids, the suicide rate will only increase among some of our most vulnerable students.
Students who present as one gender at home and another at school do so because it isn’t safe to be themselves at home.