The second-largest school district in Colorado has reportedly informed teachers to use a “gender unicorn” to understand transgender students and not tell parents if their children are showing gender confusion at school.
Jefferson County Public School district is using a toolkit called ‘Toolkit for Supporting Transgender & Gender Expansive/Nonconforming Students’ to educate teachers on how to handle the thorny issue of gender confusion among students.
In this guide for educators is a “gender unicorn” – picture below – that helps to explain the differences between “gender identity,” “gender expression,” “sex assigned at birth” – and the appropriate pronouns to use – as well as physical and emotional attraction preferences.
The part of the guide that upset a parent who leaked the teachings to The Daily Wire is a point where teachers are informed that signs of gender dysmorphia or “persistent” gender confusion do not need to be reported to parents if the child is over 11. This means a student could go by a different gender and/or name at school without their parents knowing.
Approaching parents is appropriate “at the elementary level,” the packet reportedly reads. For older students, however, it claims it is in the benefit of the well-being of the student to consider not involving their parents.
“In some cases, notifying parents/guardians carries risks for the student, such as being kicked out of the home,” the guide reads. It says that prior to notifying parents or guardians in these cases, the school staff should “work closely with the student to assess the degree, if any, the parent/guardian will be involved in the process” and must “consider the health, well-being, and safety of the student in transition.”
Other guidance put forth includes retiring the requirement for girls to wear dresses and ties for boys at choir events. Boys and girls should also not be identified by their gender, but rather by their “voice part” for choir (meaning bass, alto, etc.). They should also be able to use the bathroom and play on the sports teams that coincide with their chosen gender “consistently asserted at school,” rather than the one assigned at birth.
The debate over school policies regarding transgender students has grown heated across the country as more school districts have taken action. A fifth-grade teacher went viral this week at a Virginia school district hearing on a draft measure requiring teachers to affirm students’ chosen genders by taking the microphone and quitting on the spot over education leaders pushing “highly politicized agendas on our most vulnerable constituents, our children.”
The public quitting was accompanied by dozens of other passionate speeches for and against the new school policies – protesters were also against critical race theory being taught – and followed a June board meeting where things got so heated, the event was shut down and two were arrested for participating in an “unlawful assembly” as they demonstrated against the policies.
Two arrests made at the Loudoun County, Virginia school board meeting after it was declared an unlawful assembly and some parents here to protest against critical race theory and a transgender policy refused to leave right away #CriticalRaceTheorypic.twitter.com/dsZDrqJ0Gp
