Parents seeking to share their concerns over a proposed school policy on “Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation,” which would allow biological boys to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms, were shut down during a recent school district meeting in Caldwell, Idaho.
Retired Marine and newly elected Idaho State Senator Chris Trakel (R), whose children attend school in the district, spoke during the comment period at the Caldwell School District’s Board of Education meeting last Tuesday. He told the school board that they should scrap the proposed policy, warning that the district risks a lawsuit if a young girl feels uncomfortable by the presence of a transgender “female” in the bathroom.
The Daily Mail shared that “Trakel began his comments by noting that he had previously spoken before the board as a parent — but was speaking this time in his official capacity as a state senator”:
“You under Idaho law are required to maintain the morals and health of all the students,” he told the school board. “You allow a male to use a female bathroom, you’re gonna put them all of their moral health and safety at risk.”
Trakel stated that the school district could be sued, noting: “It’s already happened in several states and there’s already been rulings on it. So before you waste taxpayer money, before you put a kid in harm’s way, you better throw this policy out and not even consider…”
While he was speaking, however, he noticed that School Board President Marisela Pesina had turned her head toward another board member. He said, “I’ve got the floor, Ms. Pesina, will you please listen to me?”
From there the conversation digressed into a brief dispute over meeting protocol rules, which caused Pesina to declare a 15-minute recess to help ease the tension in the room. Another board member asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting, which was then seconded.
This led Trakel to bring up the state law regarding open meetings, stating, “Section 74-201: The people of the state of Idaho, in creating the instruments of government that serve them, do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies so created….” Pesina called on whoever was controlling the sound system to shut off his mic, which immediately went dead. The meeting was over.
The Caldwell School District’s board shared a notice with the public after the meeting defending their actions.
This was just one of many recent such meetings across the nation where parents have rightfully challenged school districts over transgender policies that are eroding parents’ rights.
The American Enterprise Institute’s Conservative Education Reform Network (CERN) report on public schools and transgender policies found that “in the past few years, school districts nationwide have quietly adopted policies requiring staff to facilitate and ‘affirm’ gender identity transitions at school without parental notice or consent — and even in secret from parents.”
The CERN report added, “Certain groups are telling school boards and administrators that excluding parents from the decision about whether staff will treat their child as the opposite sex is not only best practice but required by law. Neither is true. Such policies fly in the face of how schools treat every other decision of similar significance. From a legal perspective, these policies violate parents’ constitutional rights to raise their children.”
According to an Education Week article, 1.3 million adults identify as transgender based on survey results from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System. That only accounts for 0.5 percent of the adult U.S. population. And of teenagers ages 13-17, 300,000 identify as transgender, or 1.4 percent of the nation’s population within that age group.
You would think that with not even 2 out of 100 teenagers identifying as transgender, there wouldn’t be a discussion about sexual-orientation policies in schools. But the transgender movement has been successful in pushing their ideology to the forefront of education policies and into mainstream America, with groups like the National Center for Transgender Equality leading the way.
Thankfully, there are thousands of parents like Trakel across the nation who are taking a stand and fighting leftist transgender identity policies from being introduced in their schools. It is a fight that must be won to save young minds from the poison and falsehoods brought about by transgenderism’s tyranny over a moral society.
Parents still have choices in their children’s education. They can choose to homeschool, or select other educational opportunities where they have a voice and control over their children and the curriculum. Parents who choose to keep their kids in public education must lobby local lawmakers to prohibit the schools from taking major decisions, such as sexual-orientation policies, out of parents’ hands.
