Placer County school officials are punishing transgender kids for being trans | Opinion
This past week has demonstrated the cruel lengths Placer County school board officials in Rocklin and Roseville will go to punish and demonize transgender kids for merely existing.
At a press conference held at the State Capitol last week, Roseville Joint Union High School District school board member Heidi Hall and Roseville City School District Board of Trustees member Jonathan Zachreson spoke in support of three statewide initiatives which would require schools to notify parents if their child is transgender; prevent trans girls from competing in girls’ sports; and prevent trans minors from receiving gender-affirming surgeries or hormone treatments.
Just nine days later, on September 6, the Rocklin Unified School Board voted 4-1 to approve a policy that would require teachers to “out” transgender and non-binary students to their parents, despite hundreds of emails and public comments from district parents and community members voicing their opposition.
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Michelle Sutherland, the sole board member who voted against the policy, did not hesitate to call out her elected colleagues for manufacturing division within the community: “I cannot overstate to the public the amount of time, energy and resources that are getting pulled away from our students and poured into these fringe political aims,” she said at the board meeting.
Sutherland noted that recent board decisions — like the recent vote to reject a widely used and supported science curriculum, Board President Julie Hupp’s controversial Facebook post calling for “Christ-centered” parents to join committees that oversee district curriculum and now this new policy to “out” trans students — are issues that reflect her colleague’s political agendas and personal beliefs.
“These culture war divisive issues keep barreling out from this dais to the detriment of our students and the fabric of our community,” Sutherland said.
Transphobia in Rocklin
The nearly seven-hour-long school board meeting saw hundreds of public speakers. The demand to speak was so great that not everyone could fit into the Rocklin Unified District Office where the meeting was held. Dozens of community members waited outside for hours just to get two minutes to plead with a board that had apparently already made up its mind. From the outset, it was obvious that Sutherland would be the sole vote against the gender notification policy, despite emotional, tear-filled testimonies from Rocklin students, parents and residents about how outing someone before they are ready can have fatal consequences.
“My best friend killed herself before she was old enough to drive. Her parents didn’t even give her a funeral,” said community member Alicia Watkins, reading a note on behalf of an anonymous Rocklin student who didn’t feel safe enough to attend the Rocklin board meeting. The student wrote about their best friend, a transgender girl, whose parents shamed and deadnamed her (meaning they refused to acknowledge her chosen name or pronouns). The student’s concern for their personal safety is not baseless — there’s a history of Proud Boys and other violent extremist groups showing up to Placer County school board meetings.
For their part, Hupp, Tiffany Saathoff, Rachelle Price and Dereck Counter, who initially brought this policy to the board, could barely bring themselves to say the words “transgender” and “LGBTQ.” Instead, they framed the policy as being about “parental rights” and “parental choice.”
“You all have called this (policy) an expansion of parents rights, because, of course, who is going to argue with that?” Sutherland said to her colleagues. “What rights do we not yet possess as parents?”
“Even in the most accepting households, a child might not feel ready to talk to a parent right away. Why are we going to put that on teachers to interfere in their personal life against their wishes?”
According to the Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, one in five transgender and non-binary youth have attempted suicide; and fewer than one in three transgender and nonbinary youth found their home to be gender-affirming.
“LGBTQ youth who found their school to be LGBTQ-affirming reported lower rates of attempting suicide,” the report states.
Factors in this unspeakable tragedy include being rejected by their families and communities. The risk of outing someone before they are ready is not hyperbole, and yet a majority of school board members used their positions to reject transgender youth with their policies and words.
“If you cared about these statistics, you wouldn’t be proposing this harmful policy,” said Rocklin Unified parent Jen Brookover. “Our students should not be used for personal, political agendas. You’re weaponizing our children for political gain. You are putting the agenda of Moms for Liberty and other hate groups above the care and safety of students. Shame on you.”
Transphobia in Roseville
Ignorance and fear is at the heart of anti-trans legislation. A glaring example was provided recently by Roseville school board member Hall.
“It’s as if we have moved backward in history to a place where equality for women no longer matters,” Hall said in her speech at last week’s Sacramento rally. She compared the decision to allow trans girls to compete in girls’ sports to “a woman who works hard her entire career only to make less than a man in the same job.”
Through her words, Hall seems to be refusing to accept their right to exist as a trans person. What does that mean for LGBTQ+ students in her Roseville school district? How must it feel for them to know that a school board member does not believe in their right to exist?
Teachers speak out for LGBTQ+ students
Thankfully, queer and trans youth do have allies at their schools.
Third-grade teacher Jessica Hardy, Rocklin Unified’s current teacher of the year, reminded the school board that “inclusion is a verb” and “an action” that must happen every day to ensure students feel “safe, supported and seen.”
“I think we’ve truly hit a milestone in our district when sensitive issues aren’t sensitive at all,” Hardy said. “These children can simply choose to exist exactly how they are and how they feel inside without the fear of judgment, hate, discrimination (or that they are) putting their very lives in danger.”
Perhaps one of the moving comments came from Rocklin Teachers Professional Association President Travis Mougeotte, a geography teacher at Whitney High School.
“If this policy passes tonight, I won’t comply,” Mougeotte said. “I’m not going to follow a policy that breaks trust with my students that endangers their lives. I won’t out any student for any reason.”
“No matter what happens here tonight, kids that walk into my classroom will no longer feel as safe and as protected as they were yesterday. But that’s not on me, that’s on you.”
Meanwhile, student body presidents from Rocklin and Whitney High Schools spoke on behalf of students at both of their campuses, saying the board’s policy is “not about protecting trans children.”
“It’s about taking away their privacy and trying to inhibit trans students’ access to their right to be kept safe and protected,” said Whitney Student Body President Natalie Gload. “No one — especially anyone on the school board — has the right to dictate how or when a child feels safe enough to come out.”
Bonta criticizes Rocklin Unified
Just one day after the Rocklin Unified board meeting, California Attorney General Rob Bonta condemned the notification policy.
“Despite our ongoing commitment to stand against any actions that target and discriminate against California’s transgender and gender-nonconforming youth, Rocklin Unified has chosen to endanger their civil rights by adopting a policy that forcibly outs them without consideration of their safety and well-being,” Bonta said in a statement.
Mike Patterson, a California Teachers Association board member, chastised the Rocklin Unified school board for entertaining a policy that seems poised to inevitably result in significant legal fees — money the district could be using on student programs.
“The money should be spent on the children of Rocklin and on giving them the best possible education,” Patterson said. “It’s really quite deplorable.”
Absolutely. The lives and well-being, happiness and successes of LGBTQ+ kids matters. They deserve to exist in our community, and they deserve better from elected leaders.
