'This reckless nastiness just needs to stop.' Hunterdon Central LGBTQ+ issues remain in the new year

RARITAN TOWNSHIP - LGBTQ+ issues are refusing to fade in the new year at Hunterdon Central Regional High School.

At the Board of Education's annual reorganization meeting on Jan. 3, there was continuing dialogue about an "invitation-only" student-run drag show last fall that sparked a firestorm drawing attention from far beyond the district's borders.

But the issue is not the drag show, said Rey Watson, a senior at Hunterdon Central.

"Our voices are constantly being spoken over by adults," Watson said. "Everyone keeps harping on the drag show. And no, they didn't say explicitly that they think the PULSE (People Understanding Love Serves Everyone) Club should be shut down or that they don't support queer trans students, but it's implied. And we, as the students, we know. We can tell and we are harmed by it and we are hurt by it and our mental health suffers. And I really just want to be at home right now doing my homework, so I can get to bed at a reasonable hour, but alas, I am here because I am sick of the injustice that is consistently being perpetrated against students at this school. I am sick of no action being taken."

Watson said the school lacks appropriate teacher training and gender neutral bathroom accommodations causing LGBTQ+ students, particularly trans students, to feel unsupported.

"I do not speak for all the students but I will speak for myself and the things that I have experienced, that my friends have experienced at this school and told me about − there are a lot of things here that need to be changed," Watson said. "The students are suffering. And it's not because of recent changes that have occurred, it's just because of oppression that continues in the school environment and continues to affect students. This school has been gradually moving towards a better place but the reality is that it's just not there yet. We still lack a lot of inclusive measures."

The controversy arose in October when a "secret" drag show to foster support for the district's LGBTQ+ community was hosted by the PULSE Club.

Instead of creating a sense of community, the event generated controversy as several staffers and parents decried the "loss of academic time" and called it "divisive" and "inequitable" at school board meetings.

The drag show was an invitation-only event to provide a safe space for students to be themselves, club members said at November and December board meetings.

Some district educators apparently penned an anonymous letter to district officials saying that preparation for it overlapped with instruction time.

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Neither Hunterdon Central's administration nor the board of education received a copy of the letter. They only became aware of it when Melissa Gardner, a Flemington resident who labeled herself as a staff member, read it out loud at the November board meeting.

"We are a group of Hunterdon Central staff who have written this letter to voice our concerns related to interruptions to instructional time, equity and transparency," Gardner said in the "letter." "So imagine our frustration when passes were given to selected students on Oct. 27 to leave our class at 1:30 to participate in a school sponsored drag show. Instead of our students being engaged in academic time, they were applying makeup and changing into their drag costumes. This was a loss of over 30 minutes of instructional time for these students."

In December, Gardner also deemed several books, LGBTQIA in genre, in the high school library as "filthy" and full of "pornography and pedophilia." She reiterated a previous controversy over diversity/equity training in 2021 as "racist" and "discriminatory against white people" and based on Critical Race Theory (CRT).

“At the core, this is about the direction of our society," Gardner said in December. "Dr. Moore and this board are responsible for educating the innocent children, yet they hide behind the children and use them as a shield so they can push the radical, aggressive, political ideology."

Some community members took it a step further, calling the drag show "evil," "indecent," "lewd," "adult entertainment" and symptomatic of a "preoccupation with ideology and sexuality."

Lee Mack of Readington told incumbent board members that their "days are numbered" because "parents are waking up."

"We will continue to expose the evil that you're doing in secret and behind closed doors," Mack said. "Just the fact that you have to hide this garbage tells us how evil it is."

In November, Moore, who joined the district in 2017, said information about the event had been "twisted" and "demonized."

"When students in our PULSE club hold an event − a drag show with no sexualization, no breach of our code of conduct, no violation of our policies − when they come together to seek that belonging and that confidence to express themselves in safety in information about that event, is twisted and demonized and used to attack," Moore said. "I'm sorry, I don't think we're living on the same planet and I think you need to start talking about your own agenda rather than guessing so much at someone else's."

Moore said that board policies are "squarely and solidly in favor of equity and belonging."

Moore also referenced behavior at an athletic event the same week where some students made animal noises at opposing teams' players. This resulted in a brief ban on student and non-family spectators at athletic events.

"That's our work. These aren't choices for us. The work of reaching our equity and belonging goals can never be colorblind. It can never be ignorance of any identity that anybody brings to the table," Moore said. "Our differences make us who we are. And the lack of respect for differences causes deep wounds."

Moore said the world is "suffering from a lack of belonging" and "real bridges need to be built."

"This reckless nastiness just needs to stop. Anonymous people hiding in cowardice but calling it patriotism. It needs to stop," he said. "Children are learning from it all. They're learning nastiness, they're learning cowardice, and they're learning that their differences make them wrong instead of wonderful. That's what they're learning. And I'm not going to tolerate or model that any longer."

Several PULSE members, educators and community members spoke at the November and December board meetings in support of the club.

A Hunterdon Central sophomore and member of the LGBTQ+ community, Kameron Ebright of Raritan Township joined the PULSE Club at the beginning of the school year.

"It's made me feel better about my sexuality and my identity," Ebright said. "I've been able to express myself in this club and it's made me feel safe. When I step into that room, it reminds me that there are people like me, that reminds me that there's a safe place that I have to talk about LGBTQ life or anything. But when I see people up here talking about how disappointed they are that we are exposed to this stuff − it makes me wonder why they say that. Why they can't accept these kids for who they are?"

Hunterdon Central Education Association recording secretary Meg Donhauser also read a prepared statement that the teachers union was not connected with the anonymous letter.

Alexander Rupp, a theater and film studies teacher at Hunterdon Central, said he and others have concerns about the anonymous group of Hunterdon Central staff members. Other staff members have received threats and students have been harassed, Rupp said.

“When you have an anonymous group of staff who go outside the lines, the proper protocol, coming here saying talking, signing a name to your beliefs − it's called not being a coward," said Rupp, a Tewksbury resident. "Then you have people go outside those lines like that, hiding under a cloak of anonymity."

That prompts students to question whom they may trust, Rupp said.

"That is what the staff have done with their anonymity. They can think they're superheroes all they want but they act like they're taking their playbook in terms of damaging causes from the playbook of the KKK − that terror of anonymity, " Rupp said. "I had students of the LGBTQIA+ community who wanted to come to tonight’s meeting but they are too afraid to be in this room, and afraid of even coming to school. I can't speak for those students but I told them I would be here for them."

The next board meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Jan. 23.

email: cmakin@gannettnj.com

Cheryl Makin is an award-winning features and education reporter for MyCentralJersey.com, part of the USA Today Network. Contact: Cmakin@gannettnj.com or @CherylMakin. To get unlimited access, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Hunterdon Central LGBTQ+ issues remain in the new year