Charlotte schools tell staff: Don’t call students ‘boy’ or ‘girl’

A North Carolina school board has issued recommendations for faculty and staff to stop calling male children "boys" and female students "girls."

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools gave a presentation to principals and counselors entitled “Supporting Transgender Students” that focused on "bully prevention." Among the various means of preventing bullying is eliminating all references to boys or girls.

Instead, the policy instructs staff to call boys and girls "students" or "scholars."

The presentation explained a new set of guidelines for faculty and staff to follow regarding transgender students. For instance, teachers will be required to "work with students" to help them determine their sexual orientation.

The new guidelines clearly consider student privacy a priority over parental rights. If a child decides s/he is the opposite sex, parents are not necessarily to be told. "A student’s transgender status is confidential," the guidelines state.  "Involvement of parents ... is determined in working with the student. … Staff must take care not to 'out' a student to others, including the parents."

Another policy emphasized is that teachers must use a transgender student's preferred name and pronoun. “Intentional refusals to use a transgender student’s preferred name/pronoun violate this regulation,” the presentation warns.

The new regulations allow students in extracurricular activities, including sports and overnight field trips, to be with students of their chosen gender identity. In other words, a boy who says he's a girl is allowed to fully participate on female sports teams and overnight trips.

The guidelines say the school district will "evaluate" all gender-based activities, and "maintain only those that have clear and sound pedagogical purpose."

The North Carolina Values Coalition (NCVC) called the new regulations "a violation of privacy" for non-transgender students. "School is no longer about reading, writing and arithmetic. It is now about gender fluidity," executive director Tami Fitzgerald said.

NCVC issued a statement on its website. "Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s proposed new policy allowing students to use opposite-sex restrooms, locker rooms and showers will seriously endanger students’ privacy and safety, undermine parental authority, and severely impair an environment conducive to learning."

The new rules also stipulate that students may use the toilets, showers, locker rooms, and changing facilities of their self-chosen gender "identity," but that particular rule has been put on hold since the U.S. Supreme Court intends to address that controversy.

“As a result of (the) U.S. Supreme Court ruling, we have placed a temporary hold on the ... bullying prevention regulation which states that transgender students will be given access to the restroom and locker room facilities corresponding to their gender identity,” Superintendent Ann Clark explained. “The rest of the regulation, which is intended to promote consistency in anti-bullying support for all students, will remain intact."

An opinion piece by the Independent Journal Review (IJR) illustrated that under the new guidelines a boy who dresses like a girl may go on all-girl overnight trips, literally sleeping with a girls team while "no one outside of those on a 'need to know' basis will know," and "any school administrator who alerts the other girls without the consent of the student will presumably be disciplined."

Furthermore, "the transgender student's 'right to privacy' will trump the rights of parents to know their daughters will be staying overnight somewhere with a young boy — or boys — present," IJR stated.

IJR also pointed out that the school district has no method in place to determine whether someone claiming to be the opposite sex is doing so legitimately — or for predatory purposes — because "no questioning them is allowed."

Critics speculate that in the name of "inclusion," all school sports will become co-ed.  And other gender-specific lines will be crossed. For instance, a transgender boy can be prom queen.

"This is what happens when words are redefined or — worse — lose all meaning whatsoever," IJR opined. "You can be a girl if you claim to be. You can be a boy if you claim to be."

"What happened to the rights of parents? Same for the rights of the young girls to know who they might be bunking with?" the IJR asked.  "The school is taking away the privacy and safety rights of school girls, and the rights of parents to be aware of who will be joining their daughters on overnight trips."

"Protecting the safety and privacy of one group of people at the expense of another group's safety and privacy is just trading one set of problems for a new set."

Rev. Franklin Graham charged the school district with "brainwashing" students.  "Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina wants to try to brainwash our children into accepting that homosexuality and transgender behavior is OK," the evangelist posted on Facebook.

"Parents should be enraged and so should we," Graham wrote. "The Communists used brainwashing in Eastern Europe and Russia, and they took the parents out of the decision-making process, and the state began to make decisions about morality. This is a dangerous path."

NCVC organized a protest last week before a school board meeting, but counter-protestors shouted down the concerned parents and physically blocked speakers. At one point, in heavy rain, the protest temporarily broke down.

Forty people signed up to speak at the school board meeting — so many that chairwoman Mary McCray limited speaking time to one minute. 

"The real issue here is a radical political agenda and the ceiling has become the floor," WSOC-TV reported Charlotte resident David Benham as saying. “At first, it was acceptance, and then it became appreciation, and then it became celebration, and now it's become forced participation."