Oregon’s K-12 schools must allow students to use whichever single-sex bathroom or locker room they prefer, and to play on opposite sex sports teams, say new rules drafted by the state’s education department.
The far-reaching rules are included in a 15-page “guidance” to school districts, titled “Creating a Safe and Supportive School Environment for Transgender Students,” which fully implements the far-left claim that schools must not restrict even young children’s choice of “gender identity.”
The state rules comply with the claim by President Barack Obama and his deputies that Congress’s 1964 laws against sex discrimination also require schools officials to treat “transgender and gender nonconforming students as whatever sex they claim to feel. “Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive Federal financial assistance,” says the U.S. Department of Education.
Oregon – like other states such as Illinois and Virginia – already have firestorms over biological boys wanting to use girls’ bathrooms and vice versa. In Dallas, Oregon, a controversy flared when the high school principal allowed a biological girl who said she is male to use the boys’ locker room. Oregonlive.com reports:
Parents and other students were outraged. They demanded the student be barred from the boys locker room. The district’s lawyer warned the board that they would be sued — and likely lose the suit — if they caved to community pressure. Residents contacted other lawyers who said the district’s counsel was wrong.
“Districts across the country, including many in Oregon, are seeing students come out for the first time,” says the report. “School leaders nationwide have wrestled over decisions about which locker rooms and bathrooms transgender students should use.”
But the new regulations go far beyond allowing a few transgender kids to use the opposite sex’s bathrooms.
For example, the new regulation endorses the claim that there are many sex-related categories between male and female. The guidance provides a list of 15 “definitions” with which school districts should accept, including “assigned sex,” “cisgender,” “gender binary,” “gender sensitive,” “genderqueer,” and “intersex.”
Those categories must also be included in sex-education courses given to children, say officials. The courses in Oregon school districts must contain “inclusive materials, language, and strategies that recognizes different sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expression,” the new rules say. As a result, special interest groups such as Planned Parenthood, for example, have joined with the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) – a gay activist organization that promotes the LGBT agenda in public schools – to provide sex education in many public school districts.
Oregon school officials also must prevent schoolyard criticism of “gender identity” youths, and must ensure they can participate in sports and social activities.
Based on this guidance transgender students should be treated consistent with their gender identity and should not be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to harassment or other forms of discrimination on the basis of gender identity in any program or activity. These activities and programs may include but are not limited to cheer class, homecoming, prom, spirit day, celebrations, assemblies, acknowledgments, after school activities/ programs and all extra-curricular activities.
The new rules state that the student – regardless of age – should decide his or her gender, regardless of science. “The person best situated to determine a student’s gender identity is the individual student,” the department states.
State officials may choose to hide school support for a child’s choice of “gender identity,” the document suggests. “Transgender students may not want their parents to know about their transgender identity,” but school districts “should balance the goal of supporting the student with the requirement that parents be kept informed about their children,” the document said.
The guidance provides instructions for the management of transgender student records:
When a transgender student new to a school is using a preferred name, the birth name should be kept confidential by school district staff. School districts should review their Student Information Systems and ensure that all printed and digital materials generated for classroom and instructor use show the student’s chosen name, not their legal name. Examples include attendance sheets, grade books, etc. School districts are reminded to use reasonable methods for ensuring that only those with a legitimate educational interest have access to student records.
If a transgender student graduates, ODE recommends the school district issue “two diplomas and two sets of transcripts, one with the legal first name and one with the preferred first name.”
While school districts are not slated for punishments if they do not follow all the ODE’s “guidance,” the U.S. Department of Education has warned schools in other states that they could be penalized with a loss of federal funding if they do not surrender to the “gender fluid” agenda.
A study of the 2010 census estimated that only about 1 in every 2,400 adults have changed their names from one sex to the other sex.
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