More CRC Ugliness at the School Board Meeting

This week, Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC) member Ben Patton took up two minutes of Board of Education public comments to lie about what was going to be included in the new sex-ed curriculum, to mislead about what psychiatrists consider a disorder, and to talk about some gross stuff.

Patton jumped right in with some words of real smart wisdom:

One of the sexual categories in what would have been introduced to our children under the now banned revised curriculum is transgender. I ask you, why do you want to teach our children that transgenderism is normal, natural, and healthy? I don't get it.

Why do you want the schools to instruct children as young as 13 about transgenderism in the first place? I don’t know.

Now, reader, I am going to ask you to do something. On the right-hand side of this web page, there are some links. One is labeled "Grade 8 Revised curriculum," and one is "Grade 10 Revised curriculum ." These are the courses that were going to be introduced this last spring.

These PDF files open in Adobe Reader. Click on the little binoculars at the top, which let you search. Type in the word "transgender." Let's just go to the source and see what "would have been introduced to our children under the now banned revised curriculum."

Both curricula have the same thing. It is a section that says:

For Teacher Reference Only (The information in the 
shaded area is not to be shared with students.)
...
Transgender refers to someone whose gender identity or 
expression differs from conventional expectations for their 
physical sex. This term includes transsexual and transvestite.
(Source: American Academy of Pediatrics, Pediatrics, Vol. 92, 
No. 4 (Oct. 1993), pp. 631-634)

That's it. That's the whole thing.

Now, let me ask you, reader -- is there something about "not to be shared with students" that is hard to understand? This was NOT going to be taught to anyone, and was just there, in a list of definitions, so teachers could know a little more than their students.

There is not and was not going to be anything, anything at all, about transgenderism in the curriculum.

And he tells the board that the schools were going to teach that transgenderism is "normal, natural, and healthy?" In his dreams.

OK, that's bizarre to tell the board this as if it were real -- I mean, this is the school board, they've read the curriculum -- but this CRC guy is just getting started. Now, in classic form, he has to talk about the grossest aspect of sexual behavior that he can think of.

Would the discussion also have included the particular sexual practices associated with this supposed gender, perhaps fisting and rimming where participants ingest feces? Of course not.

He sits in front of the Montgomery County school board to tell them that transgendered people stick their hands up each others' butts and eat poop?

This is unbelievable.

Think how it must be, to be a board member and go to work, knowing that these CRC guys are going to pull this. Last time, it was another CRC member talking about flushing kids' heads in the toilet, and anus-licking.

Then he changes directions again.

Are you even aware that the American Psychiatric Association categorizes transgenderism as a gender identity disorder and advises children and adults so afflicted to seek therapy? It appears not.

This is incorrect. I was going to call it another lie, but I see that the former citizens committee actually approved a source (a Discovery Channel article by an Ann Reyes, PhD) that incorrectly supports this interpretation, so I'll give him a point back.

Maybe that's where he got his information. It would have been better, though, to go to the source, not a TV-show article. (And I hope the new committee follows that advice, too.)

There is, in fact, something called "gender identity disorder." The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, used to make psychiatric diagnoses, says this:

The diagnosis is not made if the individual has a concurrent 
physical intersex condition (e.g., androgen insensitivity syndrome 
or congenital adrenal hyperplasia) (Criteria C). To make the 
diagnosis, there must be evidence of clinically significant 
distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important 
areas of functioning (Criteria D).

This tells us a couple of things. If a person is actually physically transgendered, that is, if they have a hormonal or physical condition that makes their sex ambiguous, then it's not gender identity disorder. Second, if they are comfortable with their transgenderism, again, it's not a disorder. You gotta think you're the opposite sex from your physiology -- you have to be clearly, a hundred per cent male or female biologically in the first place -- and it has to impair or distress you.

Patton continues to tell the school board:

Apparently you have sided with extremist social activists who are attempting to normalize the abnormal. In fact, a teacher's resource actually includes a reference linking a Scotsman's wearing of a kilt with transvestitism. Scotsmen wear kilts ergo they are cross-dressers; therefore cross-dressing is a normal and accepted practice in some societies.

To which I can only quote our Spanish-speaking friends: jejeje.

Man, I'll tell you, that is silly. What is this guy so wound up about? A guy wears a skirt, big deal. Maybe he's Scottish, maybe he's gay, maybe he just likes to dress like a woman -- lighten up, dude, nobody gets hurt.

It seems to me that normal people accept things they can't change, especially when those things are none of their business and don't do any harm.

Oh, anyway, we were talking the other day about misconstrual. You don't really think there's any teachers' resource that says Scotsmen in kilts are cross-dressers, do you? I never saw anything like this in any teachers' resources, and I am not inclined to believe this character when he says it's in there. I'll bet he's misconstruing something, which of course we can't check on, because he doesn't say which resource makes this weird claim.

There's a paragraph I'll skip, where he gets to use the word "sophistry," but doesn't say anything important. Then he delivers his knockout punch:

It is very disturbing that the disbanded Citizens Advisory Committee had several representatives peddling transgenderism as a sexual variant. NARAL, Planned Parenthood, PFLAG, Montgomery County Mental Health Association which were all represented on the committee, each have stated unequivocal support of the transgendered. PFLAG in fact believes, and I quote, "There is no known cure or course of treatment which reverses the transgendered persons' manifestation of the characteristics and behavior of another gender." This of course is tattered bunk. But then again there is so much about that curriculum that was false and misleading let's not repeat the mistakes.

OK... was any of this worth saying? Was this a good use of the school board's time? This guy doesn't like the idea that some people are transgendered ... ok, so what?

And as far as your "tattered bunk," well, what do you suggest? Are you implying that you have the secret solution for all this, the Philosopher's Stone of proper gender identity? [Note: the written transcript shows the intended phrase to be "flat earth bunk," not "tattered bunk," which is what it sounded like.]

So what if the committee had members of some groups that accept transgendered persons? This is ... oh, I hate to throw this word around, but ... this is stupid. "Peddling transgenderism": a stupid thing to say. Sorry. Nobody can even imagine what that means, how you "peddle" something like that.

And remember, the citizens committee had somebody from PFOX. It had Parents Against X-Rated blah blah blah. It had the Daughters of the American Revolution. It had the President of the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, for cryin' out loud. So stop your whining.

The curriculum was not going to say anything about transgendered people. Lots of transgendered people do not have gender identity disorder.

Oh, and by the way, the fisting and rimming thing that these guys love to talk in public about. Straight people do that stuff too, you know.

Once again, the CRC has shown us the ugliest combination of hatred and ignorance -- please join us in stopping these people who want to influence the Montgomery County public school curriculum.