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Zoom call shows teachers scheming on how to defy parents’ requests on kid’s gender and birth pronouns

May 12, 2022 | | Print Article

As yet another video of elementary school staffers snubbing parental wishes emerges, it appears that either woke teachers have yet to learn not to brag in Zoom calls about dismissing angry parents, or they simply don’t care who hears them.

In an April 26th virtual Zoom meeting to address “Creating and Sustaining GSAs in Elementary Schools,” panelists were asked by an unnamed educator what teachers should do if a parent asks them to refer to their child “by the pronouns associated with their sex assigned at birth instead of their preferred pronouns, and that we use a legal name instead of a student’s chosen name.”

“GSA,” in case you were wondering, stands for “Genders & Sexualities Alliances,” and the organizers of the panel —  a group called “Gender Inclusive Classrooms” —  believe the answer is, essentially, ‘Who cares what the parents want?’

Kieran Slattery, who teaches fifth graders in Massachusetts and co-created Gender Inclusive Classrooms, was quick to boast that he simply ignores “caretakers,” after making sure that he first covers his own belligerent backside.

“This came up for me — it’s come up in a couple different ways — but it’s come up for me where caregivers asked,” Slattery, a “white, queer transgender man” who teaches at Jackson Street Elementary, said.

“I actually refer to their child’s name… using the name, the name they asked to be referred to and their chosen pronouns, and caregivers reacted very strongly,” he stated.

 

Parents “followed up with me and the principal, and said, like, ‘I know you were using a different name than my child’s given name at birth and the pronouns we gave them, and I’m respectfully asking that you use the name and the pronouns that we gave them,” the teacher continued.

The issue, warned Slattery, isn’t about respecting parents, it’s about making sure they can’t sue you when you ignore them.

“So the laws in every state are different, obviously, and I can’t speak to the laws in everyone’s particular state, but I will say — again, the resources that we’ll give you after this have some helpful sites where you can look up what the rules are for your state,” he said, adding, “Before I responded to the caregiver, I made sure I ran it by my principal and my superintendent just to make sure that they had my back.”

Apparently, Slattery believes if you use really patronizing language, parents will acquiesce — especially if you refuse to call them “parents.”

“And then I responded — and I chose my words carefully — and I said, ‘I hear you, I hear what you’re saying,'” he explained. “I tried to really affirm what the caregiver was asking me, like in terms of, ‘I hear you saying that you’re feeling uncomfortable with me using the child’s preferred name and pronouns; I hear that you’re using different ones at home.”

“But here at school,” Slattery continued, “the expectation is that all of my students feel comfortable and welcome in my classroom.”

“The assertion saw the educator put particular emphasis on the word, ‘my,'” The Daily Mail noted.

“So in my classroom,” concluded the teacher, “I will refer to your child by whatever name and pronouns that they’ve told me they feel most comfortable with.”

“Just have that be it,” Slattery encouraged his fellow GSA activists, “almost like the guidelines I try to use when I’m, like, explaining hard topics to my students. Like, less is more. I just say, like, ‘That sounds like it works really well for you at home, and you can absolutely choose to do whatever you like at home.'”

“In my classroom — and I even say, like, every year I start out my year by sending home information to caregivers that says, like, ‘Just so you know, this is an affirming class — the way that I affirm students is I call them by the names they ask to be called by and use their correct pronouns,'” he said proudly. “I just told them — maybe that’s not helpful — I just told them, ‘No.’ Respectfully, ‘No.'”

“And because I had my principal and my superintendent’s support, there wasn’t much they can do,” Slattery boasted. “And they eventually kind of, like, found another topic to squawk about.”

Like, parents are, like, understandably losing their damn minds online, especially after seeing the rest of the panel nodding in approval of Slattery’s guidance.

“How much longer are the majority of … parents going to have to put up with this?” asked one angry Twitter user.

“Ok, groomers,” responded another.

“Don’t send your kids to public schools,” warned a third.

And a fourth wants all the teachers on the Zoom call fired immediately.

“Four more teachers self identifying their need to be fired immediately,” the user tweeted. “They are equating themselves with equal importance to their students’ parents. They are NOT! These teachers should be fired and be kept away from children!!!”

https://twitter.com/TheAlexBridge/status/1524732307290140674?s=20&t=6LLL4AricpAk-SHPy-5ezQ

https://twitter.com/DrStran19413023/status/1524729277723275265?s=20&t=6LLL4AricpAk-SHPy-5ezQ

https://twitter.com/ibis1215/status/1524741428273983488?s=20&t=6LLL4AricpAk-SHPy-5ezQ

 

Melissa Fine
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