Resident takes on school directors

In a sane world, school board directors strive to create a stable learning environment for ALL of the students in their district, making sensible and rational decisions based on data and qualified expert advice while doing their best to set aside their personal biases. But we live in Trump’s kakistocracy now and institutionalized cruelty against marginalized subsets of our population is just a matter of course.

Over the last few months, DVSD school board director Jack Fisher, vocally supported by Carl Will and Brian Fells, has set into motion a plan that, if successful, will lead to the disenfranchisement of innocent transgendered children in our school district, citing unfounded safety concerns for cis-gendered girls.

Fisher has presented two motions to the board: The first is for the dissolution of the federal Office of Civil Rights agreement signed by the board a decade ago, after the district was found to be in violation of a transgendered student’s civil rights. The sanctions against the district included policy changes that explicitly give equal access to DVSD facilities to gender nonconforming students. It’s important to note that in the decade since the OCR policy changes have been implemented there has never been a complaint of harassment or assault against a transgendered student at DVSD, mirroring national statistics. In other words, transgendered children do not represent a legitimate safety concern towards their cis-gendered counterparts.

Fisher’s second motion is for the board to resolve that “there are only two sexes”. This statement doesn’t make sense from a biological perspective as intersexed individuals absolutely exist, but I’ve taken it to mean that Fisher doesn’t believe that there’s a difference between biological sex and gender. This perspective runs counter to over a century of scientific investigation into the complexities of gender - particularly cross-cultural and historic comparisons. The first motion would clear legal hurdles while this resolution would provide the board with an ideological stance from which they can begin to dismantle the OCR policy changes. To put this another way, these motions would pave the way for Fisher and company to violate the civil rights of school children. Congratulations, gentlemen, you’re true American heroes.

The human rights of school children should not be up for debate especially by those charged by voters to oversee their education. Transgendered students shouldn’t have their rights curtailed on the basis of ignorance and bigotry. The safety concerns expressed by Fisher are a weak attempt to justify punishing innocent children for having the audacity to fight for and exercise their freedom of gender expression. This is Republican culture war performance art and will not make cis-gendered girls any safer but will propagate a more hostile environment for every LGBTQ kid at DVSD.

Disturbingly, no other school board member has stepped up to provide a full-throated response in support of our transgendered students. I ask the board to consider the actual, real, living and breathing children that these policy changes will impact rather than just the legal implications.

The dissolution of the OCR agreement might be a foregone conclusion, but it doesn’t mean that the policies that protect transgendered kids need to be modified or removed.

I ask that the LGBTQ folks, their families, and allies in the DVSD school district reach out to the school board at schoolboard@dvsd.org and tell them that transgender rights are human rights. Most importantly, let’s remember this board’s behavior at the ballot box. Fisher, Fells, and Will are not up for reelection until 2027, but many board members are on the primary ballot for the May 20 municipal election. This is a great time to ask them to make their feelings clear and vote accordingly. As of now, the only person running for DVSD school board on the primary ballot who I’ve heard voice clear support for LGBTQ students is Joseph Kuermele. I will be voting for Joe and writing in Denise Fey on the 20th and no one else.

Frank Feeley

Milford