Dozens of Midwestern teachers met online this week and shared tips for helping transgender students change gender at school without their parents knowing, while criticizing a slew of new Republican gender and identity laws.
DailyMail.com gained access to an online session hosted by the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center (MAP), which is funded by the Department of Education, and was attended by approximately 30 teachers from Michigan, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois and not only.
In the four-hour workshop, they discussed helping transgender students deal with new laws in Republican-run states about gender, pronouns, names, parental rights, bathroom access and sports teams.
Some teachers said they followed the rules, but others discussed them being “subversive,” how their personal “code of conduct” violated laws, and how to “hide” a transgender student's new name and gender from their parents.
Kimberly Martin (left), an educator in Michigan, and Jennifer Haglund of Iowa say they will do anything to help transgender students
The report comes amid growing tensions between traditional parents, who worry about new ideas about gender in schools, and some progressive teachers, who say they need to protect transgender students from their families.
Kicking off the workshop, Angel Nathan, the MAP expert who hosted the session, said attendees would review the new laws in an effort to “fix marginalizing effects and disrupt problematic policies.”
In the discussion and role-play sessions that followed, teachers, administrators, principals and counselors talked about transgender students and their families in a way that would worry many parents.
Kimberly Martin, the DEI coordinator for Royal Oak Schools, which serves 5,000 K-12 students in Michigan, talked about helping transgender students keep their gender transition a secret.
“We're working with our record keeping system so that certain screens can't be seen by parents … if there's a nickname there that we're trying to hide,” Martin said at the online gathering.
Jennifer Haglund, a counselor for Ames Community Schools, which serves 5,000 Iowa K-12 students, complained about Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds in March signing a law barring biological males from competing on women's sports teams.
She bragged about her “own activism” and her participation in protest marches.
“I know I have my own proper code of ethics, and that doesn't always line up with the law,” Haglund said.
Shea Martin, a transgender educator from Ohio who writes “socialist, feminist and anti-racist” blog called Radical Teacher, said she worked against “laws that prohibit or limit transgender advocacy.”
“The stakes are very high for trans youth,” Martin said.
“I think that requires working subversively and quietly sometimes to make sure trans kids have what they need.”
DailyMail.com gained access to a private workshop where Midwestern teachers shared tips to help kids transition without telling their parents
School board meetings in the Midwest, like the one in North Dakota, have seen tense exchanges over the rights of transgender students and parents
Martin did not describe any subversive acts, but later spoke of teachers engaging in “sexuality” with primary school pupils aged between five and 10.
When talking about men, women, playground crushes, love affairs and young marriages, teachers should be careful not to treat “enhanced heterosexuality as the norm,” Martin said.
Finally, Yesenia Jimenez-Captain, the director of educational services at the Woodland School District, which serves about 4,600 K-8 students at four schools in Lake County, Illinois, hit out at conservative teachers in a nearby district.
Parents and teachers across Illinois have been outraged in recent years by efforts by Democrats to put tampons and sanitary napkins in boys' bathrooms so that transgender students can access them.
Jimenez-Captain told her colleagues about a nearby school board meeting that “exploded into violence” over the tampon controversy.
“This became a big violent issue because the people involved are also educators … which is silent.”
At no point in the session did any teacher say that parents might know what's best for their own children, or question whether on-demand affirmation was the only way to help a transgender-identified student.
The teaching of new wave gender ideology in schools and the covert affirmation of transgender-identified students have become key issues in America's culture wars between liberals and conservatives.
Some traditional parents worry that activist teachers are influencing children with radical ideas about gender and even encouraging them to transition.
The tensions have led to lawsuits and violent school board meetings across the country.
Republican politicians in red states have introduced more than 500 bills affecting LGBTQ people this year, with dozens already signed into law, says the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group.
Whether transgender student athletes can compete against female students has become a divisive issue at schools like this one in California
Maia Kobabe's graphic memoir Gender Queer (below right) is among books parents have tried to ban from school libraries
The Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center (MAP) serves 11.2 million students in 7,025 school districts in 13 states
Parents are clashing with teachers in the US over whether transgender teens can walk into classrooms without their knowledge — and most cases aren't always resolved in the principal's office and often end up in court
They include laws that require teachers to notify parents of a student's new name or pronoun, if transgender students can use bathrooms that do not match their birth gender, or ban transgender girls from participating in girls' sports.
Conservative parent groups tried to ban books from classrooms and school libraries, including Maia Kobabe's graphic memoir Gender Queer, about the author's struggle with her own sexual and gender identity.
Schools are under pressure to help transgender students in this divisive political environment, where the “gender-affirmation” model touted by the American Academy of Pediatrics and others is increasingly being called into question.
MAP, which hosted the workshop, is part of the Great Lakes Equity Center. Funded by the federal government under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it serves 11.2 million students in 7,025 school districts in 13 states.
In November, MAP announced it had secured an $8.5 million funding deal with the Department of Education and millions more elsewhere. The department did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.
MAP operates in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. It covers states with pro-trans laws and others with a more cautious approach.
