Brian Parks seems confused about who the ideologues are when it comes to preventing bullying of transgender students. Insisting that everyone else comply with your personal, narrow views about how boys and girls should look, talk, think and act is, in fact, a deeply reactionary ideological position. Attempting to label teachers who are trying to prevent bullying of transgender children as ideologues is a not-very-well-disguised form of bigotry.
Transgender people have existed as long as humanity has. My much more basic ideological position is that we should all be free to be ourselves, including our transgender friends, colleagues and neighbors. I'm glad they're finding more acceptance and representation in our society. I'm glad our school system is adopting anti-bullying programs, and readers may be interested to learn more at welcomingschools.org and the Gazette's previous coverage.
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