Parents are outraged at teacher for being transgendered

[Darth Wong]

Just so you know, I looked up Vacaville on Google Maps and it's a dipshit town surrounded by open space. What a shock.

Kids Pulled From Transgender Teacher's Class
Travis Unified School District Says It Must Respect Privacy

POSTED: 1:50 pm PDT October 14, 2008
UPDATED: 5:58 pm PDT October 14, 2008

VACAVILLE, Calif. -- A teacher's gender reassignment surgery has caught the attention of some parents who want to know why the school district didn't notify them ahead of time about the change.

A music teacher at Foxboro Elementary School, who was formerly a woman, returned to school as a man at the beginning of the school year.

The teacher, who was not identified by KCRA 3, is now being addressed as "Mister."

Some parents told Travis Unified School District that they feel like their rights to know were violated.

"All the information came straight from our kids and didn't come from the school board or the teachers ... this has all been second-hand information," parent Melissa Oiland said.

The district said it has to respect privacy and personal issues, and that it must preserve privacy rights of the teachers.

The school board said such disclosure would violate HIPAA privacy rules.

"I understand what parents are saying, but we have a right as an employer, we have a legal obligation as an employer to protect our employees," Superintendent Kate Wren Gavlak said.

Gavlak said the district consulted with lawyers and determined that legally, it could not disclose any information about the teacher's gender change.

"We will not be discussing personal matters with either the students, or the parents or the community at large ... because we cannot," Gavlak said.

Parent Angela Weinzinger, who has three children at the school, said she has since transferred her children out of the class.

"I wasn't given the opportunity to make a choice on what I wanted to do with the situation," Weinzinger said.

So far, 23 students from 15 different families have transferred their children out of the music class and into a physical education class.

I'm so sick of this crypto-hatred that's become so fashionable. Oh right, so they're not offended at all by the fact that this person is transgendered; just by the fact that they were not informed about this person's transgender status. Why would that be a problem, unless you think that a teacher's transgender status has something to do with the well-being of your child? Since when do parents demand notification of every major event in a teacher's personal life? Do we send out newsletters to all parents informing them when a teacher gets divorced?

This is what 21st century American bigotry looks like: they don't admit that they hate a group, they just make up artificial policies which don't seem to have any real basis but which do just happen to conveniently ruin the lives of people belonging to that group.

[ArcturusMengsk]

*sigh*

I'm very intimately familiar with small-town bigotry against transsexuals, even by proxy. Particularly despicable is the conflation in the small-minded of transgendered individuals with homosexuals.

[Vendetta]

On the bright side, at least the school have responded in a sane fashion (for now, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if a lot of petty difficulties start arising for this teacher now), the parents complain that their "right to know" has been violated, and the school's response is, essentially, "you don't have a right to know".

It really is something that should be stated in those kind of bold terms for the hard of thinking though, personal issues are just that, personal, they don't affect a teacher's ability to do their job beyond maybe five minutes of sniggering on day one from the inevitable particularly immature kids.

[Big Phil]

Just so you know, I looked up Vacaville on Google Maps and it's a dipshit town surrounded by open space. What a shock.

Oh please, Mike. Vacaville is in Napa Valley, and is a suburb of San Francisco, hardly a conservative hotbed. What's happening here has much less to do with the town (and your suggestion that it's full of small minded, conservative bigots), and says more about people's discomfort (in general) with transgendered individuals.

And as Vendetta pointed out, the school district responded exactly as they should have, with a polite but firm "fuck you."

By the way, some demographic information on Vacaville

http://www.muninetguide.com/states/cali ... aville.php

[Kanastrous]

If the teacher is - to the kids - recognizably the same person, having undergone a fairly radical physical change, I can see that there might be some confusion for the kids, themselves.

It seems reasonable that there might have been some effort made, toward explaining the basic situation to the children, maybe on the first day of classes, to ease the transition, for *them* - not being for the parents' benefit, but for the kids'. Better the school find a way to do it, than leave the individual parents to stuff their offsprings' heads with their take, on the matter.

[Darth Wong]

Just so you know, I looked up Vacaville on Google Maps and it's a dipshit town surrounded by open space. What a shock.

Oh please, Mike. Vacaville is in Napa Valley, and is a suburb of San Francisco, hardly a conservative hotbed.

Don't be a goddamned imbecile. I can see on the map that there are large regions around Vacaville which are not built up at all. Yes, it's outside a major city, but that does not mean its values reflect the nearby city. Toronto has small suburbs outside it like Milton, and guess what: people who work in Toronto but hate the "big city culture" live there. That's what they're for. The idea that some dipshit town must be liberal if it's in commuting distance of a liberal city is too retarded for words.

[Count Chocula]

It ain't just cow towns that have this issue. The Largo, FL city manager was fired earlier this year for announcing plans to undergo transgender surgery (link). Largo is smack in the middle of Clearwater and St. Petersburg, hardly a lightly populated area.

My read on this is that persons undergoing transgender surgery are doing something that strikes deep at the core of most people's personal identities - and something that most would never consider doing. It is a truly radical series of procedures and something that would not have been possible twenty-five years ago, and I imagine it's even tougher mentally for an adult to transform their personal identity. Combine the uneasiness at discovering that someone you thought you knew is not at all the person you thought you were, and the sheer scale of the operations required, and Mr. & Mrs. "Normal" tend to get mighty uneasy.

I believe the key here is that the music teacher, like the ex-Largo city manager, are in highly visible positions and institutions that practically require a high level of conformity to the community's "norms," i.e. don't rock the boat, don't be too radical, don't make people uncomfortable. The outrage of some of Vacaville's residents is a very predictable response when the middle of the bell curve encounters someone on the far end of it. Couple that with the fact that she's an elementary school teacher, rather than a high school teacher, and you probably had a lot of little kiddies coming home to Mommy and Daddy and asking awkward questions about sex.

Dislike of minority groups (blacks in the US, homosexuals, what have you) is a common human response that is best cured by, oh I don't know, interaction. The school board did what they were legally required to do, which is a shame. Perhaps if they had had an opportunity to inform the incoming students' parents a few weeks before school started, the parents could have made their choices to have their kids in the teacher's class or not before school started.

[CarsonPalmer]

The parents shouldn't get that choice. In no other school that I know of do parents get to insist upon who teaches their child music for any reason at all, let alone a reason so stupid. If these people didn't want their child to have a music teacher because she was black, what would your response be?

[Enigma]

I'd like to see the school board butt into their lives and start objecting to anything they perceive as offensive because they weren't notified in advance.

[Count Chocula]

CarsonPalmer wrote:

If these people didn't want their child to have a music teacher because she was black, what would your response be?

I'd say what the fuck, I went to sleep and woke up in 1950! Come on. That the best you can do?

[Terralthra]

Just so you know, I looked up Vacaville on Google Maps and it's a dipshit town surrounded by open space. What a shock.

Oh please, Mike. Vacaville is in Napa Valley, and is a suburb of San Francisco, hardly a conservative hotbed. What's happening here has much less to do with the town (and your suggestion that it's full of small minded, conservative bigots), and says more about people's discomfort (in general) with transgendered individuals.

Mike's absolutely right. Vacaville is, by and large, a shit town populated by people who disapprove of SF's perceived "libertinism" for one reason or another.

[Enigma]

Just so you know, I looked up Vacaville on Google Maps and it's a dipshit town surrounded by open space. What a shock.

Oh please, Mike. Vacaville is in Napa Valley, and is a suburb of San Francisco, hardly a conservative hotbed. What's happening here has much less to do with the town (and your suggestion that it's full of small minded, conservative bigots), and says more about people's discomfort (in general) with transgendered individuals.

Mike's absolutely right. Vacaville is, by and large, a shit town populated by people who disapprove of SF's perceived "libertinism" for one reason or another.

Vacaville, "Vaca" a Portuguese word for cow and "ville" a french word for town. Vacaville = Cowtown.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Dislike of minority groups (blacks in the US, homosexuals, what have you) is a common human response that is best cured by, oh I don't know, interaction. The school board did what they were legally required to do, which is a shame. Perhaps if they had had an opportunity to inform the incoming students' parents a few weeks before school started, the parents could have made their choices to have their kids in the teacher's class or not before school started.

A Shame? I dont think so.

First off, just because something is understandable does not make it excusable.

Second of all, those privacy laws exist for a reason, and that is because of every demographic group transgendered and transexual people are at the highest risk of discrimination and violence. This poor guy is already probably receiving death threats, you want him to get more, earlier? Or maybe have an AFA Actionalert go out about him? Come the fuck on

[Count Chocula]

I just can't imagine being so wound up at someone choosing to undergo such a radical change that I'd threaten them or assault them. Does that make me a poor candidate for residency in Vacaville?

You said

just because something is understandable does not make it excusable.

I bet someone in Vacaville would say that and mean exactly the opposite of what you, I, and I'm guessing most board members would mean. Ignorance, after all, is its own excuse. The sword and shield of the closed-minded.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Oh please, Mike. Vacaville is in Napa Valley, and is a suburb of San Francisco, hardly a conservative hotbed. What's happening here has much less to do with the town (and your suggestion that it's full of small minded, conservative bigots), and says more about people's discomfort (in general) with transgendered individuals.

What an effective rebuttal. "Mike, thanks but no thanks for offering us an excuse and just saying small-town folksy people are ignorant bigots, but really, its most of us nation-wide, urban or rural."

[Big Phil]

Just so you know, I looked up Vacaville on Google Maps and it's a dipshit town surrounded by open space. What a shock.

Oh please, Mike. Vacaville is in Napa Valley, and is a suburb of San Francisco, hardly a conservative hotbed.

Don't be a goddamned imbecile. I can see on the map that there are large regions around Vacaville which are not built up at all. Yes, it's outside a major city, but that does not mean its values reflect the nearby city. Toronto has small suburbs outside it like Milton, and guess what: people who work in Toronto but hate the "big city culture" live there. That's what they're for. The idea that some dipshit town must be liberal if it's in commuting distance of a liberal city is too retarded for words.

As I understand it, you're arguing that people feel this way about the teacher because it's a small, insulated town, and that similar reactions wouldn't be seen in large urban areas. I might be wrong about Vacaville (and it might be a shithole full of conservative assholes), but I don't think the reaction to the transgender teacher would be different in large cities (other than perhaps San Francisco and similar "liberal" cities). In other words, most Americans would react badly to a transgender teacher.

Oh please, Mike. Vacaville is in Napa Valley, and is a suburb of San Francisco, hardly a conservative hotbed. What's happening here has much less to do with the town (and your suggestion that it's full of small minded, conservative bigots), and says more about people's discomfort (in general) with transgendered individuals.

What an effective rebuttal. "Mike, thanks but no thanks for offering us an excuse and just saying small-town folksy people are ignorant bigots, but really, its most of us nation-wide, urban or rural."

Hey, Captain Brown Nose, either add something to the conversation or fuck off.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I used to live about 8 miles from Vacaville. Its a small, central california town that's reasonably progressive, but still has very much a small-town mindset. They aren't big fans of the 'hippies' in Davis, and in fact many people who live there commute to Davis and resent the liberalism. You'll never see a confederate flag or 'fags go home' out in public, but its more conservative than the bay area. Its fair to say its a 'moderate' shithole, with parents that are overreacting.

I can understand why the parents are freaking out, but that in no way excuses this sort of prejudice or demand for rules-breaking to protect their 'poor widdle children'. People are gay, some people feel the need to correct the body they were born with, and it is insanely selfish to insist that a person spend their life in what they feel to be the wrong body so that YOU can feel comfortable.

[Darth Wong]

As I understand it, you're arguing that people feel this way about the teacher because it's a small, insulated town, and that similar reactions wouldn't be seen in large urban areas.

Do you feel that idiotically simple-minded black/white fallacy strawmen like this constitute a strong rebuttal? It's a matter of degrees, not on/off. Yes, you would see similar reactions in more progressive cities. But no, it would not be as severe. People in smaller communities tend to have a different attitude than people in larger ones, moron. It's not exactly difficult to see why: if you are isolated from people of diverse backgrounds, you will tend to be less understanding of those people.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

I don't have a problem with the parents reaction. They were going to find out somehow. If they were a responsible parent they'd have tried to meet all the teachers their kids had and say "Hi I'm Johns father. Nice to meet you. Where are you from?" and might have found out first hand and then made a desicion. However I do believe that the school should have told them. It was public knowledge that the teacher went from Miss to Mister. Any moron with a functioning brain would be able to say "Ah so there was a sex change". I think that after the change at which point it'd out in the open the school could have said something to the affect of "One of our teachers Ms. Soandso will now be referred to as Mr. Soandso" without diving into massive details.

I generally conform to the rule of "If you don't know it can't hurt you" for things like that. However if something does come out publicly and it is; for what ever reason, a concern, then the school does need to say something about it. Not everyone is going to react the same way, whether they be right or wrong and they have the right in order to be informed about what's going on so they can make the best desicion for their children.

[Broomstick]

My read on this is that persons undergoing transgender surgery are doing something that strikes deep at the core of most people's personal identities - and something that most would never consider doing. It is a truly radical series of procedures and something that would not have been possible twenty-five years ago

There were transgender procedures 25 years ago - it's NOT as new as people think it is.

In fact, there is a record of sex change operation in Berlin in 1930, one Lily Elbe. Procedures since then have considerable technical improvements.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I don't have a problem with the parents reaction.

Justify their bigotry.

If they were a responsible parent they'd have tried to meet all the teachers their kids had and say "Hi I'm Johns father. Nice to meet you. Where are you from?" and might have found out first hand and then made a desicion.

Parents of children in public schools do not micromanage their child's teachers. Responsible ones meet them yes, but barring religious or racial bigotry tend not to withdraw their kids from a teachers class unless the individual is a shitty teacher or does things like burn crosses into the flesh of their kids.

However I do believe that the school should have told them.

Why? Why the fuck should the parents know? What business of it is theirs that someone took the final legal step of GRS? I guarantee you the kids were calling him Mr. long before the GRS procedure.

Not everyone is going to react the same way, whether they be right or wrong and they have the right in order to be informed about what's going on so they can make the best desicion for their children.

This implies that a transman is a potentially inferior teacher. Either justify this, or back down.

[Rye]

I don't have a problem with the parents reaction. They were going to find out somehow. If they were a responsible parent they'd have tried to meet all the teachers their kids had and say "Hi I'm Johns father. Nice to meet you. Where are you from?" and might have found out first hand and then made a desicion.

Uh, is this common practise in your schools? It's really not here.

However I do believe that the school should have told them.

They should probably tell them when they break up with their spouses in case they dislike the idea of divorcees teaching their kids too. Or when they're gay. Or when they're a different religion. Or grew up without a father. Or mixed race. Of course, none of these things have anything to do with whether the person is a decent teacher or not, but why should that have any impact on whether they should be able teach?

I generally conform to the rule of "If you don't know it can't hurt you" for things like that. However if something does come out publicly and it is; for what ever reason, a concern, then the school does need to say something about it. Not everyone is going to react the same way, whether they be right or wrong and they have the right in order to be informed about what's going on so they can make the best desicion for their children.

So you think if it can't hurt them and they have no business knowing it, you think they should tell all the parents in case they're retarded bigots? What the hell happened to data protection? You get busted here for that sort of sharing of information.

[Vendetta]

whether they be right or wrong and they have the right in order to be informed about what's going on so they can make the best desicion for their children.

No. They do not have the right to be informed about personal details of a school employee. And the school, as they determined when they took legal advice on the matter, has a legal obligation not to disclose such details. Full stop, end of story.

[Vendetta]

There were transgender procedures 25 years ago - it's NOT as new as people think it is.

It is, however, quite rare, and only actually evident during gender reassignment anyway. Chances are, most people won't ever know even if they have met a transgender person, because they either haven't progressed with gender reassignment or have completed it and are living fully as a member of their eventual gender.

Without that exposure, it stays as a "weird" process, so people who are given to react before thinking will react badly to it.

[Stark]

Whoa, I didn't think I'd see anyone actually support the idea of disclosing irrelevant personal details about staff to allow parents to 'judge' their worthiness to perform their jobs. This isn't like someone being a convicted criminal - it's totally irrelevant. The only way I can even BEGIN to understand this attitude is if people are afraid the attitudes of the teacher will 'rub off' onto kids, allowing them to 'catch gay' or whatever. It's like saying a teacher listens to music that is 'inappropriate' or watches violent movies and saying parents should know this totally irrelevant (but possibly socially unnaceptable) fact so they can demand their removal.

It's not just incomprehensible bigotry - it's the whole 'parents know what's best' bullshit. PS, when you have kids you don't magically get super child knowledge that makes you the best judge of what's good for your kids.