The State of Education with Melvin Adams

Ep. 29 "Are Schools Making our Kids Transgender?" - Panel Discussion (Part 1 of 2)

August 17, 2022 Melvin Adams Episode 29
The State of Education with Melvin Adams
Ep. 29 "Are Schools Making our Kids Transgender?" - Panel Discussion (Part 1 of 2)
Show Notes Transcript

Dr. Kenyon Knapp, Lori Kuykendall, and Thomas Turner join Melvin Adams on The State of Education to discuss the impact of transgenderism on children. America’s schools are fraught with struggle over this issue. While some do a great job, some teachers and school boards are encouraging confusion among young people, and children are being led to make life-changing decisions before they even reach puberty! What can parents and teachers do to reclaim the truth and guide their kids through a value system that will help them have a healthy mindset regarding their sexuality? Listen in on today’s episode to hear how our guests answer that question and so many others!
 

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Pride, Pronouns, & Problems Panel Transcript

Interviewed by Melvin Adams

June 2022


ADAMS: Well good evening everyone! Thank you for joining us and for tuning in to this live event. My name is Melvin Adams, I’m the founder and President of Noah Webster Educational Foundation. We are an organization committed to reclaiming America’s education and culture through foundational principles and best practices.


 I’m joined tonight by a select panel—each with experience and perspective on our topic. Tonight we’ll be discussing hot-button issues surrounding schools and how they should or shouldn’t handle our children. 


We’ll be talking about transparency issues, and whether or not they should promote sexuality. Because of recent trends, we will especially focus on trans-sexuality. 


Now, I represent Noah Webster Educational Foundation as the moderator of this discussion. Each of our panelists' opinions is their own and does not necessarily reflect the positions of Noah Webster. 


Members of our audience, we invite you to join the conversation as well tonight. You can submit questions in the comment box there in the Facebook thread under the livestream. Or you may do so by submitting texts to 877-322-NWEF. We’d love to hear from you tonight. 


We will be going through a series of questions that have already been prepared by our staff for the panel. Then following that, we will take questions from our audience tonight. And so thank you for joining us! 


And so tonight I’m joined by three panelists: Kenyon Knapp, Lor Kuykendall, and Thomas Turner. So panelists, please take a minute to introduce yourselves. Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you’re doing, and especially the background experience you may have with your topic. So let’s start it off with Kenyon Knapp. 


KNAPP: Ok, well thank you very much, I appreciate the opportunity to share with everyone tonight. My background is that I’ve been a counseling professor for over 20 years. But I’ve also been in private practice since 1998. 


I’m a licensed professional counselor and in my years of counseling, I’ve worked with a lot of different issues. I’ve worked with about 60 different transexual clients at various levels in the process. I’ve also served as a school counselor for a number of years. So that’s just a little quick synopsis of my background. 


ADAMS: Thank you. Lori? 


KUYKENDALL: Good evening, I am glad to be here as well! My background is in health education. I have an undergraduate degree in community health education and later earned my master's in public health and health promotion. 


I have been in the field of sex education, really abstinence education, since 1995. I thought I would set out to be a pediatrician when I headed off to college in 1990—and now you know my age, everyone—but here I am to say I was quickly drawn into the field of prevention and health education, particularly for children. 


I have a deep love for children having served in mission work for children and health education in Guatemala and Romania. This particular issue is fairly new, right? It’s quickly developing, evolving, and changing quickly and constantly for parents in schools and I’m glad we can dive into addressing some solutions to the problem tonight. 


ADAMS: Great. Thomas? 


TURNER: Well thank you so much, Melvin, and too to Noah Webster Foundation for inviting me to speak. I’ve been involved in conservative politics for about 12 years since I graduated from Liberty University in 2012. 


I have had the opportunity to work on various college campuses, promoting conservative ideas and principles, but I’ve also had the opportunity to work in my local public school system here in Suffolk—both as a substitute teacher and now I serve on the citizen's board for public safety which has taught me a lot about transparency. But above all, I’m a member of the LGBTQ community and I’m looking forward to having a great discussion with you all here tonight. 


ADAMS: Alright. Thank you all. So today someone sent me a meme and it was attributed to Bill Maher but like most things one receives over the internet, it may or may not be true. But the message itself made sense to me. Let me share it with you all kinda as a preamble to our conversation tonight. 


This is what it said: “If kids knew what they wanted to be at age 8, the world would be filled with cowboys and princesses. I wanted to be a pirate. Thank God nobody took me seriously and scheduled me eye removal and peg-legged surgery.” 


Alright, so that’s kind of where we kick off here tonight so you’ll have a sense of where we’re going and some of the things we’re going to be talking about. Let’s start off with a few general questions that are open to the whole panel here. 


First of all, do you believe there is evidence that public education is enabling the transgender movement? 


KUYKENDALL: Well, I’m going to jump in by saying public education is one of many enabling, to use your word, Melvin, the transgender movement. I think we wouldn’t want to give it all of its responsibility, we would want to include it in one of many cultural influences that have shaped and changed the way children think about their sexuality and their identity going forward. 


It’s easy to track along the increasing prevalence of the increasing range of identities for gender and the expressions of that accordingly. But I think [it’s] a broad-brush statement to place on schools is a little bit tricky. 


But public education will always have a role in shaping our kids and we want to make sure we’re thinking through the partnership with parents and appropriate policies that would protect our children. And that looks different everywhere. 


As we know, public schools are locally controlled and most of the curriculum and policy decisions happen at the local level. And so we’re going to have a range, across the thousands, of school districts in the nation. I don’t know that I answered your question directly but brought in what I think are quite a few of the complex issues here around this topic. 


ADAMS: So I think the keyword in the question is, do you believe there is evidence. 


KNAPP: Yeah, I’ll jump in on that. I’m speaking to you now from Virginia and in Virginia two years ago there was House Bill 145 and Senate Bill 161 and they were promoting the “model policies for the treatment of transgender students in public, elementary, and secondary schools.” 


And the state department of education was pushing local school districts to adopt this. And it was a very slanted, one-sided approach to the whole issue of transsexualism. Meaning that the referrals they had within the document were only two organizations that were affirming of transsexualism if a person felt any confusion at all about their sexual attractions or gender identity and so forth. 


And so in Virginia at least, there was a definite push towards this—now there’s been some change in politics in the state of Virginia in the last year or so, and that sort of slowed this down a little bit. 


But there are a number of other states like Virginia that have similar house and senate bills where the state department of education is pushing specific curriculums about transsexualism. Many times parents object to that and you’re seeing that all across the national media where parents are standing up and mobilizing and going to school board meetings—not just in Loudoun County Virginia, which is getting a lot of national media attention—but in a lot of districts across the country. 


And a lot of the parents are saying they want to convey their thoughts about this to their children themselves. Not have the public school district share their thoughts on it. 


ADAMS: Thomas, you want to add to that? 


TURNER: Yeah, I do. I actually want to add a little bit. I’m from the Hampton Roads area of Virginia and I was actually exposed to a book called Gender Queer and I was just flabbergasted that it was actually in the school. 


It depicted very inappropriate—I won’t go into detail out of respect for the group—but it was very inappropriate, depicting sexual acts and I was just like, “Why is that in school?” It was pornography. And it was probably one of the most disturbing things that I’ve ever seen in my life. 


So to answer the question, I would say, yes and no. Because it does vary on locality. But if schools are allowing books like that, then it does concern me that—why is it being exposed to minors? Especially if parents are not being told about it. So that’s just my thoughts on that. 


ADAMS: So, Thomas maybe you want to start off in response to this next observation or question if you’re comfortable with that. So when we start talking about transgender, I mean there’s everything from, you might call it “playing trans” like cross-dressing and drag. 


You know, we’re seeing drag queens come and read to the kids in the library, and recently in the news, you know parents took their kids out to a bar and the drag queens were dancing and [they] were tipping the drag queens and things like that. 


And then there’s that actual promoting of and actually doing the sexual transition therapy. So in other words, it’s not one one-size-fits-all issue. There’s a lot involved here at differing degrees, wouldn’t you agree? 


TURNER: Yeah, I actually would agree to an extent, Melvin. I think what we’re seeing here is that—for example, I’ll just start with the drag queen shows. I was actually sent something on a video from Blues Clues. I don’t know if y’all are familiar with Blue Clues—it’s a Nick Jr. show, and it had a pride parade. 


Which, I’m like, “Ok.” You know, I’ve been to many pride fests and I personally go to these events, but I was like, “Well I’ll just watch this a see where it goes.” and it started off talking about [how] some families have two parents of the same sex. 


And I went. “Okay.” I don’t know if parents want their kids to see that. But it didn’t really bother me. But it started getting really deep into the pansexual, and bisexual facets, and that started to disturb me. 


And then they had what looked to be, as you were saying, a drag queen [and] they were making it sound like they were using one of the marching songs from the Civil War period and they like modified it to make it seem like this is a “normal thing” to be talking about—having multiple sexual partners, multiple types of orientation. 


While I do believe that these discussions should happen, while I do believe that we should be talking about this, I think it should be at the appropriate age. And 4 years old is not the appropriate age. It’s disturbing that we’re seeing this being pushed onto children. 


Because, quite honestly, biologically, they’re not ready for it. What we should be talking about with four-year-olds is how to share and how to treat people kindly and how to respect their parents. Not this whole concept of, “Are you pan, are you bisexual?” 


They haven’t even hit puberty yet. Scientifically they just haven't! And so that concerns me. While again, you know, if they’re 18 and they’re approaching adulthood and they want to go attend these types of events, that’s perfectly fine. 


But I really have a problem, and I’ve had this problem, [with] that we’re seeing such a push at such an early age on these types of issues. It’s actually getting very scary. I don’t mean to prolong, but going into the drag shows—at first when I actually heard this I was like, “There is no way that…” Because I’ve been to numerous drag shows and I would not want any minor there! 


It’s kind of like, in essence, going to a strip bar, but it’s an environment for adults-for adults to make those personal decisions whether they want to attend this [event] or not. And just because of the type of dancing and the music and the environment overall—that exposure shouldn’t be to a child yet. That’s just my opinion on the subject. 


ADAMS: Thank you, Thomas. Does anyone else want to weigh in briefly on that? 


KUYKENDALL: One thing I might add is just some clarity around what is very complex and confusing and controversial. I usually say those three C’s pretty quickly together. Even defining terms is tricky. And you think about how this translates in the classroom setting to children. 


Well if the adults can’t agree on clarity and definition, then we can't pass that on to children. So I think it kinda follows along with this idea of what do we teach in a classroom for children? And, given the complexity of definitions even. 


One thing I like to do in this discussion is differentiating between gender identity and sexual orientation. They’re two very different concepts. I usually say gender identity first because it’s going to typically be a smaller, younger child dealing with identity issues. 


Where sexual orientation becomes more of a behavior issue. And then we also differentiate down between feelings and behaviors and identities. There’s sort of this whole grid to give us a framework to even discuss these difficult topics. 


But I think that children need objectivity and clarity and things we can agree on and have been found in science. Certainly, the ideology of this expanding list of identities is quite confusing to children and it gives them a sense of insecurity or doesn’t provide the safety that they need. 


ADAMS: Yeah. As I was trying to prepare for today, I was thinking…and I have a question I’d like to throw out here. It might be a bomb—I don’t intend for it to be necessary, but I think we need to think seriously. The question I have, is: is a society that advocates for mutilation, a healthy one? Let’s start with the Doctor. 


KNAPP: Thank you. And I apologize for the internet problems we had here for a second. A little bit of the devil in the details of the technology. To your question about mutilating—I find it disturbing. I should say the mental health field is divided on this issue. 


Some people consider it the only appropriate way to be affirming of children who feel confused about their gender identity. If they feel that they’re a boy with a girl’s biological body, we should just affirm the way they feel. 


I’m only speaking as a mental health professional for a second. I mentioned at the beginning of this that I’ve worked with about 60 transexual clients over my career. A very high percentage of my clients with transexual feelings had a sexual abuse history. 


And a common side effect of sexual abuse, especially in young children, is confusion about their gender identity. And so the clients I work with were then told that “If you feel that you’re a female if you’re biologically male, or vice versa, that that’s just who you are.” 


And I would meet with them and I would say, “Well, is there any possibility that your sexual abuse history which we talked about could have any implications or relevance to your current identity feelings?”


And the clients would often say yes. But the advocates in the organizations would say, “Heck, no.” And they would [confirm] that whatever you feel is who you are and that feelings dictate reality. 


But many of my clients and many mental health professionals I know believe that a lot of transexual feelings are really just a delusion. And a lot of the mental health fields are just abdicating their responsibility in helping clients by only affirming the confused feelings that children feel because of the sexual abuse history. 


KUYKENDALL: I’ll jump in on thinking of education: where else in education do we go with feelings first? If you feel that 2+3 is 4, great! We’ll go with that. Right? We teach objectivity in other areas of education. And this particular one seems to be leaning toward feelings and subjectivity instead. And I think that’s problematic inherently also. 


TURNER: Yeah, I’ll jump in. I think the question you asked about mutilation, I think goes back to development. When we’re talking about these decisions, like I spoke about a little bit earlier, I don’t know if a 5-year-old can make that decision. I personally just don’t. 


However, I do know you get to that developed age, which is—I’m not a doctor—but it’s usually in your 20s from my basic understanding of biology. Then you’re in adulthood when you can make those decisions and go through the process of… if you want to go down that road to transitioning. 


It does worry me because there are some biological [inaudible 19:53-19:56] that could hinder a child’s development. I think that a lot of my friends who are in the LGBTQ on the Left, don’t really think about that. 


It’s not necessarily a question of, “You don’t accept them because they’ve decided to be trans.” That’s actually not true, it’s just a question of there are some biological steps that have to happen—bone development and other things—that you really need to think about here. 


And I know the good Doctor has probably had to have that discussion numerous times, probably with younger clients, especially with their parents, that’s what we really need to be thinking about here. 


I disagree a little bit with the concept that it’s an in-the-head type of thing, but I think that we really need to be mindful of the fact of a child vs. an adult. And I think that’s where the premise of tonight is. So that’s just my thoughts. 


KNAPP: Can I piggyback on what Thomas was saying? He’s making great points there about development. I’ll put this up here real quick on the screen so people can see. This is Jean Piaget’s cognitive development chart. 


And you see on the bottom when they reach about 12 years old, they reach a stage of formal operational thinking—a lot of us learned this in the intro to Psychology class and things like that—and what it talks about is that kids can’t cognitively process abstract ideas like gravity and centrifugal force and things like that until they get to at least 12 years old. 


And Thomas is right, people keep developing cognitively into their mid-twenties. And we know that as a society and we apply it in so many other ways. Like, for example, the average age to get your driver’s license is 16 in many states, the voting age is often 18, and the drinking age is often 21 years old. 


And so we’ve got all these different ages that are meant to let people make decisions where they’re capable of making logical and fully formed decisions. But yet when it comes to sexuality and transsexualism, people are trying to remove those barriers and those safeguards. 


And I know that the argument could be made that, “Well, if you don’t do it by a certain age, their body is going to develop into secondary sex characteristics in puberty and so forth and you get past the age where you can change it.” 


Well, that might be true physically, but the thing is, if you force children to make these decisions at a young age, it’s forcing a decision on them that they’re not ready for. And that’s why many people—educators, psychologists, and others—refer to this as child abuse. Because when you make a child make a decision that they really can’t make, that’s unethical. 


KUYKENDALL: A few months ago I was down at our capital—I’m in Texas, so our Austin Capital—working on several issues similar to these and related. And I saw a little girl go into the capital with her mother that morning and the little girl [had on] a dress and shoes. 


And it was about 4 o'clock that afternoon after several hours of testimony where I saw that little girl, who was actually a little boy about 8 years old, walk up to the podium, holding the hand of his mother, and introduce themselves and read a script that I’m sure someone had written for him to read. 


First of all, he said something like, “This is not child abuse. This is what I need because I was born in the wrong body” (a similar theme we’ve heard throughout of children born in the wrong body.) 


I had two thoughts. First of all, who told you that? I think the power of suggestion and attention and social media and a lot of those ideas—and parents even—along there, like who told you that. 


My second thought was simply how do we help this young person not be afraid? What a scary thought to be born in the wrong body when you are 8 years old. I think affirming their identity and created value and inherent worth are really important ideas for small children. As I said, I just thought of [being born in] the wrong body. What a scary thought to be walking around living in the wrong body as a small person. 


ADAMS: Yeah. Well, this is a great discussion. We need to push on, though, because we want to get more into the schools and what’s going on in them. So Dr. Knapp mentioned a minute ago about some of the laws that were pushed through here in Virginia a couple of years ago and the changes that are taking place. 


But we know that this kind of thing is going on across the country. I know that I was reached out to by a group of parents and citizens in Fairfax county looking for some talking points and some things to share with their board there. 


[I was] trying to convince them that the most important thing to be doing was not to be focusing on what their pronoun policy was going to be, but how we could actually make sure that the children were getting a proper education. 


And so there’s a strong push for this in schools across the country. Focusing on their pronoun policies where kids can pick their pronouns and so forth. I mean, now it’s out in the workforce and the whole culture is soaking it up. 


But how important is this to the education of our children and is there clear data that demonstrates its value? 


KUYKENDALL: Are we speaking specifically about pronoun policy, just to clarify the question? 


ADAMS: Correct, thank you.


KUYKENDALL: Well I think it’s a slippery slope as they would say, We base policy, back on my word, on subjectivity and feelings. Public policy should be objective and uphold the greater good of all. 


And when we’re talking about classrooms, that’s very different than a clinical or individual scenario. So you’ve got to think classroom-wise. We use words like “inclusive” well usually inclusive tends to mean “exclusive of some groups.” 


When we can uphold the value and worth and respect of every child, when we can set policies that are objective—if a child wants to be considered to be an elephant one day, and a horse the next day, we don’t just kind of roll with that. 


We have a policy that upholds their given name and can also affirm their biological sex based on their birth certificate if needed. But I think, as you said, that attention towards this ideology has taken away from other important education priorities. And it’s taken away from the partnership with parents as well. 


ADAMS: Yeah. And so that kind of folds into another question. Is it the proper role or responsibility of school boards and employees of our schools to give guidance to students on matters of gender, gender preferences, transition, and other concepts, that should be addressed by parents or the counselor or healthcare provider of their choice? 


And a quick follow-up on that, should schools enforce disciplinary action if staff or students do not adhere to an individual’s preferred pronouns? 


TURNER: I don’t mind jumping in on this if you don’t mind Melvin. I think the punishment part—no. I have a lot of friends that are trans. I actually have a couple of friends that have recently gone through the process. 


It’s going to take time to get used to that and oftentimes, 9 times out of 10, they’re not offended. It’s only the small, minute, militant far-Left types that make a big deal out of it just because they want to make a scene or make it look like they’re being a political martyr. 


Which is kind of a farce of the trans movement, to me. I have hung out with many of my friends who are trans. And when I speak to them and they prefer to be called “he” instead of “she” or whatever, they’re not like, “Thomas, you evil human being.” 


When it gets into the classroom, I think that the question shouldn’t be that, it should just be general respect. And bullying to LGBTQ students—I think that’s where we should really be talking about. 


And that goes back to what I was saying earlier with younger children. We should be talking about how to treat people with kindness and respect even if you may disagree. I think that that’s where we need to get at. More so than punishing someone by saying, “Oh, I refuse to call you what you are because it’s not what I see you as.” 


I think that the first step is, how do we address in general, not just trans but also LGBTQ students in high schools, or at schools in general? And what is the best method? Because unfortunately, there are going to be instances of bullying across the board. 


I think that protecting the student’s safety is more important than calling he/she they/them or what have you. 


ADAMS: Right, right. I agree with that fully. Yeah. Anybody else? 


KNAPP: I’ll say this: as the younger generation is so involved with social media, one characteristic about them is they’re much more in tune with social desirability. They all like to have likes on their Instagram, or whatever other social media they’re using—TikTok or whatever. 


And they’re very attuned to trying to be accepted, per se, by their social group. And part of what’s going on right now is a lot of, what I would say is, coercion in regards to speech, in regards to pronouns. 


I don’t see that many districts, per se, that are pushing the whole pronoun thing as a district. But it’s more so individual teachers and so forth and certain people who are real, hard-core advocates for certain perspectives. 


I mean, it got some media attention recently in Wisconsin when there were a bunch of 8th-grade boys that were charged with a Title IX violation for allegedly mispronouncing the preferred pronouns of other students. 


And when they’re charging another person with a Title IX violation, that’s like a severe legal threat against a person. And that could [become] coercion. And what bothers me is that I think for a lot of these people, transsexualism, I believe, is a delusion.


But when you force it on the general public that you have to agree with them, you have to use the words they want, it’s almost forcing a shared psychotic disorder. And I don’t mean psychotic as in schizophrenia and so forth, but psychotic meaning out of touch with reality. 


 And if your body is biologically this or that, that’s just what it is. I’m not saying it has to be or should be, it just is. And these people want to believe otherwise, and when you threaten them with legal action, it becomes coercion. And that’s a lot of the stress that people are feeling around this issue right now—and that youth are feeling with social desirability. 


ADAMS: So let’s dig into that a little bit more. I mean, what’s the solution? Are there solutions? For kids and parents and educators out there (because I know teachers who are caught in the middle of this.)


And they’re torn because they want to do a good job, they want to give those kids the best they have, but there are so many little nuances that you can’t do it right. Lori? 


KUYKENDALL: Well, I certainly don’t have the quick solution to doing it right. And I recognize the complexity of it all. But I think it comes back to a couple of levels. In terms of working with teachers and with parents, with the children that they have in front of them every day. 


I think there are two parts to that. Parents need to communicate their values, dialogue about their values, and process their values in their own homes every day. 


ADAMS: Right. 


KUYKENDALL: Because it’s not just what the children will learn at school, it’s what they’ll learn from social media and learn from their peers and learn from all kinds of influences in their life. So we certainly want to uphold parents in passing on their values on these topics. 


And then as far as teachers go, certainly there are going to be systemic policies that you will have to make a value decision on if you're going to submit to them or act differently and risk those ramifications as well, I think that’s different. 


But there’s so much that comes down to looking at an individual case-by-case basis and navigating through the sticky, messy decisions that are around these issues. With a great sense of compassion. I think it’s hard to come in black-and-white. 


We’ve got to meet people where they are and listen a lot more and then be able to love people where they are, support people where they are. So I talk about looking at individual scenarios. You know, we mentioned sexual abuse history—there could be all kinds of reasons and influences that brought this person to this point at this moment. 


Then there are relational issues. What allows me to maintain a relationship, whether it’s a family member or a student, or a co-worker? Relationships are really important. And then I think Dr. Knapp’s already referenced some of the psychological, or I would say intellectual, complexities around true diagnoses that are often brushed over with a quick solution. 


I love one of the advocacy groups that has the motto, “Help, not hormones.” And it’s become such an easy fix to all of today’s problems. And it’s just not that simple. So I think we’ve got to tread carefully, tread compassionately and seek wisdom as well. A lot of these decisions need to be thought through. 


Not just what this decision is, but the decisions that will follow accordingly if you go down through sexual transition. Are you going to go down that track, for example, towards future medication and possible surgery? 


And you think about policies. If we’re going to accommodate this group, are we going to accommodate that group, this group, that group? When we begin to differentiate people by their particular characteristics it gets very messy in a hurry. So I would use a lot of caution and seek very specific situational solutions that are based on objectivity where possible. 


ADAMS: Thomas, do you have anything you want to add? 


TURNER: I do, I agree with Lori on the concept of parents are going to have to take the role of the foundation of what values they want their children to have. But it is a weird balance because I was talking to a liberal teacher, he’s part of the LGBTQ community and we obviously differ on these issues a lot. 


But he was saying, just to throw it out there, that he’s had students that have been abused because they are experiencing… or maybe they’re trans or gay or what have you. And they’re getting abused at home. Which that’s also not healthy. 


And I think as we dive deeper into this, there has to be a facet because I don’t want to take away from the rights of parents but there have to be some bounds where teachers can step in. Because, as you were saying, Melvin, they want to protect their kids. 


I’m blessed in my conservative activism to be working with a lot of teachers who are generally very conservative. And they really just want to help their kids and they want to see these problems, you know. 


You have to find a healthy legal balance. I think what’s happening in our schools is that parents have been taken out of the process. And we saw that, and I don’t mean to get too deep into the situation that happened in Loudoun with a person who reported themselves as trans, and then they weren’t and they almost ended up being, in essence, a serial rapist. 


Which that’s disturbing for a whole school. I don’t mean to jump ahead. But I think that leads to a transparency issue. I sat on the safety audit committee you’d be amazed by the lack of information that is shared with parents on safety in general. 


It’s been a fight of mine for two years and it’s frustrating when I see that, “Why are you not sharing that this is happening? Why did you not share that there was a fight where a six-year-old was bringing x, y, and z. Or why wasn’t this brought up? 


And they’re like, “the superintendent doesn’t allow that.” And I said, “I’m sorry, [unintelligible 38:44-47].” So I think that we really have to discuss a balance here—a healthy balance. And it is complicated. 


And forgive me for belaboring. But I do want to echo what Lori was saying. That fundamental, parents do have to teach and instill those values 99.99% of them are going to do it the right way. But we also have to be prepared for those rare moments when we have bad apples who are not going to be able to help their kids whether they agree or disagree with their decision as they go through the process of their sexuality or orientation. Teachers need to have ways of identifying where they can step in and help legally. That’s just my thoughts.