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North Dakota governor risks wrath of Trump and
right after vetoing transgender kids sports bill
22 Apr, 2021 16:20
North Dakota governor Doug Burgum vetoed the bill. © Reuters / USA Today Sports
Authorities in North Dakota have vetoed a bill that aimed to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls' sports, risking a backlash from the right.
The move, which was finalized on Wednesday, echoes a similar motion made earlier this year by Governor Kristi Noem in neighboring South Dakota.
Her North Dakota counterpart Doug Burgum pulled the trigger on the proposal this time around, after it had originally passed overwhelmingly in the state's House.
In the state Senate, though, the margin was much slimmer - which led analysts to suggest that the measure is likely finished as both houses would have to pass a veto override to overturn Bergum's action.
Republican Bergum said that the bill "would unnecessarily inject the state into a local issue by creating a ban with myriad unforeseen consequences" in a veto message, with members of his own party such as the vilified Kathy Skroch a known supporter of it.
"We need to keep women on an even playing field," she had said previously in a debate on the matter, while noting differences between the sexes in height, weight, heart size and lung capacity.
"There is a reason why there is separation of boys and girls sports," she added.
But those in support of what Bergum has done were quick to sing his praises.
"It was obvious from the beginning that this discriminatory legislation was about creating solutions to problems that don’t exist and, in the process, harming some of the most vulnerable people in our state," said ACLU of North Dakota Campaigns Director Libby Skarin.
I guess they don't read this blog, or anything else that shows girls are losing sports scholarships to boys identifying as girls. How is that possibly fair?
"This is such beautiful news for trans kids across the state," she concluded.
Yes, and heartbreaking for all female athletes.
Though it is still early in the day for Burgum to receive backlash, it won't be too far away considering attacks that Governor Noem, also a Republican, was subjected to from the right over in South Dakota when carrying out a similar reversal.
Down in Arkansas, her counterpart Asa Hutchinson even ended up in a war of words with former President Donald Trump when scrapping a transgender bill earlier this month.
"Asa Hutchinson, the lightweight RINO Governor of Arkansas, just vetoed a Bill that banned the CHEMICAL CASTRATION OF CHILDREN," Trump said as part of a statement. "Bye-bye Asa, that's the end of him!"
I presume this would be in relation to castrating boys who want to be girls as a part of their transition? Asa will not have to answer to Trump for that; he will have to answer to God.
Missouri school district official urges HIDING materials from parents
after complaints about ‘equity’ lessons
28 Apr, 2021 22:36
FILE PHOTO © Mario Tama / Getty Images via AFP
A school district west of St. Louis, Missouri has issued an apology to parents after an email from one of its officials urged teachers to hide lesson materials from parents and keep teaching the social justice agenda.
“Keep teaching! Just don’t make everything visible on Canvas,” Natalie Fallert, the 6-12 Literacy Speech Coordinator at the Rockwood School District, wrote last week in an email to English teachers. Canvas is the remote-learning platform currently used by the district.
Nothing New
“This is not being deceitful. This is just doing what you have done for years. Prior to the pandemic you didn’t send everything home or have it available. You taught in your classroom and things were peachy keen. We are going old-school,” Fallert added, according to the email, quoted on Wednesday by the Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak.
Fallert’s email actually urged teachers to publish a “lean” version of the curriculum for everyone to see, while using the “original” to teach and assign to individual students, and using this approach to anything that could be “picked apart.”
After some parents got the wind of the email, however, the school district disavowed it – after a fashion. Shelley Willott, assistant superintendent of learning and support services, wrote in an email of her own that the message “was not reviewed or approved by anyone before it was sent” and that hiding anything from parents “does not reflect the mission, vision and values” of the district.
“We regret that this happened for many reasons, but mostly because it impacts the trust that is crucial for our partnership to be successful,” wrote Willott, adding that “we find the email unacceptable, and it is certainly being addressed.”
Fallert’s email was written in response to complaints from parents about a “culture and identity” lesson in English classes, which featured a book called ‘Dear Martin,’ a 2017 young adult novel dealing with racism and police violence. Lesson plans on the book include “discussions on racial profiling, civil disobedience and affirmative action,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which framed the story as a “culture struggle over equity and race.”
The Post-Dispatch described the furor over the email as a clash between parents who claim Rockwood is pushing “social justice and equity ideals that amount to a Marxist takeover of schools,” and those who believe the educators should “counteract racism and build more equitable communities.”
District spokesperson Mary LaPak told the paper that Rockwood is moving forward with a curriculum in line with the “educational equity resolution” approved last year, which aims to identify “conscious and unconscious biases” and eliminate “barriers to educational achievement.”
Following a heated school board election earlier this month, Rockwood Schools superintendent Mark Miles announced he would be retiring at the end of the school year, after just two years on the job. The district’s director of “educational equity and diversity” is also stepping down, after just one year in the post.
Rockwood, Mo, School District
Dutch ministers seek to simplify procedure to CHANGE GENDER on birth certificate, so easy a CHILD can do it
6 May, 2021 11:15
Two Dutch ministers have submitted an amendment to parliament that would scrap the age limit and expert statement, to simplify changing gender on birth certificates, following pressure from transgender groups.
The legislative amendment to the Transgender Act was submitted by the legal protection minister and emancipation minister to the Lower House of Parliament. “Persons whose gender identity does not correspond to the sex determined at birth can, under certain conditions, change their gender in the birth certificate,” a release published on the website of the Dutch government says.
According to the statement, more people want to change their gender registration, with the numbers rising from 460 in 2016 to 640 in 2018. The amendment was put forward in order “to do justice to the emancipation of transgender people.”
The ministers suggest scrapping the requirement for an expert statement in which a doctor or psychologist establishes the fact of a lasting conviction of belonging to the opposite sex. The statement says transgender groups consider this requirement to be a violation of the right of individuals to self-determination. The simplified procedure would involve written submission of the desire to change gender registration, and confirmation four to 12 weeks later.
Are there any limitations to the number of times a person can change the gender on their birth certificates. Personally, I think the very idea of changing your birth certificate is ludicrous. It's supposed to be a record of your birth, not how you feel 10, 20, or 50 years later.
You can be free to choose what you want to be through your life, but you can't change what you were when you were born.
The proposed legislation would also scrap the age limit, so that children under the age of 16 can change their gender registration. This is being done as a nod to transgender groups and parents who say that some young people already live with a gender other than that designated at birth before they reach 16. In order to change their gender registration, children would have to submit a request to the court.
The legislation would also allow changes in registration to be done at the place of current residence, rather than the place of birth. The bill will have to be approved by both houses of the Dutch Parliament and then signed into law by the head of state.
The procedures for changing gender on birth certificates were introduced in 2014 with the Transgender Act. The legislation also abolished the requirement for people to undergo surgery, including sterilization, to legally change their gender.
Damian Jackson (C), 51, shows family members his new documents after changing his officially registered gender from female to male, in the City Hall in Amsterdam July 1, 2014. © REUTERS / Cris Toala Olivares
Last December, the Dutch government agreed to pay compensation of €5,000 to about 2,000 trans people who were sterilized between 1985 and 2014 in order to change gender.
The Dutch government states that it is committed to improving the position of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people worldwide. The Netherlands has some of the most progressive laws regarding LGBTI rights in the world.
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