Keller Independent School District banned the use of pronouns based on “gender identity” and will only use pronouns that correlate to students' biological sex.
The school district will also require staff to notify parents if their children request to change their names or gender identity.
Not all parents or students supported the decision, and some actively protested against it.
One student declared, “You've created an environment where fear and isolation might just become the norm for our most vulnerable students. I hope this brings you the kind of community you're striving for, one where conformity is valued over compassion. Hate is not a Keller ISD value.”
Another said, “Every day I walk into a school and myself and my peers are suffering. It seems like more and more the school district is prioritizing budget cuts and a political agenda over the health of its students.”
While high school students may think that prioritizing the health of their peers entails affirming their “gender identity,” there is no hard data that supports the theory.
On the contrary, mounting evidence suggests that the push for transgender “affirmation” — especially for minors — has been driven more by ideology than science.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) positioned itself as a medical association guided by science, but earlier this year a journalist published hundreds of pages of WPATH's internal documents contradicting that premise.
This issue has taken schools across the country by storm, as educational professionals have been caught teaching and encouraging students to embrace unconventional sexual and gender identities while concealing it from their parents.
Jessica Konen and Aurora Regino are two mothers that sued their daughters' schools after learning that the they facilitated “social transitions” — IE name and pronoun changes among faculty and students — while concealing it from parents and even telling the girls to keep it secret from their parents when they wanted to share it.
When the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) caught wind of this policy change, they sent a “letter of concern” to the school district. The letter didn't seem to have any effect, as the Board voted unanimously for the change. The ACLU has a reputation for taking left wing positions and has become increasingly involved on transgender issues in recent years.
Keller, Texas is in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area — a major metropolis with bluer leanings than most of Texas. Keller itself leans slightly Republican as a whole, but has a higher concentration of Democrats than nearby cities and most of Texas, which made the move surprising to some members of their community.
