Indoctrination in Your State & District

Who's intolerant? It was some of the LGBTQ students and their supporters who demonstrated INtolerance at the March and April WCASD school board meetings!

West Chester Area School District, Pennsylvania

Submitted: 2022-10-10

Story:

The email posted in the Supporting Documents was sent to School Board Directors and Superintendent Sokolowski on May 24, 2022. It expresses the concerns of a WCASD Taxpayer regarding the intolerant behaviors and speeches of many LGBTQ individuals and their supporters (both students and community members) at the March and April of 2022 board meetings. These unfortunately seem to be an indication of the unacceptable degree of LGBTQ indoctrination that is taking place in the WCASD – indoctrinations that are wholeheartedly supported by the Dr. Sokolowski who uncharacteristically grandstanded at the end of the April meeting in an inappropriate manner.

The extremely contentious board meetings in March and April of 2022 were a result of the school board's voting on whether or not to keep the pornographic book Gender Queer in the WCASD high school libraries. Opponents wanted Gender Queer out of the school libraries, not because the objectionable images were of HOMOSEXUAL sex, but because they were INDISPUTABLY PORNOGRAPHIC. Opponents would have objected just as strenuously if analogous images had depicted heterosexual sex. LGBTQ individuals and their supporters (unfairly) considered it to be a homophobic/transphobic action for Gender Queer to be removed from the high school libraries.

The twelve page email (shown in its entirety in the Supporting Documents) details many of the intolerant behaviors and speeches of the INTOLERANT attitudes of many of the LGBTQ individuals and their supporters. Selected excerpts from that email are given below:
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EXCERPT #1: "LGBTQ+ individuals unquestionably deserve to be treated with respect and accepted and appreciated as human beings. Bullying of any type or for any reason has no place in our schools or in our society. America has come a long way over the last several years in enabling true LGBTQ+ individuals to comfortably 'come out of the closet' and not be harassed or demeaned for what they perceive to be their sexual identities or orientations. This is a definite step in the right direction.

It is understandable that individuals belonging to groups who have suffered inexcusable discrimination for so long could become defensive and view situations from a perspective that fits their own limited narrative rather than assessing them from a fair-minded, objective viewpoint. With that said however, it is unacceptable that in too many cases the 'bullied' are now becoming the 'bulliers.' Some in the LGBTQ community unfortunately verbally abuse those who express legitimate differences of opinion by labelling them with malignant pejoratives -- a common ploy used to silence dissenters. In recent WCASD board meetings many used this tactic against individuals who opposed Gender Queer for its pornographic aspects, parroting similar vicious (and untrue) invectives and smears…
• Opponents of Gender Queer are (figuratively) attacking LGBTQ students;
• we use hate speech against LGBTQ students;
• we border on being white supremacists;
• we are book-banners;
• we are racists, homophobes and transphobes."
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EXCERPT #2: "The most vicious, outrageous and totally fallacious attack was made by K. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQvVTG82qwM&t=11795s), a trans-female (biological male who identifies as a female) student who ranted in the March meeting about the contents of a speech given by A.O. at the previous month’s board meeting. (A.O., in addressing the WCASD’s proposed comprehensive plan, had expressed his concerns as to detrimental consequences on women’s sports by allowing biological men to compete in women’s events.) Astoundingly, K. admonished the board for not stopping A.O. from expressing his legitimate opinions regarding this issue (which I might add are shared by the vast majority of Americans). Excerpts from K.’s March 28 tirade are:
(K. admonishing the Board): 'The board let a man stand up here for 3 minutes to spew pure hate -- specifically transphobia… He never said her name but he was talking about Penn State swimmer (Note that it was not Penn State but the University of Pennsylvania) who competed in the highest level of college swimming in both the men’s league and the women’s league. Lia Thomas. You let him misgender her, call trans-women men and directly talk bad about our trans students. And as I’ve seen hate speech gives a big punishment within the schools so why is it acceptable at the school board meetings? For as much support as we get at our schools, from our admins and our teachers, it goes to waste if the board doesn’t listen to those whose (inaudible) any restrictions that may be applied to as in the students.'
Comments: K.’s speech was offensive and untrue on many levels and (her) hypocrisy both appalling and blatant. (She) would undoubtedly be one of the first to object if the school board stopped anyone in (her) group from expressing their opinions. One of the key points from Gender Queer’s proponents was the issue of censorship, yet K. admonished the school board for not censoring someone because his opinion differed from (hers)!

There was absolutely nothing in Mr. A.O.’s speech that spewed hate against transgenders or anyone else. This is a total falsehood and can be verified by the text of A.O.’s speech which is attached to this email. In the context of his concern about the ramifications of WCASD’s proposed comprehensive plan, Mr. A.O. gave the example of Lia Thomas, a trans-female swimmer who is (unfairly) breaking records in women’s swimming events. He did refer to Lia as 'he' (Lia's biological gender) but he never 'talked bad' about WCASD’s trans-students as K. claimed. Apparently 'misgendering' was the 'hate speech' that K. referred to (as did several other LGBTQ students in other presentations). This is absurd. Unless the misgendering is done in a spiteful manner (which was not the case in Mr. A.O.’s speech) it does not warrant the malicious accusations misused by this trans-student.

It is ironic that K. was so defensive of Lia, who is breaking records and setting precedents that will ultimately annihilate sports competitions for the gender that K. has chosen to be. Can K. not see the incongruity here? K. apparently thinks that trans-rights prevail over women’s rights. (Her) reasoning and speech was unimpressive to say the least."
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EXCERPT #3: "Just as President Tiernan was about to close the meeting, Superintendent Sokolowski stood up and said very emphatically (https://youtu.be/mmEGPwnyzFk?t=11961): 'Students, I'm standing with you. We're talking about choice. We're talking about listening to the voice of our students. Students, I pledge to you. We're going to turn that volume up. You're going to hear a student voice!'

Comments: I, and many others were astounded at this unnecessary grandstanding from the WCASD’s superintendent. I have often disagreed with Dr. Sokolowski’s positions, but have always appreciated the fact that he invariably responds to individuals’ concerns in a respectful and timely manner. This unprofessional and out-of-character show-boating was disturbing to say the least. It is unclear as to what he meant by 'choice.' Of COURSE we should listen to the opinions of our students and everyone did, and quite respectfully, during two long school board meetings. All students, no matter what their 'identities,' should be appreciated as human beings, treated with respect and protected from any type of bullying. Their opinions should be considered but should never be allowed to dictate policies and the direction of our educational system to the detriment of other students and teachers. My takeaway from this appalling performance was that Dr. Sokolowski was sending a message to those of us who dared to disagree with his administration’s viewpoints: the opinions of those who don’t march to the drummer of ultra-wokeness that is currently deemed acceptable by our district’s administrators are not valued...it is students’ opinions that take top priority. This is not appropriate and quite unexpected from someone who had previously epitomized professionalism."

The entire email with live links to the cited speeches is posted in the Supporting Documents.

Supporting Documents: