The four major party candidates for the State Board of Education will square off in Macomb County on Tuesday as the normally staid campaign for the ed board heats up.
After months of evaluation and nearly 13,000 public comments, the State Board of Education voted 6-2 last week to approve voluntary guidelines for school districts that encourage allowing students to use bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their gender identity.
Board President John Austin said at the time said that the vote expresses “the kind of state Michigan is going to be” regarding transgender rights.
Ahmed
Beyond the bathroom issue, the state guidelines include: having policies protecting LGBT students from harassment; providing age-appropriate education information on LGBT issues in school libraries; and using preferred names and pronouns that correspond to the student’s gender identity.
In addition to Austin, an incumbent Democrat, the four candidates running for two seats are:
- Ismael Ahmed (D), former director of the state Department of Health and Human Services and an activist in the Arab-American community.
- Tom McMillin (R), a former state representative who was a cultural conservative in the House who opposed LGBT rights.
- Nikki Snyder (R), (no relation to the governor) a nurse and political newcomer.
Austin
The candidate forum, sponsored by the Macomb County Association of School Boards, will be held at 7:30 p.m. at 7:30 p.m. at Macomb’s MISD service center located at 44001 Garfield, just south of M-59, in Clinton Township. Tim Skubick, dean of the Lansing capital correspondents (and a Fraser native), will moderate the event.
McMillin
Snyder
This forum has been sponsored by the County Board Association for the past 20 years. The purpose of the forum is to provide a public service to those individuals who want to learn more about the State Board of Education candidates and their views on public education.
Why is it so hard to see that using a bathroom stall and using a locker room are at two different levels? Regardless of the gender that someone identifies as, unless they have had surgery to alter their genitals they still are physically different from those of the biological opposite sex. Is it so difficult to understand that many females wouldn’t want someone with a penis sharing their locker room? Also many males wouldn’t want a naked female in their locker room irrespective of if that female thinks she should have been a male.
I am assuming that showers are still used in middle and high school. Will those that do not want to participate in a physical education class because they will be forced to share their locker room with someone that is physically of the opposite sex be given a failing grade? Even if not, they will be forced to make the choice of not participating in a class they may very want to attend, it their privacy would not be invaded. These are not adults, they are still children.
It is decisions like this that make it very hard for someone like that me, that doesn’t care what adults do, to be on the side of the LGBT community. I don’t believe a male or female is going to pretend to have a gender identity issue just to be able to see those of the opposite sex naked. If this goes through though it will put far more people in an uncomfortable position than it would supposedly benefit. No student should be stigmatized, bullied, harassed, assaulted, etc,, due to how they perceive themselves. That also holds true for heterosexual students that don’t want to be placed in a situation where they feel that they can’t express their decent without fear of ridicule or punishment by those in charge for not participating in a forced intrusion on their privacy.
There is a saying that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. While this does not always hold true, I believe that the case of mixed physical genders sharing the same space in which there is an expectation of lack of privacy while undressing is one of those instances that this easily applies.
Why are we still hung up on gender identity? Is it *that* hard for these small minded individuals to grasp the concept of equality? Let me explain: every human has the same needs, desires, dreams, & goals…to be respected, relevant, appreciated, & necessary. These needs are innate and aren’t limited to gender, race, class, intelligence, culture, strength, or any other classification placed upon them by prejudiced, fearful, willfully ignorant people. A cross-gender child is neither a deviant, nor a predator, they are just a child trying to navigate their world as best they can with the tools and guidance we *adults* provide.