The 'I' in Kind Stands for Inclusion - Not Bigotry

Well, well, well. It seems the "Gender Critical" crowd has found a new target for their moral outrage: basic human kindness. Lock your doors and hide your kids, folks, the "Month of Kindness" is coming to indoctrinate us all into the radical cult of…empathy and respect? Or is that just a guise to “trans the kids”…I am not sure anymore…

Our brave staff/faculty whiner begins by rattling off a list of supposedly damning anecdotes from the gender critical woke war zone known as public school. Brace yourself for these harrowing tales of checks notes a kid getting upset during tag and adults wearing clothes, and the most problematic principle part that should petrify you and make your blood run cold - the use of pronouns! Clearly, this is proof that our education system has been overrun by the trans agenda.

Let's start with the "school-to-clinic pipeline" boogeyman. Ah yes, I remember when my 2nd grade teacher pulled me aside and said, "Forget long division, it's time for your state-mandated hormone injections!" Oh wait, that never happened, because this concept is a complete fabrication pushed by anti-LGBTQ activists with no actual evidence.

In fact, every major medical organization - including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Endocrine Society - supports gender-affirming care as best practice for trans youth. But I guess they're all just part of the conspiracy too, right?

Then we have the horror stories of the boy who felt "threatened" playing tag and the trans boy who gasp used the boys bathroom. Newsflash: kids have overreactions and this is normal, and a healthy part of exploring and learning to regulate one’s self and emotional responses. Schools have to navigate complex situations like these every day. Turning these routine childhood experiences into some grand indictment of "trans ideology" is frankly absurd.

But the most telling part is the outrage over a principal dressing androgynously and counselors putting their pronouns on doors. How dare they express themselves in a way that makes students feel more comfortable! Don't they know that the only acceptable school dress code is 1950s tradwife chic? And the assistant principle that exists a whole district away! Toss me my pearls so I may clutch them in horror, gasping “but what about the children?” Anita Bryant called, she would like her signs and script back.

It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry at the moral panic on display in this article. The author seems to be deeply distressed that her children's school is promoting kindness and inclusion. The horror!

But amidst the hand-wringing over androgynous principals and pronoun buttons, there are a few claims that deserve serious scrutiny. Not because they are credible, but because they are so egregiously misleading and harmful.

First, the author takes issue with a training highlighting the suicide risks faced by LGBTQ+ students, dismissing the statistics presented because they come from The Trevor Project, which she calls "an activist organization that gets money 'supporting LGBTQ+ students at risk for suicide.'"

This is an appallingly bad-faith argument. The Trevor Project's data showing that 45% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year comes from the largest annual survey of queer youth mental health in the country.1 This is fully in line with findings from the CDC2 and numerous other reputable sources that have declared LGBTQ+ youth suicide a public health crisis.

But to make the outrageous accusation that the Trevor Project, the leading organization working to prevent LGBTQ+ youth suicide, has a "conflict of interest" because they raise money to support their lifesaving programs is concern trolling. The author is using the language of ethical scrutiny to undermine the credibility of those working to solve a problem the would rather ignore.

Let's be very clear: The Trevor Project's status as a non-profit that fundraises to provide crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ+ youth is not a "conflict of interest." It's literally how most non-profits operate. They identify an urgent social issue and raise money from donors who want to help address it.

The idea that a highly respected organization that is regularly consulted as an authority on LGBTQ+ youth mental health by government agencies and mainstream media would risk its reputation by falsifying data to get more donations is absurd. They have nothing to gain and everything to lose by misrepresenting the severity of the crisis.

Furthermore, their research methodology is transparent and their findings align with data from other leading public health authorities. Even if they wanted to inflate their numbers (which, again, there is zero evidence of), they couldn't do so without being immediately exposed by other researchers and statisticians.

But most importantly, the implication that we should be skeptical of suicide statistics shared by the very organizations working to prevent suicide is horrifically backwards. The whole reason the Trevor Project has to fundraise is because LGBTQ+ youth suicide has been chronically underfunded and ignored as a public health emergency for decades. They're not inventing a fake crisis to get rich - they're desperately trying to marshal resources to solve a devastating problem our society has neglected for far too long.

So no, I don't think we need to dignify this cynical talking point as if it has any validity. The Trevor Project's data is sound, their integrity is beyond question, and their work is quite literally saving lives every day. Anyone who actually cares about preventing youth suicide should be thanking them, not concern trolling them with baseless accusations of financial motives.

The only "conflict of interest" I see here is between those who believe LGBTQ+ kids deserve to live and those who want to pretend their suffering doesn't exist.

But it's not surprising coming from someone who also takes issue with her district having an Office of Equal Opportunity dedicated to investigating identity-based harassment. She seems particularly incensed that "gender identity" is a protected class alongside sex, race, and other categories.

Here's a newsflash: it's 2024, not 1954. Title IX and virtually all modern non-discrimination policies prohibit harassment on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in addition to sex.3 The idea that protecting trans students somehow takes away rights from cis students is a myth pushed by anti-LGBTQ+ activists that has no basis in reality or law.

No one is saying that the needs of "straight, white students" don't matter. But acknowledging that some marginalized groups face unique challenges that require specific support is not oppression - it's equity. And it's frankly embarrassing that a grown adult is upset their school district is dedicating resources to keeping all students safe from harassment and abuse.

But here's the most galling part of all: For all the author's professed concern over student well-being, she seems wholly uninterested in grappling with the actual youth mental health crisis happening in our country. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for all young people, and LGBTQ+ youth are four times more likely to attempt it than their peers.4

We can debate the causes and disagree on the solutions. But we cannot ignore or downplay the severity of this issue just because the kids most at risk make some adults uncomfortable. A training to raise awareness among school staff of warning signs and support services for suicidal LGBTQ+ students should be welcomed by anyone who actually cares about protecting children.

Instead, this author sees basic kindness and inclusion initiatives as some nefarious "agenda" to indoctrinate kids into, what, having empathy for people different from them? Acknowledging the existence of trans people and how to treat them? Efforts to give representation to the marginalized? The absolute gall to frame efforts to keep the most vulnerable students safe as an attack on "normal" kids would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous.

Because here's the thing: politicizing and undermining suicide prevention efforts for LGBTQ+ youth very much puts their lives at risk. Spreading anecdotal misinformation to stoke moral panic about trans kids makes them less safe. Denying them access to counseling, healthcare, and inclusive spaces at school is what actually harms them.

If you want to have a fact-based discussion about best practices and age-appropriate instruction, by all means, let's do that. But if your agenda is to bully LGBTQ+ kids back into the closet and make their very existence a taboo topic, you don't get to pretend it's out of concern for their well-being.

At the end of the day, a "Month of Kindness" is the bare minimum we should be doing to create a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students. And if that's too radical of a notion for you, perhaps you should examine why basic human decency makes you so uncomfortable.

LGBTQ+ kids are watching what we say and do. And they are dying because of the hateful messages they hear from adults like this author that tell them they are broken, delusional, predatory, or don't deserve to exist. It's time to be the grown-ups and put their lives ahead of our discomfort and biases.

So let the "Month of Kindness" carry on, and let it be a reminder that it takes courage to be kind in a world that incentivizes cruelty. To the LGBTQ+ students out there: you are loved, you are supported, and you have a bright future ahead of you. Don't let the fearmongers convince you otherwise.

And to the author: You are right, you should not wear that shirt, because 'kindness' that only extends to people who look and think like you isn't worthy of the name. True kindness requires courage, compassion, and expanding our circle of concern - even when it makes us uncomfortable.