3rd-graders asked to help classmate in gender change
Parents given 1-day notice of presentation explaining boy would now wear girl clothes
Posted: May 10, 2008
6:55 pm Eastern


A Pennsylvania elementary school has angered parents by giving them one-day's notice of planned counseling sessions with 100 third-grade students to explain that one of their male classmates would soon begin wearing girls' clothing and taking a female name and to ask that they accept him as a girl and not make unkind remarks.


The exercise in "social transition" was initiated by the boy's parents who approached the administration at Chatham Park Elementary School in Haverford Township asking that the school help in having their child's female identity find acceptance among his peers. After consulting experts on transgender children, the Haverford School District sent letters to parents advising them the school guidance counselor would meet with their children, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer.


While some parents contacted the principal asking that their children be excused, others took their anger out online.
"Why is the school introducing this subject to 8- and 9-year-olds?" wrote an angry parent who started a discussion on the Haverford Township's blog site. "Why were we not notified sooner. We received the letter today, the discussion at school is tomorrow."
The Haverford Township blog is not currently viewable.


In the letter to parents, Chatham Park principal Daniel Marsella assured parents the counseling would use "developmentally appropriate language" to explain "how we need to help this student make a social transition in school."



"This is something that was going to come out," said Mary Beth Lauer, district director of community relations. "Isn't it better to be proactive, and let people know what is happening and how we're dealing with it?"


According to Valerie Huff, whose daughter is a friend of the boy, he had started wearing girls' clothes and an upcoming school event would have made his gender identity public.


"I did not think that the letter needed to go out," Huff said. "The kids don't make any big deal about it at all."


But not so the parents. Postings to the community blog have upset the boy's parents, the Inquirer reported.


WND reported a pediatric endocrinologist at the renowned Boston Children's Hospital has launched a new program to drug transgender children to delay puberty so they can decide at a later age whether they want a male or a female body.


The Haverford boy has not received medical treatments to change his sex, but has told others he sees himself a girl.


WND has reported previously on some of the controversies prompted by the belief that a man can be born in a woman's body, or vice versa, including in Montgomery County, Md., where county officials have adopted a law that precludes those who provide public accommodations from discriminating based on that "gender identity."


Voters there have petitioned to have a vote on that law because they fear men who "decide" they are female walking into women's restrooms and locker rooms.


Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was critical of the school's handing of the issue.


"They do not have a right to stop the child, but it's different when they gather everyone around and say, 'Johnnie is Jeanie," he said.
McHugh, who has studied sexual reassignment surgery for 30 years, particularly in the 1970s when Hopkins was a leader in the field, said society should not support decisions of immature persons.


"People came to us saying that if we changed them, we'd solve all their problems," he said. "So we changed them, and their problems remained."


Chatham Park guidance counselor Catherine Mallam said the students she spoke to seemed to be accepting of the boy's change of identity.

This is all a joke right?

Is there really a set of parents that are allowing / encouraging their 8 year old boy to dress as a girl?

No, unfortunately, this is the fruit of the Liberal doctrine of non-discrimination against anyone because of their "sexual orientation." It is abnormal and unnatural, and we are now beginning to see its effects, right in our own backyard.

Would that this WERE just a joke . . .

He will be very badly beaten. Often.

I can't believe that this has gone as far as it has. Where is DHS? Why isn't the boy's doctor reporting this to a shrink or something?

What a shame ....

Absolutely ghastly. This liberal pc bs is going too far these days.

I wonder how his parents will feel for supporting this unnatural monstrosity when their SON comes home beat up.

I wonder if a 3rd grader wanted breast implants, if their parents would go "Sure hun, that's a great idea."

I don't think you fully comprehend the ramifications of all this.

Certain groups have managed to turn our culture topsy-turvy, making this sort of thing "NORMAL."

So now we have one immature kid, exercising his legal "right" to say that he's a girl, and imposing psychological trauma on the rest of his schoolmates.

Parents who teach their children that such things are disordered are being usurped by the educational system, which tells our kids that we and our thinking belong to the age of the dinosaurs.

Does anybody wonder why our kids are so messed up?

I'd like to know what this boy will do when he needs to use the rest room. He'll go into the GIRLS ROOM, right? And what about the rights of third-grade GIRLS to have a sense of modesty, and to be able to go to a rest room without fear of BOYS being there? And--yes--that kid is a BOY, whether he chooses to wear girls' clothing or not!

Talk about the rights of the majority being destroyed, in order to grant hitherto unknown "rights" to a handful of perverts! The real tragedy is that these are CHILDREN--who are being used as psychological guinea pigs.

Ask yourself WHY THE SCHOOL GAVE ONLY ONE DAY'S NOTICE TO THE PARENTS? The answer is plain--the administration wanted to be able to say that they disclosed the circumstances to the parents, but they did it in a way that there would be no time for any opposition.

Our tax dollars at work! And anyone that votes for any Democratic candidate is furthering this insanity. Just look at that party's platform . . .

There have always been--and will always be--nutty parents out there.

But until now, we could rely upon the good judgment of the school authorities to rein them in and to keep their excesses in check. No more.

"Sexual orientation" is now becoming a protected class. We all stood by and let this happen.

Tell me--do the other kids have any "rights?" Is it legally required that a girl share the same bathroom as a boy who happens to declare that today he happens to be a "girl?"

How about locker rooms? Or showers?

I don't hate anybody, but I am offended when the GLBT groups impose their perverted view of how our culture sought to be upon the rest of us. I'd remove my kids from that school if it were up to me.

It's a sad day when decent families have to make such decisions.

Well, the township's blog site is back up, for anyone who wants to dig in and read up on this issue.

__________________
United we stand. Divided we fall.