Grade school quash father-daughter dance event

By Martin Fisher

It is another example of the clash between normal and new.

A Staten Island elementary school (PS 65) nixed this year's annual father-daughter dance event because of recently ordered policies covering how to treat transgender and gender-nonconforming students.

The NYC Department of Education directive is a capitulation on the politically charged issue of self-determined gender orientations, which allows students to choose what sex they would like to be.

First reported in the New York Post, at issue is a state-wide directive that prohibits city schools from allowing “gender-based” events, such as a father-daughter dance, unless a clear educational purpose can be demonstrated.

News of the father-daughter dance cancellation quickly spread, with blowback being reported in dozens of newspapers, blogs and broadcast venues. Even Donald Trump Jr. tweeted that the politically correct crowd has lost their minds.

A school district spokesperson said that the action against the father-daughter event was an effort to bring the school into conformity with government requirements that school events be gender neutral.

In a letter to parents (that was noted in a Fox News report), the school principal said that “gender neutral” policies must be adhered to at all times.

A close look at the document reveals just how far education authorities are willing go to push a radical set of family values on unsuspecting parents who believe in traditional family norms.

Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Student Guidelines: March 2017

The document says:

“It is important for school staff, students and parents to be aware that transgender and gender nonconforming students may be at a higher risk for peer ostracism, victimization, and bullying because of bias.”

Schools should be “proactive in creating a school culture that respects and values all students and fosters understanding of gender identity,” the document reads.

“These guidelines are intended to help schools promote the educational and social integration of transgender and gender nonconforming students and ensure a safe learning environment free from discrimination and harassment.”

The underlining argument of the document suggests that promoting traditional family views can be seen as discriminatory and harassing toward non-conforming students, placing them in an unsafe environment.

The fact that biological science easily proves the binary nature of human sexuality is lost on these post-modern government educational authorities and those pushing a pro-transgender ideology.

The document explains the differing gender beliefs through a line-item description:

• Assigned sex at birth: refers to the sex designation recorded on an infant’s birth certificate.
• Cisgender person: is one whose gender identity corresponds to their assigned sex at birth.
• Gender expression: refers to ways that gender ideas, defined as masculine or feminine, are expressed in social settings.
• Gender transition: is noted as a person changing to a desired sex that corresponds to their gender identity instead of the sex they were assigned at birth.
• Transgender: denotes a person of a gender identity or gender expression that is different from their assigned sex at birth.

The document also makes a highly convoluted claim about sexual orientation:

“A person’s sexual orientation is the individual’s enduring pattern of physical, romantic, emotional, aesthetic or other attraction to another person.”

In an effort to clarify this definition, the document says, “sexual orientation can be towards persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes and more than one gender.”

A concluding statement makes clear that the goal of New Yorks schools are to normalize student beliefs into accepting transgender students and unconventional gender assignments.

“Schools have a unique and powerful opportunity to support transgender students, including those going through a gender transition, while providing education to the entire school community,” the document reads.

These statements, and the rationale for them, comprise a direct threat to all families that hold traditional values, biblical beliefs…or just plain common sense.