A Wisconsin school district has filed a Title IX sexual harassment complaint against three middle schoolers, alleging they used the wrong pronouns to refer to a fellow classmate.
SO WHAT
And liberals say parents are crazy for worrying about gender ideology in schools.
WHAT HAPPENED
The three eighth-grade boys, all of whom attend Kiel Middle School, are the subjects of an ongoing investigation for refusing to use “they/them” pronouns to refer to a fellow classmate, Fox 11 reported last week.https://streamable.com/e/el7y43“I received a phone call from the principal … forewarning me, letting me know that I was going to be receiving an email with sexual harassment allegations against my son,” Rosemary Rabidoux, mother to Braden, one of the children being accused of sexual harassment, told Fox 11.
- “I immediately went into shock,” she added. “I’m thinking sexual harassment? That’s rape, that’s inappropriate touching, that’s incest.”
- “She had been screaming at one of Braden’s friends to use proper pronouns, calling him profanity, and this friend is very soft-spoken, and kind of just sunk down into his chair,” Rabidoux said, describing the alleged incident that prompted the complaint. “Braden finally came up, defending him, saying ‘He doesn’t have to use proper pronouns, it’s his constitutional right to not use, you can’t make him say things.’”
- In a statement to Fox 11, the Kiel School District said it “prohibits all forms of bullying and harassment in accordance with all laws, including Title IX” and will “continue to support ALL students regardless of sex (including transgender status, change of sex or gender identity).”
Luke Berg, an attorney for the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which is representing the boys, said the sexual harassment charges are “totally inappropriate” and “an extreme abuse of the Title IX process.”
THE CULTURE WAR
Gender ideology in schools became a hot-button national issue earlier this year, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education bill into law in March.
Liberals have accused conservatives like DeSantis of manufacturing a fake crisis with the bill, which prohibits classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade.
- But supporters of the legislation have increasingly been able to point to concrete examples of school systems across the country hiding students’ gender transitions from parents.
- Meanwhile, the Libs of Tik Tok Twitter account has skyrocketed in popularity for cataloguing near-daily examples of educators introducing radical gender ideology into the classroom.