May 9, 2017

The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) is only weeks away from distributing a state directive to ALL Minnesota schools to allow boys and girls to share bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers according to their perceived gender identity. Called Toolkit to Ensure Safe and Supportive Schools for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students, it even goes so far as to direct schools to house students according to how they identify for overnight accommodations when sports teams travel! And no parents or students are required to be notified in advance!

YOUR ACTION NOW CAN STOP THIS!

The Draft Toolkit that was distributed on May 2nd
has no legal standing![Download a copy of the Draft Toolkit here.]

Last year the Obama administration issued a “legal guidance” mandate to all schools in the country threatening to withhold federal school funding from districts that did not permit students to use bathrooms, showers, locker rooms and overnight accommodations according to their perceived gender identity.

That lawless directive was overturned in February by President Trump. The federal Department of Education withdrew its false interpretation of federal law, acknowledging that separating students by biological sex is not “sex discrimination.”

Yet, this pending MDE “Toolkit” is basing its directive entirely on Obama’s overturned transgender school mandate. The Toolkit deliberately misleads school boards, administrators, principals, and teachers into believing that they are required by law to implement this radical gender policy. Though it states once that the 2016 Title IX Obama Guidance was rescinded, the Toolkit continually quotes the 2016 Guidance as if it is still in effect, quoting such language as “should” and “must”, and couching the Toolkit in terms such as “Best Practices” and “2016 Title IX Guidance.”

Furthermore, all the extensive documentation and resources the Toolkit references are solely from groups promoting a one-sided and destructive view of gender. Most troubling is that the MDE has wholly adopted the position of all of these groups, teaching that gender is based upon feelings, not biology. The Department is incorporating and enforcing an extraordinarily harmful ideology on our children.

In fact, through these policies and this ideology, MDE is violating its own bullying policies by creating an extremely hostile environment for students and adults who reject—on a scientific basis and/or a moral basis—that gender ideology is dangerous to children. The MDE is opposing the will of the overwhelming majority of Minnesota parents and taxpayers by forcing this toolkit and this unscientific, radical view of sexuality on our schools. CPL is receiving increasing reports from parents, teachers, and students that, when they do not adopt and affirm gender fluid thinking, they are being harassed, bullied, called bigots and haters, and intimidated into conformity.

The draft copy of the Toolkit was released at a Tuesday, May 2nd Safe & Supportive Technical Assistance Council (SSTAC) meeting. No one but the LGBT activists present, who showed up in force, appeared to be in on the plan. CPL faithfully monitors public meetings of the agencies that were created by the 2014 “Bullying Bill.” But we, like the rest of the public, were blindsided. We were able to take a copy with us, but a search on the internet for an online version came up empty. Nor could we find any requests for public input on the Toolkit.

How is the public able to comment on this document when no one except the LGBT activists knows about it? For this reason, CPL has posted the Draft Tookit on our website. Now you can comment, too!

According to the Council meeting on May 2nd, they will take public comments on the Toolkit for only two weeks, with final approval to be scheduled for two weeks after that. The publication goal date is June 30th. This aggressive timeline allows the SSTAC to distribute the Toolkit to all Minnesota schools while Fall school planning is in full swing.

And the gender activists are standing by, ready to use this Toolkit as a hammer to bully and intimidate school boards across the state!

TAKE
ACTION
NOW!

  1. Contact the Minnesota Department of Education: 651-582-8200Commissioner Casselius: mde.commissioner@state.mn.usCraig Wethington, Director of the School Safety and Technical Assistance Center: craig.wethington@state.mn.us
    • Tell them to stop implementing the rescinded Obama transgender mandate in the schools. There is no law requiring schools to adopt that policy.
    • Tell them you oppose schools policies that mix biological boys and girls in bathrooms, showers,
      locker rooms, and overnight accommodations.
  2. Contact your state legislators. (Find contact information here.)
    • Tell them to take action to stop the MDE from misleading school districts into thinking that the state requires them to implement the rescinded Obama transgender mandate in the schools. There is no law requiring schools to adopt that policy.
    • Tell them you oppose dangerous school policies that mix biological boys and girls in bathrooms, showers, locker rooms, and overnight accommodations. Tell them that this issue is very important to you. (Many legislators believe this is not an important issue to their constituents!)
    • Tell them you oppose the MDE training teachers to teach our children the dangerous idea that gender is based on their feelings, not their biology.• Tell them to support legislation that does not allow biological boys and girls to share intimate spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, shower and bedrooms in Minnesota schools.
  3. Contact your School Board members
    • Tell them that the MDE is trying to mislead and bully them into adopting the rescinded Obama school transgender mandate, and that you oppose them adopting such policies.
    • Tell them that no law requires them to incorporate this doctrine into the schools and the curriculum, and that you expect them to respect and defend the beliefs and values of families who will not conform to this dangerous gender ideology.
    • Be prepared to find and support school board members and candidates who will defend the rights and safety of all students. Let school board members know you will not support them if they remain silent.