School Offers Counseling to Kids ‘Exposed’ to Trans People

Redneck jerks? Not so fast!

Have you heard about the school in Texas that apologized to parents and offered trauma counseling to students who’d been read a picture book about a transgender child? The story is shocking and outrageous, but the narrative is different from what you might assume. There are important lessons to be gleaned with a dive just a little deeper than most journalists have attempted.

First the facts —

Last week, a teacher read the picture book Call Me Max to her 4th-grade class at Forest Trail Elementary, part of the Eanes Independent School District in Austin, Texas.

A few parents wrote letters of complaint, some calling for the teacher to be fired. A few showed up outraged at a school board meeting.

In response, Eanes ISD administrators apologized and told parents the book was “not age appropriate.” They promised to remove it from an approved diversity reading list, and they offered trauma counseling to children upset by learning about transgender people.

Queer and progressive press exploded. Reporters and pundits correctly pointed out that Call Me Max IS age appropriate — for 2 to 5-year-olds. It’s written in a sweet voice from the perspective of a small boy just starting school. He explains to his teacher and classmates that he’s transgender while asking to be accepted as a friend.

That’s pretty much it.

There’s no talk of sex, reproductive organs, or anything else small children are not likely to understand. If anything, the book is not mature enough for 4th graders, who tend to be 9 to 10 years old. As for qualifying for inclusion in a diversity program? Well, asking to be accepted as a friend despite being different is a diversity “line drive.”

Advocates rightly criticized administrators for sending a toxic message, for showing students transgender children are shameful and must be hidden from other children, that something about them is too awful to be “appropriate.”

They showed kids that discussing transgender people is so potentially trauma-inducing that mental health intervention might become necessary.

Here’s where things get weird

So far, the narrative is what most people expect. A school in a very conservative state did something outrageous. People are angry about “those damn Texans” acting like redneck bigots again. It’s the kind of narrative that’s pretty accurate when applied to a conservative Utah school district that freaked out over the same book, eliminating their entire diversity program after a teacher read it in class.

There’s more going on here than meets the eye

This school isn’t located just anywhere in Texas. It’s in Austin, which if you didn’t know is a progressive city where LGBTQ people report feeling generally welcome and included. Austin voters overwhelmingly tapped Joe Biden for president, and that’s not a new phenomenon. They also turned out in huge numbers for Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama. Austin is a liberal Democratic stronghold.

The school district is reputed to be very progressive and to center diversity in its curricula and planning. The teacher who read Call Me Max chose it from list of diverse books teachers say administrators initially circulated. District administrators deny being specifically aware of the contents of each book.

So why did chief learning officer Susan Fambrough email parents to apologize? When she wrote that the book “not appropriate to be read aloud to an entire elementary-age class,” and assured parents that counselors had been made available to traumatized students, she took a lot of heat from parents outraged by the negative message she was sending about trans kids.

Eanes district parents were furious, not that Call Me Max had been read in class, but that the district sent a toxic, transphobic message to all students and parents. Yvonne Adams, who has a child at a district school, expressed a prevailing viewpoint:

“It was alarming to hear the way the other adults in the community, most of whom did not have children in [that] classroom, reacted. It is absolutely age appropriate for children at that age to be having those discussions.”

Jo Ivester, whose son came out as transgender while a student in the district, was even angrier. She says the district just taught her son and other trans kids that, “You are invisible, you cannot be who you really are. You cannot talk about yourself, you are not worthy.”

So much for Texas rednecks. These progressive parents were pissed!

Should parents have the right to erase minorities they don’t like?

Superintendent Tom Leonard reacted to negative news coverage and parental backlash by talking about parents’ rights, and here’s where the story takes a turn.

He told CBS Austin he supports trans kids and thinks addressing their needs should be part of school programs, but he tried a baby-splitting compromise: “To the parents who say, ‘Look I don’t think it should’ve been read, I should’ve been informed, there should’ve been a curriculum review process, that [you] partner with us on,’ I say okay you have a legitimate point.”

He told transphobic parents that the district would do a better job including them in future.

We will get there, we will make the decisions about what should be in the curriculum and how to introduce it, and at what ages. There are certain things that belong in 12th grade, that probably don’t belong in first grade. It’s just the way it is. But that’s I think where the misstep [is].

He didn’t explain why a picture book appropriate for ages 2 to 5 ought to be restricted to 17- and 18-year-olds, but he DID make clear that parents should have the right to pull their children from class if transgender people were going be discussed, and that a huge amount of “planning” and “partnering” would have to happen before that ever happened again.

Here’s a critical point people are missing

What makes this story so interesting is that a lot of people seem satisfied with Leonard’s attempt to play Solomon. All over the Internet, progressive people are suggesting maybe he has a point. Maybe better “partnering” would have prevented a toxic controversy. Maybe letting parents quietly pull their kids out of class is the “solution.” Then trans kids like Ivester’s son wouldn’t have to be caught up in waves of hate directed at people like them.

But is that really a satisfactory outcome?

Ask yourselves in what other circumstances parents ought to be allowed to withdraw kids from diversity education. That diversity reading list is FULL of books about marginalized people. There are stories about Black kids harmed by systemic racism and white nationalism. There are stories about Asian kids facing exclusion, Latino kids separated from parents at the southern border, disabled kids struggling because of lack of accommodation.

Each book is likely to be controversial to SOMEBODY.

Should parental objection justify balkanizing a diversity program? Don’t school diversity programs exist for the PURPOSE of exposing kids to people different from them? What good are diversity programs if bigoted parents can just pull their kids out of them?

I’m not surprised that a small minority of transphobic parents in Austin are outraged that transgender people exist. Small minorities of parents EVERYWHERE hold those kinds of toxic beliefs. That’s why we have diversity programs in school.

I am surprised that school administrators known for progressive values are working to accommodate bigots. That’s not the answer to anything. That kind of accommodation makes the problem worse not better.

I’m also surprised that some progressive thinkers are buying into accommodation. I’m sure they would never agree to accommodate racists. I’m sad to see once again that many progressive people don’t stand strong with LGBTQ people, at least not beyond waving a rainbow flag once in a while.

Folks, this is where it counts. This is where being progressive means saying no to bigots, saying, “No, we refuse to accommodate you. LGBTQ people are ordinary and equal. They are not age inappropriate. End of discussion.”

I wish I’d hear choruses of that sentiment. But I know I won’t, because this isn’t a story about Texas rednecks. It’s a story about progressive people like Tom Leonard in a famously progressive city throwing trans people under the bus.

This is a story about how in 2021, we queer folks are still second class, even to our progressive friends. Isn’t it about time to do something about that?

James Finn is a former Air Force intelligence analyst, long-time LGBTQ activist, an alumnus of Queer Nation and Act Up NY, an essayist occasionally published in queer news outlets, and an “agented” novelist. Send questions, comments, and story ideas to [email protected].