Columnist: Schools 'Callous' Toward Parental Concerns Over Transgenderism
by Jim Brown
November 15, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A newspaper columnist in Newton, Massachusetts, says school officials in the town are insisting that elementary students be subjected to classroom teaching on transgenders and transvestites.
Irish immigrant Emer O'Shea recently pulled her children out of Newton schools after a social worker discussed the topic of sex-change operations with third-grade students at Franklin Elementary. According to Newton Tab columnist Tom Mountain, who first reported the story, as a result of the talk on transvestites, O'Shea's eight-year-old daughter started having nightmares and expressed concern that her sister may turn into a boy, or that her mother may turn into a man.
Mountain says his understanding is that the social worker even took advantage of a "teachable moment" during the class discussion.
"What the social worker told the kids was that, yes, it is possible for men to have sex-change operations to become women," says Mountain. "And yes, by the way, there is a student in the class who did have a father who become a woman.
"What the social worker did say afterwards was that this was a teachable moment because she had a student, an eight-year-old child, in the class whose father was undergoing a sex-change operation," the columnist continues. "If you can believe it, the child is actually still in the home."
According to the journalist, at least one transsexual parent has been very visible in Newton classrooms, sometimes showing up at the school wearing a mini-skirt, high heels "and other feminine attire" before he had a sex-change operation.
"And I actually found out the other day that there's something called 'Royal Reader,' whereby the parents will come into a particular classroom and talk about and read a book to the children," says Mountain. "Well, in this particular first-grade class, this transvestite-transsexual parent came in and read a story to a classroom of six-year-olds."
Mountain says O'Shea confronted the school's principal, the school superintendent, and the local mayor over the incident involving her eight-year-old, but that they all treated her in a "very callous, rude manner" and pushed aside her concerns.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
