Senior officials at Essex Westford School District in Vermont shut down an attempt to educate students about people who have regretted undergoing a gender transition, claiming it ran afoul of the district’s equity policy.
According to internal communications obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the parent activist group Parents Defending Education, officials in the Vermont school district said that adding “Detransition Awareness Day” to the school calendar on March 12 did not align with the district’s efforts to promote equity.
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The concept of detransitioning has become a source of controversy as people who had previously claimed a new gender identity but later returned to their biological gender have spoken out about the damage caused by the transgender movement, including the speed with which some doctors prescribed life-altering medical treatments to young people questioning their identity.
“People who transition genders in any direction are recognized on national coming out day and during Pride month,” a district official said in an email. “We would, of course, support someone transitioning in any direction. Centering transitioning gender as damaging does not align with the EWSD Equity Policy’s requirement of being LGBTQIA+ affirming. This particular frame on gender transition — moving from a trans status to a status of gender assigned at birth because of damage done — is not something we would center.”
The official went on to say that the district “would support any person transitioning for any reason through the current days and structures we recognize and be supportive of their transition by recognizing the gender to which they identify.”
“Detransition can be hurtful to transgender people and youth,” the official said. “We want to meet their mental needs.”
The school district official also consulted with an unidentified outside source, who told the official that “the detransition awareness narrative” is “not scientifically based.”
“Often people who are talking about their detransition may be doing so after being subjected to conversion therapy or are being propped up by organizations that don’t support transgender people,” the outside source said.
In another email, a district official told another parent, “If the narrative around detransition day were a genuine celebration or recognition of folks who are detransitioning without pointing toward others as harmful for creating representation and equal rights for trans folks, I would see this differently.”
“The standard is this: Harm toward others based on identity is against our policy,” the official said in the email.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Essex Westford School District Superintendent Beth Cobb for comment but did not receive a response.
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Erika Sanzi, the director of outreach at Parents Defending Education, said that schools should stop filling their calendar with “silly days” but that if they do choose to incorporate them, they cannot “choose sides.”
“Schools should just stop celebrating all these silly days on the calendar but if they are going to insist on celebrating them, they can’t choose sides,” she said. “It is laughable — yet predictable — that school officials obsessed with equity and inclusion would choose to exclude detransition awareness from the causes they want students to be familiar with.”
