The popular ‘gender critical’ theory about pelvic bones is simply nonsense. (Credit: GiaPratamaMD | Twitter)
It’s a popular ‘gender critical’ argument, that if archaeologists were to dig up a skeleton in hundreds of years from now they’d be able to tell whether it was male or female.
Sadly for them, it’s total nonsense.
The belief that birth sex is identifiable through skeletal structure is entirely “misleading” according to various experts.
The myth became popularised by so-called gender-critical individuals following claims of a physical disparity between pelvic bones of those assigned male at birth and those that were assigned female.
It is routinely used as an argument by anti-trans groups to claim that the concept of gender identity is useless because of its impermanence.
You can say gender neutral, you can have many sexual orientation.
But hundreds years from now, if Archeologist find your bone, they will say you either Male or female. pic.twitter.com/tamYUUxCPF
But, according to several experts in archaeology, the claim ignores a number of fundamental steps when identifying skeletal remains.
ATSU assistant professor and biological anthropologist Caroline VanSickle told AFPthat professionals often cannot say with any certainty if an individual was male, female or other just by looking at their bones.
“We can offer a fairly educated guess, but even then we sometimes get the answer wrong or end up with inconclusive results,” VanSickle says.
She added there is currently “limited data” on how hormone replacement therapy (HRT) affects bone structure, which makes it even more tricky to define the facts about a centuries-old skeleton.
“We also lack methods to identify intersex individuals, who make up around two per cent of the population,” she added.
The pelvic bone is not reliable enough to identify a male or female skeleton
Because of this ambiguity, archaeologists often refrain from definitively identifying the sex of a skeleton unless there is further proof to corroborate the decision.
When examining a skeleton, Osteoarchaeologists often consider both the physical characteristics of the skeleton, while also considering evidence of the person’s gender identity – especially in cultures which have exhibited gender-neutral or third-gender identities.
Durham university archaeology professor Rebecca Gowland said that skeletons are often categorised as male, probable male, unknown, female, or probable female.
She said the categorisation is based “on a number of different factors… [including] poor preservation, or it could be that some of the skeletal traits used to estimate sex are ambiguous.”
Archaeologists have routinely said that a person’s skeleton isn’t enough to identify their sex, let alone their pelvic bone. (Getty)
Sexual dimorphism – the biological or physical difference between the sexes of a species – is reportedly so slight in the skeleton of a human that the margin of error can be exceptionally high.
Gowland added that professionals are aware “biological sex exists on a spectrum, of which skeletons and the sexual variation they show is only one part of a greater whole.
“They also understand that the assessment of sex using skeletons is not 100 per cent accurate and this analysis may not align with an individual’s biological sex or gender identity.”
But, as many trans activists have pointed out, the concept of being misgendered in hundreds or thousands of years from now is not exactly on the top of their anxieties list.
“I won’t be alive by then, so I don’t really care,” journalist Katelyn Burns said in response to a post using the argument.
“Oh no! I’ll be so embarrassed when my bones are dug up in several hundred years! What ever will I do!?” another sarcastically wrote.
Republicans have been complaining about how “unqualified” many in the Biden administration are, and I for one think that’s a pretty audacious complaint for them to make considering…well, everything about them. Tour link: http://www.traecrowder.com
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) held an anti-trans rally at the Capitol this week. A whopping 12 or so people attended and no major media outlets covered it.
The rally was a veritable who’s who of contemporary transphobic trolls, including members of the book-banning “parents’ rights” group Moms for Liberty; members of the anti-LGBTQ conservative think tank Heritage Foundation; de-transitioned young adult right-wing media darling Chloe Cole; J.K. Rowling fanboy Chris Elston; conspiracy theorist James Lindsay; sexually harassing “comedian” Alex Stein; and of course, Greene herself.
The protestors held signs proclaiming, “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers,” “Gender ideology does not belong in schools,” and signs that defined the words “mom” and “dad” as “a human parent who protects kids from gender ideology.”
Greene brought the transphobic sign that she hangs in front of her congressional office which says, “There are two genders: male and female. ‘Trust the science.’” In reality, biology has proven the existence of numerous animals that can change gender and that gender and sex are both more complicated than binaries.
The protestors spent their time taking pictures of each other and then re-tweeting one another’s posts about the protest.
In a tweet tagging many of the protestors, the Heritage Foundation wrote that the demonstrators were “calling out policies that push for minors to have access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-reassignment surgeries.”
This is a lie, of course. No policies are “pushing” minors to undergo gender-affirming treatment, and surgeries aren’t conducted on minors either. The policies the protestors oppose include acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ+ people in schools and ensuring that trans youth have access to life-saving care as well as an equal education.
Right-wing transphobes imagine that LGBTQ+ people and allies, drag queens, and medical professionals all use “gender ideology” to “indoctrinate” and “groom” impressionable young kids into states of “gender confusion” and “rapid onset gender dysphoria” in order to “mutilate” their bodies in profitable surgeries.
However, every major medical and psychological association recognizes that trans youth self-identify consistently, insistently, and persistently from young ages. They also have deemed access to gender-affirming care as necessary for ensuring the emotional and physical well-being of trans youth.
Why? My dogs that love gravy why would an adult want kids bullied and hurt? Damn why are republicans and the right so hateful? This is to respect and protect students making the classroom a place they can learn without fear. Their push to have a homogenous society where everyone is just the same as them and fit into the mold they insist everyone must be with no diversity or difference from them? They see no beauty in others if they are not clones of themselves. These people are so spiteful they would see kids harmed rather than allow them to be protected. There is a video at the linked site that my security / cookie settings won’t show. Hugs
Idaho State Senator Chris Trakel (R) Speaks out against a proposed policy protecting LGBTQ+ studentsPhoto: Screenshot
An Idaho school board meeting devolved into chaos on Monday night while a Republican state senator was virulently speaking out against a proposed policy to protect LGBTQ+ students in the district.
The proposed Caldwell School Board policy seeks to prevent discrimination against LGBTQ+ students by, among other things, allowing them to use the locker rooms and bathrooms that align with their lived gender, requiring teachers and other staff to use their preferred names and pronouns, and allowing same-sex couples to attend dances and other activities.
The room was reportedly filled to capacity that night, with several others standing up to speak about the policy before state Sen. Chris Trakel (R) took the podium.
According toKTVB, most speakers were there to advocate against implementing the policy, but three students spoke out in favor of it.
Before Trakel got up to speak, the meeting was almost recessed and adjourned several times as people continued to get rowdy during the public comment period.
Trakel’s speech is immediately hostile. Video of the meeting shows him lambasting the board for allegedly violating Idaho state law based on other proposed curriculum policies and for violating the meeting attendees’ First Amendment rights by not allowing them to criticize school district employees.
“Now, to get on to the exciting part,” he said before attacking the proposed LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination policy and saying he was there under his official position as a state senator.
“You, under Idaho law, are required to maintain the morals and health of all the students… You are going to put all of their moral health and safety at risk, and like I told you before you will face litigation. You call that a threat, I’m telling you that is what will happen. It has already happened in several states and there’s already been rulings on it.”
“Before you waste taxpayer money, before you put a kid in harm’s way, you better throw this policy out and not even consider it.”
At that point, the board chair, Marisela Pesina, turned to a fellow board member and whispered something. Trakel snapped, “I’ve got the floor. Ms. Pesina will you please listen to me.”
“Sir,” Pesina responded tersely. And that is when the chaos began.
Trakel started yelling, “You claim you want people to follow the rules, but you break the rules left and right.”
As his rant continued, Pesina called a recess, at which point more meeting attendees began yelling along with Trakel. The board then voted to adjourn the meeting early, which only caused more anger in the audience.
People began screaming “cowards” and “unethical.” Many could be heard threatening to recall board members.
“Boo on all of you! This is absurd!” one person shouts.
“It was disappointing that some attending refused to follow the rules, which prevented others from sharing their thoughts with the Board,” Caldwell School District communications director Jessica Watts toldIdaho EdNews. “Caldwell School District welcomes and encourages feedback on its work. What we do not welcome are those who refuse to follow the steps necessary for a civil, courteous, and respectful environment for that feedback to occur.”
North Dakota introduced HB 1205 that would ban all books from public libraries that include any depiction of trans or gay people in them. There will be a committee hearing next Tuesday, Jan 17 @ 9:30 am.https://t.co/il6FyYt96Apic.twitter.com/17RkQYIUTH
Yet still not a drag queen or trans person. There were other ones posted in the days I got these from but I felt one was enough. You can see the tally that Joe has been keeping. Hugs
The handmaids tale gets closer and closer as the republican run states fight to return the society to a much more regressive time when women were under more control of men. Hugs
The republicans know there is voter fraud because they are the ones doing it. I wonder if this guy will get five years in prison like the poor black woman who was told she could vote and did so but she did not qualify. Texas threw the maximum punishment at her. Hugs
Notice that he never thinks of women pilots. To him all piolets must be male and the ones in dresses or skirts are cross dressing men to his mind. What a bigoted piece of shit. Hugs
Drag queens are the newest boogieman of the right, easy targets to rile up their base that hopes for either the return to the 1950s or the 1850s depending how they feel about women and black people. Hugs
Notice it is only indoctrination and wrong when it is about acceptance / tolerance of diversity and minorities. Push hard right wing ideology is just reality for these republicans. Pushing an outdated 1950s style of society to them is normal but in truth that is the indoctrination they accuse the left of. They are trying hard to regress society and the acceptance of others who are different from them. They cannot live and let live. They must force everyone to fit the mold they demand they live in. The want a society where straight Christian males are assumed to be in charge, women are subservient to white straight men, blacks know their place and stay in it, and the gay and trans people are not seen or acknowledged in society staying firmly hidden in their closets. Hugs
As the article points out once born it is a child, living child and to kill it is already murder. By definition abortion is not being born. The bill is just grandstanding. Plus they don’t seem to learn, restricting abortion is not popular so they are doubling down and this time claiming that abortion is the killing of already born babies. Hugs
We must not admit that discrimination is real and happening even now. Afterall they don’t seem concerned about the discomfort the minority children of color and the LGBTQ+ kids experience every day, but we must never make the white kids uncomfortable. Actually it is not the kids’ comfort they care about, but the white republican parents. Hugs
If you read the comments you will see that several admissions directors commented that the persons scores were not that great and they look at social media along with other factors. They clearly seen something all of the schools disliked. Considering his complaint is non-whites are getting into the school while white males such as himself are waiting for a spot seems that he is a racist misogynist who they don’t want in their student body.
Because letting kids know that even in nature with animals there are gay couples will rot their teeth curve their spines and cause them to suddenly become gay or trans. What stupidity. Gay couples exist and are legal. Land of the free remember. They don’t want to hide straight couples from kids. They don’t think kids seeing straight couples is sexualizing the children or teaching them sex. It is simply bigotry, and they are not really hiding it. They want to erase the gays and trans from society and they are using the kids as the excuse. Hugs
The right wing doesn’t even want to be on their own platform because there is no one for them to fight with, these site ban liberals which takes the fun away from the trolls. Hugs
This was an attack on minority people of color and totally racist. It was a set of laws designed to let the state stop any protest for equality or the killing of unarmed black people by the police. They also passed a law saying that if protestors such as the George Floyd killing protestors got into the street they could legally be run over and arrested even when they had a permit. Yet when the Cubans who normally vote republicans protested in the street the government did not allow them to be run over nor did they arrest them. Strange it seems the law only applies to the left or democrats. Hugs
Notice he doesn’t admit Nixon broke the laws and did things that were illegal. Nope it is the fault of the people who caught him, and they are the bad guys. Hugs
Again they want the gay and trans people erased from society. They don’t want people to be themselves, they want everyone including their kids to be clones of them. These people don’t want freedom for others, they want the freedom to force you to have their views on everything. They are conservatives so say right wingers who feel it is OK to be rude and insulting but don’t like the fact that their children don’t think that is OK. In the article it says the parents don’t have an issue that their kids came out as gay which is a weird way to word saying that their kids are gay, but I don’t think they respected their children or their own ideas. I have delt with this before, such as when a family member refused to stop using the “N” word slur when talking about black people. The only thing you can do is refuse to be around them to get the point across. Being progressive and accepting the modern society is a cult to these people. She says the daughter made a big deal over a coffee cup, but in fact the mother is the one who refused a cup due to the rainbow flag on it. So the real issue is the parents are bigots whose kids don’t want to be around bigots and the parents want to force their kids to become bigots like the parents are. I had to laugh at the way K. Yang talks about a global conspiracy to … make things better and less oppressive for everyone which the right / conservatives cannot tolerate. Hugs
“I never even considered trying to find a deprogrammer,” one mother said. “But I think it’s too late for me and my kids.”
A new trend seems to be all the rage for anti-LGBTQ+ parents, who have been increasingly touting the need to “deprogram” their progressive children and turn them conservative.
A recent report from the New York Post features a group of mothers who say their children refuse to talk to them after being “indoctrinated” with “gender and race ideology” by progressive high schools and colleges.
The article likens progressive values to being in a cult and details the mothers’ desire to find a “deprogrammer” to jolt their children back to reality.
The mothers were inspired by another story from the New York Post, that of Annabella Rockwell, a pharmaceutical fortune heiress, a rightwing activist, and a Mount Holyoke alumna who claimed that her mother hired a $300/day “deprogrammer” to turn her conservative after college.
“I saw Annabella’s story and my life turned upside down,” said 54-year-old Beth Pensky, whose son and daughter don’t speak to her.
“I realized I wasn’t alone and I saw what happened to her was similar to what I think happened to my kids. I never even considered trying to find a deprogrammer. I didn’t know they existed. But I think it’s too late for me and my kids. They won’t even talk to me.”
A mother named Dorothy, whose last name was not given, also connected to Rockwell.
“Reading about Annabella was the first time I connected the dots to everything that had happened with my daughter,” she said.
“She had what she called ‘an awakening’ and became very angry at me and her father. It was a big personality change. We are conservatives so [our political views] became a huge problem. We were not allowed to visit her on campus. She went on a mission to convert her brother against us. She told him that he should be against us because we’re conservatives and that we all should be against men.”
Pensky and Dorothy also both claimed they did not have any problem with the fact that they each had daughters come out as gay. Rather, they say it was the way their daughters treated them in the aftermath that was the problem.
The article also featured an anonymous mother of five daughters who she claimed were turned against her by the upscale New York City private school Dalton and then further lured into the cult of progressivism in college.
“The emotional stress is unbelievable,” she said. “I consider myself a Democrat and a liberal but it doesn’t matter. I’ve had fights with some of my girls just because I wouldn’t get myself a Rainbow pride Starbucks cup. The cup itself became this huge battleground. Apparently it matters what cup you hold.”
And the deprogramming business is apparently booming.
36-year-old K. Yang was once a trans and gay rights activist who used they/them pronouns but has since “deprogrammed” herself. She said she is extremely busy these days as a full-time deprogrammer
Yang’s website claims to be “exposing the trans agenda.”
“There’s a war for our bodies & minds and it’s all connected,” it says.
Yang touts the ideology of Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs), claiming that advancing trans rights somehow contributes to a lessening of rights for cisgender women.
“A lot of these parents are completely bewildered,” Yang told the Post. “A lot of them noticed a marked difference in their children’s behavior. Then all of a sudden ‘she’ identifies as ‘he.’ A lot of this is like a cult except parents don’t realize their child is being indoctrinated — not from an old-fashioned cult that takes you away somewhere but through schools and their devices. This is happening to kids everywhere, even those with a robust family life.”
Yang claimed there is a global conspiracy to “restructure society” that goes all the way up the United Nations.
“They are undermining the sexually dimorphic nature of reality and breaking down the differences between the sexes to break down our identity. They are constructing identities for us and they want us to adopt them.”
The article even featured the so-called “father of deprogramming,” 92-year-old Ted Patrick who was known in the 1970s and 1980s for helping parents “deprogram” their kids who had fallen victim to cults. Patrick’s controversial practices led to multiple jail sentences and dozens of indictments on grounds like kidnapping and conspiracy.
Patrick claims young people today are in a state of emergency and essentially says they should be kidnapped to fix it.
“It’s worse now than it was then,” Patrick said. “But parents are more scared and weak than they were then. You’ve got to get these kids alone. I’ve snatched people from Yale. I deal with the mind. You have to go into the mind, into that container, and bring the real person out. Once you get the person out you have to get the person thinking again — thinking like a critical thinker.”
This teacher doesn’t want stories of black people overcoming racism because she claims it will make the white kids uncomfortable, but she is not worried about the black students being uncomfortable as she uses the “N” word and talks racist crap including stating her entire clan fought for the confederacy whose goal was to keep blacks as slaves. Imagine the discomfort of being a black kid in her class knowing the teacher who grades you supports the idea of you being a slave with no rights. Not to mention her other out of time ideas. She claims books like “And Tango Makes Three” gives kids the idea that gay couples are OK something she also claims kids wouldn’t think if they were not told that. WTF! They are OK, it is normal, and kids should be told it is OK / normal / acceptable as straight couples. Just because she is a racist bigot who is filled with hate and intolerance doesn’t mean she gets to tell all of society and other peoples children that same sex couples are wrong. She is living in a distant past not the modern society but she cannot and wont accept it, and in Florida the kingdom of DeathSantis and the regressive Christian nationalist right she doesn’t have to. It appears that her superiors support her views even denying a parents demand their child be removed from her class, what happened to the great parents rights laws passed in Florida? Oh yes that is really only right wing racist bigoted Christian maga parents have rights bills passed in Florida. Hugs
Northview High School English teacher Vicki Baggett during an interview with Studio 850 in September 2022. (Screenshot via Facebook)
Vicki Baggett, an English teacher at Northview High School in Florida, is pushing for the Escambia County School District to remove nearly 150 books from school libraries. In an interview last month, Baggett told Popular Information that she is challenging books like When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball — the story of a sprinter who overcame racial discrimination to become an Olympic champion — because she’s concerned the book could make white students “feel uncomfortable.” Baggett said she has “a responsibility to protect minors” from this kind of content.
While Baggett claims she is keeping inappropriate content away from children, her former and current students tell Popular Information that Baggett openly promoted racist and homophobic beliefs in class.
Peggy Sunday, who graduated from Northview in 2021, told Popular Information that, during a 10th-grade English class, Baggett said she opposed interracial marriage. “[Baggett] said in the Bible somewhere it says that it is a sin for races to mix together and that whites are meant to be with whites and blacks are meant to be with blacks,” Sunday alleged. About 15 students, from a variety of racial backgrounds, were enrolled in the class.
Another student in the same class, Stone Pressley, recalled the same incident. Pressley said that Baggett said she was opposed to “race mixing” because “she wanted to preserve cultures” and “didn’t want everyone to turn the same color eventually.” Pressley said that although Baggett had a reputation for controversial remarks, he found Baggett’s comments on interracial relationships “shocking.” After the incident, Pressley recalled asking his science teacher if it was possible, as Baggett claimed, for everyone to be “the same color one day.”
Another student in the class, Hamza Jacobs, confirmed Baggett’s comments opposing “race mixing.” A fourth student in the class, who asked to remain anonymous due to the nature of the allegations and Baggett’s standing in a small community, also confirmed the episode.
Sunday said that Baggett is known throughout Northview as an “openly racist teacher.” Sunday worked at a local pool and, one day, Baggett asked her about “the black-to-white” ratio. According to Sunday, Baggett then asked two Black students if they “knew how to swim” because “most black people don’t know how to swim.” The incident was confirmed by one of the Black students targeted by Baggett, who asked to remain anonymous. That student said Baggett “asked me and another girl of color in my class ‘could we swim because black people usually can’t.'” Jacobs and Pressley also confirmed the incident.
A Black student in the class also alleged Baggett said that “she didn’t understand why black people get tattoos in black ink” because “you can’t even see them.” Pressley and Sunday confirmed the incident. Sunday and Jacobs recalled Baggett frequently commenting on the hair of a Black female student. Sunday said Baggett questioned why the young woman wore hair extensions and asked if her hair “was heavy or hurt her.”
Popular Information previously reported that, in 2015, Baggett posted an image of the Confederate Flag to her Facebook page. In the December 2022 interview, Baggett defended the posting, because “everyone in my clan fought in the Civil War” and she was not “ashamed of that.” Baggett added that she was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy, which has been designated as part of the Neo-Confederate movement.
The Escambia County School District did not answer a detailed list of questions about Baggett’s behavior but did provide the following statement to Popular Information: “We categorically condemn any form of discriminatory speech. Our mission is to reach all students, regardless of race, background, or gender identity.”
Baggett did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the allegations made by her students. She has, however, continued to submit challenges to books in Escambia County school libraries. Most recently, Baggett challenged a bestselling book of poetry available in high school libraries, The Sun and Her Flowers, on January 5.
Baggett accuses a student of “faking being a lesbian”
Both Sunday and Pressley recalled another incident involving Baggett that “the whole school talked about.” According to Sunday, Baggett told a 10th-grade student that her sister, who had a girlfriend, was “faking being a lesbian for attention.” Baggett allegedly said that “nobody’s born that way.”
The incident was confirmed by a student, who asked to remain anonymous, who witnessed Baggett’s comments. Popular Information also confirmed the identity of the targeted student and her sister but is not publishing their identities due to the nature of the allegations.
In September 2019, a Northview parent emailed principal Michael Sherrill objecting strenuously to Baggett’s classroom conduct. (The email was obtained by Popular Information on the condition that the identity of the parent not be disclosed.) In the letter, the parent accused Baggett of “a toxic and hostile learning environment for her students” and asked that “a full investigation of her actions be conducted.”
The letter states that Baggett “has expressed her utter distaste for homosexuals to her students.” According to the parent, Baggett “stated she thinks homosexuals are DUMB/STUPID for wearing the rainbow and pink colors because, according to Mrs. Baggett, that is the way that Hitler marked homosexual males during the Holocaust.” (The pink triangle was used by Nazis but has been reclaimed by the LGBTQ community as a symbol of pride.) The parent expressed concern that these comments would make students in her class feel “judged” and “humiliated.”
Many of the books challenged by Baggett have LGBTQ themes. Among the books challenged by Baggett is And Tango Makes Three. The book is the story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo. The pair build a nest together and raise an adopted child, Tango. Baggett alleges the book promotes the “LGBTQ agenda using penguins.” On the form, Baggett said she believes the purpose of the book is “indoctrination.”
In the December 2022 interview with Popular Information, Baggett said And Tango Makes Three includes sexual “innuendo” and K-3 students are “too young to even be concerned about sex.” Baggett explained that she objected to the book because if a second grader read the book “that idea would pop into the second grader’s mind… that these are two people of the same sex that love each other.” Baggett’s challenge says the book is inappropriate for all grade levels.
The September 2019 parent letter also claims that Baggett “openly stated that men and women should ‘Know Their Role.'” Baggett allegedly said that “men are the protectors and the women are the nurturers” and that is why “women have the children and the men go to work to provide and protect the women.”
The parent demanded their child “be removed from Mrs. Baggett’s classroom effective immediately.” But the parent told Popular Information that no action was taken in response to their complaint. The school did not address the specific allegations in the letter, and Principal Sherrill told the parent that Baggett was “a good person.”
A former student in Baggett’s class told Popular Information that, despite her “wild” conduct in class, “a lot of people were scared” to complain to administrators about Baggett. Northview is a small high school, with about 90 people in each graduating class, and Baggett has taught English at Northview for more than 30 years.
Inside Baggett’s classroom today
Baggett is seeking to remove books like When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball from Escambia County libraries, claiming texts that detail historic discrimination amount to “race-baiting.” The form Baggett submitted to the school district says When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball “opines prejudice based on race” and is inappropriate for students in any grade.
But a current student in Baggett’s 12th grade English class told Popular Information that Baggett’s curriculum includes texts that cover racial issues in crude terms. Popular Information is withholding the name of the student because the student is a minor and is currently enrolled in Baggett’s class.
Among the texts covered in Baggett’s 12th grade English class this academic year was A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor, an acclaimed but controversial author. (See “How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?” in the New Yorker.) In A Good Man Is Hard to Find, a man named Edgar Atkins Teagarden courts a woman by leaving a watermelon at her doorstep every Saturday carved with his initials — E.A.T. The punchline is that a Black child, referred to in the story with the n-word, ate the watermelon because he interpreted Teagarden’s initials as an invitation.
According to the student, Baggett played an audio version of the story that included the unredacted racial slur. During the classroom discussion, Baggett also allegedly spelled out the n-word, which the student said made many of her classmates uncomfortable. Another student in the class posted a screenshot of the of the passage from A Good Man Is Hard to Find with the n-word to social media, commenting that it was a “regular day in Ms. Baggett’s class.”
Baggett previously told Popular Information that her 12th grade class included texts with the n-word. But Baggett claimed that when the text was read in the classroom, she “basically skipped over” the part of the book that included the slur because it was her job to make “students all feel comfortable.” (During the December 2022 interview, Baggett herself used the racial slur in full oin describing the incident.) Baggett declined to name the text, so it’s unclear if it was A Good Man Is Hard to Find or another story.
There is nothing particularly unusual about including a Flannery O’Connor story in a 12th grade English class. But it highlights a troubling contradiction in Baggett’s approach. Baggett maintains that A Good Man Is Hard to Find is appropriate for high school students but books like When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball and And Tango Makes Three are inappropriate andshould be removed from all school libraries.
Marjorie Taylor GreenePhoto: Screenshot
Idaho State Senator Chris Trakel (R) Speaks out against a proposed policy protecting LGBTQ+ studentsPhoto: Screenshot
Photo: Shutterstock
