Again a fundamentalist religious group think only their beliefs are correct and they need to force that belief on everyone no matter what. No matter the religion other people might have, these people feel the right to force their god on your children. Regardless of your desire to raise your child in a manner that is open and accepting of the differences in others, these people demand the right to teach your child to be a closed-minded bigot. It is scary how these people reject democracy and co-existing but instead think that religious freedom gives them the right to oppress others, require the entire PUBLIC school system be run like their church following their church doctrines. One thing in the article that makes no sense to me. A teacher said she couldn’t be a christian and use a childs prefered pronouns. Why? I read the bible, I went to church a few years. No where did god say you shall not use him instead of her, you shall not call Billy she if he asks you do, you shall not cally Sally they or them. The bible never demanded you call Sally she / her and Billy he / him. These people are creating a biblical comand, a biblical sin where none was and ifgnoring the real shalls and shall nots. Hugs
From fights over LGBT rights to prayer at school board meetings, Chino Valley public schools have become ground zero for the culture wars.
Kate Briquelet
Senior Reporter
Decca Muldowney
Reporter-Researcher
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
Outside the California State Capitol last month, a fitness trainer turned school board president fired up the crowd at a parental rights rally, telling them they were all fighters in “a spiritual battle” for their kids and must answer the call from God.
Sonja Shaw, who was elected to the Chino Valley Unified School District board of education last November with an assist from a local megachurch and its Christian nationalist pastor, didn’t equivocate in naming the enemy: state Democratic officials who are challenging her right-leaning policies—and drafting laws that hinder book bans and protect teachers from harassment.
“Today we stand here and declare in his almighty name that it’s only a matter of time before we take your seats and we be a God-fearing example to the nation, how God is using California to lead the way,” Shaw crowed, adding, “We already know who has won this battle. You will be removed in Jesus’s name! You, Satan, are losing.”
Now Shaw is in the national spotlight in wake of her Chino school board passing codes that ban pride flags in classrooms and force educators to inform parents if their children identify as transgender—the first such policy to be passed in the state.
This summer, Shaw’s school board meetings, about 35 miles east of Los Angeles, became chaotic spectacles, ones that attracted the Proud Boys and other right-wing extremists and pitted them against students and parents protesting what they’re calling anti-LGBTQ practices that endanger children. When California superintendent of schools Tony Thurmond appeared at the July meeting in opposition, Shaw unceremoniously silenced him.
Weeks after state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a civil rights probe into Shaw’s “gender disclosure” policy, his office sued the school board. Bonta said the policy violates the California constitution and state law, and would cause LGBTQ+ students, “mental, emotional, psychological and potential physical harm,” according to a press release.
Other right-leaning school boards across the state have followed Chino Valley Unified’s lead. Shortly before filing suit against the Chino board, Bonta issued statements denouncing the Anderson Union High School District, Temecula Valley Unified and Murrieta Valley Unified school boards’ decisions to pursue “copycat” anti-trans policies.
Sonja Shaw listens to speakers in front of the state Capitol on bills related to LGBTQ school curriculum in Sacramento.
Wally Skalij/Los Angles Times
“These students are currently under threat of being outed to their parents against their will, and many fear that the District’s policy will force them to make a choice: either ‘walk back’ their constitutionally and statutorily protected rights to gender identity and gender expression, or face the risk of emotional, physical, and psychological harm,” Bonta said.
To concerned observers in Chino, Shaw’s tack is not unlike what’s happening at school boards across the country, with brawls over curriculum, social emotional learning, and the banning of books that focus on race and LGBTQ issues. Extremist groups like Moms for Liberty have spawned a mainstream narrative that public schools are “indoctrinating” children with “woke” ideology and into believing they’re a different gender.
But in Chino Valley, the school board’s new direction appears to be spurred on by a man behind the curtain: Shaw’s megachurch pastor Jack Hibbs.
Indeed, three of the board’s five members belong to his church, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills.
At the Sacramento rally, Hibbs boasted of his congregation’s work in electing Shaw. Calling her a “true modern-day Deborah,” Hibbs said the soccer mom “heeded the call to run for the school board” and that “when churches get involved and get informed, people vote.”
God, Hibbs said, installed Shaw into her position.
“Get on your knees every night,” Shaw told the crowd. “All day I talk to him. People probably think I’m crazy, but I’m really just talking to God all day.” After reciting a Bible verse, she added, “I have looked demons straight in the eye and with God’s authority rebuked them back to hell where they belong.
“You can do that too, trust me.”
Residents have long raised alarms about the school board’s religious bent. And Pastor Hibbs and members of his megachurch congregation appear to be more involved than ever in Chino’s public schools.
Last week, in an interview with right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk, Hibbs said that he brought the policy language to the school board after Republican state Assemblyman Bill Essayli’s “parental notification” legislation died without a hearing.
“He came back thinking he was defeated,” Hibbs said. “What we did is that we read his bill and we took the verbiage from that bill and then introduced it to our unified school district school board and they voted and adopted the verbiage.
“Guess what happened?” Hibbs continued. “We found out something, Charlie, that the most powerful politics is local…”
Hibbs then turned to Bonta’s lawsuit against the board, saying, “We’re going to take that on, we’re going to make sure that this goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
The pastor, who hasn’t returned messages left by The Daily Beast, wasn’t shy about his fight on the school board’s behalf.
Before he signed off, Hibbs told Kirk that children are “groomed” into trans ideology in the classroom and that schools want to “castrate your children” and “mutilate them.”
Ahead of the parental notification vote in July, Hibbs also urged people to flock to the fiery board meeting. “We’re asking people to show up by the thousands,” he said in a video announcement on the church’s Facebook page. “Please make it a priority.”
A supporter of Chino Valley school board’s policy to require schools to ‘out’ students to parents if they ask to be identified by a gender not listed on their birth certificate.
David McNew/Getty Images
Meanwhile, Calvary Chapel has boasted on social media of collecting tens of thousands of ballots for state and local candidates endorsed by Hibbs. The church’s ballot collection, a practice it’s engaged in for years, is conducted with help from Hibbs’ political organization Real Impact.
A teacher in another district—who alleges she was fired for refusing to follow her school’s gender identity protocols—heeded Hibbs’ call. “I could no longer be both a Christian and a public school teacher,” she said at the board meeting. “Then I remembered what Pastor Jack Hibbs taught me, that the word of God says… that being a coward is a sin.”
Still, Shaw claims that neither she nor the school board follow Hibbs’ orders. “Absolutely not. No one has a direct line to Pastor Jack Hibbs. Pastor Jack has never said, ‘Hey, guys, I want you to bring this policy forward.’ Never ever did he do any of that,” she told The Daily Beast. She added, however, that she couldn’t speak on Hibbs’ involvement with the board of education prior to her election.
The mother of two daughters—a freshman and junior in high school—Shaw was a Bible study leader at another church before joining Hibbs’ Calvary Chapel Chino Hills about two years ago.
Last September, Shaw told the San Bernardino Sun that she wasn’t running for election on the behalf of the 10,000-member Calvary Chapel. “They keep calling me ‘the church’s choice.’ I’ve never met Pastor Jack (Hibbs). I’ve never been brought up on stage,” she said.
One month later, however, Hibbs introduced her at the pulpit, telling his Sunday service that “she’s truly going up against the machine” before leading a prayer for her victory. Shaw bowed her head as Hibbs lifted a hand in the air and declared, “She has decided, Lord, to take on the woke-ism that is attacking our children.”
“I think Chino Valley is a cautionary tale.”
Hibbs has emboldened supporters to fight progressive education bills and prop up Christian candidates. In his sermons, he has tearfully prayed on stage for Donald Trump to win the 2020 election, said COVID-19 vaccines would lead people into accepting “the mark of the beast,” and called “transgenderism” a “sexually perverted cult” and “an anti-God, anti-Christ plan of none other than Satan himself.”
On education, he’s claimed that he and his acolytes are “trying to rescue kids from a system that is sexualizing them,” that kids “come out of school questioning their gender but they don’t even know how to do simple math” and “are being raped by the public school system.”
Hibbs has also taken aim at California’s abortion protections, describing them as “Infanticidal Death Policies,” in a document circulated to his congregation in October 2022, just before Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s re-election.
“If God does not intervene in this upcoming election through His people, which has always been his MO, and, if Newsom has his way, then this will certainly be proof that judgment has begun in California if not the United States,” the document reads. It ends by encouraging followers to return their ballots to the church.
“We should be able to stand against the school board,” Hibbs said in May. “We should be able to stand against some teacher that is molesting your child—if not physically, in their minds.”
In July, Hibbs delivered a skewed history lesson claiming that some founding fathers “inherited” slaves but actually cared for them. “Before you call them rich white guys who were slave owners,” Hibbs preached, “you need to finish the sentence: They were rich white guys who were slave owners who clothed, fed, and in many cases took very good care of their slaves while at the same time juggling two worlds…”
The megachurch has also tried to meddle in Chino Valley public school classes and teachings. Calvary Chapel members once funded textbooks for an elective course in two public high schools on the Bible as history and literature and tried to alter rules for sex education curriculum.
The church also runs a Christian “Released Time” program, where public school students can duck out of class for weekly one-hour Bible lessons held in buses outfitted with tables and chairs. This program had a table at the district’s back-to-school night, and a volunteer in a Calvary Chapel Chino Hills T-shirt handed out candy and Bible coloring books.
Chino Valley Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Norm Enfield, left, and President Sonja Shaw, right, listen to a speaker during a board meeting ahead of the board’s vote to requiring schools to notify parents if their child changes their pronouns.
Will Lester/MediaNews Group/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin via Getty Images
“This is a national movement and it’s intentional,” former school board president Christina Gagnier told The Daily Beast. “I think Chino Valley is a cautionary tale.”
District parent Glory Ciccarelli condemned Hibbs’ words on slavery at the August board meeting, urging Black parents to leave his church and “wake up and realize that what our ancestors went through is slowly getting phased out of the curriculum to the point where our kids will eventually be taught that literal slaveholders were nice guys…”
Ciccarelli told The Daily Beast that her biggest issue with Chino Valley leadership is “the apathy they have for the Black kids in the district,” and that the board needs professional development training relating to race and culture and diversity in hiring.
But she believes that Hibbs’ influence over certain board members could derail any progress in the district. In addition to Shaw, two other school board members—James Na and Andrew Cruz—are also members of Calvary Chapel.
“Cruz and Na are quite literally acolytes of Jack Hibbs at this point,” Ciccarelli said. “In my opinion, everything they say and believe as it relates to the school board is basically something they have heard from him.”
Hibbs, she added, “reminds me of Jim Jones with the way he is so easily able to control so many people at the same time.”
At the July board meeting that attracted far-right extremists like the Proud Boys, some local parents pushed back against the church’s connections to the school board.
“Madam President, board, cabinet, and staff,” quipped one father of a queer child, “I didn’t know I came to church tonight. I thought it was a board meeting.”
So many citizens had signed up to speak, waiting in a line outside in 100-degree weather, that the board cut the public comment period from three minutes to one minute per person.
Lisa Greathouse, a local mom and former school board candidate, defended teachers against claims they were “indoctrinating” and “grooming” kids. “Make no mistake,” Greathouse told the auditorium, “what this board is pushing through now is just the tip of the iceberg. They are taking their cue from their megachurch…”
Outbursts from hecklers interrupted the proceeding, which had a heavy police and security presence. Speakers from out of town and from Calvary Chapel preached about God and the Devil, facing off with parents and students who warned Shaw and her board they would have blood on their hands should the “outing” policy pass.
One moment in particular was so explosive it made headlines: Shaw excoriated Tony Thurmond, California’s state superintendent of schools, who’d asked her to reconsider the policy about notifying parents if their children identified as trans. He said it might run afoul of student privacy laws and jeopardize kids who “may not be in homes where they can be safe.”
“It seriously feels like I’m in some sort of weird dystopia.”
Thurmond wasn’t finished with his remarks, but Shaw cut him off for time like she did anyone else. “Tony Thurmond,” she seethed, “I appreciate you being here, tremendously. But here’s the problem: We’re here because of people like you. You’re in Sacramento proposing things that pervert children!”
After Thurmond tried to continue, Shaw yelled into her mic that she wouldn’t let him “blackmail” or “bully” her district. Video of the scene showed Thurmond exchanging words with a group of cops before walking away.
In a statement, Thurmond told The Daily Beast that a group of concerned students contacted him about Shaw’s proposal, and he rearranged his schedule to be there. “Let’s be clear about these policies—a small group of anti-LGBTQ+ politicians like Ms. Shaw believe they have the right to dictate when and how students and their families talk about their sexual orientation or gender identity,” Thurmond said. “They are trying to turn our public school educators—who are already overworked and underpaid—into the gender police.”
“Choosing when to come out and to whom is a deeply personal decision that LGBTQ+ young people have the right to make for themselves.”
Ashlee Peters, the parent of a child in the district, watched the scene unfold. “As an educator and as a mom, you just sit there and go, ‘I can’t believe this is happening in my community,’” said Peters, who has been a public school teacher for 22 years.
Peters was also in line when far-right activist Bryce Henson, who also goes by Ben Richards, walked around trying to bait people into reacting on camera. “He would come up to you and be like, ‘I just want to talk to you, why can’t we just have a conversation about this?’” It was a sneak preview of the testimony to come.
Inside, people proselytized and spewed hatred, calling LGBTQ people “terrorists” and warning “demons are after our children.” Richards called transgender, Black Lives Matter and Juneteenth flags flying outside his San Diego school district a symbol of “systemic radical leftist indoctrination.” One mother ended her speech with, “As Jason Aldean would say, ‘Well, try that in a small town.’”
Chino Valley School board president Sonja Shaw told the crowd in Sacramento, “We already know who has won this battle. You will be removed in Jesus’s name! You, Satan, are losing.”
Wally Skalij/Los Angles Times
When it was her turn, Peters warned that the “outing” policy would “create a hostile environment” for LGBTQIA+ students and that the board’s “reckless pursuit of personal agendas” could bring about “expensive lawsuits.”
The atmosphere was so tense that security escorted a person out who put hands on someone else, Peters said. “It seriously feels like I’m in some sort of weird dystopia,” Peters told The Daily Beast. “I don’t know how this happened because it does not feel real.”
Peters believes that what’s unfolding in Chino Valley Unified is a wake-up call to monitor school board elections. “I just didn’t think it was going to happen in my community because I live in California,” she said. “I feel relatively safe living in a blue state—that religion wasn’t going to suddenly take over my public school system, and it has.”
Even though the involvement of Hibbs and his megachuch in local public schools has been center stage in Chino Valley this year, it’s a battle that’s been brewing for at least a decade. Back in 2014, the Freedom from Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of parents in Chino Valley over prayers and Bible readings at school board meetings, arguing these practices “constituted an establishment of religion in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”
The prayers and Bible verses were being led by Calvary Chapel members James Na and Andrew Cruz, who were elected to the school board in 2008 and 2012 respectively.
According to the prayer lawsuit, Na once told spectators of a school board meeting that their “lives begin in the hospital and end in the church, and urged everyone who does not know Jesus Christ to go and find Him.” In 2013, Na sent out a letter to school district “family member[s]” that referred to Hibbs with an excerpt from “Pastor Jack’s Christmas story.”
“The community is going to rise and create a war chest to help you,” Hibbs told the board in 2016 in the midst of the legal battle, though a crowdfunding drive affiliated with the church apparently never delivered. A school board spokesperson previously said that funding was intended to bring the case to the Supreme Court.
“The devil always loses.”
A federal judge ultimately ruled in the parents’ favor, and the board lost its Ninth Circuit appeal, leaving the district with $282,000 in legal bills.
This apparently hasn’t stopped Cruz’s Christian commentary. In April, he went on a rant wherein he said that if he were governor, he’d mandate citizens be trained in firearms and that, “I do love one man, I really love this man, and that is Jesus Christ. It’s in my head.”
Since his election, Cruz has especially ignited parents’ ire and weathered calls to resign as a result of his offensive remarks and chemtrail conspiracy theories. In 2015, Cruz said mothers who don’t vaccinate their kids are wrongfully vilified while “illegal aliens” bring infectious disease to America. In 2018, Cruz infamously said that “it wasn’t Hitler that was bad, it was the people that follow the laws and the agenda” while discussing “parents rights.”
That year, Na and Cruz (and Hibbs) proposed that parents have the ability to opt kids out of sex-ed discussions on gender identity, sexual orientation, and discrimination—and for schools to notify parents when a transgender student uses a locker room or shower. Those measures failed.
Na is also not without controversy. Aside from his religious musings at the board, he’s also been accused of trying to recruit at least one student to Calvary Chapel.
At a June board meeting, a statement was read on behalf of Esther Kim, who was the panel’s student representative in the 2021-2022 school year. “In sophomore year, I met Mr. Na through a personal phone call where his school board role and my school were acknowledged,” Kim said. “During an unrelated conversation, he attempted to persuade me to go to his church.”
Chino Valley Unified School District President Sonja Shaw receives a high five from clerk Andrew Cruz, not pictured, as board member James Na, right, looks on during a board meeting at Don Lugo High School in Chino on Thursday night July 20, 2023.
MediaNews Group/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin via Getty Images
In November 2021, Kim mobilized classmates to oppose Cruz and Na’s attempt to ban trans students from using the bathrooms of their identified gender. Cruz additionally proposed requiring trans students to “have psychological counseling for a minimum of 6 months to ensure” they’re trans and a doctor’s letter showing the student is receiving hormonal therapy.
Kim remembers that Na had compared the fight to protect transgender people to choosing between saving a man and an “endangered species.” “The students came out feeling attacked, downcast,” Kim told The Daily Beast. “They lost hope in their school board.”
In May of last year, Kim stood up to Na’s proposed resolution against Assembly Bill 2223, which shields women who have lost or ended pregnancies from prosecution. Calvary Chapel members, including a prayer-reciting Shaw, showed up to the meeting after Hibbs encouraged “a thousand or two” people to support Na’s proposal. Na rationalized this non-education motion, telling the room that “the devil always loses” and abortion would lead to lower enrollment and thus a loss of funding. For his part, Cruz warned of a future where women are paid to have babies, who would be “ripped up” for their organs.
When it was her turn to speak, Kim said Na’s abortion proposal had no place at a school board. “My peers and I have time to time been disappointed by the actions of some of our board members to the point where we’re no longer surprised by these nonsensical resolutions,” she said. Some audience members booed, and then-president Gagnier reminded them that Kim was a student and to be “respectful.”
Na also publicly lashed out at the teen, declaring, “This is a perfect example of why you need to talk to your children. This is an appointment for us to see and hear what happens when you leave them alone with the wrong people.” He then suggested Kim was “brainwashed.”
What’s happening in Chino Valley, Kim says, is just one example of a religious “national movement that has been carefully orchestrated for a very long time.”
“We are finally seeing it surface, first in the form of attacks on marginalized communities, religion in politics, who knows what next,” Kim told The Daily Beast.
At last month’s rally at the state Capitol, Shaw shared that she grew up in a home without much parental involvement. Her mother was a heroin addict who died when she was young. Her father was from another country (Israel, she told The Daily Beast) and worked seven days a week.
Shaw was a frequent commenter at school board meetings during COVID-19 shutdowns, voicing opposition to Critical Race Theory and mask mandates via her group Parent Advocacy of Chino Valley. Sometimes she was hostile to the board, yelling and interrupting proceedings, according to footage. Calling herself “The Parent’s Voice” in campaign materials, she narrowly won election to the board by 317 votes thanks to door-knocking volunteers, Hibbs’ blessing, and a $50,000 donation from Charlie and Sherry Reynoso, who own a hardware company.
Jon Monroe, another newly-elected board member who’s voted in line with Cruz, Na, and Shaw, also received $50,000 from the couple.
In a phone call with The Daily Beast, Reynoso confirmed he is a member of Calvary Chapel but insisted he hadn’t heard about the school board race at church. Instead, he and Monroe coach high school sports together, and he thinks highly of him. “I just wanted to support them,” Reynoso said. “I just like Jon a lot. Jon is a good guy, he’s just a solid human being.”
“These actions show that we’re not worth protecting. They want us dead.”
Shaw says she decided to run for office after a local GOP operative approached her and urged someone in her parents’ group to vie for the open seat.
Her opponent was then-board president Gagnier, a technology lawyer and adjunct professor who has been featured as a legal expert on TV and in print. After Gagnier lost, she co-founded Our Schools USA with a former teacher in the district, Kristi Hirst, to combat misinformation and counter Moms for Liberty (M4L) and their ilk.
Our Schools has spent the last year spotlighting Shaw’s actions pre- and post- election, sharing footage of her yelling at Gagnier and board members; her speeches at political events as school board president; and her apparent collaborations with far-right agitators.
During an April board meeting, Shaw invited a director with Gays Against Groomers—a right-wing group aligned with M4L that calls gender-affirming care for minors “indoctrination” and “mutilation”—to lead the pledge of allegiance. She had also passed a resolution backing Assemblyman Essayli’s bill 1314, which would have required schools to tell parents if their child “is identifying at school as a gender that does not align with [their] sex on their birth certificate.”
When Essayli’s bill failed to get any traction, Shaw proposed a policy of her own. It immediately drew outrage from LGBTQ residents and allies, who said a significant percentage of trans kids feel safe at school but not at home.
Chino High School valedictorian Daniel Mora, who is gay, spoke in opposition.
“I can’t believe this is happening in my community,” said one Chino parent who has been a public school teacher for 22 years.
David McNew/Getty Images
Mora told the Daily Beast that he feels the policy “has nothing to do with parental rights” but “everything to do with outing trans kids because they don’t think people can be trans.” Mora points to the July board meeting, when Cruz called being transgender “a dismantling of our humanity” and “mental illness.” “We are saving children,” Cruz added. “Because we’re losing a lot of them. It is a death culture from the left.”
“I really don’t understand these types of policies,” Mora told us. “The majority of the people who live in Chino do not agree with this. Most people who speak at the meetings in support of these policies are outsiders. They’re outsiders invited by Sonja and the school board.” After Mora spoke at the board in June to oppose Shaw’s flag ban policy, someone yelled, “Your parents should be in jail!” in a moment captured on camera.
Max Ibarra, a transgender student who has fought the board’s anti-trans politics since 2021, told The Daily Beast that they know of several students who wanted to use new names and pronouns this year but will now stay in the closet. Ibarra says they came out last year and so the “outing” provision doesn’t apply to them.
“What they’re doing is dangerous,” Ibarra said of the board. “It’s a direct target on trans kids’ lives in the district, and they don’t care about that.” Shaw, Ibarra says, is pushing “trans panic” and “allows the members of her board to say horrible things.” Instead of stopping Cruz for publicly declaring trans was a “mental illness,” Shaw booted a student who yelled in protest at his comments, Ibarra said.
Speakers at board meetings routinely target the trans movement as an “evil ideology,” Ibarra said, making students feel unsafe. Ibarra makes sure they have a “buddy system” at meetings and someone to escort them back to their car.
Of the current board, Ibarra said, “They can say that they support every student all they want but actions speak louder than words. These actions show that we’re not worth protecting. They want us dead.”
Despite warnings about trans students’ mental health and safety, Shaw and fellow board member Monroe argue their policy ultimately protects kids by involving their parents.
Asked about arguments that some trans kids could face emotional, verbal, or physical abuse from guardians, Monroe said, “Those parents are in the minority.”
A person holds a sign in opposition to a policy that the Chino Valley school board passed in July that requires schools to notify parents if their child comes out as transgender.
David McNew/Getty Images
“The majority of the parents want what’s best for their kid,” he told The Daily Beast. “And so when you’re trying to enact policy, I’m going to go with the side that has the most benefit. That’s where I think the difference is going to be.”
Once a high school baseball coach and resource officer in the district, Monroe said that he expected pushback on the new rule. But he was surprised that local elected officials have declined the board’s invitation to talk in person—and by a flood of hate mail calling him “transphobic” and a “Nazi.”
“From the smallest local politics to the national stage, we’ve lost the ability to sit down and talk to somebody with a different ideology than our own,” Monroe added.
Recently, his secretary purchased tickets for himself and Shaw to attend a local Planned Parenthood event where Thurmond was featured as speaker. But an hour later, he says, their tickets were canceled. “I just find it very odd that I can’t go into an event of somebody that may have some different views than I do,” Monroe said.
“I don’t always think that I’m right,” he added. “As I was telling one couple, I have questions about our policy too. You can’t see the future and what happens.”
Cruz and Na didn’t return messages left by The Daily Beast
Don Bridge, elected in 2020 and the only member voting against Shaw’s handiwork, told us, “The pride flag banning and parental rights notification resolutions by our district is definitely anti-LGBTQ.”
Asked what it’s like to be the lone dissenter, Bridge said in an email: “It’s not that bad because I know I’m doing the right thing in standing up and advocating for ALL students.”
“I am worried because, as I used to teach my government students, the next election is always the most important. That occurs next year, in November 2024 when 3 seats will be up for election,” he wrote, adding that another Shaw ally could result in a “5-0 conservative board,” a future that an opposition group is working to prevent.
Andi Johnston, a school district spokesperson, said that the parental notification policy is aimed at student safety.
“The Parent Notification policy does protect transgender students by requiring staff to notify CPS/law enforcement if the student believes they are in danger or have been abused, injured, or neglected due to their parent or guardian knowing of their preferred gender identity,” Johnston added in a written statement, emphasis hers. “In these circumstances, CVUSD staff will not notify parents or guardians, but rather, wait for the appropriate agencies to complete their investigations regarding the concerns shared by the student.”
She said that while Bonta, Our Schools, and other organizations have called the policy dangerous, the district’s past and current practices “solidify staff’s priority to provide all students with a safe and positive educational experience.”
Sonja Shaw says critics have her wrong. According to her detractors, she’s a Moms for Liberty member or following their playbook, she’s affiliated with the Proud Boys and other extremists, and she’s a transphobic bigot following the agenda of Pastor Jack Hibbs.
In an interview, Shaw said she didn’t know much about M4L or the Proud Boys. “Some people have no intention other than trying to find something to make you look bad, right? That’s what I learned about the media,” she said. While she signed M4L’s candidate pledge, she says she’s not a member or otherwise involved with the group. Shaw has also claimed she didn’t know what the GOP was until she ran for office, and that her fight transcends party politics.
“If you actually look at my background, it’s not to come in and throw policies around,” Shaw told The Daily Beast. “It’s because there’s actually meaning to these things.”
Still, her targets are California Democrats and she calls Bonta, Thurmond and Newsom “a political cartel”; her policies lean decidedly Republican; and she’s a repeat guest on Fox News and the One America News Network.
A man wears an evangelical t-shirt and holds a banner in support of a policy that the Chino Valley school board is meeting to vote on which would require school staff to “out” students to their parents.
David McNew/Getty Images
After Bonta sued the district, Shaw called the legal action “another ploy to stop all the districts around California from adopting a common sense legal policy.” She told The Daily Beast, “Parents have a constitutional right in the upbringing of their children. Period. Bring it.”
Shaw is in the middle of a media tour of sorts, as she speaks at state hearings and political events. On Aug. 14, she spoke at a press conference co-organized by Freedom Angels, which is helmed by gun-toting anti-vaxxer survivalist moms. The rally targeted California bills that would limit book bans and make threatening or harassing a school employee a misdemeanor. (One intention behind the latter bill is to protect teachers from extremists.)
In mid-September, she is scheduled to speak at the Pray Vote Stand Summit in Washington, DC, organized by the Family Research Council, an evangelical nonprofit designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. This lineup also includes Hibbs, former president Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former vice president Mike Pence, and other boldfaced conservative names. The director of Hibbs’ Real Impact will lead a breakout session on how “individuals and churches can engage in ‘ballot harvesting.’”
Bonta and Thurmond have previously issued warning letters to the district when Na and Cruz proposed anti-trans policies. Shaw seems to welcome her place in their crosshairs.
According to Shaw, before Bonta’s office sued the district, his lawyers subpoenaed her school board emails for words like “woke,” “trans” and “hate” as part of its civil rights inquiry. “You’re making our staff spend hours looking for certain things that aren’t even there,” Shaw told us. “If you actually looked at my emails, I’m called the C-word. I’m called the B-word. My life is threatened, my kids are threatened.” She added, “and that’s ignored?”
Police recently arrested a 52-year-old Berkeley woman for allegedly threatening Shaw, who told media outlets a caller to the district warned they’d murder and “dismember” her.
Shaw routinely shares her hate mail on Instagram but insists that she’s received an outpouring of support, too, including from people in other countries.
“We have an opportunity to show the nation now because they’re all watching us,” Shaw told us. “If we can show that we can come together despite whatever people want to label us, I think just for the success of our children, that can be a really cool and beautiful thing.”
“Can you imagine what we can do together if we actually listen to each other?” she said.
Not everyone feels Shaw’s proclamations of unity are genuine. Citizens have taken to the podium to accuse Shaw of online bullying and having spies snap photos of teachers in schools.
Karen Reyes, one of Don Lugo High School’s intervention counselors, has accused Shaw of fomenting “hysteria” around a proposal to build a private office in her school’s wellness center, a place where students take mental health breaks. In public comments and on social media, Shaw has claimed this room could become a Planned Parenthood clinic. It resulted in the local chamber of commerce canceling a partnership to fundraise for the project.
Reyes told The Daily Beast that Shaw’s fear mongering led to people calling her and other counselors “pedophiles” and “groomers” and demanding they put cameras in the center. “It just feels like manufacturing crises for a larger agenda,” Reyes said.
At the board’s June meeting, another woman held up a poster printed with a photograph of a Don Lugo counselor’s office. The image was taken through a window and showed a rainbow flag and poster that read “What you say in here stays in here,” before listing exceptions such as abuse or self-harm. Someone snapped the photo for Shaw, who circulated it on Instagram. “You abused your power as a school board member to dox a district employee,” the speaker told Shaw, before claiming she was “instigating a community to attack this office and counselor on social media.”
Kelly McClister, another local mom, claimed that some parents “have been subjected to bullying and insults” by board members. She said that she filed a police report in December 2022 because Shaw posted her photo with her children to her social media account “for the purpose, I think, of calling me names.” And that Cruz, instead of responding to her emailed concerns, only replied that she was a “strange bird.”
The Daily Beast obtained a copy of a Chino Police Department report indicating McClister wanted to document the “newly elected CVUSD official” who had been “talking badly about” her on Instagram. McClister told police she worried Shaw’s adherents would appear at her home.
McClister, a lifelong Chino Valley resident, told The Daily Beast that one of the biggest reasons she moved her kids from public to private schools was Calvary Chapel’s “overreach,” especially after one of its “Released Time” volunteers approached her son outside of school.
She says she’s emailed the board over the years expressing concerns about combination classes and other issues, but Na and Cruz “have never responded.” But after Shaw took office, she emailed the board again about what she calls Shaw’s “unprofessional” social media posts with spelling and grammatical errors and shared concerns that an “under-educated” person was board president.
Shaw didn’t reply. Instead she tagged McClister in an Instagram story. “I show people when people call me names, and say bad things about me,” Shaw told us, insisting that she crossed out McClister’s name in her post.
“Because I think it’s important for people to see what we’re dealing with too,” Shaw added. “Because when you have all this hate by people who say that we’re hating, I think it’s ironic, right?”
From Shaw’s perspective, the last iteration of the board didn’t listen to parents, “exited” them from schools with vaccine and mask rules, and enabled an air of secrecy. She said that when she spoke to people on the campaign trail, secrecy was the No. 1 issue.
“You would hear over and over stories where parents would say, ‘I found out for about six months, my child was being bullied, the schools knew, there was a record, but I was never notified.’ You heard stuff about kids wanting to possibly commit suicide … and it was alarming that they found out that the school or the teacher knew and never notified them.”
The opposition from Thurmond and Bonta has only strengthened her resolve.
“We’re not going to back down. We’re not going to step down. Our board majority was voted in for a reason,” Shaw said, “and we’re going to make sure that reason is carried out.”
Annie has made a very important post that really needs to be spread as far as possible and talked about freely. If you have not been to her informative blog or read this post, please do so. You will find she writes on a variety of subjects, understands what she writes about, and has a great comment section where she allows disagreement with her posts to which she will reply. Hugs
The point of these vouchers is to take taxpayer money from public schools and promoting private for profit / church schools. It has long been a wet dream of the Christian right. Notice if a public school teacher wants supplies she would have to pay for them or start a go fund me, but this law allows the vouchers to be used for other things than education. The funds were being used at Chritmas time for Xboxes and toys, something that public schools wouldn’t be allowed to do. Hugs
A new list of allowable expenses for the publicly funded program is raising eyebrows.
Guidelines allow Florida families receiving school vouchers to buy items like theme park visits, paddleboards and TVs with leftover money in their state education accounts. [ AP; Jefferee Woo | Times ]
Theme park passes, 55-inch TVs, and stand-up paddleboards are among the approved items that recipients can buyto use at home.The purchases can be made by parents who home-school their children or send them to private schools,if any voucher money remains after paying tuition and fees.
The items appear in a list of authorized expenses in a 13-page purchasing guide published this summer by Step Up For Students, the scholarship funding organization that manages the bulk of Florida’s vouchers. Many of the items are similar to what was permitted for vouchers to students with disabilities in the past, but now they’re available to anyone who receives an award of about $8,000.
The list quickly raised eyebrows as it circulated.
“If we saw school districts spending money like that, we would be outraged,” said Damaris Allen, executive director of Families for Strong Public Schools, who recently started speaking out publicly on the issue. “We want to be conservative with our tax dollars. We want to be sure it is being used for worthwhile things.”
By comparison, Allen and others noted, teachers who want some of the same items for their classrooms would have to pay out of pocket or turn to other fundraising sources such as GoFundMe because schools won’t pay for them.
Conversations among parents in online discussion groups have sparked added concern.
Participants inquired about the possibility of vouchers paying for tickets for fan fests and conventions. They discussed whether they could get a television and a projector, or just one of those. They shared sample wording to submit for requests to get theme park passes paid for — something that was prohibited a year ago.
“Every child in Florida deserves an enriching, quality education,” said Holly Bullard, chief strategy officer for Florida Policy Institute, which has raised repeated concerns about the potential cost of voucher expansion. “But is it fair to students in our public schools, whose teachers often pay out of their own pockets for classroom supplies, that taxpayer dollars are being spent on Disney passes and big-screen TVs for voucher families?”
Supporters of the expansion don’t consider the program as wasting taxpayer money. They see it as allowing families to customize education according to their children’s interests.
“We need to stop thinking like it’s 1960 — that the only answer is four walls with traditional districts leading the charge,” Jeanne Allen, founder of the national Center for Education Reform, said in an email.
“To engage young people today, we need to do a lot more than just have them show up,” she said. “They expect 21st century approaches to learning and recreational opportunities for their physical and mental well-being.”
Jeanne Allen [ Courtesy of Center for Education Reform ]
In 2021-22, the latest year for which figures were available, families receiving vouchers for students with disabilities spent $1.2 million on televisions. The purchases required pre-authorization, according to Step Up For Students.
They also spent $43,374 on treadmillsat home, which also required pre-authorization; $30,436 on indoor trampolines and $226,584 on game consoles.
In total, the organization reported distributing $51 million for instructional materials that year, with the largest expenses being test preparation ($26.7 million), computers ($8 million) and iPads ($3.4 million). The amounts are expected to grow along with the expansion of the program, which has nearly doubled in size to more than 425,000 students after HB 1 became law on July 1.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signs HB 1, a bill to expand school vouchers across Florida, during a news conference at Christopher Columbus High on March 27 in Miami. [ MATIAS J. OCNER | AP ]
With the new purchasing guide in place, parents who have children with severe medical needs worried that limited resources would go toward items that families should be paying for themselves, while critical services and equipment might become underfunded.
“Taxpayer dollars going to PlayStations when they could go to students with significant needs, that’s fleecing the taxpayer,” said Abby Skipper, a longtime Polk County special education advocate and parent.
Students with special needs have a longer list of eligible expenses that are not available to students with economic opportunity scholarships. Some of thoseitems include digital devices such as game consoles and computers, assistive technology and sensory material, such asspecialized swings and chairs.
Many other authorized expenses — including field trips to places such as museums and theme parks, physical education equipment like kayaks, classroom furnishings and coursework — are common to both types.
A Step Up spokesperson noted that the scholarship pays for the student’s admission only and sets a limit of one per school year up to $299. A Busch Gardens silver annual pass with no blackout dates costs $213. Disney World annual passes start at $399. Florida resident tickets cost $109 per day.
State senators who voted for the program trust parents to make “appropriate and responsible decisions” when using the funds Florida is dedicating to their children’s education, said Katie Betta, spokesperson for the Senate Majority Office.
“The parents we hear from don’t see the scholarship as a windfall or a means to splurge on big screen TVs and video game consoles,” Betta said via email. “To the contrary, the parents we hear from appreciate the opportunity to use any funds left after tuition is paid to cover the cost of books, therapies and other educational expenses that would be covered if the child was in a public school.”
House Speaker Paul Renner agreed with the goal of giving families flexibility, and indicated lawmakers are open to reviewing the program as needed. House members aim to get the most out of public spending, he said, and are “continually improving how we deliver education so that every child can achieve their full potential.”
Doug Tuthill, the president ofStep Up For Students,said the group’s guidelines, written with parent input, have two primary criteria.
“First, we look at the products and services that are available in district and charter schools,” Tuthill said via email. “Second, we look at the unique learning needs of each child.”
Creating a customized education can explain the rationale behind paying for items that some question, he added.
For instance, large-screen televisions might aid students with visual impairments. Paddleboards, one of several items allowed for physical education, can offer balance training for students who have been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.
Step Up previously did not approve theme park passes, but reconsideredafter hearing from parents about the potential benefits, Tuthill said. A student with severe developmental disabilities might better focus when stimulated by the sights and sounds, for example, or a home-school family may incorporate “all the different history and culture lessons available at Disney World,” such as art and music festivals.
Several school district officials from across Florida said if their students take field trips to theme parks, parents or community sponsors cover the cost.
These types of conversations are taking place across the nation as education savings accounts gain popularity, said Derrell Bradford, president of the national education reform group 50Can. From his perspective, the accounts help close the gap for families that have no flexibility in their school choices or enrichment opportunities.
Pages from new guidelines detail how Florida families can spend school voucher money left over after a child’s private school tuition and fees have been paid. Allowable Items, which are supposed to have educational uses, include televisions, kayaks and individual trampolines. [ SEAN KRISTOFF-JONES | Times ]
This new model gives parents money and choices, limiting the centrally managed system, Bradford said. Looking at the ways the money can be spent shouldn’tbe a simple yes or no, Bradford added. The key concern ought to bewhat items will best help children learn, he said.
“The question we need to ask is, do you want to let the paradigm of schooling that we know already be the reference point? Or do you want to let something else emerge?” Bradford said.
Florida has clear purchasing rules, with laws against fraud, said Allen, the Center for Education Reform founder. She argued that the expansion of allowable expenses lets families choose “very different kinds of education environments for their children.”
Some Florida activists raised concerns that the state could run into problems like Arizona faced, when its auditor general found education savings accounts being misspent on unauthorized items. Polk County school board member Lisa Miller, who has used vouchers for her nonverbal son, said Florida’s program was ripe for abuse even when it was more limited. She noted that many funding requests came around the winter holidays for items such as Legos and Xboxes.
“Our public school system would not be able to operate like this,” Miller said.
Florida has greater spending controls in place than Arizona did.
Jenny Clark, a member of the Arizona State Board of Education who also runs a group that helps families navigate voucher uses, said, from her perspective, concerns about the timing and type of purchases focus on the wrong thing.
Jenny Clark [ Jenny Clark | Twitter ]
The “great experiment of education freedom and school choice” will succeed only if states design programs that provide “extreme flexibility” in using the accounts to meet children’s needs in a world where many jobs they’ll hold don’t yet exist, said Clark, a mom of five. She offered 3-D printers as an example, saying schools didn’t have them five years ago, and today they’re commonly considered necessary for some studies.
“We’ve got to do the most innovative things,” Clark said. “And the most innovative things make people uncomfortable.”
Florida state Rep. Allison Tant, D-Tallahassee, said she understands both sides of the argument. She’s also a special education parent advocate, whose son used a McKay Scholarship to support his schooling.
Tant said she’s hearing from some parents that the voucher amount doesn’t approach the tuition cost of many private schools, if seats are available. At the same time, she said, she hears the complaints that if state funding is limited, recipients who home-school or have small tuition expenses should not be using the money for what might seem to be extras.
Rep. Alison Tant [ Florida House of Representatives ]
“It never occurred to me that those kinds of items would be included,” Tant said, noting that when her son wanted to play video games, he bought his own Xbox.
She did not support HB 1, but said she expected the money would go toward expenses with clear educational value.
“We’ve got to have some checks and balances in there,” Tant said. “I think every Floridian, especially those who are struggling financially, is not going to want their tax dollars spent on things that aren’t educationally relevant. I don’t know if they want to send kids to Busch Gardens on a multiday field trip.”
House Bill 900 requires book vendors to rate all their materials based on their depictions or references to sex before selling them to schools. Vendors say the law aims to regulate protected speech with “vague and over broad” terms.
Books at Vandegrift High School’s library on March 2, 2022. A federal judge said Thursday he will temporarily block a new state law that would require book vendors to rate the materials they sell to school libraries based on the presence of sex depictions or references. Credit: Lauren Witte/The Texas Tribune
A federal judge said Thursday he will stop a new Texas law aimed at keeping sexually explicit materials off of school library shelves on the eve of the law going into effect, according to state attorneys and lawyers for a group who sued over the proposal.
District Judge Alan D. Albright indicated during a hearing that he will grant a temporary injunction sought by a group of book groups and sellers, including two Texas bookstores, who sued the state over House Bill 900 in July, the group’s lawyers said in a statement. Albright will issue a written order in one to two weeks; in the meantime, the state cannot enforce the law, according to the statement.
HB 900, which was approved during this year’s regular legislative session, requires school library vendors to rate all their books and materials for appropriateness before selling them to schools based on the presence of sex depictions or references. It also requires vendors to rank materials previously sold to schools and issue a recall for those that are deemed sexually explicit and are in active use by a school.
The plaintiffs argue that the law violates their constitutional rights by targeting protected speech with its broad and vague language. The lawsuit further alleges HB 900 would force plaintiffs to comply with the government’s views, even if they do not agree with them, and that the law operates as prior restraint, which is government action that prohibits speech or other expression before the speech happens. The vendors say it is impossible for them to comply with the rating system because of the sheer volume of materials they would need to review.
The law also calls for creating state school library standards that prohibit sexually explicit materials, requiring parental consent for students to check out materials classified by vendors as “sexually relevant” and giving the Texas Education Agency authority to review a vendor’s rating. If the TEA disagrees with the vendor’s rating and gives it a different one, the vendor must use the agency’s rating. Vendors who do not will be added to a list of vendors that schools cannot buy library materials from.
During the bill’s legislative hearings, librarians and legal experts shared concerns and worries that its language would ensnare books that are not inappropriate and, to the contrary, may be titles important for students whose lived experiences may not be reflected in other literature.
The proposal, from Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, arrived amid an ongoing debate about what materials are appropriate to be stocked in school and public libraries. Patterson and supporters of such regulations say libraries are infested with inappropriate books that must be vetted and removed.
However, skeptics of that panic and literary advocates counter that the books singled out by politicians often explore sexuality and race, topics that have been swept up in culture-war politics but remain important for youth who may not be comfortable talking about such matters with others.
Despite the concerns, HB 900 sailed through the legislative process before Gov. Greg Abbott signed it in June. It was set to go into effect Friday; however, the law’s language suggests the new requirements won’t have to be fulfilled immediately.
Most, if not all, of the state’s roughly 5.4 million public schoolchildren have already begun the 2023-2024 school year.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs include two bookstores, Austin’s BookPeople and West Houston’s Blue Willow Bookshop, as well as the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
The Texas Attorney General’s office said Thursday it would move to reverse the injunction and appeal the judge’s decision. The office had not received the judge’s written order or decision by Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson said.
A court representative for Albright did not respond to an inquiry about his comments during Thursday’s hearing, reported by the plaintiffs’ lawyers and on social media by at least one plaintiff.
“We are grateful for the court’s swift action in deciding to enjoin this law, in the process preserving the long-established rights of local communities to set their own standards; protecting the constitutionally protected speech of authors, booksellers, publishers and readers; preventing the state government from unlawfully compelling speech on the part of private citizens; and shielding Texas businesses from the imposition of impossibly onerous conditions,” the plaintiffs said in a joint statement after the hearing. “We look forward to reading the court’s full opinion once it is issued.”
What a way to entice young people to come to your church or endorse your religion by screaming hate and angry virtual at them. What a great way to save souls. What this really is meant to show what they think is their superior morals and showcase their bigotry / hate. It is driven by right wing media anti-LGBTQIA propaganda. It is fueled by conservative preachers that can not adjust to the modern age, preferring a time when only cis straight people who dressed more modestly were in public and young people deferred to adults as a normal practice. Hugs
AUSTIN (KXAN) — As students were released from McCallum High School Tuesday afternoon, the district confirms roughly eight people stood outside with anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion signs.
“The protesters were on the sidewalk but were blocking the buses, so they were asked to move,” a spokesperson for AISD said. “Austin ISD Police officers were on-site to ensure everyone’s safety, and the protesters left after about an hour.”
KXAN does not share photos or videos of possible hate speech as standard practice, which is why we have not included photos in this story and blurred signs in the video above.
“Instead we need to be standing up and saying that everyone belongs, and this is a community for everyone,” said Council Member Alison Alter of District 10.
Alter said the goal is twofold: One, to make reporting a hate crime easier and two, to connect people with resources and support.
“{The We All Belong website} tells you when to call 911, when to use IReport,” Alter said. “Not every hate crime or hate incident is the same, but people do need to report.”
You can also partner with the city to host a pop-up event through the program. The city will provide materials and messaging for the event. You can apply to host an event here. Some funding is available.
“Take action in the form of having those hard community conversations or creating a space where people can come together and celebrate,” Alter said. She continued: “Fight hate with love, fight hate with light.”
The district said school counselors will be on standby for students at McCallum upset about the Tuesday incident.
Just to make sure everyone understands how the anti-trans hater bigots work, here is another debunking of Jamie Reed. Hugs
Missouri Independent | By Annelise Hanshaw
Published March 2, 2023 at 9:48 AM CST
Annelise Hanshaw
Missouri Independent
Casey Pick, Director of Law and Policy at The Trevor Project, speaks at a rally on the steps of the Missouri Capitol on Feb. 2, after testifying in two hearings. —————————————————————————————— The picture painted by whistleblower Jamie Reed of how patients were treated at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital doesn’t match Jess Jones’ experience.
Jones worked alongside Reed for two years as the center’s educational coordinator before resigning in 2020. The allegations of misconduct laid out by Reed — both on a national news website called The Free Press and in an affidavit with the Missouri attorney general’s office — simply don’t match the reality during the time they worked together, Jones said.
“I feel like I could go line by line to her affidavit,” Jones said, “and debunk it all.”
And Jones is not alone.
The Independent spoke with numerous former patients of the Transgender Center, as well as parents of former patients. Some were eager to share their story, inspired by the onslaught of attention the center has received since Reed’s affidavit caused three state agencies to launch an investigation into its practices.
Others asked not to be named out of fear of retribution and concern about laws pending in the Missouri legislature that would criminalize gender-affirming care for minors.
Each person interviewed described a far different experience than Reed about how the Transgender Center operates and how minors seeking care are treated. And they want the state’s investigation to hear their experiences.
Reed, who lives in St. Louis County, has alleged minors were rushed into medical procedures without taking into account mental health, and that side effects of treatments were hidden from parents.
Those who received treatment from the center say that’s not the case, and any treatments were only undertaken after long consultations with doctors and mental health professionals. Often, patients were told they needed to wait for years.
Several of those interviewed by The Independent also recounted their experiences with Reed — both good and bad.
“There were parents of trans kids who also raised some red flags around Jamie. So I really wish the center had listened to trans people,” Jones said. “We said: ‘This is a person who isn’t safe for us.’”
Reed’s attorney, Vernadette Broyles, said Wednesday that it is not surprising that the only patients speaking up are those who have had good experiences.
Broyles said those unhappy with their transition often feel pressure to stay quiet. She said she’s heard from many former patients nationwide who have come to regret their treatment.
“It does not surprise me that you would find someone in that honeymoon phase,” she said.
Jamie Reed
Chris Hyman, who has a transgender son, remembered Reed’s magnetic energy at the center. She felt like an ally.
After Reed’s story became public, Hyman tuned into The Free Press webinar and saw a change in Reed and was stunned at some of the answers she gave to a Free Press editor.
“When [lawmakers] do their job, what happens to the transgender center you used to work at?” Free Press journalist Emily Yoffe asked.
“I do not believe it can continue to function,” said Reed, who is married to a transgender man.
“You want it closed down,” Yoffe inquired.
“I believe it’s the only way to stop hurting more kids,” Reed said.
Susan Halla, who is the mother of a transgender young adult, also thought of Reed as an advocate. Halla is the president of TransParent, a group that supports the caregivers of transgender people. Hyman is the organization’s at-large chapter chair.
“We were just apoplectic where this all came from,” Halla said.
Broyles, who serves as president of public interest law firm Child & Parental Rights Campaign, said during the webinar that Reed had tried to institute change at the Transgender Center.
“After trying to make changes happen internally, [the center directors] were just not going to honor her concerns. She appropriately made a complaint to the right governing official, and under Missouri law that’s the attorney general,” Broyles said.
She said Reed sought sanctuary under the state’s Whistleblower’s Protection Act, which states workplaces can’t fire an employee that reports an “unlawful act” committed by the employer.
Another one of Broyles’ cases was a key anecdote as Florida considered a law that bans the discussion of gender identity or sexual identity in grades K-3. Broyles is representing a family that alleges their child’s school helped the student socially transition without the parents’ knowledge.
Reed’s other attorney is Ernie Trakas, a Republican member of the St. Louis County Council who is involved with the Child & Parental Rights Campaign.
Currently, the Missouri Attorney General’s office, the Department of Social Services and the Division of Professional Registration are investigating Reed’s allegations. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley has requested records from the center. Some state lawmakers expressed interest in launching an investigation, but no substantial action has been taken on their proposal.
Speed of treatment
Annelise Hanshaw
Missouri Independent
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey speaks to the Missouri chapter of the Federalist Society on the Missouri House of Representatives floor on Jan. 20. He is currently overseeing an investigation into the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital ——————————————————————————– Reed’s affidavit to Attorney General Andrew Bailey alleges the Transgender Center quickly gave children hormones. The center “gave children puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones after just two one-hour visits (one with a therapist and one with a doctor at the Center),” she wrote in the affidavit.
Parents and former patients told The Independent it took months and multiple appointments before their transgender children received a puberty blocker or hormone treatment.
Rene and Kyle Freels called the Transgender Center in June of 2021 for their daughter. Reed answered the phone.
“What do you want from us?” Kyle Freels recalls Reed asking.
“I thought she had some sort of an agenda. Like the first time we called, she answered the phone. She was the opposite of helpful,” he said.
They didn’t know what treatment was recommended, and they were expecting more help on the other end of the line.
“For us, she was the ultimate gatekeeper. She was the ultimate person that kept our kid from getting an appointment and kept other kids from getting appointments at the center,” Rene Freels said.
They hung up confused and irritated but nonetheless determined to get medical care for their daughter. By August of 2021, their daughter had her first visit with a pediatric endocrinologist, a doctor specializing in hormones, at the center.
The doctor did not prescribe any hormones or puberty blockers and said he wanted their daughter to transition socially, meaning take on her new name and pronouns, prior to taking estrogen, the Freels said.
Their daughter did not have mental health conditions, like anxiety or depression, but attended therapy sessions and received a recommendation to receive hormone treatment.
The Freels returned for a second appointment with the endocrinologist a year later, and their daughter opted to get a puberty-blocking implant in November of 2022 — 17 months after coming out to her pediatrician.
Kyle Freels described the appointment as “so thorough.”
“There’s a lot of information,” Kyle Freels said. “He tells you the pros and cons of this method or that method.”
Lisa is the mother of a trans child who asked that her last name be withheld. She waited longer than the Freels family for her pre-teen son to receive a puberty blocker.
Her son had his first appointment at the Transgender Center in August 2019 but was too young for a puberty blocker. He had to wait three years.
He has had 21 visits with a psychologist and nine visits with an endocrinologist since the summer of 2019.
Joey, who also asked that his last name be withheld, started taking testosterone days before his seventeenth birthday and after nearly a year of therapy.
“Everything took a really really long time to get going,” he said.
The Transgender Center’s endocrinologist didn’t think he was ready for hormones after his first appointment because he wasn’t “out” yet at school, he said.
“Everything was so slow,” he said, later adding:. “Everything is so restricted and difficult for any kind of trans health care, particularly if you’re a minor.”
He opted to get “top surgery,” which removes breast tissue, a few weeks after he turned 18.
Reed alleges in her affidavit that the Transgender Center gives referrals for surgery to minors, but Jones said the center only provided patients with the names of surgeons that could provide the procedure.
“We did give out the information of surgeons,” Jones said, “but we never referred for surgery.”
Hyman’s son wanted top surgery but was immediately told “put that out of your mind until you’re 18,” she said.
Alison Maclean’s son was five or six months into his transition when she called the Transgender Center. Maclean was met with questions about her son’s social transition, like if his peers called him his name.
“I think they really gauge like where I think the clinic attempts to gauge where you’re at, kind of in your, in your journey with your child,” Maclean said.
Her son, now 12, does not receive any puberty blockers or hormones. He discusses with his Transgender Center doctor what may happen if he eventually takes testosterone, but Maclean said she and her son don’t feel pushed toward hormones.
The doctor told him he wouldn’t be old enough “for many years,” she said.
Mental Health
Jones said the center had one in-house psychiatrist but referred patients to other providers in the area and within St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
“It is true that many patients came in anxious and depressed, whether that was a diagnosis or just symptoms, but from my experience, that was alleviated with the start of gender affirming hormones,” Jones said.
Jones said Reed had a particular concern with patients’ ability to consent, alleging Reed wanted to make patients take an IQ test prior to accessing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.
Reed, speaking through her attorney to The Independent, didn’t directly address the IQ test accusation.
“She was always in favor of a full assessment being done and that full assessments should be done on every patient in accordance with the WPATH guidelines. So whatever was needed for any given patient, that was what she favored, as a general proposition,” Broyles said. “And that’s really as much as she feels comfortable saying at this point.”
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health sets standards of care for gender transition. In her affidavit, Reed said WPATH is considered an “activist organization.”
Danielle, who did not wish to share her last name, said her son walked into the center with depression at first. But that evaporated when he was able to be a boy.
“When [my child] came out as transgender, it was immediate, just the social transition results. Like he was not depressed anymore,” she said.
Maclean noticed her son becoming less like himself as the family moved and COVID-19 interrupted routines — and he also began puberty.
“He kind of withdrew and, like the light left him. He wasn’t depressed or suicidal or anything; he just was not himself,” she said.
The families noticed a positive difference after their child received gender-affirming care.
“We thought our kid was happy before, but after she came out and is living her true self, she’s so much happier,” Kyle Freels said. “You could tell the weight of the world was off her shoulders.”
“I would say I’ve only gotten benefits [from gender-affirming care],” Joey said. “It’s been awesome. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
Side effects
Parents said they felt like they had the Transgender Center’s doctors’ full attention to ask questions and review possible side effects of treatments. When they left, they had multiple handouts — some provided to The Independent that had been emailed from Reed herself.
“Not only do they give you a paper handout, they give you a whole slew of materials to look at,” Lisa said.
Maclean has been given handouts with testosterone side effects listed and warnings about things Reed alleges goes unaddressed by the Transgender Center, like vaginal atrophy.
“I think these little bits have been cherry picked from people who maybe didn’t pay attention,” Maclean said.
“We were not rushed into it,” Danielle said. “We were not uninformed. Everything that I’ve read in the affidavit, the opposite is true for us.”
A Transgender Center handout sent to The Independent by a parent and a former employee discloses possible side effects of testosterone. ———————————————————————————- Parents, patients and Jones told The Independent the center would send children on hormone or puberty-blocking medication to get lab work before every visit.
At first, patients review their hormone levels and look for side effects, like cholesterol levels, every three months. Then, they reduce frequency to every six months.
Lisa’s son gets regular labs run to test his hormone levels and check his health, and doctors check his bone scans to check his calcium and bone density.
All the families interviewed said they were advised to consider fertility options, like storing eggs or sperm, if treatment would inhibit future plans to have children.
An April 2020 study by the Mayo Clinic notes that there is little research on fertility outcomes for transgender people but that fertility preservation is an option even after beginning hormones.
Parental consent
Reed alleges the center bullied parents into agreeing to their kids’ medical treatment.
“A common tactic was for doctors to tell the parent of a child assigned female at birth, ‘You can either have a living son or a dead daughter,’” she wrote in her affidavit.
The evening the affidavit became public, she told The Free Press subscribers it was only one doctor that said that, a doctor that no longer works at the center.
Jones said the center did not coerce consent.
“We were very adamant in my time working there that all guardians had to consent, and they needed to be present and receive informed consent around treatment,” Jones said.
Jones said physicians presented research that showed a lower rate of suicide with gender-affirming care as they explained the benefits and side-effects of hormones.
Divorced parents told The Independent the center contacted both parents prior to proceeding with treatment, including meeting via video chat for an out-of-state ex-husband.
“They made it very clear that until, until the other parent was in full agreement, they could not move forward if and when one of the parents wanted to move forward,” Lisa said.
Families addressed other sections of the affidavit, sharing concern for the investigation ahead of state agencies.
“If you go to a cardiologist and they give you bad drugs or whatever and you have a heart attack, you don’t shut down the office; there’s a medical malpractice suit,” Kyle Freels said. “These politicians are like, ‘Hey, one, two or three clients had adverse effects, just like any other doctor would have,’ but they want to shut down the transgender unit immediately without even an investigation.”
The attention the center has gotten since Reed’s allegations surfaced has given momentum to a spate of bills seeking to criminalize gender-affirming care.
Families of transgender children say fear of what’s to come has them looking at leaving the state.
“[My family is] from all over. We don’t have to stay here,” said Maclean. “We thought we were here for the long haul, but we don’t have to be.”
Her family is not the only one thinking about leaving the state.
“There’s already one family that’s moved, and there’s another family that’s about to move,” Halla said. “But not every family can do that.”
The Transgender Center did not comment on the allegations; its phone number dedicated to the media has given a busy signal during numerous attempts.
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent, part of States Newsroom, a network of news outlets supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence.
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