Stating Biological Facts is Now Sexual Harassment
Three middle school students in Wisconsin gave the adults in charge a lesson on courage last month, and now they’re being punished for it.
The Kiel school district revealed this week that it had launched a Title IX investigation into three eighth-graders at Kiel Middle School after they refused to refer to a gender-confused classmate with “they/them” pronouns.
“I received a phone call from the principal … forewarning me, letting me know that I was going to be receiving an email with sexual harassment allegations against my son,” said Rosemary Rabidoux, whose 13-year-old son Braden is one of the students accused of misgendering his classmate.
“I immediately went into shock,” she said. “I’m thinking, sexual harassment? That’s rape. That’s inappropriate touching. That’s incest. What has my son done?”
Rabidoux is right that Title IX, a legal statute enforced by the U.S. Department of Education, often deals with cases of sexual harassment or assault. Its broader purpose, however, is to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex. But under the Biden administration, the policy was changed to prohibit discrimination on the basis of “gender identity.”
In other words, the Biden administration has turned Title IX into yet another tool for radical gender ideologues to force compliance with their ideology throughout the public education system — which is exactly what’s happening in Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which is representing the three students, argued the school district distorted the meaning and purpose of Title IX and violated the boys’ right to free speech. It is obvious, the organization said, that the district wants to weaponize “its Title IX process to strong-arm minor students into compliance with its preferred mode of speech.”
“School administrators can’t force
minor students to comply with their preferred mode of speaking. And they certainly shouldn’t be slapping eighth-graders with Title IX investigations for what amounts to protected speech. This is a terrible precedent to set, with enormous ramifications,” WILL Deputy Counsel Luke Berg said in a statement.
In response, the Kiel Area School District said it remains committed to prohibiting “all forms of bullying and harassment” and “will continue to support ALL students regardless of … sex (including transgender status, change of sex, or gender identity).”
If stating a biological fact and referring to boys as boys and girls as girls now counts as a form of bullying, then it is clear our society has lost its grip on reality completely. For these students’ sakes, and for everyone else who cares about the truth, let’s hope sanity prevails in Wisconsin.
—By Kaylee McGhee White