Author's posts
Apr 18 2014
Muse in the Morning
Apr 12 2014
Teaching while transgender
Lumberton, TX Independent School District substitute teacher Laura Jane Klug has been suspended for being transgender. The school district says they are “looking into the matter”…and that Klug has not been terminated…yet. Klug is supposed to hear about the resolution of the school board today, after the school board met on Thursday.
Klug substituted for a teacher in a fifth grade class last Thursday, which was the first day she discovered that someone might have “issues”.
Parents of some of the students at the school say, of course, that they don’t have any problems themselves with the teacher being transgender, but that the teacher may be confusing the 11-year-olds who are in her charge.
Within an hour of them being exposed or dealing with this, there’s a few issues here, I think these kids are too young for this issue, so that’s our main focus is, if it happens in older grades, high school, ok but too young for this.
–Roger Bread
Other parents say there has not been an issue before with Klug and they don’t see why it is an issue now…and that they have no problem explaining to their child what a transgendender person is.
My son knows who he is and I don’t think any outside influence is going to change that, I’m more concerned about straight predatory teachers rather than I am someone who lives an alternative private alternate lifestyle, I don’t worry about my son.
–Jammie Marcantel, parent with a pronoun problem
Texas, of course, has no employment protections for transgender people.
Apr 05 2014
Appleton, WI elects transgender man to City Council
Appleton, WI’s Gypsy Vered Meltzer identifies as both transgender and a man. On Tuesday the residents of Appleton elected him to the city council. Gypsy expects that there will be people uneasy with his election, but is determined to keep that from distracting him from the job at hand. Meltzer defeated Barney Lemanski for the seat by a vote of 295-199.
I can see some push back, but I hope they’ll get over it. I hope things don’t go that route. I don’t want to lose focus on the issues and increasing communications between the city and its residents.
–Meltzer
Fair Wisconsin identifies Meltzer as the first openly transgender person to hold office in Wisconsin.
This election is an historic moment for Wisconsin in having the first openly transgender official. I’d hope we’d see an increase in the number of elected officials from the transgender community across the state.
–Katie Belanger, Fair Wisconsin president
Every time a trans person succeeds in anything related to the public, it is a step forward. It’s an acknowledgment that we’re just like everyone else and it shouldn’t be the issue by which we’re judged.
–my friend Loree Cook-Daniels, FORGE