I have lived in Glendale for more than 20 years. My daughter is currently at Rosemont Middle School.
I have been following from the sidelines the heartbreaking emergence of an element in our community that embraces and enables hateful rhetoric against our already marginalized LGBTQ+ student body and their supporters. I have watched board meetings where remarks about GUSD were full of misinformation.
You don’t have to agree with the state’s comprehensive sex education curriculum but it is NOT pornography. Men are NOT allowed in the girl’s changing rooms. Teachers do not force students to have transgender surgeries. None of the things people were saying at the meeting had any relation to what I experienced being a parent of a student in GUSD.
What I do know to be true however is that transgender and non-binary students DO have rights to privacy and safety and they have the right, under California’s anti-discrimination law, to see themselves and their families reflected in age-appropriate books that they read in school. These two issues seemed to lie at the heart of the anger against GUSD.
GUSD is not perfect but hate disguised as “parental rights” is not a platform that benefits anyone, least of all students. Someone’s personal sense of moral righteousness cannot become the basis from which they allow themselves to justify their cruel and violent tactics against other members in the community who do not share their beliefs. Children are taught to dehumanize others by witnessing their parents give hateful speeches at board meetings, or defend an angry man’s proud display of a swastika, or by hearing parents hurl insults and punches at supporters of the LGBTQ+ community.
The beating of a non-binary student in Oklahoma by their fellow students, and their subsequent tragic death, should be a wake-up call to everyone in our community. Who we elect to lead our local school board, city council and other local offices are the only guardrail we have to protect ALL our students and to uphold the right policies.
I support Telly Tse and Neda Farid. Vote March 5.
Joy Star
Glendale
First published in the March 2 print issue of the Glendale News-Press.
