Trump tells DOJ to prosecute teachers who “unlawfully” support trans or nonbinary students

[SerendipityJane]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/01/trump-tells-doj-to-prosecute-teachers-who-unlawfully-support-trans-or-nonbinary-students/

I agree with Trump on this one that unless there is a threat - the school funding being withdrawn - then everything will just continue as it is and the school system in the USA has a lot of teachers who are fully committed to trans ideology.

The writer of the article that you have linked of course denies that but there have been many examples and here comes the backlash to it all.

It's like a return to Section 28 times.

Transing kids behind their parents’ backs is NOTHING like Section 28.

So this applies to cases of a socially-transitioning student? For example, a teacher may use the preferred name of a non-binary student (let's say both are female for the sake of the exercise).

Are we agreeing that this teacher should be prosecuted?

Where does it stop?

Relevant piece of text from the article:
"Trump directs the attorney general to work with local and state officials to investigate teachers who “unlawfully facilitat[e] the social transition of a minor student.” The order defines “social transitioning” to include using a trans student’s name and pronouns, recognizing a student as nonbinary, or allowing them to use the restroom that aligns with their gender identity.

The same section of the order suggests that K-12 teachers and school officials who take action to support trans students’ identities be prosecuted under laws banning sexual exploitation of minors and practicing medicine without a license. There are 3.8 millionn^ public school teachers in the United States, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

I would like to think that the possibility of professional disapline would get the job done with this. Getting fired might actually be at least as motivating as being charged.

However - I think the problem is that institutions are so captured, it would not happen. Including teacher's unions.

But essentially, even in a minor thing like using a chosen name, essentially what these teachers are doing is making what could be meaningful medical interventions without parental awareness, much less parental approval. And they have no business doing that. The idea that they should be able to do that needs to be come down on hard.

Trump is right on This issue. This should be something that Starmer copies.

He's taken the decision out of the education boards hands. Which watching the flack they've taken from parents is no bad thing to make it more remote.

It’s a strong deterrent to stop teachers colluding with what they think is kindness, but is actually psychologically damaging affirmation of a lie.

@accidentform why the laugh react?
Genuinely interested to hear your views.
People weren't allowed to educate in any way about LGBT in the 80s when I was at school.
Yes, I know that being trans you didn't really hear about back then as we didn't have a word for it or really understand it. It was clearly still "a thing" though. As in trans people existed.
How is this any different to not wanting people educated on LGBT lives /identities in the 80s?

You do realise trans ideology is deeply homophobic and misogynistic? I feel you might be new to the issue here.

4w.pub/why-i-still-defend-womens-sex-based-rights/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2_XP04yhtUNNvpFB0MgG5wmt51Lp2BTziqPqtMK26z0CEvhAZ3VHpo9Ew_aem_6VKgjKMO2umRfo-EWtmNMQ

https://stream.org/transgenderism-fastest-growing-insanit/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1tjFh7ESnMAbUqudE1aQQyu8dPzCUyoOt3ZM9KmTEwel24ih5TKxO2RO8_aem_fcULBR87HMd5r-0TV9aqEA

I feel you might be new to the issue here

Lol no
Been on MN years

@Screamingabdabz

It’s a strong deterrent to stop teachers colluding with what they think is kindness, but is actually psychologically damaging affirmation of a lie.

The article (and I presume, the EO) doesn't say what any sentencing might be, if any. This is the part that concerns me. What is an acceptable 'punishment' for this?

"what conservative activists used to call “critical race theory”—a term that itself mischaracterizes academic concepts around systemic and institutional racism as being anti-white"
Are they saying the term "cricital race theory" is the label that conservatives gave to the academic theory?
What sort of reputation does Mother Jones have? I thought quite good?

To say it doesn't happen as the article suggests isn't true- so you lose some of your argument there. Schools often do socially transition children, and give them access to resources and groups their parents initially know nothing about- I don't agree with this, and I think adds hugely to the problem where parents are utterly in the dark, and then approached when the social transition is firmly established and told they will support it because everyone else does

Yes it's the absolute same.

Section 28 stopped them taking gay and lesbian kids, plus autistic kids, and pushed them through a child mutilation and sterilisation programme. Gosh you are so clever noticing this.

Oh hang on, no. No it didn't.

Well when those who believe in gender identity were certain they were on the right side of history they had zero issue seeking to destroy others professionally and financially, and to use the process as part of the punishment. They set the tone for how this matter was going to be resolved.

Now that they are discovering how “right side of history” is pure hubris, they are also demonstrating that they are hypocrites to boot.

Do as you would be done by.

I am becoming uneasy about the rate these changes are being attempted. Not sure why exactly, because I’ve felt for a while that all this could be resolved by reasserting reality, as in the emperor’s new clothes. I hope it does happen, but I had always imagined a slower collapse, led by the collapse of medical transitioning, following waves of negligence claims, and from there, the rest of society coming to understand the scale of the errors that have been introduced, backed by a medical establishment that’s gone way off course.

In short, I guess I would have preferred the truth to have unfolded by a process of events occurring over time, so that everyone sane would see it and accept that something has gone very wrong in medicine and socially. There are people on my Facebook page, and decent people, decrying everything Trump is doing and accusations here of this being like section 28.

For the whole thing to be properly reversed, the situation needs to evolve naturally and I think that was gradually happening. While I agree in principle with everything Trump is pushing through on gender, I would feel much happier if it had been taken at a slower pace.

I don’t believe any of his EO discusses ‘punishment’ for those who are prosecuted and found guilty. They merely set out the objective that the government wishes to achieve. Usually with a directive for a relevant government department to then come up with how to achieve those outcomes or to set up the finer details.

Surely what punishment a person as an education provider is to receive is decided by the department of education and the court?

I agree with this.

Disciplinary action would be the ideal, but at the moment, that ain't gonna happen.

“Wednesday’s order is the latest in a string of executive actions targeting diversity initiatives and trans rights that Trump has signed since taking office just over a week ago.”

I think it is important to note that the article does not describe any of the relevant EOs framed as who they are designed to protect, female people and children. If this media outlet strives for balanced analysis, I don’t believe they have achieved it.

You make a good point

This may make 'backlash to the backlash' more likely later.