Be aware of Toolkit implementation

By State Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen
R-Glencoe
As we begin a new school year, I want to alert parents to some important information on an issue that is currently being promoted in some Minnesota schools.
On July 19, 2017, the “Toolkit” for Ensuring Safe and Supportive Schools for Transgender and Gender Non-conforming Students was adopted by the Minnesota School Safety Technical Assistance Council (SSTAC). The SSTAC, a committee under the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), created the document to “assist schools” and offer “guidance,” claiming these “policies” and “best practices” will ensure a safe and supportive environment for all students.
As with many past educational experiments promoted by the MDE, the results will be just the opposite of the title and will, in fact, endanger and violate the privacy and health of all students in public schools. The Toolkit is another attempt by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) activists to force all school staff and students to embrace their unscientific and misguided agenda. Under the guise of anti-bullying policy, they have become the bullies, violating the rights and privacy of children and undermining the parent-child relationship, which is critical for children's health, well-being and success.
The Toolkit encourages schools to adopt policies that direct all staff and students to refer to transgender students by their preferred pronouns. According to the Toolkit, students’ genders are no longer determined by their DNA but by their personal feelings. Defining a student by their preferred “gender identity” is not based on science or biology, but instead on feelings, which can change daily.
The Toolkit also recommends that schools allow transgender students to use locker rooms, showers and restrooms based on their perceived identity. This violates student privacy and grossly violates Minnesota law MS 626.556 Subd 1.
It is important for the public to understand that there is currently no state or federal legal basis to implement this Toolkit. This Toolkit was developed and adopted by a committee comprised of gender activist groups and not by elected officials.
The Minnesota School Board Association has published a briefing for Minnesota schools confirming that directives such as the MDE’s Toolkit “do not carry the force of law.”
There is confirmed evidence that the MDE, with the support of Gov. Dayton, has developed and is promoting transgender curriculum into the public schools that teaches children as young as age 5 that they can choose whether they are a boy or a girl, based on their feelings. It is of grave concern to me that the MDE is promoting unscientific and emotionally harmful curriculum in our public schools.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, transgender children suffer from “gender dysphoria,” which is a treatable mental condition. It could be likened to the person suffering from anorexia, who sees a fat person in the mirror, when in actuality they are dangerously underweight. No truly caring individual would encourage the anorexic person to go on a diet and further destroy their body. The compassionate response is to get them the help they need and understand that they are suffering from an unhealthy and dangerous delusion.
Yet, in some Minnesota school districts, gender-confused students are being encouraged to be injected with cross sex hormones that will have severe side effects, including cancer and sterility. Many will continue down this path and seek irrevocable mutilating surgery even though their DNA can never be changed.
Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians has stated, “When kids say they think they have been born in the wrong body, they are crying out for help, and rushing them down the road to hormones and surgery is akin to child abuse.”
Parents, talk to your school board members and administrators and respectfully let them know you oppose any implementation of the policies recommended by the Toolkit into your school.
Citizens should also contact Gov. Dayton (800-657-3717) and MDE Commissioner Cassellius (651-582-8200) to tell them to rescind the Toolkit and stop these efforts to coerce and bully teachers, parents and children into embracing a false reality that is not grounded in biology or science. Responsible adults will demonstrate love and compassion for gender-confused students by getting them the help they desperately need to accept their biological sex.
May the God who gave us life and liberty help us stop this perverted and dangerous attack on our children.