Public schools should take direction from parents, not the other way around, when students declare they are the opposite sex of their birth gender, according to a Southern California educator.
“Kids are openly taught that everybody is whatever they say they are,” said Kevin Gutherie, a public school teacher in Ventura County. “A boy is a girl. A girl is a boy or they're non-binary. That can go a long way to breaking down families.”
Gutherie made the comments in response to the news that a mother in Monterrey County, Jessica Konen, sued the Spreckels Union School District alleging that teachers and administrators at Buena Vista middle school, along with the school itself, secretly convinced her 11-year-old daughter that she was bisexual, transgender and that this did not correspond with her birth gender.
“In the long run, they're not going to be happy,” Gutherie told the Southern California Record. “A child will just go into adulthood thinking they are the opposite sex, and they may never really be at peace.”
Konen’s saga started when her daughter began confiding in the guidance counselor that she felt depressed and stressed. In response, the 6th grader was informed that her feelings were because she was “not being who she was” and that if she became her “true self,” her depression and stress would be better, according to the complaint. Lori Caldeira and Kelly Baraki are teachers who were named as defendants in the lawsuit along with Katelyn Pagaran who was the principal at the time.
“Caldeira and Baraki encouraged her to change her name to a boy’s name as an expression of the new identity they were encouraging her to take on,” wrote Konen's attorney Harmeet Dhillon. “Caldeira and Baraki instructed her not to tell her mother about her new gender identity or new name, saying that her mother might not be supportive of her and that she couldn’t trust her mother.”
Under the school district's Parental Secrecy Policy, teachers and staff at Buena Vista would allegedly conceal from parents that their minor children had articulated confusion about their gender identity unless the student expressly authorized the parents to be informed.
"There are influences within government or educational institutions that suggest that traditional parents are just plain wrong and they will influence students whether very aggressively or more casually in a manner that is really destructive to their life," Gutherie added.
Although as a substitute teacher Gutherie does not attend weekly teacher meetings, he is trained to follow school policy on how to handle students.
“What happens to me in my own personal life is I can't be honest about my beliefs,” he said. “I'm convinced that God doesn't make mistakes and that a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl but when they tell me I have to use a different pronoun, then I'm being forced into supporting something that I'm convinced is not only wrong but is destructive to the child.”
On one occasion when Gutherie was subbing, he was told to call a female student by the name of Nick.
“She appeared to be biologically female but the vice principal said this child was identifying as a boy and that the administrators could not tell the parents or could not ask the parents but that the child knows her or his rights,” he said. “We had to call that child what she wanted to be called. She wanted to be called Nick and I didn't want to be fired. So, I just called the girl, Nick."