Three schoolboys in the US are facing sexual harassment charges from their Middle School over accusations that they used incorrect gender pronouns when addressing a fellow student.
The incident in question reportedly took place at a Kiel Middle School in Wisconsin in March, when a student announced a preference of the pronouns “they” and “them” as identifiers.
Speaking to a news outlet about the charges, one of the mothers of the accused boys, said she initially didn’t believe the charges could be real.
Parent Rosemary Rabidoux, whose son Braden is one of the accused, told Fox 11 News last week: “I received a phone call from the principal over at the elementary school, forewarning me; letting me know that I was going to be receiving an email with sexual harassment allegations against my son.
“I immediately went into shock. I’m thinking, sexual harassment? That’s rape, that’s inappropriate touching, that’s incest” Rabidoux continued. “What has my son done?”
“(The investigating principal) said he’s being allegedly charged with sexual harassment for not using proper pronouns. I thought it wasn’t real. I thought this has got to be a gag, a joke – one has nothing to do with the other.”
Her son and two other boys are being charged by school officials with Title IV violations, which prohibits gender-based harassment.
Ms Rabidoux has come to the defence of her son, and says the teenager was standing up for one of his friends.
Referring to the student who her son is accused of ‘misgendering’, she said: “She had been screaming at one of Braden’s friends to use proper pronouns, calling him profanity, and this friend is very soft-spoken, and kind of just sunk down into his chair”.
“Braden finally came up, defending him, saying ‘He doesn’t have to use proper pronouns, it’s his constitutional right to not use, you can’t make him say things”.
Braden’s mother also spoke to ABC 2 News, saying that the new pronoun preference was the source of confusion for the young teenager, and that she had instructed Brandon to just address the student by their name instead rather than using the plural.
“It’s plural. It doesn’t make sense to him. I said so, I told him to call them by their names,” Ms Rabidoux said.
Fighting back against the school district’s complaint, the parents of the boys are now calling for the charges to be dismissed through an attorney with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
Luke Berg, the lawyer representing the boys, argues that the use of incorrect gender pronouns does not violate Title IX.
“It’s not sexual harassment under Title IX, under their own policy, under federal law, and it’s probably a First Amendment violation. Almost certainly, if that’s their theory, that solely using the wrong pronoun, that that would be a First Amendment violation,” Berg said.
Meanwhile, Brad Ebert, the school district’s superintendent, told ABC 2 that they will not comment on student matters.
“The KASD prohibits all forms of bullying and harassment in accordance with all laws, including Title IX, and will continue to support ALL students regardless of race, colour, religion, national origin, ancestry, creed, pregnancy, marital status, parental status, sexual orientation, sex (including transgender status, change of sex or gender identity), or physical, mental, emotional or learning disability (“Protected Classes”) in any of its student programs and activities; this is consistent with school board policy. We do not comment on any student matters,” he said.
In Ireland, LGBT activists have demanded that schools do more to embrace trans students. There has been a push for schools to provide a variation in uniform policy, offering gender neutral uniform options; to have gender-neutral toilets; to discuss with students and parents how they should refer to others using specific gender pronouns; and for schools to have the ability to change the name and gender of students on an official database with a gender recognition certificate.
In September, Lord Mayor of Dublin, Labour’s Alison Gilliland, faced backlash for promoting an initiative where Dublin City Council sent packs to schools with a transgender pledge to “normalise the respect and display all pronouns” – and failing to answer questions from parents harbouring concerns.
Parents on social media expressed fury at what they saw as an attempt to undermine the scientific fact that there are two genders – male and female – with many believing the programme sought to make students conform to the controversial claim that gender is fluid.
Speaking to Gript about the ‘pronoun pledge’ for schools, one mother said the issue of schools introducing materials on changing or choosing gender at primary level, and activists pushing for non-gender toilets in schools, was causing huge concern amongst parents in Ireland.
“Now we have the Lord Mayor telling us that the Dublin City Council is sending ‘pledge packs’ on the use of pronouns and other nonsense to schools. Are our kids expected to stand up and take this pledge? It’s very concerning. Kids have enough to deal with after Covid and with social media, without being told by schools that there’s no such thing as gender,” she said.