Florida Middle School at Center of Controversy Over Transgender Policy

A girl walks into a boys locker room…

Ok, that’s not the opening of a bawdy joke, but a real-life thing that school administrators and staff are now forced to deal with, in this upside-down world of “wokeness.”

In what has become a familiar story, at this point, a Florida physical education teacher is faced with the possible loss of his livelihood because his Christian beliefs have slammed up against the ill-advised transgender student policies of his employers.

Robert Oppedisano is a PE teacher at Chasco Middle School in Port Richey. He claims his job was threatened after he refused to allow a young girl with claims of being a “boy” to enter the boys locker room.

It wasn’t just a case of allowing this little girl to undress in front of a room full of young boys, many of them just hitting puberty, but he was also expected to “supervise” the debacle.

He said “no.”

On Tuesday, dozens of residents of the community gathered at the Pasco County school board meeting, in order to protest the school district’s policy that would allow children to claim “transgender” status, and use facilities pursuant to their feelings, rather than their actual biology.

Here’s the kicker – the parents have no say-so in the matter, and are often not informed that their daughters may be exposed to nude boys in their locker rooms, or boys may have to shower beside nude girls.

It’s like I’ve said so often: They’re after our children.

The conservative Christian legal nonprofit Liberty Counsel has spoken up about the policy, sending a letter to school board chair Cynthia Armstrong in September, speaking out about their concerns, regarding the “unwritten policy” that gives more weight to the desires of social justice warriors than the majority of citizens.

 The legal group has accused the county of violating the “conscience rights” of physical education teachers who objected to the policy.

“Both of the P.E. teachers, Robert O. and Stephanie C., objected to administrators’ orders to allow the girl into the bathroom, with no forewarning of the boys, or their parents, so that the boys could take steps to protect their privacy,” the letter explained. “Administrators told them that informing the boys so they could take steps to protect their privacy would be ‘discriminatory,’ and subject them to discipline.”

The letter explained the Oppedisano objected to an order to “supervise” the locker room even though a biologically female student began using the boys’ locker room on Sept. 27.  He was reportedly told by administrators that the student had “every right to use the locker room.”

So did those young boys not have the right to privacy?

Apparently not.

The letter goes on to point out that that the young girl at the center of the controversy would be undressing and showering in an open shower, next to boys.

In defense of the PE teacher, they further stated:

“Robert will not knowingly place himself in a position to observe a minor female in the nude or otherwise in a state of undress,” the letter explained. “Now, Robert has been told by administrators that he will be transferred to another school as a discipline for ‘not doing your job in the locker room.’”

According to Mr. Oppedisano, he was told by the attorney for the school district that this controversy might cost him his job, or he could lose his teaching certificate, putting him in a position where he could no longer work as a teacher.

Kathy Scalise, director of the Office for Employee Relations, threatened in an email to send the teacher home on administrative leave. “I think it sends a clear message that we will not tolerate his behavior,” she was quoted as writing.

His behavior.

At the school board meeting on Tuesday, Superintendent Kurt Browning clarified that Oppedisano “has not been disciplined at all, in any way shape or form.”

Administrators at the school are saying that they’ve taken the steps to monitor the locker rooms, themselves, in place of Oppedisano.

The superintendent claims that no one undresses or showers in the locker rooms, anyway, so, no problem.

Browning then asked school board attorney Dennis Alfonso to explain the district’s transgender-inclusive locker room policy.

Alfonso reportedly cited “federal guidelines, laws and court precedents,” including a federal court ruling this year allowing a transgender student to use locker rooms and bathrooms consistent with his gender identity in another Florida county.

Speaking of federal guidelines, what President Obama tried to do to school locker rooms in 2016, in retaliation against North Carolina’s (HB2) bathroom bill, by throwing open the doors to all bathrooms and locker rooms and allowing for an anything-goes atmosphere at our schools, was ended by the Trump administration.

It’s one of the few things you’ll see me applaud this administration for.

Interestingly, many of the citizens attending the school board meetings in Pasco County do not believe the school administrators.

Critics have called on the board to adopt a policy requiring students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with the sex on their birth certificate. They also asked for the installation of single-stall restrooms to aid transgender students or others who might feel uncomfortable.

“Create policy with privacy for all in mind,” parent Deena Driver was quoted as saying.

The opponents of the policy called for teachers to be protected from having to supervise students of the opposite biological sex in locker rooms if they have objections. They also called on the board to require parental approval for students to participate in after-school activities like the Gay-Straight Alliance.

At the root of the insanity going on in the Pasco County school district may be a school psychologist named Jackie Jackson-Dean, hired to be the LGBT liaison for the district.

Jackson-Dean is the primary author of the school district’s best “practices guide” that lists locker room and bathroom access for transgender students as a “right.” The guide also advises school staff not to disclose a child’s gender identity to his or her parents.

(Emphasis mine.)

This is where I point out that anyone in any government agency that wants to implement a policy that promotes keeping secrets about the well-being of a child from that child’s parents is not only in error, but is also a dangerous subversive and should be rejected, outright, along with their corrupt, insidious policy ideas.

The guide also pushes the Obama-era interpretation that federal laws that protect citizens on the basis of sex extend those protections on the basis of “gender.” Additionally, The Federalist notes, the guide calls on the school district to ignore the Trump administration’s reversal of Obama’s Department of Education guidance.

So this one person is promoting anarchy, and is starting at the local level.

You know, I get that. Sort of.

I believe our nation’s well-being begins at the local level, with citizens that get involved with building up their community, working for the best interests of themselves and their neighbors. It grows from there to affect change for the state, then, ultimately, the nation.

That being said, the government should never put a wall of secrecy between parents and their minor-aged children. That is crossing a dangerous line, and the citizens of Pasco County are right to protest.