While threatening violence against a student – transgender or not – is totally beyond the pale, I do understand why these parents might have been upset at the allegations that a transgender female (male) student was looking over the stalls in the girls bathroom:
TIME – A school district in southern Oklahoma was forced to shut down for two days after parents used a Facebook group to threaten violence against a transgender seventh-grade student.
Superintendent Rick Beene closed Achille Public Schools on Monday and Tuesday after parents posted claims on a Facebook group “Achille ISD Parents Group” that the student, who identifies as a girl, was looking over the stalls in the girls’ bathroom.
“Heads up parents of 5th through 7th grade,” parent Jamie Crenshaw said in a now-deleted post. “The transgender is already using the girls bathroom. We have been told how the school has gone above and beyond to make sure he has his own restroom yet he is still using the girls. REALLY… Looks like its going to be a long year.”
Beene would not confirm whether the alleged bathroom incident occurred.
Other parents left comments in response to this post, and that’s when the threats of violence reportedly occurred:
The post set off reactions from other adults who referred to the 7th grade student as “this thing” and “half baked maggot.” One parent repeatedly referred to the student as “he” and suggested a “good sharp knife” stop the student. Another parent said that their child should “whip his ass until he quits coming to school.”
Actually, from what I read, the “good sharp knife” comment wasn’t about stopping the student. It was about making the male student into a “female”. Here’s a screenshot I found:
And another:
Honestly these don’t sound necessarily like threats to me. It just sounds like parents (and others) spouting off – inappropriately in some instances – about this report that the boy pretending to be a girl is looking over the bathroom stall.
But because of these reactions, the school superintendent decided to close the whole district down for two days on the advice of law enforcement:
Beene tells TIME he made the decision to close both the elementary schools, which houses kindergarten through eighth grade, and the high school on the advice of local law enforcement.
The school will reopen Wednesday with police on campus
And law enforcement may take action against some of these parents:
Bryan County Sheriff Johnny Christian says deputies are currently investigating the Facebook posts and could file charges. He says most of the responses were from parents outside the Achille area — some even from out of state.
He says the transgender student’s family has a protective order against the parent who made the comment about using a knife.
It honestly sounds like a big overreaction to me on the part of the school and law enforcement. But whatever, this is the age we now live in. And these ‘fights’ between parents and schools over issues like this are just going to get worse as our culture continues to rot from the inside out.