Travis Rowley, Westford Resident

For anyone having difficulty keeping up with the hypersonic emergence of transgender activism, the gist of the movement is this:  Children struggling with their sexuality and gender identity suffer greatly at the hands of their predicament, eventually becoming susceptible to heightened degrees of substance abuse, depression – and horrifying rates of suicidality.

The prevailing assumption is that these unfortunate outcomes are the result of a lack of social acceptance, rather than mental illness. It follows that, to rescue these individuals from self-harm, every corner of the community should work to coddle their psyche by “affirming” their stated identity.

Trans-women are women. Men have periods, too. A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman. You have likely heard such proclamations from the trans-activist crowd in recent years.

Adherents of transgenderism believe this strict affirmation rightfully takes precedence over previously sacred customs and spaces. This includes parental rights, female athletics, sex-segregated locker rooms, grammatical pronouns, and school libraries void of vulgar sexual content.

There are others, however, who take issue with the notion that the presence of a handful of troubled students should license educational bureaucrats to radically redefine normalcy.

And they’re right.

Unfortunately, the Westford School Committee unanimously voted last month to update the town’s “policy on transgender and gender nonconforming students” – rubberstamping the most egregious guidelines germane to the issue.

“With respect to all restrooms, locker rooms or changing facilities,” official policy now states, “students shall have access to facilities that correspond to their gender identity.”

If you think a separate facility for a transitioning student would make more sense, well, you’d be wrong. Because “requiring a transgender or gender nonconforming student to use a separate, nonintegrated space threatens to publicly identify and marginalize the student as transgender and should not be done.”

Westford daughters will just have to deal with it.

Speaking of your daughter, both her athletic goals and physical safety are at risk. Committee members agree that “all students shall be permitted to participate in interscholastic athletics in a manner consistent with their gender identity.”

No, your daughter used to be the starting forward for the girls’ basketball team here in Westford.

Still, the Committee’s most appalling misstep is finding it appropriate for educational bureaucrats to undermine parental authority by conspiring with students who don’t wish to divulge to their parents that they are transitioning at school. School employees are instructed to “work closely with the student to assess the degree to which, if any, the parent/guardian/caregiver will be involved in the [transition] process.” And when it comes to new names and pronouns, the Committee “strongly [recommends] that a trained staff member privately ask the student how they want to be addressed in class” – and if that differs from how they want to be referred to “in the school’s correspondence to the home, and at conferences with the student’s parent/guardian/caregiver.”

So everyone’s in on it. Except the parents.

This is insidious trans-activism. Right here in Westford.

The policy insists that it aims to “to provide a safe, respectful, and supportive learning environment in which all students can thrive and succeed.” It also makes clear that the school system “does not tolerate discrimination … on the basis of … gender identity.” Under the spell of transgenderism, however, these two goals are incompatible. Westford students – our girls in particular – are clearly being sacrificed at the altar of a radical agenda to validate the delusions of some very confused kids.

It is perhaps already unfortunate enough that all Westford students – by the Committee’s open indulgence of a subset of their classmates – are being immersed in a dubious gender theory, molded to believe that it’s possible for a boy to become a girl. In addition to the mass error and confusion, true injustice has now been given refuge here in Westford, as a violation of female privacy can only result in the displacement of girls and a higher risk of sexual assault.

The Westford School Committee has made a grave error and missed an opportunity to stand athwart the madness. They should vote to revoke this policy immediately. Children who truly suffer from gender dysphoria deserve compassion and care. But this does not mean upending the universe on their behalf.

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