Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is standing by policies affecting the transgender community in state schools following the death of 16-year-old Nex Benedict, which has resulted in increasing calls for his removal from office.
“To make sure that all individuals are safe in a school, we want every student to be protected, we want every student to be successful,” Walters told ABC News in an interview Tuesday. “That also means we’re not going to lie to students. And we’re not going to push a gender ideology.”
However, an open letter is calling for Walters’ immediate removal from office for, the letter claims, “fostering a culture of violence and hate against the 2SLGBTQI+ community in Oklahoma schools.” The letter is signed by about 350 local, state, and national organizations, including GLAAD, Human Rights Campaign, Oklahomans for Equality and more.
What are Walters’ “radical” views? Pretty much what a majority of people currently believe and what was almost universally accepted as truth just a few years ago.
Walters said he believes there are only two genders and that those are based on the sex someone is “assigned at birth.”
[…]
“When you are born, you have a gender: you either have an XX chromosome or an XY chromosome,” Walters said. “We’ve seen radical leftists who’ve tried to create this idea of gender fluidity, which frankly, it confuses students, and causes all kinds of chaos in the classroom and chaos with families.”
[…]
“What we see here is an effort from the left to lie about the death of this child to push an agenda and to try to push us off of our positions and our stances,” Walters told ABC News. “We’re not going to back down to that. we’re going to continue to move the state forward and education.”
Bearing in mind that the trigger to this latest kerfuffle was the death of a kid whose cause is not yet known. What we do know is that it was not a direct result of bullying or violence at school. It was most likely a drug overdose or unrelated medical issue, but we’re waiting on the autopsy results.
Authorities are awaiting the full results of the autopsy and toxicology reports for more insight into the circumstances surrounding the teen’s death. The state medical examiner’s office will determine the final cause and manner of death.
FWIW. They have NOT ruled out that the fight was the cause of death.
“We did not interpret that in any way,” he said of the word “trauma,” which he said was used by the medical examiner’s office. He said that the medical examiner’s office didn’t say it had ruled out the fight as causing or contributing to Benedict’s death and that “people shouldn’t make assumptions either way.”
Yah, well………all that OUTRAGE and HURT FEELINGS got stuffed right where the sun never shines in Raymond, WI. We note that the OUTRAGE and HURT FEEEELZZZZZ are from national professional Hurt Feelz groups.
Run a recall. See what happens.
Heh.
>He said that the medical examiner’s office didn’t say it had ruled out the fight as causing or contributing to Benedict’s death and that “people shouldn’t make assumptions either way.”
Is calling for his immediate removal not making assumptions that could ruin an educator’s career? Conservatives are not calling for anything but the results of the finished investigation…There are no conservative organizations signing petitions and flying off the handle, that is all professional liberalism at work.
>right where the sun never shines in Raymond, WI
You live in Raymond too? Small world, a few houses down from Xtreme Fireworks.
Unlike some others on this combox, I read a LOT of news sources. Both 58 and 6 paid a lot of attention there, and you can infer the reason for their coverage from the way their stories were written.
But no. Don’t live there.