A health teacher has reportedly been placed on paid administrative leave after handing out an informative LGBT pamphlet to students at Cambridge Central School.
Seventh grade students received a four page handout, providing definitions for words such as homophobia, bisexual, cis-gender, intersex, polyamory, pansexual, and gender-nonconforming.
A lengthier 42-page-handout was given to 10th grade students, which went into greater detail on transgender issues, and colloquial terms such as top, bottom, bear, pitcher, catcher, and fag hag.
The handout was provided by a member of the Pride Centre of the Capital Region, an LGBT community centre.
On their official website, it states they aim to: “promote the well-being of all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer-identified people and those affected by discrimination based on gender identity and expression.”
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Complaints from parents led to the teacher – who has not been publicly named – to be suspended with pay.
Superintendent Vince Canini agreed with the complaints, stating: “The parents have concerns, and they are mine as well. We have never had this issue before. We may have to make some policy changes because of it.
“I would like to again stress that the topic of gender identity was never of concern. The graphic ‘common terms and definitions’ were. The two are totally separate but have been blurred into one, which is not the case.”
President and CEO of the Pride Center of the Capital Region, Martha Harvey, claims the community centre had never received a complaint in the 12 years they’ve visited schools with the presentation.
“Transgender kids are coming out younger and younger. Middle school is not too early to start,” she said.
“If you love your kids, you want them to have the most information possible. If a parent has a problem with this presentation, that’s the parent’s problem. This program saves lives.”