Williamson County Students Watch Video About Non-Binary Teens

 

Students who attend the Williamson County School System recently watched a video that seems to promote teenagers who live non-binary lifestyles.

Hillsboro Elementary School personnel presented the video to seventh-graders.

In the video, available for people to watch on YouTube, a person, apparently a teenage girl, talks about a friend she made before she entered the seventh-grade.

“He came out to me, and he was like ‘Hey, I’m gender non-binary. You can call me any pronouns as long as they’re not ‘she,’” the unidentified girl said.

“So, I started thinking, ‘Am I really a girl?’ It was a whole lot of things that had just wrapped around me and it was stressful making the choice and it was stressful wanting to tell someone, because, before meeting him, I didn’t know who to tell. I was feeling disappointed with myself for a long time.”

Tennessee Stands spokesman Gary Humble said in a mass email to group members Wednesday that many people moved to Williamson County “from California to escape this kind of nonsense in our education system.”

“Cameron Gish, Principal, was apologetic to parents that they were not first notified before the school decided that it was a good idea to teach ‘self-care’ through a very confused child with gender non-binary friends, who stabs themselves with sewing needles. Mr. Gish takes it upon himself to ‘focus on the whole child and the social/emotional needs of our community,’” Humble said.

“In case you haven’t been paying attention, this ‘whole child’ philosophy is the product and of our illustrious TN Commissioner of Education, Penny Schwinn who was personally appointed by Governor Bill Lee.”

Gish, in a message to students’ families, said that the school’s counseling department prepares lessons for students “on a variety of topics from organization and college/career ready skills to kindness and leadership.”

“Included with the presentation was a snippet of a video released by the MGH Clay Center targeting self-care practices in middle school.  Our Counseling Department had the video snipped to begin mid-way through as students were being interviewed about positive coping skills (journaling, fidget toys, deep breathing, sports, etc.),” Gish wrote.

“Some classrooms watched the entire six-minute video, though, which included examples of a negative coping skill (self-harm) and a reference to a student’s struggle with gender identity. While these scenarios do occur in our school and local community, we always give parents a heads up any time sensitive issues are being discussed at school. I apologize that this oversight occurred today and that some students watched the entire video, rather than the segmented portion that was intended.”

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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Non-Binary Video” by Tennessee Stands.