OPINION:
A physical education coach, Rob Oppedisano, at Chasco Middle School in Pasco County, Florida, said his school employers threatened him with firing and loss of his teaching credentials if he didn’t stand down, stifle and stomach in silence a new policy allowing a girl who claimed to be a boy the right to dress, change and shower with the real boys, in the boys’ locker room, in full view of real boys and real men alike.
That was a year ago.
And the battle with school officials over this ridiculous and dangerous LGBTQ matter is still ongoing.
In an email to The Washington Times, Oppedisano recalled the day this “policy” took effect — and that’s policy in quotes, because it isn’t actually legislatively adopted or formally approved school board policy but rather guidance pushed by tools of the LGBTQ community.
“I was in the gym because I asked for an accommodation so I would not have to be in a locker room that would allow a female to use all the facilities, such as showers, changing areas, etc.,” he wrote. “[I then saw] half-dressed boys running out of a locker room, running to their coach … yelling out for help, ‘Coach, coach we have a problem. There is a girl in the boys’ locker room.’ “
And then?
And then: “Coach had to tell them that there was nothing that she could do. The principal walked into the gym [then] and took the boys back into the locker room. This continued from last Sept through December. We have been fighting this for over a year now,” Oppedisano said.
The school won’t even admit threatening him.
Oppedisano, in remarks to the Christian Family Coalition just last week, said his principal and the school’s attorney told him he faced loss of job if he didn’t comply — and that parents of other students at the school had no right to be given a heads-up of the locker room goings-on.
Chasco’s principal, contacted for comment, didn’t return the call. But according to Liberty Counsel, the legal group representing Oppedisano’s interests, emails show the threats did occur — and that they occurred more than once, to more than one individual.
In a press release, Liberty Counsel wrote: “Pasco County administrators have threatened and silenced two P.E. teachers who objected to [the school’s Gender Support Plan and Best Practices Guide] in order to allow a gender-confused girl into the boys’ locker room and open showers. The female student had full access to disrobe and even shower alongside unsuspecting boys. Administrators tried to force the male teachers to directly supervise and observe the girl in her use of the space. Both teachers objected to administrators’ refusal to inform minor boys and their parents beforehand, so their sons’ privacy could be protected.”
Liberty’s senior litigation attorney Richard Mast, reached by telephone, said the girl’s since moved on to a different school, but the problem of Pasco’s “full access policy” still remains.
So, too, the fight from parents.
In January, Port Richey parents swarmed a school board meeting to demand the district “restrict restroom and locker room use to a student’s birth sex, not the gender they identify with,” as WTSP put it.
In March, the Tampa Bay Times wrote this: “Pasco School Board rejects pressure to change rules for transgender students.”
And in May, WTSP reported this: “Supreme Court move ‘affirms’ Pasco district’s transgender policy. Not all parents agree.”
That last was a headline that came on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court refusal to hear an appeal of Pennsylvania students who claimed their privacy rights were being violated by transgender pupils who used school facilities based on self-identification, not biological birth.
So what’s a sane parent to do?
What’s a properly adjusted student, absent the type of mental illness that drives the transgender community, to do?
“I’m a P.E. coach,” Oppedisano said, at the CFC, “and more importantly a believer, follower of Jesus Christ.”
What’s a biblically centered follower of the faith to do?
Here’s one suggestion: Complain to the Department of Education.
Flood the Department of Education’s Civil Rights’ website with complaints of privacy violations, of religious discrimination, of child abuse. And by flood — get all Noah-y with it. Epic flood. Of biblical proportions. Even the rejected complaints make it into public record.
Enough complaints — and Congress will get involved. Congressmen will be called to account. Campaigning legislators will be tasked to take action.
What not to do? What not to do is quit.
The LGBTQ agenda is spreading like a satanic cancer throughout America’s public school systems. Standing silent means abandoning the schools — abandoning America’s rising generations — to the insane.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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