US — Hartford, Connecticut. A school nurse was suspended for expressing “inappropriate” and “hateful rhetoric” and “values totally inconsistent” with a Connecticut public school district’s stance after revealing in a Facebook group: “I have an 11yo female student on puberty blockers and a dozen identifying as non-binary, all but two keeping this as a secret from their parents.”
The controversy was sparked after Kathleen Cataford, aged 77, advised mothers in the Connecticut Moms’ Club Facebook group:
Buyer beware. Investigate the school system curriculum … CT is a very socially liberal, gender confused state …
As a public school nurse, I have an 11 yo female student on puberty blockers and a dozen students identifying as non-binary, all but two keeping this a secret from their parents with the help of teachers, SSW [social service worker] and administration.
Her comment proceeded to warn:
Teachers and SSW are spending 37.5 hours a week influencing your children, not necessarily teaching [your] children what YOU think is being taught. Children are introduced to this confusion in kindergarten by the school SW [social worker] who ‘teaches’ social and emotional regulation and school expectations.
The Facebook post concluded by pointing out the hypocrisy of banning children from making decisions about their bodies with the reasoning that their brains are still developing, yet permitting children to use puberty blockers and hormones and undergo cosmetic surgeries in the name of gender identity.
Science tells us that a child’s brain continues development into the early 20’s, hence laws prohibiting alcohol, tobacco, vaping and cannibis. But it’s ok to inject hormones into confused prepubescent children and perform genital mutilating surgery on adolescents! How incongruent is that thinking!
Puberty blockers can lead to such side effects as permanent sterility, underdevelopment of genitalia and other sex characteristics, heart disease, blood clots, diabetes and poor bone health.
Ms Cataford’s Facebook comment was discovered by a parent of the 11-year-old who had been prescribed puberty blockers. The parent brought the comment to the attention of the Richard J Kinsella Magnet School.
Dr Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, Superintendent of the Hartford Public Schools district, swiftly released a message to the school community. The letter condemned the nurse, whom it did not name, for having “described private and personal details about a specific student.” The nurse “used a personal social media account,” but “the values they express are totally inconsistent with what we stand for.” Calling the nurse’s language “hateful rhetoric,” the Superintendent’s letter noted: “HPS does not tolerate any language that could be harmful to our community.” The letter assured that the nurse “has been put on administrative leave while the district conducts an investigation.”
The suspension of the school nurse has gone viral, igniting a backlash on social media.
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The trans ideologists envision themselves as ‘French Resistance’ of the Second World War. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is women who say No to this madness who are losing their livelihoods, who are threatened and openly attacked.
They got rid of her for doing the right thing!
That’s deplorable.
I fail to see how Ms. Cataford’s post was hateful. It is encouraging that people are finally speaking up about this horrible injustice that is being perpetrated on children.
People who are doing weird sexual stuff with kids and hiding it from their parents don’t like it when a whistleblower spills the beans in public.
It will be interesting to see how the majority of parents react to this as the news gets out into the community. Cataford may well yet be recognized as the heroine of the story.
The school did not prescribe puberty blockers. Using them was a decision made by the child, parent(s), and physician(s). By disclosing this info publicly, more than likely the parents were perturbed that their child might be identified and stigmatized. As for the children who are playing with the idea of being another gender, what business is that of a school nurse? It’s not a medical condition, just like playing with makeup and identifying as Goth aren’t.
Children and adolescents are trying to work out boundaries along with identities and this becomes pronounced as they approach adulthood. If a child doesn’t trust their parent to handle them wearing kohl circles around their eyes, what is the advantage of informing on them? So they can be punished for failing to conform to the strictures of parents who don’t understand how children develop?
In no sense is the school persuading or teaching children to become gay, have gender-affirming surgery, or take puberty blockers. I was born a lesbian and despite the overwhelming amount of conditioning I received to become straight, I never did. Is the problem here that learning that some people finding out about about gay or transgender people will male random children suddenly change their innate sexual orientation, or decide they’ve never been comfortable identifying as their assigned sex?
@Charlotte Banks: Puberty blockers can lead to permanent sterility, underdevelopment of genitalia and other sex characteristics, heart disease, blood clots, diabetes and poor bone health. There is preliminary evidence that puberty blockers may reduce IQ. In other words, risk of life-threatening health issues and other negative, life-impacting issues are created in young children where previously there may have been none.
Meanwhile, there are no benefits. The goal of the puberty blockers cannot be met, as all humans are either male or female (yes, including those with disorders of sexual development previously known as ‘intersex’ whose medical conditions your movement attempts to co-opt) and no human can change from one sex to the other.
Most children who take puberty blockers, particularly the girls, will ultimately proceed to undergo cosmetic surgeries such as removal of the breasts (this is permitted in the underage in some areas). Hysterectomy will eventually be required, as taking testosterone for a long time leads to endometrium, which can also turn into cancer in the uterus. The longitudinal, peer-reviewed study renowned as the best ever conducted on trans issues found rates of completed suicides increase after gender identity surgery. (A look at the ‘studies’ that purport to show decreased suicidal ideation found they are all just surveys asking people how they feel after the surgeries.)
Some people care about the well-being of children.
@Charlotte: You later rambled incoherently about “kohl circles around their eyes,” in an apparent attempt to reduce the topic to makeup, as if puberty blockers were not specified. You then proceeded to froth over “sexual orientation,” as if the fact that some humans are attracted to the same sex is remotely relevant to the bizarre religious theory that some girls and women are placed inside male bodies and some boys and men inside female bodies (as if you’ve been watching too many alien brain swap movies, or believe a god or other mischievous deity is swapping bodies and brains for laughs). The article and website have zero to do with your sexual and romantic desires, so I’m not sure why you informed me you are a lesbian and alluded to your makeup routine. This is not a dating app, and trust me, you aren’t my type, and I couldn’t care less what consenting adult others partner with. So you got the attention you ordered. Take it from whence you came.
I did a web search on “kohl circles” to see how your odd rant could possibly be connected. This is the first thing I saw, reminiscent of your magical thinking:
It’s ok to believe in magic, like your belief in swapped souls or swapped brains, but respect that not everyone will agree.
When a child is given Lupron, the very same drug given to chemically castrate male sex offenders and elderly men dying of prostate cancer, that child isn’t “playing” with anything other than fire. You’re on the “wrong side of history” with this one, Charlotte. “Trans” has already peaked, and the massive backlash has already started.
If a child lives with their parents and is on any kind of medication, the household has every right to know. I am quite tired of professionals deciding what is best for families. I also believe in many cases rather than talk to parents it is easier to say they are resistant to their child being transgender and hide the truth from the parents. If this is Ok what else can be kept from parents?