Global Courant
LOS ANGELES — Police officers Friday separated groups of protesters and counter-protesters outside a Los Angeles elementary school that has become a focal point for Pride month events across California.
People protesting a planned Pride rally outside the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Saticoy Elementary School wore T-shirts that read “Leave our kids alone” — and carried placards with slogans like “Parental Choice Matters” and “No Pride in grooming.” Tensions at the school have increased since last month, when a social media page was created urging parents to keep their children home on Friday, the day of the scheduled meeting.
Across the country, Pride month celebrations are kicking off amid rising backlash against LGBTQ+ rights in some places. Community parade organizers, school districts and even professional sports terms have faced protests for waving rainbow flags and honoring drag performers. While some Republican-led states are restricting classroom conversations about gender and sexuality and banning gender-affirmative care, some Democratic cities and states are seeking to expand LGBTQ+ rights and honor community contributions.
Los Angeles Unified School District Board member Kelly Gonez said the meeting went off without a hitch. It included a reading from “The Great Big Book of Families,” which details various family structures, including single parents, LGBTQ+ parents, grandparents and foster parents, she said.
Gonez said the school board wants to “listen and have these tough conversations” with parents who don’t support the meeting.
“At the same time, I think it’s really important to be factual about the content shared today, the fact that it’s age appropriate and it’s just about providing inclusive, welcoming environments for all of our students and families” , she said.
Outside the school, there were more protesters against the meeting than those who were there to support. Some protesters identified themselves as parents of students in the district but would not give their full names during interviews, saying they had agreed as a group not to, citing security concerns. Overall, they said they felt elementary school was too young to discuss LGBTQ+ issues.
Arielle Aldana, whose 6-year-old son attends Saticoy, said she knew nothing about the meeting until she dropped him off at school on Friday morning. She joined the protest against the assembly, saying it was “frustrating” that the school did not tell parents about the issue in advance.
Aldana said she doesn’t think it’s appropriate for primary school, but added that she thought it would be fine if her son is in high school. “It has to do with where he’s in development,” she said.
Ray Jones, using the pronoun she, said they’re a drag queen in North Hollywood and don’t have kids in school, but he thought it was important to show up. Jones said they believe LGBTQ+ topics are appropriate to teach in primary school. According to them, the demonstrators who think otherwise send the wrong signal to students with LGBTQ+ parents.
“I just don’t stand for that in my community,” Jones said.
Hector Flores and his husband proudly picked up their 6-year-old daughter after school on Friday in T-shirts. He said their family felt supported by the counter-demonstrators.
“All families are different and we have to respect them,” said Flores. “It all starts with a conversation and kids grow up so fast these days. That’s probably a subject we should have at a young age.”
An Instagram page called Saticoy Elementary Parents called Pride “an inappropriate topic for our kids!” In a post, the page says Christian families and those who share “conservative values feel that this material is not appropriate for teaching to the children and believe it is the parents’ right to choose.” It’s not clear who started the page, which also includes phone numbers and email addresses for county and school officials, urging parents to call them to protest the event.
In May, a transgender teacher’s small Pride flag was found burned. The school notified parents and said it was under investigation as hate-motivated.
District Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho watched the protest outside the school.
“The sad reality is that over the past two weeks individuals who work at this school have been threatened and insulted simply for being who they are,” he told Fox 11. “A flag that represents many members of our community has been burned . That is just unacceptable. About what? A reference book that represents families in our communities.”
Carvalho said there is no sex education in the book in question.
“There is nothing but an honest representation of the realities of families in our community,” he said. “If you exclude some, you demonize or dehumanize some in our community. We are a diverse community and we have to accept that.”
Several other California elementary schools have found themselves at the center of debates over Pride Month celebrations.
In San Diego County, a proposal to fly the Pride flag at Chula Vista Elementary School District headquarters initially died 2-2, with one member absent. But Francisco Tamayo, a board member who originally voted no, later revived the proposal, saying he was concerned about hate speech targeting teachers, parents and students. The proposal was passed 4-1 on Wednesday.
Elsewhere, city officials in Davis, California, last week removed a rainbow crosswalk made by elementary school students using chalk paint to celebrate Pride month. A former student’s parent complained about the project, associate Mara Seaton told the Sacramento Bee.
But the decoration was removed because decorations are not allowed on crosswalks without prior approval and because they obscured other lines on the crosswalk needed for visibility, Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel said. Rainbow crosswalks are still allowed, as they normally are, at a local park for the city’s Pride celebrations this weekend, he said.
(TagsToTranslate)School Safety
