It's Been Too Long

An admittedly depressing update

It’s been way too long since I’ve written here. One partial explanation for my unplanned “break” (other than the holidays) is that we lost our first family dog, Griffey, suddenly the Friday after Thanksgiving. He was also my very first dog and when his heart suddenly failed on November 24th, my heart kind of broke. I have tried a few times to put words to paper—well, keyboard—about the loss of a dog who was literally by my side, within arm’s reach, for nine years and nine months. I really thought I’d have him longer than that. Whether I was at my best or at my worst, he was right there with those those big brown eyes that looked at me like I was perfect because to him, I was.

Griffey

Adjusting to a home without Griffey has been a challenge but my sweet (and only) girl, Gracie, has made it much easier. She doesn’t have his calm and patient temperament but she exudes love and that has certainly helped a lot. I’m so grateful to have her and to have had him. ❤️

My Gracie girl

(To read the harrowing tale of how I saved Griffey with the Heimlich maneuver two years ago, click here. Warning: It shows a gross picture of a very large piece of steak.)

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In addition to using this Substack for original content, I use it to share my work from other places. Below are two recent writings and two TV interviews that most of you will likely not have seen. I wish the bulk of this content was not about gender policies and curriculum targeted at young children but alas, no such luck. As much as you may want to look away, I really hope you won’t.

1. I wrote a piece for Outkick. I have pasted the headline and full text below:

“Her bedmate informed her that he was a boy who identifies as transgender.  She actually got along really well with the other student, but just felt uncomfortable with the idea of being in bed with a biological boy.”

These are the words of the mom of an 11-year-old student from Jefferson County, Colorado who was expected to share a hotel bed with a female-identifying male student on a school trip to Washington DC and Philadelphia. Because students were assigned four to a room and the rooms had two beds, the expectation was that students would share beds and, in the case of this 11-year-old, she was to share a bed with a male. Because the transgender student was from a different school and likely still hadn’t gone through puberty, the three girls assigned to the same hotel room had no idea that their fourth roommate was male.

The plan was for them to spend the night with a boy who they believed to be a girl. 

Now imagine being this 11-year-old girl’s dad. You’ve sent her on a school sponsored trip to see the sights in the nation’s capital and Philadelphia and you find out that she has snuck away to call her mom, your wife, because she’s uncomfortable about sharing her assigned bed with someone she just found out was a boy. 

I caution you against thinking this could never happen to your daughter. As all you dads prepare to send your kids back to school after winter break, there is something you need to know: these gender policies are the norm now. The time has long passed to have our heads in the sand about the policies governing our own schools—the brutal truth is that most schools in the United States now have board approved policies that are hard to believe because of how insane and indefensible they are. The days of ‘there’s no way that can be true’ are long gone. It’s true. Please don’t shoot the messenger. 

School districts and state departments of education have specific language in their policies about overnight field trips and the right to be assigned a room and roommates based on gender identity. These policies also include language about how the other students in the room (and their parents) have no right to be notified. Students are expected to change their clothes and sleep in the same room and share a bed with a member of the opposite sex without their knowledge or consent. Parents are kept in the dark about all of this. 

Here’s the policy from the state of Oregon:

​​”Gender expansive students should be treated consistent with their gender identity on any school trips, including in assignment of overnight accommodations. Schools should consult with the gender expansive student to proactively address any safety and access concerns the student has, which can include room assignments or roommates, booking additional accommodations, and ensuring facilities access at all travel destinations. Schools should also take the safety of gender expansive students into account when planning travel locations.”

Notice that, per this written policy, the safety concerns only apply to the “gender expansive” student.

There is no mention of safeguarding for the students expected to go along with these sleeping arrangements. 

Here’s the policy language from the state of Vermont: “As a general rule, in any other circumstances where students are separated by gender in school activities (i.e. overnight field trips), students should be permitted to participate in accordance with their gender identity.” 

Here’s the policy language in Fairfax County, Virginia: “When an instructional or extra-curricular event requires students to be accommodated overnight, students may be assigned to a room consistent with the student’s gender identity.”  

A small sampling of districts with the same policy include Seattle Public Schools, Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, Sacramento City Unified School District in California, Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools in North Carolina, Barrington and Bristol-Warren in Rhode Island and the RSU 2 school district in Maine. 

Most districts and state departments of education have basically the same policy but they deliberately keep the wording a bit more vague— in states like California and Massachusetts and districts like Tucscon, Arizona, the language does not specifically mention overnight field trips but it’s hard to imagine any other interpretation. Gender identity is king now. 

Students must be permitted to participate in such activities or conform to such rule, policy, or practice consistent with their gender identity.

The reality about gender policies in schools is hard to believe but the time for denial and avoidance is over. I understand the inclination to think “this can’t possibly be true” because I was saying that just a few short years ago. The sad and sneaky fact is that it has become  the norm for school district and statewide policies to allow students to participate in any and all activities based on gender identity and that includes sleeping arrangements on overnight field trips. No matter how crazy and unsafe it sounds, it’s true. We can’t fix it until more people acknowledge that it’s true. And in the majority of school districts across the country, it’s true.

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2. Here is the column I wrote for my local paper last week. It first ran here in The Valley Breeze.

I used to love politics. I’m not a “joiner” by nature, so being part of a political tribe has never appealed to me. I suspect I’d be expelled from any tribe in short order for my wrongthink anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever voted for a straight party ticket in my life.

During the Tim Russert years, watching “Meet The Press” was a highlight of my week. Televised presidential debates used to be my idea of must-see TV. Fast-forward to today, and I find all of it so unappealing. Political shows on network and cable news have become unwatchable, with claims of “breaking news” every five minutes and hyper-partisan reporting from the campaign trail and Capitol Hill. I refuse to see my friends and neighbors as the caricatures that too many members of the media and elected officials make them out to be because of how they vote.

It increasingly feels like nothing but noise, and I have spent the past few years looking for signals in that noise — writers and commentators who prioritize truth and enjoy wrestling with complex issues because they want solutions, not because they want to win while destroying others in the process. People who welcome disagreement and invite guests from across the political spectrum. People who ask hard questions, play devil’s advocate and push back on many of the media’s preferred narratives that so many of us just too easily accept.

A few of my favorites are Konstantin Kisin, Bari Weiss, Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Loury, Matt Taibbi and Coleman Hughes but there are countless others. They represent different political leanings, backgrounds and professional paths, but what they have in common is their commitment to robust discussion and debate about important topics that are contentious and uncomfortable. They are all smart and interesting thinkers who interview other smart and interesting thinkers. They don’t regurgitate accepted talking points that they know to be untrue. Instead, they kick the tires on those talking points to see if what we’ve been told – promised even – is even true. Spoiler alert: often it’s not.

I’m no expert on why or how we got to a place that the thought-provoking and substantive banter about issues has all but disappeared from today’s media, but one explanation is obvious: media outlets have decided to cater to very different audiences and feed them a steady diet of their preferred bias in a way that fosters division and contempt. They traffic in caricatures that seek to dehumanize those who don’t see the world the way they do. Unfortunately, we humans have a natural tendency to like echo-chambers and succumb to groupthink, whether consciously or not. Media executives know a business model that relies on clicks and eyeballs is more successful if it gives the people what they want. Audiences drink from a fire hydrant of bias and hyperbole and then mentally catalog all the reasons why the “other side” isn’t just wrong but evil. Influencers with massive platforms online stoke the “us against them” flames in an effort to stamp out any room for nuance or good faith disagreement. Conversations have been replaced by cheap games of gotcha. Truth be damned.

I often wonder what Tim Russert would think about the current state of politics and the media. I really wish he was still here so we could ask him.

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TV Hits:

Unfortunately, elementary schools have increasingly taken it upon themselves to confuse and destabilize very young children about gender. In service of that ideological goal, they teach children that they “can identify as boys, girls, both or neither.” Below are interviews in which I discuss specific examples from schools in Washington and Massachusetts.

Talk soon,

Erika