The Culture Wars Come to Small Town Wisconsin
The GOP assault on trans rights is taking an ominous and predictable turn
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you received this email - or you are a free subscriber - and you’d like to subscribe: you can sign up below.
Quick housekeeping note. There will be a Zoom Chat tomorrow, and I’ll be joined by Elliott Morris, a data journalist at The Economist, a friend of the newsletter, and an incisive commentator on polls and American politics. We’ll be talking midterms, Joe Biden’s approval ratings, and whether guns and abortion can change the equation for Democrats come November. The link is here, and please join us tomorrow at 12:30!
Fanning the Flames
There’s a lot going on these days in Washington politics, but I want to focus instead on a story from a small town in Wisconsin that could represent an ominous future for LGBTQ rights in America.
On May 12, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), a right-wing non-profit law firm, sent a letter to the Kiel Area School District demanding that a Title IX sexual harassment investigation of three eighth-grade students accused of misgendering a classmate be dropped (Title IX of the Civil Right Acts prohibits discrimination based on sex in educational settings). The letter alleged that the trio is accused of using female pronouns to a student who prefers them/they pronouns.
Right-wing media quickly picked up the story. Fox News host Laura Ingraham did a segment on the controversy four days later, featuring one of the accused students, his mother, and a WILL lawyer. Newsmax ran with the story the next day, and the boy’s lawyers wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, accusing the school board of subjecting the accused kids to a “frightening inquisition.”
Then the threats began. On May 20, the local school board canceled a public meeting because of law enforcement concerns. According to the local police, Kiel Area School District staff had received numerous communications about the investigation, many of which had been “extremely vulgar, hateful, and disturbing.”
Three days later, a bomb threat was made against the local middle school, explicitly referencing the ongoing Title IX investigation. Schools were evacuated.
The next day saw another school threat, even though all the local schools in the area had already canceled classes and gone virtual. Over the next eight days, there would be four more bomb threats directed not just at Kiel’s schools but also at its utility stations, city buildings, the Kiel Public Library, the homes of school district employees, the police department, the city’s wastewater treatment plant, and even its roads. The latest threat on Wednesday gave the school district until Friday to drop the investigation, or multiple locations in Kiel would be targeted.
Not surprisingly, life in the town has been thoroughly disrupted. School administrators ended in-person learning and moved the rest of the academic year online. High school graduation ceremonies are postponed. Summer school and end-of-the-year field trips and concerts have been canceled, as was the city’s annual Memorial Day Parade.
The police have not determined who is making the death threats, though a California man was arrested this week for allegedly threatening the life of a school staff member.
The school has said little about the investigation but in a letter to parents pointed out that if an “individual files a formal complaint of sexual harassment or if the District Title IX coordinator files a complaint on their behalf, the District must initiate the Title IX grievance process, which includes a fact-finding investigation, a determination as to whether the conduct occurred and constituted sexual harassment, and a right to appeal.” So, the district’s hands were essentially tied.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the information about the investigation was made public not by the school but rather by the families of the boys themselves. The WILL lawyers complained in their WSJ op-ed that a charge of sexual harassment could forever sully the boys’ reputation. But no one would know about their involvement if not for their lawyers filing a lawsuit — and then appearing on Fox News, among other media outlets.
While the WILL letter claims that the investigation is focused on the boys using the wrong pronouns, we don’t know the extent of the harassment. Interestingly, the mother of one of the boys told reporters that the school told her that the teacher who allegedly reported the harassment claimed that it happened in “multiple instances.” The same parent also said her son defended another student for using incorrect pronouns by arguing “that he doesn’t have to use proper pronouns, it’s his constitutional right.”
WILL has also gone beyond merely defending its client. They’ve also asked the school to “make clear to their staff and to students that they can’t be forced to use another student’s pronouns.”
While the 2020 Supreme Court ruling in Bostock vs. Clayton County held that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity represents a form of sexual discrimination, it’s not clear that using incorrect pronouns would represent a form of pervasive harassment under Title IX.
The GOP’s Anti-Trans Strategy
This event might seem like an isolated occurrence, but it offers a disquieting window into the growing assault on LGBTQ rights and, in particular, the demonization of transgender Americans.
We’ve already seen Republican governors push harsh anti-trans laws through Republican-dominated state legislatures. Florida has banned teachers from discussing sexual orientation for students from grades K-3. Texas now considers gender-affirming medical care a form of child abuse and has directed the state’s Child Protective Services department to investigate parents who help their kids receive such care. Alabama and Arkansas have banned gender-affirming medical care for trans-youth (federal judges have blocked both bills). Multiple states have prohibited participation in sporting events by trans athletes.
As Ryan Lizza noted in a recent piece in Politico, at Donald Trump’s most recent political rally in Wyoming, he turned his rhetorical guns on transgender Americans. “No teacher should ever be allowed to teach transgender to our children without parental consent,” he told the crowd. “We will save our kids, and we will also keep men the hell out of women’s sports. Is that OK?” He went on to further mock trans athletes, which noted Lizza, met with thunderous applause.
It hardly seems coincidental that WILL lawyers followed up their lawsuit with a right-wing media blitz. They could be reasonably confident that conservative media would take to such a story like flies to honey, which would put public pressure on the Kiel School District to drop the investigation (WILL has condemned the spate of bomb threats).
Transgender Americans have become, in effect, a new punching bag in the GOP’s culture war. They are a vulnerable group of Americans who stand outside the cultural mainstream and “threaten traditional values,” making them a relatively easy target for mocking and ostracism. The more Democrats (rightly) defend trans rights, the easier it is for Republicans to paint their political rivals as trying to force their cultural values on the rest of Americans. It’s an insidious political strategy, but one that follows a familiar Republican playbook.
So is it any surprise that after months of attacks on transgender Americans and legislation preventing teachers from talking about gender identity in the classroom, a dispute in a small town in Wisconsin would degenerate into death threats and bomb threats? Republicans have called Democrats, who support teachers discussing gender identity in the classroom, groomers and pedophiles. Can any of us truly be surprised that their supporters now view discussions of trans issues in schools in existential terms? A few years ago, this story would likely have garnered little attention. But in the context of the GOP’s culture war attacks on the trans community, it feels utterly predictable that it’s escalated so dramatically out of control.
Once again, Republicans have poured political gasoline on a divisive cultural issue, and it is energizing its most unhinged and unstable supporters to start a conflagration. The situation in Kiel feels less like an outlier and more likely a preview of where we’re headed.
What’s Going On
The latest mass shooting in America occurred yesterday in Tulsa, where a man upset that recent back surgery did not relieve his back pain shot his doctor and three other people before taking his own life. The shooter purchased his AR-15 rifle the same day.
For MSNBC, I wrote about why publishing the pictures of children killed in mass shootings is a terrible idea.
Great piece by Matt Duss on why Ukraine should matter to the left.
Jonathan Bernstein is unconvinced that the Biden White House is adrift.
Musical Interlude
I read your msnbc post.
Emmitt Till?
Cigarette warning labels?
Those were pretty effective at changing minds
These kids have to have closed casket funerals because the AR15 and it’s like do such damage that the kids are missing limbs, their heads are blown off. You don’t think pics of kids missing their heads won’t change a few suburban women’s minds?
I feel like we need to shocked into action and maybe pics of our choices will do that.