Many of those that oppose the policy proposal we submitted to the FCPS Board of Education are criticizing Genspect, who we approached after our proposal was developed. This is an obvious attempt to discredit the organization and paint them as a fringe group. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They are largely liberal Europeans with backgrounds in psychology and medicine. Stella O’Malley, who leads the group, was transgender in her youth, and her “Trans Kids: It’s Time To Talk” aired on the BBC. She is an atheist. Joe Burgo, their Vice Director, is a published author and psychologist with decades of experience and is married to a gay man. If opponents of our policy proposal think this is some sort of right-wing, religious organization, that is simply not the case. Genspect does aggressively support parental notification if minor children exhibit the symptoms of gender dysphoria or identify as transgender, and fighting against parental notification is the primary activity of those in opposition to our proposal.

Genspect also has the advantage of being in a position to understand how many European countries, which have been dealing with transgender and gender identity in youth for a lot longer than we have in the U.S., are now pulling back from the very things that are being pushed into schools here in the U.S.

What’s happening is that Genspect is emerging as a competitor to the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), an organization that endorses extreme approaches involving hormone and medical treatments. Genspect has advocated for a “least invasive means first approach,” which emphasizes psychological treatment and care as the first approach to help children with gender dysphoria make sense of what they are experiencing prior to considering hormones and surgery. Dr. Erica Anderson, a California psychiatrist with over 40 years of experience and who is also transgender, resigned from WPATH due to their extreme positions and now testifies in support of parental notification.

One side note, we also researched and considered the information provided by the American Psychiatric Association as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics (on our website, you will find our concerns about that AAP). In the current policy, no medical or scientific data is cited, and gender dysphoria is not even mentioned. This is a serious gap and underscores the need for a policy that covers a psychiatric condition to be updated with scientific and medical references and the impacts the provisions of the current policy have on all ~45,000 FCPS students and their families.

We encourage the Board of Education and those in opposition to the proposal to examine the evidence we presented on April 5. We have renewed our offer to present the data to them so they can make an informed decision on their next steps. For more on the board’s position on parental notification, click here to read the article “Parents’ Rights are Civil Rights.”

Dr. Kate Goonan from Genspect at the April 5 forum hosted by Transparency in Education in downtown Frederick.