The Conroe ISD Board discussed possible changes to the district’s gender policy in a Dec. 3 meeting. The board will regroup and discuss its proposed policy at a Jan. 20 meeting.
According to the board agenda, board members looked at similar gender policies in other local school districts to base Conroe ISD’s policy. These similar policies include district employees being unable to require the use of pronouns that differ from a person’s assigned gender at birth, the designation and use of bathrooms purely based on a person’s assigned gender at birth, district personnel not teaching or training any persons at a fifth-grade or below level on the topics of sexual orientation or gender identity, the district not “promoting” pronouns different from those assigned at birth for any employee, district personnel only addressing a student by their preferred pronouns or title if they have written consent to do so from a parent or legal guardian, and district staff notifying parents if their child requests the use of a different name or pronouns.
Throughout the agenda, there was specific focus on parent’s rights and free speech. The discussed policy emphasized parent’s rights to both know and control what their kid is taught and how their kid acts at school while also emphasizing employee’s and children’s complete liberty in how they address another individual if the way they address them is in line with the sex listed on their birth sex and “grammatical correctness.”
The agenda states five objectives which the discussed policy will seek to enforce: the “safeguarding” of spaces that pertain to a specific biological sex, district facilities including bathrooms and changing spaces be separate by biological sex, pronouns used for a person on campus be consistent with their biological sex, “gender fluidity” content be excluded from classroom and instructional material, and district staff to not diagnose or treat gender dysphoria.
The discussed policy defines biological sex as what is “identified on the person’s official birth certificate provided the statement was: 1. Entered at or near the time of the person’s birth; or 2. Modified only to the extent necessary to correct any type of scrivener or clerical error in the person’s biological sex.” and defines gender fluidity as “Any belief, theory, or ideology that: 1. Espouses the view that gender is merely a social construct; 2. Espouses the view that it is possible for a person to be any gender or no gender (i.e., non-binary); 3. Espouses the view that an individual’s biological sex should be changed to “match” a gender different from that person’s biological sex; and 4. Supports hormone therapy or other medical treatments or procedures to temporarily or permanently alter a person’s body so that it “matches” a gender different from that person’s biological sex.”
Much of the material in the proposal, inducing a significant portion of the definitions, is taken from the KISD gender policy passed Aug. 23 of last year by a 4-3 margin.
Any student or parent wanting to voice their opinion on the topic, may seek allotted time during meetings for citizen discussion through a Citizen Participation Form. In addition, the Board’s email addresses can be found here for citizens to write to.
