And People Wonder Why I Got Out Of Teaching....

When people start calling for your execution, it's time to rethink your career choice

Self-love is a good thing but self-awareness is more important. You need to once in a while go ‘Uh, I’m kind of an asshole.

• Louis C.K.

And, in case anyone might’ve been wondering, yes, Matt Walsh is a serious asshole. Unfortunately, he’s also the worst type of Christian, believing he must destroy those who disagree with his “kill-’em-and-grill-’em” version of Christianity.

Anyone who strays outside his narrow, fear- and hatred-based White, Conservative, Christian, and heterosexual worldview is someone he considers unworthy of the Kingdom of God and, therefore, unworthy of living.

Mama must be SO proud, eh?

Tim Nordin was at home ahead of a school board meeting in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, last spring when he checked his email and found a threatening message from someone with the alias “Kill All Marxist Teachers.”

“I am going to kill you and shoot up your next school-board meeting for promoting the horrific, radical transgender agenda. It’s now time to declare war on you pedos. I am going to kill you and your entire family,” said the email, which was reviewed by VICE News. 

Wow. That escalated quickly…like from zero to "I'm going to kill you and your family” in no time flat. But why the flat-out hatred? Why the “Kill All Marxist Teachers” declaration, especially from someone who probably couldn’t define Marxism if you handed him Karl Marx and a political philosophy professor?

And how could someone be so twisted with hatred that they’d accuse someone of “promoting the horrific, radical transgender agenda?” I mean, who knew transgender people even HAD an agenda?

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As if wanting to live peacefully without being discriminated against could even be considered an agenda. I wonder if “Kill All Marxist Teachers” has ever met anyone who’s transgender.

I don’t know who was responsible for the note, but he seems nice, eh?

Nordin, president of the Eau Claire Area School District, went straight to his wife and showed her the email. They instructed their 14-year-old son, who was outside in the yard, to return home, and they locked the doors. Nordin then drove to the school board office. He called his colleagues to warn them about the email, and met up with police once he arrived.

“It’s very easy to imagine a mass shooting in the U.S. at any event at this point, so we had to take it very seriously,” Nordin told VICE News. “I didn’t want to be close to my family, just in case.”

All of this was happening against a highly politicized backdrop: The Eau Claire School District was going through an election cycle, and a few candidates were running anti-LGBTQ campaigns—an increasingly popular strategy among GOP politicians. Articles about Eau Claire had popped up in far-right media channels, from local blogs to national behemoths like Breitbart and Fox News, after a presentation by an educator went viral for including a note that parents aren’t entitled to know their kids’ identities, such as sexuality, and that teachers need to prioritize support for students. “Inside a Wisconsin School District’s Gender Ideology Training,” one headline read.

Nordin’s correct, of course, in that it’s not a stretch to imagine a shooting at a school board meeting. Especially from those so thoroughly propagandized and transformed into such a hate-addled anger ball that there’s no hope of reasoning with them.

Instead of freaking out about the “transgender agenda”- whatever that might represent for a person- perhaps one could think of it as sensitivity training. And maybe an attempt to understand children who already have a tough time under the best of circumstances. It’s not about “advancing” or “advocating” the “transgender agenda.” Perhaps it’s just an attempt to educate teachers and staff members, to give them a better idea of the issues transgender children might encounter in their schools.

Nordin, who was up for re-election, is a public supporter of LGBTQ students. Today, he’s one of an increasing number of U.S. citizens working in education or healthcare who’s received death threats because of his decision to care for LGBTQ minors. And this is part of a pattern: An investigation by VICE News in collaboration with researchers from the nonpartisan think tank Advance Democracy, which tracks extremism online, found widespread and explicit calls for violence online against those who are trying to protect LGBTQ kids.

There’s a question crying out to be asked here: Why? Why are there so many “widespread and explicit calls for violence against those who are trying to protect LGBTQ kids?” Why are so many so invested in such virulent hatred and potential violence? And why are these “Christians” so consumed with prejudice and animus?

At some level, I have to wonder what these folks are afraid of. Are they fearful of their own sexuality? Are they trying to suppress something they fear and refuse to face in themselves? Is it easier to project that fear onto others than to have the courage to stop and face it in themselves?

Transgender kids pose no threat to anyone. Most are so wrapped up in negotiating their own life and all that goes with it that they barely have the energy and bandwidth to focus on others. To the extent they do, it’s certainly not to force the sexuality or “deviant lifestyle” on anyone else. They want to be accepted; they won’t be “grooming” or “recruiting.”

Right-wing personalities now routinely—and falsely—refer to LGBTQ people as “groomers” and “pedophiles.” They’ve also accused teachers of “grooming” children, while claiming doctors “mutilate” and “sterilize” minors. The result has been an escalation in threats targeting trans-inclusive hospitals and school districts generally, as well as specific workers within them. 

“This is done intentionally,” Nordin said. “We just saw Club Q. We continue to see these acts of hate … It’s the overall tenor of these attacks that continues, not just death threats. It’s making our communities less safe.” 

Hate that targets trans people isn’t new, but in recent years it’s moved toward the center of U.S. politics, with conservative politicians and influencers seemingly scapegoating LGBTQ people as a way to incite fear and activate voters. In 2022, conservative politicians spent at least $50 million on anti-trans campaigns in order to mobilize voters. Meanwhile, far-right influencers like the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh and Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik targeted hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors, including Boston Children’s Hospital and the Vanderbilt Clinic for Transgender Health at Vanderbilt University. Recently, Raichik reached out to a Minnesota educator while pretending to be a student seeking hormone therapy, and then published the exchange for her readers before claiming that such teachers are “causing an untold amount of damage to our kids.” She included a screenshot of the educator’s LinkedIn account.

Transgender people and other members of the LGBTQ community are highly unlikely to be “groomers,” as claimed by White heterosexual haters. Indeed, “groomers” and “pedophiles” are far more likely to be White Conservative Christian heterosexuals, something the haters conveniently neglect to acknowledge.

People like Chaya Raichik and Matt Walsh are the worst sort of human flotsam, so addled by hatred, bigotry, and homophobia that they’ve lost whatever capacity for the compassion they may once have had.

They don’t realize- or refuse to recognize- that gender-affirming care significantly contributes to reducing suicide among transgender teens. So you’d think Walsh and Raichik might be able to gin up a modicum of compassion between them. True to character, though, it doesn’t work that way for either of them. Instead, they’d rather see children die by their own hands than be allowed to seek gender-affirming care.

Studies show that trans people are more likely to experience mental health struggles, including anxiety, depression, PTSD, and thoughts of suicide, than cisgender people. Puberty blockers and gender-affirming therapies, which are safe and effective, are correlated with better mental health outcomes for trans people, and teens who are able to access gender-affirming therapy typically have better mental health outcomes than trans people who have to wait until adulthood. Major governing medical bodies, including the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have endorsed gender-affirming care for youth. 

But despite all the science and widespread medical endorsements, the far right is still stoking fears about transness. Just last week, Walsh called for the execution of doctors who provide gender-affirming care for minors. 

“As far as I’m concerned, mutilating and castrating children should be legally considered a capital crime and it should earn the prescribed penalty for such crimes,” Walsh said. “But if we can’t have that, then prison will have to suffice.” 

Despite what Walsh believes (and he ridiculously considers himself an expert on many subjects), gender-affirming care isn’t “mutilating and castrating children.” Instead, it’s assisting children (usually with their parent's cooperation) in becoming the person they identify as.

Walsh doesn’t have to approve or even understand, but his ignorance and bigotry shouldn’t be allowed to assume the force of law because doing so would mean more children taking their own lives. Gender-affirming care has the approval of several major medical bodies. That it doesn’t have the stamp of approval of Matt Walsh or Chaya Raichik shouldn’t mean a thing. It’s none of their damned business.

This is about saving children’s lives, not caving into the fear-mongering and hatred of bigots and assholes who know only the language of enmity and ignorance. For them, there’s an easy solution available: If they’re offended by transgender people, they can ignore them, like they do mass shootings. Instead, they should move to a country where there are few of them and where they’re actively persecuted. Poland and Hungary might be good choices, and Raichik and Walsh would probably be welcomed with open arms.

Transgender youth deserve the gender-affirming care they and their doctor and parents have agreed upon. It’s no one else’s business. Period.

You don’t have to like it, but you also don’t get to have a voice in a decision that’s not yours to make.

That seems pretty basic.