Parents of a 5-year-old “transgender child” have filed a complaint against a St. Paul charter school, alleging it failed to protect him from bullying and refused to teach all the students their preferred transgender-awareness curriculum.

David and Hannah Edwards, whose child was born a boy but now thinks he’s a girl, has filed with the city’s Department of Human Rights, claiming their child “wasn’t able to take full advantage of Nova’s educational opportunities because of her gender identity and expression. This violated her rights.”

When the boy showed up at school wearing pink tennis shoes and wanting to wear a jumper like the girls in gym class, other children reportedly pointed and laughed at him. The parents contacted the school and wanted something done to protect their child from bullying, despite the fact that the school currently has an anti-bullying policy.

Nova Classical Academy’s executive director, Eric Williams, told 5 Eyewitness News the school has a mandatory policy, called the Bullying Prohibition Policy, which they are simply trying to follow. “He says that means providing a safe and welcoming environment for all students, regardless of their status.”

The Edwardses, however, wanted more—for the school to teach only their views of human sexuality and to be engaged in helping their five-year-old boy transition to a girl.

“My kid is just trying to live and be accepted and be safe,” said Hannah Edwards.

“We’re not yet sure of the person that our son is, he’s in kindergarten,” Dave Edwards said. “We don’t label him. He’s not anything. He’s our kid, but we know from what he has shown us this far, that we are going to need some protections in place to keep him safe while he’s in public school.”

The Edwardses said they were disappointed that their son’s needs couldn’t be met privately and that this had to become a “huge spectacle.”

Parents Versus Parents

The issue became public when the Edwards demanded the school present transgender materials and information to their child’s classmates. “Key components included a letter to be sent home to kindergarten families notifying them of the transition; use of the book ‘I Am Jazz‘ in each kindergarten classroom; and communications for any families who asked about opting out of the classroom education, to direct them to equivalent content and to outline behavior expectations,” the complaint states.

School officials changed their minds after backlash from parents who didn’t want transgenderism taught at such a young age.

While the school was initially willing to implement such materials, even considering an additional book, “My Princess Boy,” school officials changed their minds after backlash from parents who didn’t want transgenderism taught at such a young age. Some parents believed an opt-out would not be sufficient because the information would inevitably be spread to the other students who did not receive the instruction directly. As a result, the school chose to enforce its anti-bulling policy and not conduct gender re-education.

According to the complaint, school officials also refused to inform the child’s classmates of “her preferred name and pronouns, without first delaying for days and inviting or encouraging families to ‘opt out’ of this information.”

Several families who attended a meeting about the transgender issue thought the school was doing enough by enforcing its current bullying policy and that it didn’t need to do more.

“We’re learning that this is really a political agenda here and it isn’t just about the bullying of a child,” Paula Rothstein, the parent of two children at Nova, told KSTP.

“If you put that sort of weight on an issue and you say, ‘OK we’re going to talk about this, and some children are this, and he looks like a boy but he’s really a girl,’ well, you know I would have a problem with that.”

Trans Rapidly Moving into Pre-Puberty

The issue of transgender children has been the subject of much national debate as LGBT advocacy groups have been pushing for categorizing younger children as transgender. The Edwards aren’t the first to gain publicity because of their child’s gender confusion. Another controversial case is that of the Whittingtons, whose 7-year-old daughter insists she’s a boy, and the parents have accepted her “transgender” status, even being open to using puberty-blocking hormones on their daughter when the time comes. As for undergoing sex change surgery, the mother said “they will cross that bridge when they get to it.”

LGBT advocacy groups have been pushing for categorizing younger children as transgender.

To encourage transition at young ages, transgender websites have started selling products for children and teens to help them embrace their perceived gender identity. These include tiny dildos young girls can strap on to emulate having a real penis. The company Tranzwear offers custom-made “cyberskin packers,” “created to be worn comfortably” for “a more realistic look and feel.”

If you can stomach it, here’s a video by girl transitioning to become a boy who has undergone testosterone treatment and encourages other transgender people to wear “packing briefs” that are modified to support a fake penis.

The company has received so much criticism regarding these products that it has been forced to put a notice on their website that says, “We have recently experienced some serious and illegal hate based harassment from TERF/transphobic groups due to their incorrect premise that we are selling ‘sex devices for children.’ By no means has this ever been our intent behind making, and providing these transition based products for your kids.” Tranzwear, the statement says, is “a partner to assist you and your child on their very important journey.”

Let’s Reinforce Reality for a Second

Whether it’s transition products, hormone blocking, sex changes, or forcing schools to help a young child make the transition from one gender to another, experts have come out strongly against this kind of gender ideology being imposed on children.

The American College of Pediatricians issued a report urging “educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.”

The report states that “human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: ‘XY’ and ‘XX’ are genetic markers of health – not genetic markers of a disorder,” and “No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one.”

No one is born with an awareness of themselves as male or female; this awareness develops over time and, like all developmental processes, may be derailed by a child’s subjective perceptions, relationships, and adverse experiences from infancy forward. People who identify as ‘feeling like the opposite sex’ or ‘somewhere in between’ do not comprise a third sex. They remain biological men or biological women. A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking. When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such. These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V). The psychodynamic and social learning theories of GD/GID have never been disproved.

“Puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous,” the report states. “Reversible or not, puberty-blocking hormones induce a state of disease – the absence of puberty – and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously biologically healthy child.” In other words, to treat children in this way is “to do harm,” something neither parents nor doctors should ever do.

Children who use puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex hormones in late adolescence. Cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer. Rates of suicide are twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBQT – affirming countries. According to the DSM-V, as many as ‘98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.’

Stop the Child Abuse Now

Those who are “helping” children become the sex they imagine themselves to be are engaging in child abuse. This is a point the American College of Pediatricians firmly makes: “Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.”

‘Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.’

“Endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents, leading more children to present to ‘gender clinics’ where they will be given puberty-blocking drugs,” the report says. “This, in turn, virtually ensures that they will ‘choose’ a lifetime of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic cross-sex hormones, and likely consider unnecessary surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts as young adults.”

The depth of the confusion regarding this issue is revealed in the comment by Dave Edwards in reference to his son, who was born a healthy male. “We don’t label him. He’s not anything.” The fact is, he is “something.” The child is a male who is confused about his gender. To play along with this psychological confusion instead helping the child in a supportive and loving way to bring his thinking into alignment with reality is a form of child neglect, something no school should support.

Given the abusive nature of gender ideology, Nova Classical Academy is doing the right thing by refusing to play along with the gender conditioning of a 5-year-old child. By refusing to give in to the trans agenda, the school is actually protecting children and doing what is right by the child himself. They and other institutions need to be supported as they face the inevitable hostility that comes from the transgender community in its quest to impose a sick and cruel agenda on the rest of society.