06/15/2023
For Immediate Release: Q Youth Resources' statement to Central Kitsap School District Regarding Anti-LGBTQ Harassment at Klahoywa Secondary School:
I am contacting you today on behalf of QYR to express our immediate concern for the safety of LGBTQ youth at Klahowya Secondary School and other CKSD schools. We have had multiple KSS and CKSD parents, students, and staff reach out with safety concerns, and we are compelled to advocate to you on their behalf. I want to preface this message by stating that I have been in contact with CKSD admin and while I appreciate their responses to some of our concerns, it is the response to the instigating event that has created an atmosphere of anti-LGBTQ harassment at KSS that prompts this email today.
Starting June 1st, Moms 4 Liberty has organized the creation and dissemination of nearly 100 t-shirts that display the message “there are only two genders” for their children to wear in CKSD schools. This action intentionally aligns with Pride Month. The organizing group, Moms 4 Liberty, has now been designated as an extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Southern Poverty Law Center tracks extremist hate groups operating in the United States. With this designation, Moms 4 Liberty joins other designated hate groups such as the white nationalist Patriot Front and Ku Klux Klan.
There is only one purpose to these shirts-- to degrade and demean transgender and gender diverse students. This specifically violates KSS dress code, CKSD School Board Policy 3205 covering gender-based harassment, and OSPI's directives around the harassment and bullying that targets students based on their gender identity, and Washington State law.
The district has so far defended the presence of these shirts under student’s "first amendment rights.” This defense comes directly from the messages the district has received from Moms for Liberty. Student’s speech is often limited in order to ensure a safe, productive learning environment. This is why your current dress, conduct, and board policies prohibit language that is harassing, violent, and targeted towards a particular group of students.
This situation is no different than if the Proud Boys, another federally recognized hate group, disseminated shirts to CKSD students proclaiming "White is Right" to protest Black Lives Matter or Black History Month. With your choice to not apply dress code, board policy, and OSPI directives only to LGBTQ issues, CKSD is allowing a designated hate group to influence your learning environment. This is placing your LGBTQ students in immediate danger.
Allowing these shirts to remain on campus with the sole purpose of demeaning and degrading transgender and non-binary or otherwise gender-diverse students has created an atmosphere of hostility and harassment of LGBTQ students, families, and staff. This has escalated to the Pride Flag on display at KSS being torn down and used to harass LGBTQ students on the bus ride home with threats of burning and other violence.
As of this email, KSS teachers have been directed to not enforce the school and district established policies when it comes to these t-shirts only. CKSD is telling their staff that the dress code, student conduct, and board policies that all currently prohibit gender-based, targeted, and demeaning messaging don’t apply this time. This sends the clear message that CKSD’s current policies protecting students from harassment, bullying, and degradation don’t apply fully to LGBTQ+ students.
While this began with allowing students to wear t-shirts with hateful messaging targeting a protected group of students, it has quickly escalated into an atmosphere of anti-LGBTQ harassment that is an immediate threat to the safety and wellbeing of CKSD's LGBTQ students, staff, and families.
We ask that the district take an immediate stand by following your already established dress code, conduct, and board policies that clearly demonstrate these shirts shouldn’t be allowed to be worn by students on campus. CKSD must come out with a strong, public message condemning anti-LGBTQ harassment that is taking place at CKSD schools, and ensure the safety of CKSD's LGBTQ students, staff, and families immediately.
