A Virginia elementary school special education teacher said at a recent school board meeting that her autistic students “may experience gender queerness more than other students.”
Carly Hughes, who works in the Multi-Intervention Program for Students with Autism (MIPA) at Long Branch Elementary School in Virginia, attended the Arlington County school board meeting on October 13 to voice her opposition to Governor Glenn Youngkin’s proposed new policies pertaining to trans-identified students.
‘Queer’ teacher at Long Branch Elementary in Arlington finds autistic students “experience gender queerness more than other students.”
They’re not gender queer, Carly, and they’re not trans.
Parents, this teacher might be nice as pie, but she’s a danger to your kids. pic.twitter.com/dZxxda2UhA
— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) October 18, 2022
“The proposed model policy on trans students is just one of my many issues I have with Glenn Youngkin,” said Hughes, donning a t-shirt with the popular leftwing slogan “Say Gay” in rainbow letters and a black hat that says “trans people belong.”
According to Youngkin’s proposed policies, public schools will not be able to facilitate the social transition of a child without their parents’ written request. In addition, bathroom and locker room use is to be based on students’ sex, defined as the biological sex at birth. Student sports participation will also be sex-based, unless federal laws require otherwise.
The new policies are a reversal of the previous guidelines implemented under the former governor, Democrat Ralph Northam. Those rules, which define transgender as a student’s “self-identifying term,” ask schools to consider not disclosing a student’s gender identity to the parents “if a student is not ready or able to safely share” it with their family.
The self-described “queer” special education teacher told the school board attendees, “I found that autistic students, the population I work with, may experience gender queerness more than other students,” in a clip that went viral on Twitter on Tuesday.
Children and adolescents on the autism spectrum are disproportionately represented among the large, newly emerging cohort of children claiming to be transgender. Over the past 10 years, there have been at least nine studies connecting Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and transgender identities. Rates of autistic traits in these studies range from five percent to 54% among those with gender dysphoria, significantly higher than among the general population.
Some researchers believe the percentage of young girls with autism who believe they’re experiencing gender dysphoria is actually higher, and that many of these females go undiagnosed. Up until recently, autism was considered a “boy’s diagnosis,” affecting males-to-females by a ratio of 4:1. Experts now believe that girls’ autistic traits present differently, which may require a separate diagnostic criteria to detect.
A recent study published in Children in 2022 used a mathematical model to predict the true male-to-female ratio, which they estimated as being closer to 3:4. The study notes, “Eighty percent of females remain undiagnosed at age 18, which has serious consequences for the mental health of young women.”
Dr. Kenneth Zucker, a psychologist with 30 years of experience running the largest Canadian childhood gender clinic, believes that many children identifying as transgender may do so because they are on the autism spectrum. The psychologist credits this confusion to the autistic tendency to fixate or obsess over a “special interest.”
“It is possible that kids who have a tendency to get obsessed or fixated on something may latch on to gender,” says Zucker. “Just because kids are saying something doesn’t necessarily mean you accept it, or that it’s true, or that it could be in the best interests of the child.”
Hughes, a recent graduate from the University of Mary Washington, a liberal arts school in Virginia, used her education background as an appeal to authority.
“In May, I graduated with my Master’s in special education,” said Hughes. “I did my master’s study on ‘queer inclusion in public schools’ specifically because of the rise of anti-trans hate in public schools across this nation.”
“My study told me that including trans students in all spaces is best practice,” Hughes continued. “It also told me that there are trans kids of every age.”
A section on the Long Branch elementary school website is devoted to equity, and last month the elementary school held an Implicit Bias training for employees which, according to their Facebook page, was “1 of 3” sessions to be held this year.
A Public Comment Forum to support or oppose the proposed policy was opened September 26 and ends October 26, and has amassed nearly 60,000 submissions so far.