Trans Ravens: News Miner 23

Heidi Ganahl and the Transgender Raven

Okay, this piece by Andrew Kenney explains a lot about Heidi Ganahl’s preoccupations:

Woke ideology, [Ganahl] said, “looks like a play in Superior Elementary School about, you know, a raven that does a sex-change operation. It talks about a sex-change operation on a bird.”

She was referring to her own family’s experience at Superior, a school in Boulder County. In 2018, she and other parents learned via email that the school would be hosting a musical performance called “Raven’s True Self” about “a transgender raven . . .  and the importance of friendship and being seen for who you are on the inside.”

A recording of a performance of the play contains no references to a “sex change,” despite Ganahl’s recollection. Instead, the main character is misidentified as a girl raven until the other animals learn to see his true self. At one point, “Dr. Squirrel” revives the ailing bird with drops of water.

Superior school officials later described the performance as a response to the bullying of a transgender student. . . .

The school initially did not offer Superior Elementary parents a way to opt out of the performance, though it later allowed students to skip the event, according to court documents in a lawsuit filed in 2020 by another family.

I agree such a play seems out of place at an elementary school. But it’s also no big deal. I’ve had several discussions with my elementary-age child about transgenderism.

The blunt fact is that a lot of conservatives are deeply bigoted against trangender people, and, for the most part, they are so because of their religious faith. One parent told Kenney, “Our faith has binary. We believe in good and evil, we believe in male and female, and they’re teaching something that is not binary.”

Kenney tries hard to tie Ganahl’s concerns with transgenderism to an attempt to open a new campus of Ascent Classical, a charter school. Ascent already has campuses open elsewhere and, by law, may not discriminate against LGBTQ kids. So this is guilt-by-association.

Kenney also quotes from one of my write-ups about Ganahl’s obsession with “furries,” kids who dress up in cat ears and the like. I will note that additional evidence came to light as I wrote about this issue. Here are all of my related comments, in order published:

Ganahl's Cat Claims Open the Furry Rabbit Hole (September 27)
Fit of Furry Ensnares Ganahl’s Campaign (October 4)
News Miner 19 (October 5)
Scapegoating the Furries (October 9)
News Miner 20 (October 16)
News Miner 21 (October 19)

Quick Takes

Who Watches the Watchers? “An investigation by The Gazette found dozens of cases of incompetent, inaccurate and biased custody evaluations by court-appointed evaluators, several of whom put children at serious, even life-threatening risk,” write Chris Osher and Julia Cardi. See also their related article.

Aadland: Kyle Clark lays into Erik Aadland over the election. Damn. Aadland does say “Biden is the legitimate president.” That’s something. But it does not, in my view, compensate for his earlier extremely irresponsible rhetoric about the election.

Epps: Colorado Public Radio claimed that Denver Police “settled” a lawsuit involving soon-to-be state representative Elisabeth Epps. Epps furiously responded that the suit went to a jury, it wasn’t settled. CPR corrected the story and apologized to Epps.

Anderson: Shaun Boyd defended Pam Anderson against a bullshit attack ad. As I Tweeted, this report along with Clark’s report mentioned above “are two clear examples in Colorado journalism in which ‘taking a side’ is compatible with truth-oriented objectivity.”

Colorado: “Why can’t you just speak English” here in . . . Colorado? Jeremy Jojola has the answer: “Colorado means ‘colored red’ in Spanish. Welcome to a land that has been home to Native and Spanish languages long before you began using English to gripe on Twitter. ¡Bienvenidos! This lesson is free.”

Lee: AP: “A Colorado judge has dismissed a felony charge against Democratic state Sen. Pete Lee alleging the lawmaker voted outside the district he lives in and represents.”

Abortion: Terrance Carroll writes, “I’m against the use of state power to impose the religious beliefs of one group on others.”

Even More on Furries: The Star Tribune writes, “People may be more inclined to believe the far-fetched if those who share their political beliefs are pushing the disinformation. If you believe the other side is immoral or evil, you’re already primed to accept assertions of dubious behavior. ‘Before you know it, you’ve got the kitty litter situation,’ [Michael] Shermer said.”

Elections: Disturbing news from the Post: “County clerks across Colorado say they’re bracing for a surge of highly motivated election deniers working as poll watchers or election judges in the November midterms — part of a nationwide attempt to manufacture evidence of election fraud.”

More Elections: Disturbing news from Erik Maulbetsch: “Extremist group/militia FEC United is encouraging ballot box parties for ‘crime deterrence.’” More.

Vaccines: “GOP #cogov candidate @heidiganahl’s stand against an imagined CDC vaccine mandate for children (there isn’t one) is drawing praise from @PamLongCO, an anti-vaccine advocate and writer for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s anti-vax publication The Defender,” reports Kyle Clark.” I wrote about Ganahl’s remarks last time.

Image: Stephen C. Dickson