Moms 4 Liberty Faces Huge Opposition at Danville Board Meeting
As the sun set on August 15, opposing parties gathered in the parking lot of the San Ramon Valley School District Board Meeting to leave public comment regarding LGBTQ resolutions that the board was set to vote on. Local alt-right political candidates and organizations funneled hate filled public comment into the public record regarding resolutions 21 & 26, Day Of Silence & Pride Month respectively. In response to the expected Moms 4 Liberty presence in San Ramon & Danville, a chapter of Stop Moms 4 Liberty has since formed and made their first public display of support for LGBTQ students at the board meeting.
For much of the 2022-2023 school year, the SRVUSD has been subject to dehumanizing public comment aimed at teachers and students by right wing community members with hopes to ban all lgbtq support for students. For the LGBTQ students, allies, staff, & teachers, this show of support from Stop Moms 4 Liberty was a welcomed change.
At the end of June, Moms 4 Liberty held a meeting in Sycamore Valley Park. At this meeting, some spectators claim to have received a flyer at the meeting that took aim at Sycamore Elementary Principle Patricia Kawahara. The flyer also takes aim at Patricia Kawahara’s middle school aged child by outing them and exposing their gender identity to the greater community. At the end of the flyer, they pushed for a large showing at the August 15th board meeting where they would plan to mislead the public into believing that they are a “parents rights” group advocating on behalf of our youth.
There were so many public comments that when they were all brought to the board, that they could only get through 10 before going on with the rest of the meeting due to the importance of the meetings contents. After the regularly scheduled agenda items were handled, public comment was allowed to resume where almost 30 more speakers were given the chance to share their comments, all at 3 minutes each.
“There’s a push for parent rights to be recognized, however California already has one of the strongest codifications for parent rights in the United States. ” said Lisa Gross in response to the Moms4Liberty camp claiming that parental rights are coming undone. Ace Christman, a 35 year old trans man who’s mom has taught in the district for 20 years, spilled the most tea of all: cold hard data. “90% of people that detransition do so because they are not supported by their parents, by their schools, by their jobs, & by their community. They know who they are but they can’t be who they are because of uneducated hateful people.” Said Christman during a passionate public comment that erupted the rooms into applause. “ 5% of detransitioners detransition because it isn’t right for them. That is .04% of all trans people.” he continued before offering the final mic-drop statement. “on the other hand, 40% to 50% of marriages fail. Some studies say that anywhere from 17% to 20% of parents regret having kids. But nobody is stopping them. Just support your kids.”
Among the speakers was a familiar right wing presence, Mike Arata, who always brings signs to aim at the camera calling teachers out by name & dehumanizing them for queer representation in the classroom. Along with teachers, also names & shames books he wishes to be banned. The books he named and shamed in his most recent poster are Lawn Boy by Johnathan Evison, Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson, and Let’s Talk About It by Erika Moen. Arata seemingly attends every board meeting dehumanizes teaching staff regularly by name on the public record. Laura Finco, president of the SRV Educators Association spoke as part of a board report at the meeting and talked about teachers leaving the field because the love for teaching is no longer worth the emotional stress that comes with being attacked on the political battlefield. This seemed to have no effect on Arata, who went up to dehumanize teachers 3 separate times. Bob Allen, a math teacher at Cal High School in San Ramon, expressed a bit of reality in his public comment. “This is the first district that I felt I am able to be out in” he began his public comment. “I was questioning myself in 1978. There were no books in the library, there were no Pride flags, there was nothing & yet I am still out as a gay man.” He went on to say.
LGBTQ folx of all ages waited hours to gave public comment in support of resolutions 21 & 26 (Day of Silence & Pride Month), the same resolutions opposed by Moms4Liberty’s local chapter. Danielle Solito Bracken, organizing lead for the Contra Costa County chapter of Moms4Liberty, spoke on the day of silence. She claimed that by not participating in the student lead day of silence, it segregated the student body. By the end of the meeting, the right wing speakers had all but disappeared, leaving a different energy in the room for the LGBTQ+ speakers & their allies to take the stage.
The board voted unanimously to approve all of the resolutions, including Pride Month & Day of Silence. The agenda item passed unanimously 5-0.
