By Michael Bielawski
A young student who attends a Christian independent school is being told by Hartford Memorial Middle School that she is not welcome to play soccer on their team because in the past her school has refused to play games with a team that had a transgender athlete.
The student is 12-year-old Annabella Gordon, she attends the Mid Vermont Christian School in Quechee. For years she’s been allowed to play on the local Hartford team because her school doesn’t have a soccer program.
Now she is being told by the school that she is not welcome to join. What happened in February of this year, The Vermont Principal’s Association condemned the decision by MVC to forfeit a basketball game with Long Trail School, another small independent school that included a transgender biological male on its team.
“In other words, guilt by association,” wrote columnist Jim Kenyon in the September 9 Valley News, the daily newspaper for Windsor County.
The VPA also banned the school from further participation in the leagues that they run. They argue that the school is violating their policy on gender identity which includes prohibition of discrimination “based on a student’s actual or perceived sex and gender.” The VPA also says that state law further affirms this policy.
Now Gordon’s family is being told she is not allowed to participate on the soccer team. According to a report by the Valley News, she’s used the program not just as recreation but to reconnect with old friends that they no longer see.
VDC reached out to the VPA to ask them if their policy to force acceptance of transgender athletes violates the Compelled Speech Doctrine of the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So far the VPA has not yet responded.
The Christian School’s comments
Head of Mid Vermont Christian School Vicky Fogg told the Valley News back in February that, “we believe playing against an opponent with a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players.”
She also said that the VPA’s decision to ban them from their leagues, “does nothing to deal with the very real issue of safety and fairness facing women’s sports.”
Not all public for forced transgenderism
Not everyone in the public is going along with the policy of forcing transgenderism into Vermont sports. In a Facebook post in March, Kathi Tarrant of Waterbury wrote, “Kudos to those who refuse to bend a knee to the gender-benders.”
Former candidate for Vermont GOP state chair Jim Sexton posted, “These Girls, their Coaches and Parents have shown courage. In the face of hate they said, No More.”
Not the first transgender controversy in Vermont
This is not the first transgender controversy in Vermont sports recently. A high school volleyball team was banned from its own locker room over a transgender dispute last year. The school tried to enforce that a biological male be allowed to change in the girls’ locker room.
The school was sued by one of the parents of a girl on the team and subsequently, the school was forced to pay one family $40,000 in damages and another $85,000 to lawyers. The school had its insurance company pay out the money and then they refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
Earlier this year de-transitioner Walt Heyer featured speaker at Vergennes. He talked about the devastating and permanent effects of “gender affirmation” surgeries and more, according to coverage by VDC.
The author is a reporter for the Vermont Daily Chronicle
Categories: Education
They want us fighting. They want division. They do not want, peace, truth nor love.
This is their kryptonite.
Romans tried cancel culture, how’d that work out for them?
Loves wins all the time.
Fuel love.
These are the issues society will face because of the new definition of gender. All laws and policies around Gender discrimination were written when woman and men were biologically defined and understood relative to biological outcomes. These United Nations activist, foot soldiers know this and intentionally abuse these laws and policies to disemtranchise biological woman in the name of anti discrimination and human rights. What about the human rights of girls and young women? According to the United Nations Council on Human Rights, trans rights supercede all other rights to include religious rights. The outcome discussed in this article proves that our new overloads are both vengeful and cruel. They don’t care if their objectives hurt children and young adults. They relish in the mystery of the privileged class.
Explaining Postmodernism, by Stephen Hicks, gives an excellent roadmap as to what the Left is doing to change language and epistemology. I highly recommend reading it.
Hartford School should come down off of their high horse! This little girl did not make the decision of the Christian school that she goes to, which they had a right to because of their beliefs. It is time Hartford School gets sewed also for discrimnation and abuse of a minor! They should be ashamed and sufer the consequences! Thank you legislators for this mess you’ve created.
Betty, this is not about who made the decision. This is about sending a message to the rest of us. Comply or suffer the consequences.
Actually Jeff, it is and you should know better being from Rutland. MSJ kids can’t go play sports at Rutland but are welcome to attend Rutland.
In time, Hartford School and the rest of the people and organizations, whether public or private who are bowing down to the tyrannical transgender activists will realize they’re in the wrong. The tide is turning. Truth always wins in the end.
This is petty retaliation, and hopefully will be rectified by litigation if necessary.
Poor reporting. The “school” did not champion the decision to bar Miss. Gordon. Highly likely, the move is the agenda of 1 or 2, under achieving, zealots. The rest went along with it least they be labeled transphobes, or whatever word salad they choose to use. Which could compromise their lousy career.
Michael Bielawski, do your homework. Let’s hold this administrator(?) up to the light for all to see. Do not let them hide behind any element of anonymity.
This is a lawsuit that can and should happen.
Typical liberal b.s. we include everyone unless you don’t pander to the left.
The Tran mafia is brutal, they won’t stop until all women are replaced by men dressed up as women
So much ‘education’ so little common sense and logic. Just a bunch of liberal, woke, fad chasers, unable to have independent thought or direction. To be clear, a biological man is a man, a biological woman is a woman. Most people will not fall for the false logic that it is okay for a man to compete as a woman when he is not a woman but declares he is. Only people that hold a deed to the Brooklyn bridge thinks a man can be a woman. Smarten up SCHLEMIELS.
A man is a man and a woman is a woman. Adding the biological to it implies there is another option.
“Trans women” are men. Therefore there is no such thing as a ”trans woman”. Rather, a man pretending to be a woman.
However, don’t underestimate the strength of the Trans mafia. The fact that our schools are caving to them, is an indication of their strength. It will take parents rising together to stand up against it, lawsuits, and inserting more conservative voices into the local and state decision making groups. Are you willing to engage? or will you let your silence speak lethargy for you?
The monies the community has collected to invest in an educated citizenry is spent on institutions not on students. As long as we remain in bondage to these failed public school organizations our difficulties will continue to fester. These problems would no longer plague us if the resources were going directly to students, that is families educating their kids. Our constitution intended to enshrine individual liberty…to protect it from governmental interference. Has it not begun to dawn on us that this institutional schooling arrangement is an unconscionable intrusion on our personal space? Should education ones kids be relinquished to schooling organizations we haven’t actually chosen? Some how this feels like being required to eat only at McDonalds. Lord, how did we do this to ourselves? Give us our money back. We’ll educate our kids.
Couldn’t agree more. We did it to ourselves by not imposing term limits on the parasites and scoundrels who infest Congress. They lie, cheat and steal and pit us one against the other for votes in order to maintain their power and graft. As long as these do-no-gooders remain unchecked, nothing will change. There are too may foolish and selfish citizens who are only too eager to agree they deserve the spoils of others’ labor.
Gender is made up nonsense with no scientific backing. If a boy wants to pretend to be a girl, fine. He’s still a boy and anyone saying otherwise is lying to him and most definitely adding to
his mental issues. The vpa and vt legislature should be ashamed of what they’ve done to the young girls of our state. Evil disguised as inclusion.
Get your ammo, we’re under attack
Fascists settle for nothing less than total submission and compliance.
Want to play soccer? Go to Hartford. Why should I have to subsidize a private school?
As long as school choice has been around, this is the policy. Go to Mount Saint Joseph and want to play hockey even though they don’t offer it? Go to Rutland or don’t play. Want an AP class that’s not offered in your district? Move. That’s what Americans did until the 70’s when they decided it was easier to whine.
No one is forcing their kid to go to Mid-Vermont, if they want soccer, make a team. Maybe you can play the homeschool kids. There is more to school than academics and this is what happens when you want to make the rules. Womp. womp
You don’t get the point. It was fine for the kid to play soccer in the public school until someone expressed their own beliefs that didn’t gibe with the fascist orthodoxy. And by the way, the parents of the children attending Mid-Vermont pay property taxes, no? Methinks it is YOU who wants to make the rules.
Robert, I work in a school, and I know the rules much better than you, I can assure you. If the student goes to Hartford, they can have whatever beliefs they want AND play soccer.
I love your property tax rationale because 1) we don’t know if that kids parents pay Hartford property taxes. How dumb. What if they rent? They don’t pay property taxes. Do those people have a say? Does paying property taxes guarantee you a spot on the team? Sounds like Socialism to me.
Me thinks it’s you that doesn’t want to follow the rules or even knows what they are. Try again
I hope you aren’t a teacher because obviously cause and effect are lost on you.
If you rent in an area part of your rent money goes towards the taxes that are paid so your point is moot.
The last person talking in the third person about themselves that I took seriously was captain caveman and I was 5.
Bottom line is that it was ok for this to happen prior to this which makes it retaliation and the sad part is that it’s a little girl that loses out not the immensely oppressive activists we call the education system. A system that is funded by homeowners (and vicariously tenants) that are forced (yes with guns) to pay hundreds of dollars a month to support this communist ideology.
Brian, try to keep up, I was talking tongue in cheek like how Robert spoke to me. Paying taxes doesn’t allow you to make policy, you know that unless you are a dolt or insincere. What this decision that has been the current policy of schools for two decades has to do with Communism makes me think that maybe you should go back to school. I’ll keep it simple. Want to play soccer at Hartford? Go to Hartford. My kids went to Catholic school that didn’t offer the sports that they wanted and this is what I was told by the Athletic Director. I didn’t cry fascism or whatever word of the day, I found alternative activities for my kids. Its called choice for a reason.
Like a true leftist, Chris presents a tapestry of falsehoods and insults, deluding herself that whatever she imagines is fact. If she really is a teacher, that’s very troubling. What kind of monster gleefully wants to prevent a young girl from playing soccer just to accommodate her nasty party politics? Chris is confusing her arrogance and hubris with omniscience and omnipotence. And in true leftist style, she expects everyone to swallow her tripe without question. She needs to come back to the real world where people actually do their own thinking, and don’t need insincere despots to do it for them.
Robert, let me correct you again on a couple of things: First of all, I’m a guy, not that it matters but I can see why you don’t understand how gender works. Second, congratulations on your purchase of a thesaurus!! I can show you sometime how to use all those big words in the proper context anytime you want. At no point have I shown “arrogance or hubris” except for maybe when I explained to you how policy works. If you want to banter with me, I ask that you pay attention to the words that I use instead of creating a strawman for you to blow down based on your false assumptions of what I said or thought. If I was you and was in over my head, I’d make stuff up too!! I live in the real world where policies on school choice exist and if you don’t like them you can choose another school. Not like you’ve seen the inside of a school in the last 30 years though.
Public/government schools are hell-bent on defaming those who don’t agree with their trans agenda amongst others. Their goal is to destroy those who endure injustice rather than commit injustice.
If I read this article correctly and my assumptions are correct there is a good chance the Hartford school administration would be held liable. My assumptions are that the girl wanting to play is a biological female and resides in Hartford (or a town where public school students attend Hartford schools) and there is no girls soccer offered at hir school. Past practice has allowed her to play at Hartford. Does Hartford allow home schooled children to participate in their programs? If the answer to my question is yes then it’s blatant discrimination.
Start by disbanding the VPA
100%. Get rid of this festering narcissistic education-fad boil on the face of Vermont schooling. And a footnote….see if you can find how much their “executives” are paid (you can’t, and it’s a LOT)….and yes, you the taxpayer through your school budget (VPA dues) are footing the bill.
Meanwhile, the latest 2022 Vermont Agency of Education Performance Data was just released. Even with kids back in school post Covid, and higher than ever Statewide Property taxes, academic scores remain depressed. And, according to the data, the longer the kids have been going to school, i.e., the higher their grade level, the worse their relative grade level standing becomes.
https://vtdigger.org/2023/09/11/state-education-snapshot-a-mixed-bag-for-vermont-schools/
And the Vermont legislature wants all independent schools to operate the same way the public schools operate.
Go figure.
Can I get a show of hands of who comes here just for the crazy comment section?
This is classic “sins of the father…”. If the kid did wrong, ban the kid. If not, praise and encourage the kid. A school board or principal that bans a kid because they disagree with the parent’s religion is probably illegal. It would be another matter if they had a written policy that students attending a school not in keeping with the Vermont Principals’ Association edicts, could not participate in extra cirricular activities of a school that does. I suspect such a written policy doesn’t exist.
I agree that language in state law appears on the surface to have been broken, in that the kid is being banned due to the religious beliefs of the parents or another third party. – Got nothin’ to do with trans- anything.
This is just rude on the part of adults whose job it is to educate children and foster good community. But this is NO way to treat a kid.
The school boards and principals should be ashamed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!