By Aaron Warner

It has recently been brought to my attention that two of the Hartford Middle School teachers at the Hartford Middle School are making a trans-positive identity book mandatory reading for sixth graders.  Jennifer Boeri-Boyce, who teaches Social Studies and Erin Topolewski, the English Language Arts teacher are requiring students to read “The Other Boy” by M.G. Hennessey.  

Here is the book’s description as found on the School Library Journal website:

“Gr 5–7—For the past three years, Shane, now in sixth grade, has been living with his mom in L.A., where he has good friends and a crush, is a star on the baseball team, and spends his free time working on his sci-fi graphic novel. However, Shane is dealing with issues in his private life that his schoolmates know nothing about: Shane was assigned female at birth, and his dad still acts like Shane is just going through a phase, and refuses to accept Shane’s gender identity.

“When a classmate outs Shane to the entire school, he has a lot more to worry about than baseball regionals. Shane’s voice rings true, and the writing is straightforward and accessible. School bullies, issues with parents, first crushes, and sports drama make this title relatable to a broad range of readers. Additionally, it’s refreshing to read a story with a young trans character already living life as his true gender and never questioning his identity. While some of the conflict and characterization lack depth and the ending is a little too pat, the book still has wide appeal. The selected pages of Shane’s graphic novel, interspersed between chapters, are a fun addition, and readers will enjoy the parallels to Shane’s real-life drama.”

The novel includes passages suggesting to children that hating one’s body to the point of wanting to mutilate it might be normal for some of them.

““My body felt like a traitor. I hated everything about it. I suddenly understood why some of the kids in the support group hurt themselves; they were trying to carve off the pieces that didn’t belong.” 

Of course the setting is Los Angeles where transitioning your child is like winning an Oscar.  Hollywood celebrities are now more likely to have a trans child than not by the latest release of photographs on the cover of magazines at the grocery store.  The narcissism inherent in Hollywood doesn’t stop at personal fame and the desperate clinging to one’s youth and beauty it must include the right (re: left) political perspective including publicly declaring allegiance to the cult of sex-positivity.  For those still unclear on the sex-positivity movement it’s yet another euphemism for the LGBTQ line of thinking where one’s sexual identity is the very core of their being, and this journey to understanding one’s “true gender” as the book claims, starts in early childhood.  No joke, there are parents who believe their toddler is telling them they are not their God-given sex.  

In order for this cult to sustain itself, as with any cult, it must find ways to legitimize its claims.  In the case of trans-identity it’s been the mad rush to re-designate it from a severe mental illness, as it was recognized in the first four volumes of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, to the mollified status of “dysphoria”.   Adding to the practice of legitimizing are the publication of periodicals, books, graphic novels, podcasts  – all forms of media – that will push out the new narrative along with validation from celebrities who are the designees for leading culture.  This process is otherwise known as propagandizing. 

You’ll also notice the book makes Shane the hero on the baseball team, which means this isn’t just a fiction book, but fantasy.  It’s a seductive lie because sixth graders are still naïve enough to believe that a girl transitioning to a boy might somehow be able to compete with them. Reality reveals otherwise.  The trophy cases for men transitioning to women is overflowing with hardware, however the cases are empty when the transition is reversed, at least beyond middle school.  

Also employed by the author is the ever-present trope that the liberal minded mom is empowering the child while the implicitly bigoted and ignorant dad is the unloving parent who refuses to accept his own child.  

“I always look more feminine when I’m at Dad’s.” 

This is a biological girl lamenting her femininity while at her father’s house as if it’s somehow his fault.  This type of blame-shifting thinking is transferred to the child in this book when the reality is adults are the ones who have fostered transgenderism beginning with “sexologists” like Magnus Herschfeld and John Money.  

The ultimate irony is the mom and social engineers are the ones refusing to accept the child as she was born and are now manipulating and forcing an irrevocable change onto an impressionable youth who, like so many real life stories, is likely to regret the decision and be unable to undo it.  None of the adults who facilitate this façade will suffer the consequences.  They will all get their dopamine hit for virtue signaling, cult grooming and making tens of thousands off the child who will no doubt live a life wracked with added mental dysphoria.  How do we know this?   Thousands of “de-transitioners” are lining up to file lawsuits against school districts and hospitals for recompense over the manipulation and abuse at the hands of the “care” providers.  

Chloe Cole is perhaps the most famous of these.  Young Miss Cole toured the U.S. telling her story even visiting Dartmouth back in 2022.  Her story his gut wrenching but it begins with the subtle story-telling one finds in these books.  

As if it’s some vague notion of personal discomfort with one’s physical appearance can only be cured by surgically removing one’s functional sex organs and replacing them with crude reconstructions that require a lifetime of maintenance.  Folded into (no pun intended) this lifelong commitment is the cumulative value to all those participating in this sanctioned mutilation stand to make an estimated $1,000,000 per transitioner.  So if you think this is about “healthcare” and not money there is another designation in the DSM you might want to review called “delusional thinking”.  

One such dissatisfied soul reached out to the late Charlie Kirk at an event.  She knew she was dissatisfied with the steady push by others to turn her into a male and asked for his advice.  The answers he gave her were thoughtful, tender, and genuinely empowering to get help from those who will support her in loving herself and loving her body as it is and not waging war on it because of clearly disordered thinking. 

However these teachers at Hartford likely are not considering or perhaps even aware the de-transition movement is now greater than the trans craze of the last few years.  During COVID lockdown is when the intense push to transition kids via the internet took place.  Highly coordinated online silos filled with groomers craftily took advantage of children disenchanted by the darkness of the pandemic.  Now that society has returned to mostly normal and open, where youth can see the painful backlash of their peers who are regretting their life altering decision, the trans and non-binary movement is in a statistical free fall.  

This proves the movement was based on emotional manipulation and social pressure and was never about children discovering “their true self”.  The surreptitious attempt by activist teachers in Hartford to continue this life-altering movement says more about their true agenda which is not to educate your children but further indoctrinate them into the cult of sexual identity. 

Conversely the number of trans school shooters has gone up dramatically over that same time.  The Western Journal reports nearly 40% of assailants since 2020 identified or suspected to have identified as trans or trans allied in their motivation.  This is further proof the cult ideology is a dangerous game for students and teachers.  

The author is a VDC columnist and Upper Valley regional reporter. He lives in Hartford, VT where he owns two award-winning small businesses. He is a graduate of Leadership Upper Valley class of 2010.