Burlington gender ID education investigation continues

By Guy Page

The Vermont-raised, nationally-known, former-Democrat blogger who last week gave Fox News host Laura Ingraham footage and information of a now-banned Burlington School District video told WVMT on Monday morning she’s not finished digging into the district’s gender identity education program.

“Burlington teachers, we’re coming for your emails,” Actively Unwoke blogger Karlyn Borysenko told WVMT Morning Drive host Kurt Wright this morning. She said she and her team of volunteers will “dump a mountain of FOIA requests” on not only Burlington, but also Essex-Westford school district teachers and officials. The Freedom of Information Act, under both federal law and Vermont’s Public Records Act, requires disclosure upon request of all work-related emails and other communications records of public employees.

Burlington transgender activists and legislators, left, are pushing back with rallies and accusations against the national expose of the city school district’s aggressive gender ID education program by blogger Karlyn Borysenko, right.

Two weeks ago today, Borysenko published a post provocatively headlined “The most woke school district in America is grooming children live on the internet.” On Morning Drive today, she backed up both claims. As part of her painstaking research into public school gender identity education, she has studied the programs in such ‘woke’ cities as Seattle and Portland, among others. Hands-down Burlington leads the nation in aggressive ‘grooming’ of young children towards a non-traditional gender identity, she said.

Grooming is an explosive term that carries connotations of preparing a child for personal sexual exploitation. Supporters of the Burlington School District and critics of Borysenko and Ingraham are outraged at the suggestion that any educators are ‘grooming’ children for sexual use by themselves or others. Today, on Morning Drive, she explained her use of the word includes having educators press young children to change their views and behaviors about gender identity – something that Edmunds Middle School assistant principal was heard to do on the video.

Who is Karlyn Borysenko? She grew up in Williamstown, VT and graduated from Williamstown High School, where (she told Wright this morning) she was taught Martin Luther King’s ethic that racial equality means judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. She has an MBA and a PhD in psychology, specializing in industrial/organizational psychology. Now living and working in New Hampshire, Borysenko is a consulting organizational psychologist, writer and speaker.

She also experienced a dramatic conversion to the political message of President Donald Trump.

“Most people know me as a (now former) Democrat of 20 years who went to a Trump rally,” Borysenko says on her website. “The article I wrote about my experience went viral and garnered 3 million views in the first week. I was featured by Fox News, Glenn Beck, Dennis Prager, and on dozens of radio shows, podcasts, and YouTube videos.

“That’s when my life changed, and I knew I wanted to be a part of the conversation of bridging the divide to help people who are open to it take steps back towards one another.”

In response to Borysenko’s expose and criticism of H679, allowing children of any age to take puberty blockers and gender-altering drugs without parental permission, the Burlington School District removed their Feb. 8 gender ID webinar from public view. School officials reported social media comments – none threatening – to Burlington police.

Also, Vermont supporters of gender ID education have criticized their opponents and organized rallies. For example, Burlington Progressive lawmakers Reps. Tiff Bluemle and Gabrielle Stebbins likened opposition to H679 to the murder of a transgender adult in Morristown last week.

“Over the last week, the VT GOP has centered anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in their fundraising efforts taking out ads in social media targeting specific legislators who have supported gender-affirming care for LGBTQ+ youth,” the two legislators wrote in a Front Porch Forum announcement of a rally Saturday. “Fern Feather’s murder, and these recent political attacks have contributed to widespread fear and anxiety within our trans and LGBTQ+ community.”

Their announcement drew a response from Tom Licata of Burlington, a supporter of traditional education and 2020 candidate for the House seat won by Bluemle and Stebbins.

“Folks just don’t want their children sexualized or politicized in schools or elsewhere. Parents – not government schools -are sovereign over their children’s lives,” Licata said in an email exchange with Bluemle.

Guy Page is publisher of the Vermont Daily Chronicle. Reprinted with permission.

7 thoughts on “Burlington gender ID education investigation continues

  1. A government of the people is an impossibility when the government shapes the thinking of citizens. How can it be of the people when the people are essentially a product of the government? The mind is very moldable and is almost entirely shaped by what it is fed, whether by outside forces or by choice.

  2. I get it that people who aren’t the standard sex shouldn’t be discriminated against: we should leave them to their own personal choices. But to shove gender fluidity down children’s throats is going too far. Children simply don’t have enough life experience to make decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives, and it’s far too easy for them to mistake general dysphoria over growing up to specific gender dysphoria, encouraged by their “enlightened” educators who should know better than to prey on children in this way.

    Shame on those educators! Using confusion over growing up, which has affected and will affect every single one of us, and bending it to their own warped ideology. Have they no decency?

  3. Last November 2021, the Vermont Agency of Education issued the assessment test scores for Math, English and Science proficiency as required by federal law.

    The tests were taken in 2020- 2021 and results for all grades and all subjects were very poor for all grade levels. The proficiency (passing scores) based on school grade levels for Math ranged from 28 to 42%, English scores ranged from 43 – 54% and Science scores ranged from 35 – 42%…….Failing scores. The scores for historically marginalized groups are substantially lower according the Department of Education’s report.

    https://education.vermont.gov/sites/aoe/files/documents/edu-fact-sheet-smarter-balanced-results-2021.pdf

    While Vermont students are failing in the fundamental subjects needed to function in an ever more competitive society, energy and resources are being funneled into gender identification efforts distracting students and lessening opportunities for students to learn much needed educational basics.

    Where are the adults when it comes to the functioning of our educational system and the multi-millions of dollars required annually to keep the system afloat?……Parents should be outraged with what is occurring in our schools.

  4. How about we suggest saving sex for marriage? Radical thought.

    There is a big difference between love, sex and lust. Teaching a kid to masturbate in order to relieve stress gives them no life skills for dealing with the problem and on top of that makes them a terrible lover for when and if they do get married.

    We are teaching the kids how to be hedonistic, man needs no assistance in this area, quite the opposite.

  5. Let’s hope this snowball keeps rolling and getting bigger. Between this, CRT and RP, Burlington schools are circling the drain.

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