The parents of a young girl in Salinas, California, claim school staff encouraged their daughter to identify as first bisexual and then gender-fluid, according to Breitbart.
"You took away my ability to parent my child!" mother Jessica Konen told the Spreckels Union School District school board on Thursday.
Konen alleged that two years ago, school staff at Buena Vista Middle School in the SUSD encouraged her daughter, aged 12, to join a lunchtime "Equality Club" where they nudged her into questioning her sexual preferences and gender identity.
The mother told the Epoch Times during an interview that in sixth grade, her daughter informed her she might be bisexual, and by the seventh grade, she was identifying as "trans fluid," a teacher informed her during a meeting.
"I sat across the table, and I was crying," she told the outlet. "I was very confused. … I was very upset. I was blindsided — completely blindsided."
Konen said the teacher accused her of not being "emotionally supportive" of her daughter's new gender identity.
"I felt she completely coached my child," Konen said.
Several days after a meeting with the schoolteacher, Konen reported that a Child Protective Services complaint had been filed against her. Ultimately, the agency dropped the case.
Konen has since removed her daughter from the SUSD school. According to the Times report, her daughter, now 14, is at a new school, identifying as a female.
This is not the first time SUSD has allegedly been involved in controversial gender and sexuality coaching.
In November, author and journalist Abigail Shrier revealed leaked documents that showed teachers from the same Buena Vista school touting their "best practices for subverting parents, conservative communities, and school principals on issues of gender identity and sexual orientation" during a California Teachers Association meeting a month prior.
SUSD officials responded to Shrier's report by saying that "appropriate steps" were being taken regarding the "teachers involved" at the October CTA meeting.
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