It was just about 2 years ago that a fury ran through the Mesa Public Schools community over a controversial document that had gone largely unnoticed. That document is titled “Support Plan for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students” (also called “Guidelines for Support of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students.”) This plan allows a student who “consistently asserts at school a gender identity that is different from the student’s sex assigned at birth” to “participate in such activities and access such facilities consistent with their gender identity.” (Notice there’s no mention of a parental consent requirement.) This means restrooms, locker rooms, and showers.
There were multiple concerns raised to district leadership regarding the plan. How would non-transgender students be protected and affirmed when someone of the opposite biological sex is now allowed to enter their private spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers?
Numerous stories surfaced reporting females were not eating or drinking during the day to avoid having to use the restrooms, which they were now compelled to share with biological boys. Why was their “safe space” suddenly being violated? Why were they suddenly denied any expectation of privacy that matched their values? Why is there allowance in the document for the district to conceal a student’s transgender ideation and the district’s course of action affirming that ideation from their parents? Does this concealment violate ARS 1-601, Parents Rights Protected? Does this plan amount to providing behavioral health services as defined by the Arizona Behavioral Health Board? District leadership has successfully danced around providing clear, unambiguous answers to these questions. Why? What are they trying to hide from parents?
Even though Superintendent Dr. Andi Fourlis issued carefully worded, yet vague assurances to the contrary, there still remains within the plan/guidelines, allowances to NOT notify parents of their child’s transgender ideations as the district personnel provide “gender affirming care” for the child. A Public Records Request in early 2023 exposed a school counselor who was maintaining a spreadsheet of trans students along with notation as to whether parents knew.
This counselor was informing other staff how to avoid “outing” students to parents when speaking with them. The plan originally included a checkbox for the student to indicate if their parents were to be told.
Additionally, the plan expressly states that although changes to the student’s “preferred name/pronouns” may be made in district records, “parental consent is not required.”
At the governing board meeting on May 9, 2023, (begin at 3:35:25), board member Rachel Walden asked leadership, “What is the criteria for a student to be put on this Transgender Support Plan?”
District general counsel, Kasey King, responded “…there’s not specific criteria. It’s a student who’s requesting to use the restroom of their choice or to designate the pronouns or names of their choice. Also, as a tool to help the student and the school process how that information is going to be shared, IF AT ALL!”
It is student-initiated, primarily. Notice the complete absence of any parental involvement or even notification here.
Mrs. King continued, “I’m thinking at the younger grades, it might be a situation where the student simply starts asking for some accommodations. And as a way to make sure everybody is on the same page, their teacher or counselor might suggest they put it into writing.”
Are you following this? A student at the “younger grades” might ask for transgender accommodations from the school, and the teacher or counselor will suggest putting that student on a Transgender Support Plan! No parental consent or notification required. Mrs. Walden continued to press for transparency into what is occurring: “There’s nothing in these guidelines about notifying the parents. Isn’t there an opportunity for parental notification process in this?”
Mrs. King: “Parents always have the right under FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) to inspect and review their child’s education records.”
Mrs. Walden responded, “How would they know to ask that?”
Then-board President Marcie Hutchinson chimed in, “I guess they would ‘check in’ with the school.”
So, moms and dads, the only way to know for sure if your child has been placed on a Transgender Support Plan at Mesa Public Schools is for you to “check in with the school.” Since you don’t know the day that this might happen, I suggest you “check in” every day. Don’t expect to be notified otherwise. This is akin to child abuse in many people’s minds, yet the district refuses to make suitable provisions for parental notification, even to this day.
There is, in the old version of the plan/guidelines, a provision for parental notification “if changes are made in Synergy.” But apparently otherwise, mum’s the word.
OLD VERSION
The district has since revised the wording to make sure staff inform students “…that IF they request to change information in Synergy, parent(s) will be notified.”
When I see this, I read “SHHHH! Nobody has to know. Just don’t request a change in Synergy, and it’ll be our secret.”
The other concerning change explicitly states that parental/legal guardian consent “is not required” for a student to request district personnel provide gender affirming care to them.
These changes occurred in July 2024.
NEW VERSION
In a further assault on parental rights, the district has modified the guidelines from the verbiage previously, which stated, “Disclosing confidential student information to others may violate privacy laws” to a more intimidating and yet ambiguous, “Disclosing confidential student information to…parents…may violate privacy laws.”
Are teachers or counselors more likely or less likely to notify parents with this threat of violating privacy laws looming over their heads? I say less likely.
OLD VERSION
NEW VERSION
Then, as if that is not sufficient means for the district to usurp parental authority, Dr. Fourlis and Kacey King have now decided that the transgender plan/guidelines, which have for years resided on the Legal Services webpage on the district website, should be moved to a private internal location, away from public/parent access. When I asked the Governing Board President, Courtney Davis, why the district would make such a move as to lessen transparency, her answer allayed no concerns. “It was moved because it is a tool for school personnel to use to work with transgender students.”
It was always that Mrs. Davis! The only difference is, the public, and more importantly parents, no longer have access to documents describing what could potentially be happening to their child at Mesa Public Schools without their knowledge or consent.
After calling them out on this, Dr. Fourlis and Mrs. King have restored the document to the website, with an interesting change in title. They went from “Guidelines” to “Guidance.” Why that subtle change? For the record, contrary to the wording of Dr. Fourlis’ email, I did not request anything. I simply noted that hiding the document from public view was a “terrible decision.” Apparently, she agreed.
Interesting to note, since this document is considered a “guideline,” or now “guidance” and not a policy, it has not gone before the governing board for approval.
In an attempt to restore parental rights as defined under ARS 1-601, board member Sharon Benson proposed a policy at the April 8, 2025 board meeting which would require parental notification anytime a student indicated to a district employee any transgender ideations. During public comment (starts at 1:59:30), dozens of trans activists showed up in protest. Their overarching message was along the lines of, “If you ‘out’ students, they will be victims of abuse from their parents,” and “School personnel are much better equipped to deal with these issues than parents,” and “It’s not necessary for parents to know about their child’s mental distress.” All patently false statements.
Now, self-proclaimed members of the Communist and Socialist parties weighed in, trying to advance the narrative that children belong to the state, not parents (i.e. parents have no need to know about their child’s mental or emotional distress because the school is taking care of it). This is happening in Mesa folks! Are you paying attention?
It’s time to get involved. Attend district governing board meetings and make your voice heard. It’s critical that we stand for students and for parents.
Ed Steele is a husband, father, grandfather, and Mesa resident with a passion for helping the younger generation succeed in education.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes commended LGBT youth organization one•n•ten, which provides LGBT programs to minors as young as 11 years old.
“Awesome work being done by one•n•ten for inclusivity and creating a safe space for LGBTQ youth,” Mayes said on Twitter. “Thanks for showing us around yesterday!”
One•n•ten’s website says that it “envisions a world where all LGBTQ youth and young adults are embraced for who they are, actively engaged in their communities, and empowered to lead.”
The organization claims to enhance the lives of youth and young adults ages 11-24.
In August, the youth organization hosted a dance show fundraiser featuring a number of men in drag including “Navi Ho,” “Sasha Bratz,” and “Trey.”
Phoenix Children’s Hospital, which offers sterilizing so-called gender affirming care to minors, provides referrals to one•n•ten.
For a girl desiring to become a boy, gender-affirming procedures may include a testosterone prescription, hysterectomy, mastectomy, and metoidioplasty. For a boy, transitioning may entail an estrogen prescription, breast mammoplasty, orchiectomy, and vaginoplasty. Prepubescent children may be given puberty blockers.
These procedures aren’t as irreversible as first thought, evidence shows, and appear to cause adverse health effects.
One•n•ten programs include “SexFYI!,” a monthly sexual health program for ages 14 – 17 yo and 18 – 24 “that is inclusive of their body, gender identity and sexual orientation, including fluidity therein.”
Another program, “TGNC (Trans and Gender Non-Conforming) Wellness,” meets once a month to discuss “gender affirming health topics” such as “Pronouns Support,” “Hormones 101,” “Gender Affirming Surgeries 101,” “Gender Dysphoria Tips/Tools,” “How to Bind Safely, How to Tuck Safely,” “How to Select a LGBTQ Affirming Provider/Counselor,” and “Supporting a Healthy Transition.”
2gether in Color meets twice a month to “provide a space for LGBTQ youth who are People of Color (POC) to build connections based on lived experiences.”
The one•n•ten outdoor adventure camp, Camp OUTdoors, is a youth retreat for trans and non-binary youth. The motto is “Out of the Closet, Into the Woods.”
One•n•ten partners with public online charter school Arizona Virtual School to provide a middle school for LGBT-identifying students.
Mayes is the first LGBT person elected as Arizona attorney general. She has been vocal about her support for the LGBT movement.
“With LGBTQ Americans – and particularly transgender Americans – increasingly targeted by extremist legislation designed to restrict their rights, I am reaffirming my office’s commitment to protecting the civil rights of all Arizonans,” she said in a June news release. “Federal and state civil rights laws protect the right of LGTBQ Arizonans to live, work, and freely access public accommodations without being subjected to discrimination, harassment, intimidation, or threats of violence because of who they are. My office is fully committed to enforcing these laws.”
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
The president and CEO of Phoenix Children’s Hospital (PCH), Bob Meyer, was recently named among the top 100 most influential figures in health care.
The recognition from Modern Healthcare comes not long after widespread controversy over the hospital’s practice of “gender-affirming care,” a euphemism for medical and surgical procedures to transition genders. Modern Healthcare selected Meyer for not only accomplishing clinical, operational, and financial goals, but for accomplishing progressive ideals through implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
In a press release, Meyer credited his recognition to PCH’s creation of new programs and centers — among which is the controversial Gender Support Program.
“This is a reflection of the tireless commitment of our thousands of colleagues who have dedicated themselves to creating nationally recognized programs and centers of excellence that give our patients hope and healing,” said Meyer. “For more than 20 years, my primary focus has been to grow Phoenix Children’s into the Southwest’s premier pediatric health system, and we will continue to expand access to the top-ranked pediatric healthcare our children need and deserve.”
Meyer joined PCH in 2003. It was under Meyer that PCH established its Gender Support Program around 2015, one of the only comprehensive gender transition programs for minors in the state. The program spun off a support group for families whose children underwent gender transition procedures: the Gender Proud Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC).
Due to laws passed in recent years outlawing gender transition surgeries, PCH limits its gender transition offerings to hormonal and therapy treatments; PCH refers patients elsewhere for surgical procedures.
PCH’s Gender Support Program, previously the “Gender Management Program,” conducts consultations for families on gender transitioning, the use of puberty blockers, and the use of hormonal replacement drugs; readiness evaluations for puberty suppression and cross-sex hormonal replacement drug usage by mental health providers; a staff psychologist-led weekly support group, as well as other mental supports; community advocacy, from speaking engagements to advocate for gender transitioning to assisting patients with legal name and gender marker changes on identifying documents; and media appearances to further advocate for gender ideology.
The program is affiliated with Arizona Trans Youth and Parent Organization. PCH also offers minors access to “affirming” gender transition procedures through its Homeless Youth Outreach Program, which applies to minors who are not only homeless but those considered “at risk” for becoming homeless due to their gender dysphoria.
One of the resources offered by the program through PCH’s Emily Center Family Health Library is its now-deleted Gender Support Program Resource Guide. AZ Free News was able to access an archived version of the resource page.
Program resources included links to this American Psychological Association (APA) article on transgenderism, the now-defunct “genderbread” website, the now-defunct Australian-based “Trans 101” website on gender diversity, this APA fact sheet on non-binary gender identities, this Advocates for Youth page advocating for transgenderism in minors, this Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) pronoun guide.
The program also included video and website resources explaining the medical and surgical interventions for child gender transitions. PCH relied on resources from the Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of California at San Francisco’s Center of Excellence for Transgender Health resource to explain puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapies.
At the helm of the PCH program is its founder, Veenod Chulani. Their staff also includes pediatric endocrinologist Reeti Chawla, pediatric psychologist Joshua Kellison, and therapists Andrew Melina, Patrick Goodman, and Anne Marie Cardinal.
Last November, PCH hosted a session featuring Chulani and pediatrician Edith Allen to discuss PCH’s approach to treating gender dysphoria: “affirmative, culturally humble, trauma responsive, and strength-based.” PCH also focused on legislative and cultural efforts to resist gender transitions for minors.
Chulani has served as the medical director of quality of care and child safety for the Arizona chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics since 2016.
PCH projects that it will be the fourth-largest pediatric health care system nationally. PCH has just under 2,000 primary care providers and specialists covering just under 80 subspecialities. The hospital network opened a new campus in Glendale last month, preceded by an emergency center in Avondale over the summer.
The Gender Support Program is limited to PCH’s main campus.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
What does abortion have to do with the transgender movement? Nothing. But leftist activists are trying to convince us that abortion includes so-called “gender-affirming care.” Planned Parenthood and others have been pushing the message over social media and elsewhere in an effort to get people used to the idea. Why? One reason is that Planned Parenthood admits it is the second largest provider of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in the country. Read their own documentation here. And read these two reports that reveal the lucrative connection between the abortion giant and the transgender movement.
But it is also building their culture of death and destruction. I’m not saying they all see it that way, but pushing for abortion up to birth and the physical and psychological destruction of teens and even pre-teens in the name of “equality” is evil.
Polls show a large percentage of Americans do not support transitioning children with hormones or surgeries. So, leftists are hiding it in ballot measures and writing it into laws. In Ohio (potentially on the 2023 ballot) and Michigan (passed in 2022), the abortion ballot measures are so deceitfully written, it takes an attorney to figure out that both measures would allow abortion up to birth and include sex changes for children without parental consent. Read them here and here.
I will use italics below to indicate the language they use to underhandedly include sex changes, even for minors.
Ohio’s measure uses the term individual to covertly include children, and “reproductive decisions… not limited to … abortion” to covertly include sex-changes. If this was an abortion measure, it would just say that, and it wouldn’t include this kind of language that other states are defining as so-called “gender-affirming care” and courts will look to for direction.
Michigan’s constitutional amendment calls reproductive freedom a right and includes sterilization but is not limited to abortion. It, too, uses the term individual instead of woman or adult to ensure even children can get abortions or sex changes without parental consent.
Ohio’s and Michigan’s measures read a bit like Oregon’s proposed law and Colorado’s recently signed laws. Read here and here to see how the news media are using the Left’s language, and how the definition of reproductive freedom/decisions are being defined to include so-called “gender-affirming care.”
In very progressive states like New York, the abortion industry can get away with spelling it out in plain language, “… rights to an individual based on their ‘pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” It includes ethnicity, disability, age, and sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” The key words here say it all and will be used to set a standard for defining “reproductive healthcare/freedom” or “reproductive decision” throughout the country.
Maryland, same thing. The measure uses “reproductive freedom” instead of abortion, not just to make it sound better to voters, but so they can include sex changes. It calls “reproductive freedom” a fundamental right and says that right includes ending a pregnancy but is not limited to abortion. It goes on to ensure individuals (not just adults) have a right to reproductive liberty. So, although Maryland didn’t write it out as blatantly as New York, the language it did use allows the same thing: abortion to birth and sex changes, even for children.
Also, in states that are moderate or conservative, the abortion industry includes a limitation to abortion, but then takes it all back with near universal exemptions. More on that below.
So, when you see “reproductive healthcare/freedom/liberty,” “autonomy,” “reproductive decisions,” or “not limited to…” think sex-change drugs and surgeries. Because that’s how the courts will read it.
If the language uses “individual” or “person,” think no age limit; it includes children at any age for both abortion and sex changes.
If the abortion language sets a limit at viability or some other gestational age, check the exceptions! These ballot measures include exceptions for the “health of the mother.” Courts have interpreted that phrase to include emotional or mental health, and thereby allow abortions at any stage if the woman simply feels distressed. This has always been understood to mean no limits up to birth if the woman wants it, and the abortionist (self-servingly) signs off.
It’s there, but it takes a skilled attorney to connect the dots. The abortion industry knows most Americans do not support sex-change surgeries in state law, especially for children. And most Americans also do not support abortion up to birth. The industry knows these facts—that is exactly why they use crafty language to hide such extreme policies under vague wording and then redefine that language elsewhere.
One more thing: They will always cloak the measure in the nicest title:
“The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety”
“Equal Protection of Law Amendment”
“Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment”
Cathi Herrod is the president of Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), a nonprofit advocacy organization committed to promoting and defending the foundational principles of life, marriage and family, and religious freedom.
One of the things I appreciated most during my 30 years practicing medicine in community hospital ERs was that race just didn’t matter very much. ERs were open to all, and there was one standard of care for all races and classes.
That was then. Today a wave of intolerant wokeness is sweeping over our healthcare system, insisting that medicine is shot through with systemic racism and that research and education efforts must be diverted from medical science to “dismantling white supremacy” in medicine.
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) recently introduced their new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) guidelines, which require that all medical students be taught to practice “allyship” when “witnessing injustice such as ‘microaggressions.’”
Residents are told to use their more advanced knowledge of intersectionality in making clinical decisions. (Just when you thought that race-based medical protocols were in our dark past.). Faculty are charged with teaching how “systems of power, privilege, and oppression inform policies and practices.”
Medical schools are enthusiastically falling in line. Examples abound. In 2021, the Anti-Racism Task Force at Columbia and the Diversity Task Force at Indiana University, joined by the University of Texas and other medical schools, endorsed the recommended AAMC “competencies.” “Health equity” concepts have become a prominent component of medical education.
The University of North Carolina is one of many schools that not only teach “social justice” and “anti-racism,” but use medical school applications to ensure compliance with principles of diversity in race, gender, and sexual orientation. Applicants who demonstrate reluctance toward the DEI agenda are weeded out in the application process. Oregon Health and Science University faculty are among those evaluated on their “DEI, anti-racism, and social justice core competencies” in performance appraisals.
The University of Arizona is on board too, with some additional twists. All faculty and staff are required to complete six hours of DEI training and complete one Implicit Association Test annually (in spite of its dubious relevance). Each of 17 clinical departments is required to hold three DEI credit-eligible events per year. All departments also have designated “diversity champions” to oversee compliance and round up laggards.
This is bad, very bad news for medical education, future doctors, and patients. Even before DEI was a thing, the quality of medical instruction had been in decline. Incoming students are less qualified and fail rates on board exams are climbing, partly because some students from groups that have been historically underserved are either allowed to skip the Medical College Admissions Test or are admitted with lower scores than those required from white and Asian applicants.
But instead of beefing up instruction in anatomy, physiology, and other disciplines that might come in handy when actually practicing medicine, medical schools are spending instructional time on such matters as white privilege and anti-racism, including Critical Race Theory (CRT).
CRT includes the notion that white people are inherently prejudiced against people of color and that there really is nothing they can do but acknowledge their defect, apologize, and grant compensating privileges to people of contrasting skin color, who by definition are incapable of bigotry. Dissenters from this new orthodoxy can be accused of “micro-aggressions” and “repressive practices” with ominous repercussions for their careers.
This intellectual intolerance also extends to those skeptical of “gender affirming care” for adolescents. This new practice provides permanent medical and surgical alterations to gender-confused school children for the rest of their lives so they can pretend to be the gender they choose when a teen. What could go wrong?
Several countries, including the U.K., Sweden, and France are now pulling back from relying on the judgments of impressionable adolescents for such drastic remediation, but dissenters in the U.S. are still punished.
Medical educators who teach students that racism and mutilation are okay when officially approved should humbly recall the history of their own profession. Modern medicine has been of immeasurable benefit to mankind. But when evidence-based science is ignored and authority replaces free inquiry, bad things happen.
Bleeding and purging, eugenics, thalidomide, lobotomies, and nonsterile wound probing are among the historical results. It is the duty of the medical profession to protect us from such horrors, not promote them.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
