Tag: West Point School District

Peter Vlaming

Peter Vlaming was a successful French teacher in the West Point School District in Virgina in 2018, until he was fired for refusing to use male pronouns demanded by a female student.

In 2018, one of Peter’s female students decided to identify as male.

Peter went out of his way to accommodate this student. He said he would use the student’s preferred male-sounding name and avoid using pronouns.

But Peter simply could not use male pronouns for a female student because it would contradict his core beliefs. This was about more than just pronouns; it was about what pronouns mean. In speech, after all, pronouns identify us as either male or female.

Peter couldn’t in good conscience use male pronouns to identify a female student. At the same time, he made it clear that he wanted to work with the student by avoiding pronouns that may cause offense.

But that wasn’t good enough for the school district. It didn’t care about how Peter treated the student. It was on a crusade for conformity. It wanted to force Peter to speak words he disagreed with by using pronouns for the student—even when that student was not present. [emphasis in original]

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