The ‘twilight zone’ of transgender politics

Addressing the needs of a ‘gender nonconforming’ kindergartner

American Experiment Senior Policy Fellow Kathy Kersten contributed a significant article to the December issue of First Things magazine that chronicles how the admission of a “gender nonconforming” five-year old kindergarten student roiled the culture of the Nova Classical Academy, a K-12 charter school based in St. Paul. First Things is a New York-based monthly journal of religion and public life.

Her piece, Transgender Conformity, tracks the politically-charged account of how the school “plunged into the Twilight Zone of transgender politics.” The kindergartner is the son of a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota whose research focuses on “gender inclusive policies in K-12 public schools.” She describes how parents coped with making gender identity an element of elementary school curriculum.

Kersten devotes the larger part of her effort to the largely untold story of how transgender politics are affecting medicine and psychology.