A 56 year-old science teacher at Yosemite High School in California named Gary Sconce is planning to return to school after spring break this year as a woman named Karen Adell Scot.
The Daily Caller is reporting that Sconce, a married father who has taught at the school for 30 years, is planning to complete his transition from male to female over the break.
Suffering from what he describes as gender dysphoria, a diagnosis described as “controversial” on Psychcentral.com and one in which a person feels a “strong and persistent cross gender identification,” he claims that he has wanted to be a girl since his earliest memory. Most of his adult life was spent engaging in typically male activities and occupations, such as serving as a sheriff’s deputy and playing college football just to prove to himself that he was really a man.
Sconce “came out” to his family in April and has been undergoing extensive hormone replacement therapy ever since.
“It’s like getting out of dark solitary confinement in prison where you never saw the light,” Sconce told the Bee. “You can’t believe that you actually are free.”
He sent a letter to his colleagues at Yosemite High to explain what was about to happen and insisted that “being transgender is not a choice,” saying that he was undergoing “serious and painful physical changes.”
“Consider: I have lost my marriage of 35 years to a magnificent, brilliant woman, am going to lose my house. . . . I have been shunned by those who used to be my friends, have been shunned by family, have had people try to cast demons out of me, have left my church of nearly 30 years, and have been scorned and laughed at by those who had for decades said they were my friends,” he wrote. “Who would choose that?”
School district superintendent James Sargent sent a letter to parents on March 19 indicating that Sconce will be called “Ms. Karen Adell Scot” beginning on April 22. He also noted the state’s education code which prevents discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. Parents were reassured that because the transition might raise questions, that school counselors and administrators would be available to assist those in need.
That wasn’t quite enough for at least one parent who wrote a letter to the editor of the Sierra Star, the paper that first broke the story.
“I see this as an assault on the minds and morals of our children,” wrote Kathi Bales. “It blurs the lines of what is right and wrong.”
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