Maryland’s largest public school district saw a 582% increase the number of students identifying as gender nonconforming in just two years, according to internal data posted to an educator’s Twitter page.
Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) gathered this data from forms school counselors fill out when students approach them to talk about gender identity issues. Because the numbers rely on self-reporting, the near-sevenfold increase from 2019 to 2022 could indicate a massive increase in the number of gender-diverse students, an environment that encourages those students to be more open with counselors or both.
The data — which is not publicly available to parents or taxpayers — was posted to Twitter on Oct. 6 when educator Elicia Eberhart-Bliss shared an image of a slide show presented at a meeting of the district’s “Pride ALLiance.”
During the 2019-2020 school year, a total of 35 students reported gender nonconformity to a counselor, including four elementary students, 19 middle school students and 12 high schoolers. During the 2021-2022 school year the total number of students reporting gender nonconformity spiked to 239, including 18 elementary students, 129 middle schoolers and 92 high schoolers.
The data state that 423 students filled out the form with a counselor, and 45% of those students are considered “non-binary.” The data were collected across 84 schools, including 20 elementary schools.
Christopher Cram, the spokesman for MCPS, told the Daily Caller that a “full accounting” of LGBTQ+ students is “impossible,” as the data can only be compiled on students who fill out forms with the district.
“A full accounting of students who may identify as LGBTQ+ or gender nonconforming is impossible to know,” Cram said. “This information is covered by privacy rules and is only collected if a student offers that information to a counselor. Therefore a percentage ‘of’ or ‘rise’ cannot be determined to be considered accurate in any way.”
According to MCPS guidelines for dealing with students who identify as gender nonconforming, kids have a “right” to keep their in-school gender identities private. The form used to collect data on which students identify as gender nonconforming states that parents can be involved only “if the student states that [the parents] are aware of and supportive of the student’s gender identity.” (RELATED: Maryland Schoo’s Guidelines Claim Kids Have A ‘Right’ To Keep In-School Gender Identities Private)
Bethany Mandel, a conservative activist and parent in the Montgomery County area, told the Caller that the data show an “explosion” of gender-confused children.
“This isn’t data that the outside world has seen before; it was accidentally shared and is incredibly illuminating,” Mandel said. “There is a clear explosion of gender-confused children year-over-year, and it’s clear the majority of those are legitimately children, middle school and below. This isn’t just a Montgomery County problem, it’s nationwide; we were just able to get a glimpse of the data here.”
Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist and journalist, argued in an August Substack post that the definition of “transgender” was edited in recent years to be synonymous with people who are gender nonconforming, leading to a spike in transgender-identifying people.
If a girl gravitates toward trucks and cars as a child, she is considered “gender nonconforming” and “transgender,” even if she shows no signs of gender dysphoria, according to Wright’s analysis. This expanded definition is used by prestigious medical institutions and activism hubs including the American Medical Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Planned Parenthood.
“It is urgent that we all fully understand that the definition of transgenderism used by our most highly regarded scientific, medical, and human rights institutions now literally encompasses common gender nonconformity, and this is the main reason so many children are now claiming to be transgender,” Wright wrote.
