"It had nothing at all to do, however, with trans bathroom policies. Instead, like many women and girls, she was a victim of relationship violence. Smith’s daughter testified that she’d previously had two consensual sexual encounters with her attacker in the school bathroom. On the day of her assault, they’d agreed to meet up again. 'The evidence was that the girl chose that bathroom, but her intent was to talk to him, not to engage in sexual relations,' [Buta] Biberaj, whose office prosecuted the case, told me. The boy, however, expected sex and refused to accept the girl’s refusal. As the The Washington Post reported, she testified, 'He flipped me over. I was on the ground and couldn’t move and he sexually assaulted me.' The boy was indeed wearing a skirt, but that skirt didn’t authorize him to use the girls’ bathroom. As Amanda Terkel reported in HuffPost, the school district’s trans-inclusive bathroom policies were approved only in August, more than two months after the assault. This was not, said Biberaj, someone 'identifying as transgender and going into the girls’ bathroom under the guise of that.'"
From
"The Right’s Big Lie About a Sexual Assault in Virginia" by Michelle Goldberg (NYT).
I've avoided talking about this case until now — despite a lot of pushing from my commenters — and this is why. It was obvious to me that we did not have a good enough statement of the facts. People were making assumptions that nudged this case into serving as a great example of something they were worried about — that males would fake transgender status to victimize women and girls in bathrooms.
Posts
195 comments:
Leftists in a nutshell: We have to hide the real, undisputed facts from you because we know that you will reach the wrong conclusion. Just sit down and we will tell you what to think. Because we will reach the correct conclusion.
It's good to know that in all the other topics posted here all the facts are known and indisputable and the moral of the story is clear.
I thought the story was about a father being silenced and the school board denying an attack had ever occurred?
The new information is that the two of them weren't strangers, this was more of a date rape situation.
But how does that news undo the apparently still standing story of "boy wears skirt to enter women's restroom to commit sexual assault"? As I read this, that remains a true statement.
And I for one am so very glad to know that no boys wearing skirts would have even thought to ASK to use the girls' restroom until the official policy was well-debated and passed in mid-August. Because it's never the case that practice (and demands) LEAD to policy, is it?
The defendant was also charged with raping another girl.
Seems relevant.
Why do we know all this? Aren't juvenile offenders and victims supposed to be kept confidential?
John "LGBTQBNY" Henry
The school district did not report the Rape as required. They also did not disclose it to parents.
Seems relevant.
So is it a lesser crime or a greater crime?
Does it change the outcome of literally anything about this situation, including accusations of ‘domestic terrorism’?
Why did the NYT use “ordeal”?
The defendant was convicted. So the “ordeal” was a rape.
The defendant raped Smith’s daughter.
He is also charged with raping another girl after the School District moved him to another school.
The school board’s deliberate decisions outraged parents.
What guy doesn't expect sex in the high school bathroom during the school day?
Heck, if I would have gone to a co-ed high school I would have been doing it all the time with my senior year girl friend.
Seriously. no is no. What about "no" did this guy not understand.
We've reached a new, new cultural low.
And, Ann, did this girl give him any ideas by agreeing to meet in the bathroom? ("Don't give him any ideas.") I think the bathroom is a safe place to talk in private. And it is a public space.
Remember the old song, "Smoking in the boys' room?"
The boy went into a girls bathroom. He wore a skirt. He raped a girl. The other information is extraneous. The skirt was worn to make his discovery more difficult. The fact that it happened prior to the change in school policy just makes it more obvious that this will happen again.
Why did the school board not report to the state, as required, that a student had reported a rape at the school?
Why did the school board lie to parents and say no sexual assaults has been reported?
The parents reasonably believe it is because the school board did not want to deal with the issue of biological boys in the girls bathroom.
The school district adopted its policy two months after a girl reported that a biological boy raped her in the girl’s bathroom.
The Big Lie by Goldberg is that the issue of biological boys going into girl’s bathrooms at school played no role in the school board’s coverup.
is That what Hilary! would call, Attacking the Victim??
She was Nothing but a Slut, Drag a hundred dollar bill across a trailer court, you'll be surprised what you find
besides!
The School NEVER logged it... So, they had NO KNOWLEDGE of it Ever happening
I agree it's important to know ALL the facts of the case first.
However, this is still a sexual assault and I am curious why he was wearing a skirt?
You've got 2 sides trying to nuance the details to fit the agenda.
The bottom line is - a girl was sexually assaulted against her will in a bathroom in a public school.
Thank goodness the NYT is there to provide cover and "nuance" to convince us all that the horrible thing that happened that reflects badly on Democrats policies isn't as horrible as it seems.
Doesn't this just show how sexual violence against women is facilitated by the trans bathroom rules?
Why does it matter if this criminal now claims he is not trans? Are there rules for what qualifies as a trans? If so, who enforces them? I think not. It seems apparent that there could be a connection between believing oneself to be trans and rape, i.e., that the person is angry at the world and might be striking out violently?
So now we have lefties justifying sexual assault because of past sexual contact? Doesn't that set back the feminist agenda on protecting women against male sexual predators?
What happened to the legal rules of not publishing court proceedings of minors? And of shaming women victims? Shouldn't Goldberg be prosecuted for violating the law? And doesn't this undercut the school board's claim they had to keep the rape confidential?
There are way too many things wrong with Goldberg's article and her attitude.
ooooh "Relationship violence" - that's much better.
News on the right has changed from laughing at the crazy left to being outraged. It means that both sides now trade on soap opera, not just the left.
Outrage means clicks, and that's the business model on both sides.
Althouse trades on aggressive niceness (aren't you ashamed that you disparaged trans people), which is a sort of self-justifying left.
Thought would go after structure, not feelings. What's the stable social arrangement. There's no business model for it.
Obviously go with penis rooms and vagina rooms. You go where you fit, regardless what you identify as. A simple door sign change. Penis and penis with a NOT slash through it. Vagina would be hard to symbolize as a positive.
We were duped.
"But he was still wearing a skirt!"
We were duped. People who are not progressives should know better. Almost EVERY high-profile, left-wing claim of racism or "campus rape" turns out to be a lie, or more complex than presented.
It doesn't justify turning the FBI loose on the father of the victim or silencing dissent. But we gave proponents of limiting speech some useful talking points in pushing this incomplete narrative.
Yes. It seems like the school district did not do enough to protect girls, especially since this offender assaulted another girl.
From the article: It’s not clear whether the school system had the option of barring the boy from in-person school altogether. In a statement this month, the Loudoun County Public Schools superintendent, Scott Ziegler, called for policy changes that would allow administrators to “separate alleged offenders from the general student body.” Conservatives, of course, have traditionally opposed policies that would keep accused offenders out of school.
That last sentence bugs me. Conservatives are usually more "law and order" types. But yeah, when it comes to sexual violence and harrassement, they tend to be more "wait and see" until the investigation is done.
Madison East High school just went through something similar--a principal sacked there, moved to a different position, because apparently the students felt he didn't appropriately punish the alleged rapist in an off-campus sexual assualt that did NOT occur on school property: https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/east-high-students-call-out-principal-wage-walkout-to-support-survivors-of-sexual-assault/article_46cfdf8b-2499-5c34-888a-289528100d4b.html
These issues are so hard. I don't envy being a school administrator in these times. Protect the young women, yes. But don't you also want to follow the protocol of "innocence until proven guilty"?
The fact remains, from what I've read, that the boy walked into the girls' bathroom wearing a skirt and might have also identified as "gender-fluid" at the time he assaulted the girl in question. The additional fact that the school board adopted its boys-in-the-girls'-bathroom policy after the assault is irrelevant. People who don't want biological males using girls' restrooms aren't simply objecting to an official policy allowing such use. They're objecting to biological males using girls' restrooms, period. The fact that the girl in question was in fact assaulted in a girls' restroom by a boy wearing a skirt strikes me as an awfully good reason not to adopt a policy allowing biological males into girls' restrooms. And so poor Mr. Smith thought when he showed up at a school-board meeting to argue against such a policy because of what happened to his daughter. The school board ignored him, of course.
Michelle Goldberg is indulging in the usual progressive sophistry by accusing Republicans who haven't hopped onto the transgender train of lying or bad faith or stupidity or whatever.
I dunno. I assume he was wearing the skirt because it was a disguise of sorts and knew no one would stop him from going in the bathroom because of it. But for the policy, then, perhaps he would not have been able to go into the bathroom without fear of being stopped. Thus, the policy did enable him the opportunity to commit the crime. But whatever. The Dad is clearly a domestic terrorist.
Goldberg is intimately familiar with lying bigly. It’s her jam.
The point, however, is that when the new bathroom policy was being debated, the school board deliberately lied and denied the previous assaults (same accused, 2 different schools), because they knew that it would be cited as evidence as to why this new policy was a bad idea. As part of that denial they deliberately accused an upset father of lying about the event, had him arrested, and tried to brand him as a domestic terrorist.
Unfortunately for them, they sent emails. Also unfortunately for them, the boy in the skirt was found guilty of the sexual assault. So it’s no longer merely an allegation.
Democrats are desperate to salvage the Virginia gubernatorial race, and will say anything they have to.
No means no. But if it furthers a parties agenda, no means something completely different. Gotcha.
The Left can rationalize this all they want, but transgender bathroom policies are insane.
The Left is insane.
I am not abashed. Biological males do not belong in girls’ restrooms. Adult women like yourself can make up your own minds about having biological males share your restrooms. Girls in high school lack the option of holding it until they’re home.
There are claims that this same guy has sexually assaulted someone else. Does that matter?
The district tried to hide that this happened. Does that matter?
Virginia Dept of Education emitted this funny "Road Map To Equity":
"Education Equity is achieved when we eliminate the predictability of student outcomes based on race, gender, zip code, ability, socioeconomic status or languages spoken at home."
Their plan to eliminate differences in achievement outcomes based on differences in the ability to achieve those outcomes is to spend more resources on stupid students (and therefore fewer resources on smart students since distribution of resources is zero-sum) until their achievement outcomes are the same as those of smart students...at least I think that's what these words mean:
"Educational equity requires that educational opportunity be calibrated to need, which may include additional and tailored resources and supports to create conditions of true educational opportunity." (page 19)
“Sexual assaulter in a skirt” might not sound like your cup of tea but you shoulda seen the guys she turned down.
Why was he wearing a skirt? That is the question that actually matters, isn't it? And it goes "strangely" unanswered.
The school board must have thought the assault had something to do with transgender bathroom policies, or else they wouldn’t have tried to cover it up. We didn’t have all the facts before now; maybe we still don’t.
I'd say the story makes less sense than ever. Why was the boy wearing a skirt?
Since the trans bathroom policies hadn't been enacted yet means the fact that he was wearing a skirt is now irrelevant? what am I missing? Would it less/more horrible if he was/wasn't wearing a skirt? I'm so confused.
Teach young girls how to defend themselves.
When they 'flip' you over stick your thumb in their eye as far as it will go. Both thumbs.. both eyes. Once they release you grab their testicles HARD and twist. Punch them in the throat. Then... stomp the shit out of them.
How do get the nerve to do that?
Fear and anger are very similar emotions. You can turn fear into anger.. just start thinking, "HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME".... say it over and over in your mind. Then... jam those thumbs into their eyes.
Oh yea, did I mention I'm a 67 year old 5th dan blackbelt and IDPA/IPSC shooter for many many years... I've taught SD classes for quite a while. None of this kiddie stuff. I teach them when push comes to shove.. be mean as a rattler.
Peace through superior firepower!
I’m curious how a trans bathroom ban would even work. Do you have to show your genitals before you enter a public bathroom? Are we going to need gender identification cards? Seems like you can’t enforce it without trampling over people’s rights to privacy.
People were making assumptions that nudged this case into serving as a great example of something they were worried about — that males would fake transgender status to victimize women and girls in bathrooms.
Hahahaha.
That's why the democrats on the school board covered t up right?
Ann is just itching to believe what the media and the democrats are feeding her. It is the commenters that didn't have the facts straight!
The boy was wearing a dress in the girls bathroom. But that didn't mean the policy led to the rape.
Nor did Ann deal with the fact that the boy was moved to a different school where he raped another girl in the girls bathroom.
This is indefensible.
It was obvious to me that we did not have a good enough statement of the facts. People were making assumptions that nudged this case into serving as a great example of something they were worried about
Some of us felt that way about Sandmann and Kavanaugh.
Does it matter?? The School still covered it up, sent the boy away and he did it again. The cover up is the crime.
So where does the slope take us next? It won't be polyamory, that's way too conventual these days. I'm betting on Beastality, after all animals deserve a sex life too. (I can't wait for the articles in the NYT about how animals can show consent.) I'd say there's maybe a 10% chance it'll be incest, but that might be too mainstream too.
People were making assumptions that nudged this case into serving as a great example of something they were worried about — that males would fake transgender status to victimize women and girls in bathrooms.
I love you althouse but this is laughable.
Your comment above is accurate except that he did fake being transgender, and he did victimize a young woman in a bathroom.
As to the faking being transgendered, we are to believe that the perpetrator, a biological male, believes they are a female, but they are a lesbian.
When they had sex previously, was it lesbian sex, or was it *gasp* heteronormative?
Look if a dude want to wear makeup, skirts, and sleep with women, go for it! But bathrooms should be segregated by sex.
Seems to me he was wearing a skirt so that he could slip into the girls bathroom unnoticed. Was he taking advantage of the transgender moment? Maybe. At any rate, the school superintendent lied when he said there were no sexual assaults going on in their bathrooms. And for them to wrestle the father to the floor and make him a villain… Terrible.
Since the bitch was nothing but a slut, that was Begging to be used...
We can ALL Agree that they were justified in arresting the father for even mentioning it?
Right? I Mean, RIGHT?
That's the issue, right?
Crazy Dads raising crazy slutty daughters; getting skirtboys and school admins in trouble??
Right??
Thanx Gaia THAT'S cleared up
The NYT is demonstrably false - and yet they run with it.
A 5 second google search shows a Loudon Now story datelined May 25th, 2021. The article is headlined “Loudon School Board Reviews Transgender Student Policy”.
The article states “The policy’s most notable and contentious aspect is that students will be permitted to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identities.”
Smith was arrested at the June school board meeting.
Prior to passing the official policy, was the unofficial policy that boys wearing skirts were allowed into the girls bathroom? The official policy doesn't really matter so much as the practice in place.
However, it seems this was covered up, and quite possibly partially in service to getting the trans bathroom policy the school board wanted, If it had come out that a boy who wore a skirt was regularly going into the girls bathroom to have sex, and then to rape, at least one female student, would the policy still have passed? I doubt it.
shorter me: The *official* policy didn't lead to the rape. But the cover up of the rape may have aided the passing of the official policy.
the school district’s trans-inclusive bathroom policies were [officially] approved only in August, more than two months after the assault.
That doesn't mean that the policies didn't already exist in practice, since the laws requiring them were passed in 2020.
Why was the guy wearing a skirt to meet a girl in the girls' bathroom if the policies were not de facto at the time?
Do you have to show your genitals before you enter a public bathroom?
In a high school— even a very large one — students will know who the trans kids are. In a more general public situation, enforcement will have to take place after the fact as with most crimes.
So is pouncing on the story about which the exact facts are still unclear worse than the multiple rapes or just worse than blaming the rapist’s skirt?
“ Doesn't this just show how sexual violence against women is facilitated by the trans bathroom rules?”
There was no such rule at the school when it happened.
I think the school had a problem with sexual activity in the bathroom but it was heterosexual and cisgender and, some of the time, consensual. This is a terrible breakdown of good order for which the school should be attacked.
"Conservatives, of course, have traditionally opposed policies that would keep accused offenders out of school."
She says without evidence.
Conservatives are MUCH more likely to support policies of throwing arrested and charged offenders like this rapist out of the schools. That's all part of the mythological "school to prison pipeline". What Goldberg does here is bait and switch - because conservatives favor due process for those accused of sexual assault IN COLLEGE all of a sudden we "have traditionally opposed policies that would keep accused offenders out of school."
It's a shame the local blog mistress has decided that this isn't about trans guys raping girls in high school restrooms. Because it is. It is also about the local ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES of the school district's citizens acting as agent for the executive branch school admin of which they are supposed to have oversight.
But hey, gay rights y'all.
"There was no such rule at the school when it happened."
There was no such FORMAL POLICY at the school. But if the rapist decided that he could enter a women's restroom with no problem there was definitely a rule in place at the school when it happened.
The opinion “had nothing at all to do, however, with trans bathroom policies” is not supported by the facts. The rapist was wearing a skirt. The district was misleading and secretive, two traits districts that get caught doing wrong share with pedophiles. My belief is that is not entirely coincidental.
And let's please quit pretending along with the NYT that this is the only case of men who think they are women victimizing women and girls in bathrooms. It is not. It just happens to be the celebrity case du jour.
Liberals continue to have this weird idea that mentally ill people are harmless. They most assuredly are not.
The school board couldn't have news of a "trans" raping a girl in the bathroom become public less than a month before they voted on the trans bathroom policy change because the policy change would obviously not pass. So they covered it up and arrested the father of the raped girl and then used his example as reason to get the DOJ to crack down on upset parents.
Now, the press is trying to "add nuance" to save the Dem hold on the governor's mansion. Youngkin has run [thus far] very successfully against all this crazy school board nonsense and is about to win by nearly as much as Biden did one year ago in Virginia.
There will be no mistaking the lessons if he does win. As a consequence, the Dems and their allies in the press must try to muddy the waters around this case.
There isn't any "nuance." No means no. It doesn't matter how many times she may have hooked up with this kid before. She said no on the one occasion that matters.
And the crazy Dems on the school board illegally covered it up to try to create a policy that would put other girls at risk. And now a Republican is probably going to win a blue state gubernatorial race, potentially derailing all the Dem craziness from DC to Richmond as a result.
It almost makes one believe in divine providence. Or Karma, or whatever would explain the perfect circumstances occurring in Virginia.
@Kay:Do you have to show your genitals before you enter a public bathroom? Are we going to need gender identification cards? Seems like you can’t enforce it without trampling over people’s rights to privacy.
Pretty simple. If the rule says they can't be there, a woman who is in there when one comes in can call for help and expect to have something done about it. If the rules say they can't be there, she has to be actually assaulted before calling for help unless she wants to be called a Karen and publicly shamed...
From "The Right’s Big Lie About a Sexual Assault in Virginia" by Michelle Goldberg (NYT).
The Left's Big Lie is that it never happened.
Who is on more truthful ground?
The bigger issue is the school board coverup of the rape because they feared their newly instated trans bathroom policy would come under fire. The timing of the rape doesn't matter. "It's the coverup not the crime." I think I heard that somewhere else.
There was no such rule at the school when it happened.
Was there no such rule? Or no such official policy?
I'm surprised that you conservatives aren't blaming the girl for being a major tease like Hummus Aberdeen.
Ann, you are trying too hard. The school bathroom policy was in place defacto, if not by rule yet. The NYT , as usual, is playing defense for the left and its craziness.
Ann Althouse said...
“ Doesn't this just show how sexual violence against women is facilitated by the trans bathroom rules?”
There was no such rule at the school when it happened.
I think the school had a problem with sexual activity in the bathroom but it was heterosexual and cisgender and, some of the time, consensual. This is a terrible breakdown of good order for which the school should be attacked.
The boy was wearing a skirt so he could use the girls bathroom.
Period.
They later changed their policy to make that OK and accommodate him. After he raped 2 girls in the girls bathroom which he used while wearing a skirt and identifying and "gender-fluid."
I don't care if women pretending to be men use the men's bathroom. Your choice there.
But no penises on the girls bathroom. You have to cut it off to go in the girls bathroom.
Interesting that to Michelle Goldberg the problem is the 'Right's' reaction to this occurance, not the actual rape. Interesting, but predictable.
MayBee said...
Prior to passing the official policy, was the unofficial policy that boys wearing skirts were allowed into the girls bathroom? The official policy doesn't really matter so much as the practice in place.
Inconvenient facts to the people who desperately want to believe the NYT's instead of the commenters here.
It must suck to only attract such rubes and hicks to the comment section.
Ann is so ashamed that we would come to different conclusions than the NYT's.
"There was no such rule at the school when it happened."
Are you being misled? The formal rule, Policy 8040, was passed after the assault in response to legislative guidelines requiring such.
However, it appears that the policy in place at the time was essentially the same.
In debating the formal policy one board member who supported passing the new policy said:
"Serotkin, however, said enacting Policy 8040 is consistent with Virginia Department of Education law.
'And while sending it back to committee might result in some minor changes, I have a hard time believing it would result in a different policy from what we have today,' Serotkin said."
It seems to me that the boy was wearing a skirt because school policy at the time, prior to it's formalization in Policy 8040, allowed him to enter the girl's restroom if he did so.
I'm looking at this from every angle I can think of and I don't see how the "Republican's big lie" changes anything.
So it's not the case that the school said it was ok for boys in dresses to go into girls bathrooms and then a boy dressed as a girl went into the girls bathroom and raped somebody. No, a boy dressed as a girl went into a girls bathroom and raped somebody AND THEN the school district said it was ok for boys to dress as girls and go into girl's bathrooms.
Yeah, that's so much better.
Ann -
We seem to be splitting hairs here.
The “rule” may not have been officially in effect because the school board hadn’t officially adopted it.
That said, the proposed “rule” had been officially discussed at the May school board mtg and likely before that since parents turned out at the May school board mtg to express their concerns.
It is highly likely that this not-yet-official “rule” was an accepted practice at Stonebridge HS in Loudon County. This particular incident - had it become public - would’ve put sand in the Vaseline as the School Board, w/the assistance of Supt. Ziegler,,was trying to formally ratify their preferred policy preferences. Hence the need for the coverup and resulting falsehoods.
This isn’t hard. Yes, the timing of all this disclosure sucks for the McAwful campaign. That is no reason however for the NYT and other media entities to knowingly lie in an attempt to mislead. I’m so old I remember when the Times was an actual newspaper.
"As Amanda Terkel reported in HuffPost, the school district’s trans-inclusive bathroom policies were approved only in August, more than two months after the assault."
"1. That the Virginia Department of Education shall develop and make available to
each school board model policies pursuant to subsection A of § 22.1-23.3 of the
Code of Virginia, as created by this act, no later than December 31, 2020.
2. That each school board shall adopt policies pursuant to subsection B of § 22.1-
23.3 of the Code of Virginia, as created by this act, no later than the beginning of
the 2021–2022 school year.”'
This is from a Virginia government site. The assault occurred in May of this year. It seems that the official policy was to be enacted at the beginning of the school year (this year).
I don't know that the school board had the option of delaying it.
well, if michelle goldberg says its true, I believe her. No one is more objective or fairer in stating the opposing side. Oh wait, its the exact Opposite.
He wears a skirt, has sex with girls, but identifies as "Female"? He gained access to the girls bathroom because he wore a skirt. And that's A-OK. But that has nothing to do with Transgenders. Okey-dokey.
Why can't people with penises use the mens' room, until they get the sex change operation? Or does that spoil all the fun for people like Michelle?
And just remember per General MIlley, the US Military can't operate without Men who think they're women and vice-versa. That's why we won WW II.
I suspect the male would rape regardless of the bathroom policy. He might have taken advantage of the trans issue to make it easier.
Why is WAPO painting the victim as a slut? To convince us that trans bathrooms had nothing to do with it? Why did the school board hide the rape? Ann seems upset some people might conclude that because a skirt was worn the trans bathrooms was the cause? The biggest tragedy here is the second rape. I say those who covered up the rape to protect the trans agenda are evil bastards.
"There was no such rule at the school when it happened."
You don't actually know that. You are taking Goldberg's word for it, aren't you, and using Goldberg's interpretation? There are written rules and unwritten rules in such matters. I can plausibly guess that the school already had an unwritten rule at the time that any boy identifying as female was not to be challenged on being in the girl's bathroom. It was, in fact, the intent of Virginia State Board of Education that the county boards implement such rules, and the Loudon county board was in the process, as early as May, of writing up the written rules implementing it. So it should surprise no one that the rules were likely being implemented without written regulations at the time of the rapes. And I note for the record that the father was arrested in June, after the county board had announced the coming changes in policy- he was objecting to that because his daughter had been raped in the girls' bathroom by a boy in a skirt.
Again, why do you think the boy wore the skirt in the first place? Do you really believe he did it to sneak in unnoticed in violation of the schools policy? That makes little sense- a boy in skirt is more noticeable than one who is not. A far more plausible reason is that it was a get out jail free card, or that he really does identify as female. Both plausible reasons are what Goldberg is basically trying to obscure.
So the district didn't have a formal policy at the time. Did the school have a formal policy about letting boys in skirts use the girls' bathroom? Did they have an informal policy of looking the other way?
Achilles (10:28):
I believe there is one small error in your post. You wrote "moved to a different school where he raped another girl in the girls bathroom". I have read several times that the second rape was in an otherwise-empty classroom, not a bathroom. He may have had more difficulty using the girls bathroom at the new school - particularly if the students had heard about the bathroom rape at the school 2 miles away, even if they had no idea he was the rapist.
It must have been in the 70s, but I saw a teen male enter the McDonald's women's room, followed a minute later by a teen female; then a delay of ten minutes or so, the the teen female left; then the teen male left.
I was thinking blowjob but who knows. Anyway it looked to have been pretty conventional for students in those days, no doubt in the bad crowd.
Just stop fucking lying to our faces, for starters.
There was no such rule at the school when it happened.
What there was was an effort to implement such a rule.
The rape complicated that effort.
The rape thus needed to be covered up, lest it derail the agenda.
The coverup resulted in at least one additional girl being assaulted.
There's the connection (assuming we know the facts) between the bathroom rule and facilitating sexual assault against girls.
Minors who are victims or perpetrators of crimes are not supposed to be identified in the press. The identity of the rapist is still safe, though some Stone Ridge students have probably figured it out, unless there are a bunch of boys in dresses who have transferred to the other school lately.
But everyone at Stone Ridge High School, and all their friends, surely knows the name of the girl raped in the bathroom. They know her age, her grade, her father's last name (the fact that it's a very common one, Smith, helps a little), what he looks like, what he does for a living.
Adding the salacious details of the rape and the prior sexual relationship makes it far worse and grossly violates the spirit (maybe the letter, too) of the no-IDing-minors policy. It was bad enough that we already knew the rape was oral and anal, now we know about the previous encounters. Unless the family moves far away and starts a new life somewhere else, the poor girl's reputation will never recover.
The press and the Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) is fine with that. If ruining this girl's, and her father's, life helps advance the cause of co-ed bathrooms, cross-dressing in schools, under-age sex, critical race theory, and electing a sleazebag governor, the Hell with her. Sometimes you have to break some eggs.
Given that the HuffPost and NYT articles are clearly - and intentionally - wrong can we look forward to them being banned on certain social media platforms because they are spreading misinformation ?
Yeah, I know. Don’t hold my breath.
It would help if rape actually meant rape. Making out was pretty common in high school, the problem being privacy. A fast grope in the stairway sometimes isn't enough.
And why was the boy wearing a skirt? Because the current social climate empowers him when he does so. Really Ann you are so willfully blind. . Regardless of what happened previously the boy was dressing as a girl to push for policies that would allow him in girl’s spaces.
They say she had consensual “ sexual encounters” with him before. Under current language that could be anything from light petting to hard core porn BUT since we know they are spinning this to protect themselves and to uphold their policies it is likely they are using the “she’s a whore, she shouldn’t have gone into a private space with that boy and this wouldn’t have happened” defense.
Howard said...
I'm surprised that you conservatives aren't blaming the girl for being a major tease like Hummus Aberdeen.
That is just you projecting your own support of rapists onto others.
It must really suck to be such a despicable person.
I never thought the controversy was about a 'trans' but rather a rape. This sounds like typical leftist deflection to me. The administration of the school and the board lied about whether or not the assault had been reported and had a distraught dad arrested for insisting that it had. A very bad look for the school district.
The BBC just published an article about women being coerce'd into having sex with trans and many in the story allege outright rape. This goes beyond bathrooms.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57853385
Dr Weevil said...
Achilles (10:28):
I believe there is one small error in your post. You wrote "moved to a different school where he raped another girl in the girls bathroom". I have read several times that the second rape was in an otherwise-empty classroom, not a bathroom. He may have had more difficulty using the girls bathroom at the new school - particularly if the students had heard about the bathroom rape at the school 2 miles away, even if they had no idea he was the rapist.
You are probably right.
Hard to tell since the Democrats, the NYT's, and all of Ann's other champions are trying to cover this story up.
I don't mind the quibble. We want to get everything correct because we know that the NYT's, Howard, and all of the other democrat rape collaborators will snatch at any detail no matter how minute.
Keep defending the party of rape Ann. I am sure they have rewards in mind for their loyal defenders.
It should not have been that easy for a boy to walk into the girls' bathroom End of story. I don't know what people think complicating this is going to do for the Democrats, who made it easy for boys to walk into the girls' bathroom.
This was not, said Biberaj, someone 'identifying as transgender and going into the girls’ bathroom under the guise of that.'"
It was just a coincidence that the guy was wearing a skirt, which itself isn't identifying as transgender at all, no siree Bob, it certainly is not. If anything, wearing a skirt is a classic form of toxic masculinity.
"There was no such rule at the school when it happened."
LOL, when you are explaining, you are losing. And everybody knows what would have happened to anybody who objected. The gaslighting is getting a little tiresome on this one.
"I'm surprised that you conservatives aren't blaming the girl for being a major tease like Hummus Aberdeen."
Scott Adams is a mid wit, and hardly a conservative.
It turns out that the rapist in question was a cis-heteronormal male after all.
So, the Democratic platform statement is as follows:
"It is acceptable for a boy to rape a girl if said boy is dressed as a girl. It is unacceptable for any other person to object to this activity."
Let's let them go with that.
He was wearing a dress, no? That they had previously consensually fucked perhaps changes someone's opinion, but not mine - who cares that the school hadn't yet allowed "I want to use the girls bathroom" penis owners in.
He was wearing a dress, no? That they had previously consensually f***ed perhaps changes someone's opinion, but not mine - who cares that the school hadn't yet allowed "I want to use the girls bathroom" penis owners in.
It seems as though a heterosexual boy was using the ruse of wearing a skirt to get into his regular trysting place to have sex with a girl who had arranged to meet him there and who'd had sex with him in the past in that location. Things went wrong, and it turned into a rape, and that's a crime that should be punished and is being punished. The school is responsible for securing the premises, and no students should be having sex there. I'd like a comprehensive plan to root that out. Beyond that, there's a big problem with date rape, and that's not about transgender people forcing themselves on people who are not interested in them.
You are assuming that both Michelle Goldberg of the NYT and whoever was speaking in the courtroom that she reported on are telling unvarnished truth.....which in my experience in courtrooms as a member of a jury is a bad assumption on your part. Everyone tries to present their narrative in the best light possible.....and for the NYT that means trying to discredit everything the girl or her father are saying...and the NYT has exactly ZERO credibility, so I think I will continue to wait for the truth...if indeed the actual truth ever comes out.
It seems as though the school isn't being transparent about the violence that is occurring on the premises and that students are not safe and their parents aren't able to see how unsafe they are. This is a terrible problem, and dragging in transgender students is scapegoating. Focus on the real problem: rape and other violence in schools.
"a heterosexual boy was using the ruse of wearing a skirt"
Well, well, well...
'Beyond that, there's a big problem with date rape...'
And also the date of the rape.
C my post above.
As for 'forcing,' yes, it is a problem and will only get worse.
But it will get worse in the form of social pressure.
What? You (a lesbian) don't want to suck the cock of that other lesbian and you don't want them to fuck you with her lesbian penis?
Bigot!
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57853385
'Focus on the real problem: rape and other violence in schools.'
Absolutely.
And report every crime to the police.
Take it out of the hands of 'Equity Councils' and other Title 9 kangaroo courts.
Part of the reason there are fewer men in college is because they have huge targets on their backs...
"Things went wrong, and it turned into a rape"
Rape with what meaning.
It gets into what Wm Buckley argued on the question of whether a man can rape his wife, or should the charge be assault. The courts got it wrong and said rape was fine.
Buckley's argument was that rape is primarily, was special because it was, a violation of feminine modesty, and that didn't happen between husband and wife.
Still a crime but the charge would be assault, not rape.
A similar situation here, if they'd had sex before. Modesty no longer involved, just assault.
This is all further confused these days by rape being broadened into all sorts of making out. But the Buckley principle could be returned to.
Ann, so this was "only" a "date rape"? Feminists have spent literal decades trying to get other people to understand that a date rape is a rape, period, and now along comes Michelle Goldberg to tell us, hey, it's no biggie, they were in a "relationship" anyway?
That is disgusting, Ann. And disappointing. A girl forcibly sodomized by a boy has been raped, period. I don't care whether he thinks he's a lesbian with a great whomping dick; he's a rapist. That Goldberg thinks this is in any way exculpatory appalls me.
Ann Althouse said...
It seems as though the school isn't being transparent about the violence that is occurring on the premises and that students are not safe and their parents aren't able to see how unsafe they are. This is a terrible problem, and dragging in transgender students is scapegoating. Focus on the real problem: rape and other violence in schools.
You are the one doing the scapegoating.
The School Board was trying to push an agenda. This is endemic to the people behind the Biden Regime, the Democrat/Uniparty, and the overall corruption in government and elite classes.
The Regime tried to cover up a rape that was inconvenient to the agenda. It had parents arrested for speaking out about their daughters being raped. Emails show that everyone on the school board knew of this attack the day it happened.
Every institution run by democrats and leftists turns into a cesspit of sexual assault and harassment. You desperately want to compartmentalize this story. But it cannot be separated.
We have a rapist for a president. He is not the first democrat rapist to hold that office.
No mentally healthy parent wants penises in girls bathrooms.
They just don't.
You are not winning this argument. You should be ashamed to defend such a disgusting dishonest attempt to smear parents and push an agenda that is deeply unpopular.
"Focus on the real problem: rape and other violence in schools."
Step 1: Stop lying.
Step 2: People reach their own conclusion about what is a "real" problem.
Don't you understand that a big, BIG part of why some people are opposed to allowing boys in the girls' bathroom is exactly because boys will fake being "transgender" to get access to rooms where girls are in different states of nudity?
Very few people are opposing the bathroom rules on the rationale that they want to point at transgender people and blame them for something. Such a leftist idea based on oppressor / oppressed framework. Hate to tell you, but that framework for seeing the world isn't reality. It's a made up framework. Basically a religion. Keep your religion out of school and the government.
Most people don't care who it is that rapes their daughter, they just want to increase their daughters' safety, and their daughters have to get somewhat undressed in those rooms, so of course it presents an increased risk.
Gender and sexual preference is all fake and fluid anyway (in the opinion of some people). He was only transgender when he entered the bathroom. When he started raping her he had reverted to hetero. Obviously.
"It seems as though a heterosexual boy was ..."
You were saying about scapegoats?
I think the school board was using the transgender thing as an excuse to deny (lie about) what's happening in the school. To admit what is happening would be to give those horrible transphobic parents an excuse to be transphobic, so to protect transgenders in our school, we will lie about it. They can be dishonest and feel morally superior at the same time.
Ann Althouse said...Beyond that, there's a big problem with date rape, and that's not about transgender people forcing themselves on people who are not interested in them.
You're not seeing eye to eye with most of your readers because we don't see this as a big distinction. More like a distinction without a difference. The boy who put on a skirt to go into the girls bathroom to rape somebody does not undermine the idea of letting transgender girls (i.e., genetic boys who dress as girls) use the girls bathroom because he wasn't transgender. It was just a ruse.
I'm sure that's of great comfort to the girls who were raped that the boy was wearing a skirt by choice instead of...by choice.
My sister lives in this school district currently and has her kids there. What a mess this has caused, and the students are almost all opposed to it. It's the woke teachers and admins. Their allowing boys into girls bathrooms is such a dumb idea.
Craig Howard said...
Do you have to show your genitals before you enter a public bathroom?
In a high school— even a very large one — students will know who the trans kids are. In a more general public situation, enforcement will have to take place after the fact as with most crimes.
10/29/21, 10:54 AM
If they are not out, how can you be sure if someone is trans or not? There are cis women who look manly and cis men who look feminine. We’re just going to leave it up to the students to decide who is trans?
Althouse: I've avoided talking about this case until now — despite a lot of pushing from my commenters — and this is why. It was obvious to me that we did not have a good enough statement of the facts.
I doubt your explanation, and I believe the reason you avoided talking about it until now is that you couldn't plausibly exclude trans-inclusive policy as a causal factor.
Note that you still avoid the problem of "trans women" assaulting women in prison because it violates your preferred narrative.
UK Times: "Transgender prisoners are five times more likely to carry out sex attacks on inmates at women's jails than other prisoners."
As you've said, "the feeling of being kind and inclusive...is something quite valuable and within the reach of all women." That warm, self-approving feeling in your tummy trumps concern for the safety of actual women.
It seems as though the school isn't being transparent about the violence that is occurring on the premises and that students are not safe and their parents aren't able to see how unsafe they are. This is a terrible problem, and dragging in transgender students is scapegoating. Focus on the real problem: rape and other violence in schools.
What you, and the "trans policy apologists" are ignoring, is that any "boys who claim to be trans can use the girls bathrooms" policy that does not impose strict requirements on the "boys who claim to be trans" will inevitably degenerate into "boys wearing skirts so they can get into the girl's bathrooms". And then commit rape.
And that those rapes will be covered up by the authorities who don't want their policies questioned.
When you use "the transgender students" as your excuse for bringing in policies that will cause bad things, you're not allowed to hide behind "the transgender students" as an excuse for not discussing how your policies make things work.
So, under their policies, what does a boy who wants to be considered a "trans girl" have to do before he can go into girls' bathrooms?
Just show up in a skirt?
Show up in shorts, and say "stop oppressing me by forcing me to wear skirts!"?
Go through multiple years of counseling, get a doctor's note, and then have an easy to spot ID tag to wear visibly whenever he goes into a girls' bathroom?
How hard will it be for a boy who wants to go into a girls' bathroom, for peeping, consensual sex, or rape, to be able to do so under the new Loudon County policies?
how do you care about more, the normal girls? or the very rare "trans" boys?
I care more about the girls. I think that adopting policies that will get more girls raped / molested is bad, and I don't care if not adopting those policies means that the 1 actually "trans" boy in 1,000 is sad.
Because a hell of a lot more than 1 girl in 1,000 will be abused under those policies
It seems as though the school isn't being transparent about the violence that is occurring on the premises and that students are not safe and their parents aren't able to see how unsafe they are.
And it seems that Terry McAuliffe wants to support the school board that covers up rapes, while Glen Youngkin wants to go after them.
So, as a parent, who would you support?
"It seems as though a heterosexual boy was using the ruse of wearing a skirt to get into" someplace he shouldn't be.
Now, will the school board's "bathroom policy" enable more boys to do the same? Yes, obviously
So, are you going to protect the girls from boys doing that (whether or not that's one girl in there who wants to meet him, the odds are high that any other girls in there do NOT want him in there)?
Or is protecting the feelings of "trans" boys more important than protecting the bodily integrity of "cis" girls?
"Focus on the real problem: rape and other violence in schools."
No. The "real problem" is elected officials who feel free to lie to the public to enact their own preferred policies against the public's will.
The Loudoun County VA school board was perfectly fine with lying to the public, and not just the public writ large but the father of the rape victim TO HIS FACE in PUBLIC, to pursue this particular policy. They had him arrested for objecting to being lied to TO HIS FACE.
Then the White House, in collaboration with the NSBA, got the DoJ to issue memoranda to the various US Attorney's offices to start processes to criminalize such parents, as the one whose daughter was raped, and then lied to TO HIS FACE by the school officials.
These are evil people who should be nowhere near places of authority over others.
Youngkin is likely to be elected governor on Tuesday PRECISELY because suburban parents who would ordinarily vote Democrat don't want their daughters raped, and don't want their school boards lying to them about their daughters being raped.
The REAL ISSUE is voters not tolerating elected officials who are so craven as to cover up sexual assaults on school property to get liberal agenda items passed, regardless of what those agenda items may be.
This isn't an "anti-trans" thing at base. It's an "anti-lying politicians" thing.
"It seems as though a heterosexual boy was using the ruse of wearing a skirt to get into his regular trysting place to have sex with a girl who had arranged to meet him there and who'd had sex with him in the past"
Are you listening to yourself? The whole objection on the transgender bathroom thing was based on the idea that heterosexual boys and men would abuse the situation; it was never about actual transgenders. Now here it happens, and you think that the only solution is after the fact punishment of young people whose brains haven't really yet fully developed the ability to anticipate consequences. They are still children, and children need clear rules and boundaries, it's the science of brain development.
"It seems as though a heterosexual boy was using the ruse of wearing a skirt…"
Well, sure, but that was (and is) inevitable. It is a primary reason for the opposition to these bathroom policies.
The board knew that boys wearing skirts to get into the girl’s bathroom to have sex and take advantage of girls can and does happen and then passed the trans bathroom policy anyway. It seems as though board went so far as to fail to report the incident and also lie about it at a board meeting to protect the pending/established policy.
The middle schools (6th 7th and 8th) in California that I’m familiar with divide the campus by grade. The schools don’t want stronger 8th grade girls abusing weaker 6th grade girls. Same for the boys.
At each grade the majority of boys are going to be stronger than the majority girls. It makes sense to separate them just as they do for grades of the same sex in middle school.
Or every school can pay to have an adult monitor every bathroom in every school because money is limitless and that doesn’t create risks of it’s own.
Or each school could have one or two single occupancy bathrooms for individuals to use whatever the reason (trans/bullying/etc).
Kay said...
I’m curious how a trans bathroom ban would even work. Do you have to show your genitals before you enter a public bathroom? Are we going to need gender identification cards? Seems like you can’t enforce it without trampling over people’s rights to privacy.
Hmm, let's think about this.
How, through the entirety of American history, have we managed to mostly keep males out of female restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, etc?
Why, we made it against the law! And when men were caught, we arrested them , tried them, convicted them, and punished them.
Do you have a driver's license over 5 years old? A US passport that wasn't issued in the last week? Then it identifies your sex, which is what we use to determine such things
Are you seriously trying to claim that we can't figure out what someone's sex is? Just how deluded are you?
At least you have a "misreadings" tag, because that is maximally appropriate in this case.
So, are you saying this was not "rape" rape? Or, maybe just a little bit of rape? No need for the father to be upset. The girl had already had sex prior to this. Since the guy would have raped her even if he hadn't been wearing a skirt, then there is nothing more to discuss. Case dismissed!
The trans bathroom precedes the trans bathroom law? We still don’t have the facts here. So maybe it’s best to just wait until we do.
Also, do you really believe what you are saying here? Can you not imagine that school authorities would go out of their way to avoid keeping behavior appropriate in this room to avoid the existential danger of being accused of monitoring the trans kids? Doesn’t pass the smell test, that.
So we have these bathrooms where, unlike boys and girls’ rooms, we don’t know who is tasked with maintaining social — and sexual — order. And you think the point is that they haven’t engraved the “trans” over the bathroom door yet?
I’m only more confused. On purpose. The school board’s purpose.
Back in June of 2020 we decided to buy a new car. I was pre-approved for a $60,000 loan- way more than the cars I buy. So I called the credit union and asked- "Hey, how about giving me two $30,000 approvals and I'll buy two cars?" Turns out we timed that perfectly.
Didn't trade in the old car. My youngest got it when he graduated from college last June. Several of his friends made fun of the old car when he was driving it at college. Then at graduation- they all needed to get some transportation and he already had a car! Old, but reliable. Changed all four brakes before he headed for his first duty station.
rhhardin,
"Buckley's argument was that rape is primarily, was special because it was, a violation of feminine modesty, and that didn't happen between husband and wife."
I've read a lot of Buckley's writing, and I'd missed that one.
The further he recedes into the rearview mirror, the less I admire him. The "modesty" violation is really a minor and incidental component to the forcible violation of someone's body.
When you can only implement your preferred policy by lying and covering up violent crimes, then obviously that policy is a truly excellent one.
Maybe by next week the NYT or WaPo can write an article about how the entire episode was actually good for the girl because now she can write her college entrance application essay on how her dad's transphobia ruined her final years in high school.
"I'd say the story makes less sense than ever. Why was the boy wearing a skirt?"
Because whatever the "official" rule was, the unofficial rule led our young sexual predator to believe that wearing a skirt would give him access to the girl's bathroom without any comment from school authorities. He was quite correct to believe so. Only after he committed rape did they do anything (as in move him to another school) about it. The story involves trans issues because the rapist used the trans identity as a cover to gain access to his victim.
People need to stop worrying about rapes being committed by transgender girls, who never would do such a thing. Everyone knows that boys are responsible for rape, and when a boy changes into a girl, part of the deal is that they have to give up their rape tendencies. So obviously the rapist was only faking being a girl by putting on a skirt, not really becoming a girl like a real transgender does.
There was no such rule at the school when it happened.
But that's the thing, the school board wanted to make it a rule. The parents showed up to complain. One parent noted that there was already a sexual assault in the bathroom by a trans and this would just make it easier. The school board, wanting to make the rule, claimed there was no sexual assault, but it happened to be that this was the parent of the child sexually assaulted and was aware of the case.
So the school board didn't want the news coming out, because that would make passing the rule problematic. What to do? Have the parent arrested as a domestic terrorist. But there's a trial and the trans is convicted of the sexual assault. What to do? Claim the victim was a slut. Except that is the irrelevant part, because the court already decided the case was indeed sexual assault.
Two previous encounters? Slut shaming is ok for Michelle Goldberg if for the right cause.
I think the school had a problem with sexual activity in the bathroom but it was heterosexual and cisgender
Stop being a prole and ditch this New Speak crap. It's either normal sex or perverted sex. We've tried being hip about abnormal coitus and look where it has led us.
Back to basics.
I have a moderate to severe case of heterosexuality.......but I never wanted to go into the woman's restroom.
I think we have perverts tying to normalize perverts.
The defendant was also charged with raping another girl.
Seems relevant.
It doesn't count as sexual assault if the Right can somehow make hay over it. (Now, get back in line...!)
It isn't even necessary for a boy with a skirt to actually touch a woman in the restroom. How about a big, evil leer. A laugh. A pretense at looking under a stall door? Lots of fun for jerks who will be protected by the woke admin.
Someone on Twitter - or was it a commenter on Ace of Spades? - said that the Democrats would rather lose the Virginia governorship than give up shoving Critical Race Theory down our throats and kowtowing to the teachers' unions.
By the way, five people with white shirts and tiki torches stood in front of the Youngkin campaign bus, trying to make him look like a racist. The fact that one of the five was black, and that none of them was apparently able to find a MAGA hat to wear, had already shown that it was almost certainly a dirty trick by the McAuliffe campaign, but now one of them has been identified as a financial officer of the Young Virginia Democrats. Oops!
Ann, so this was "only" a "date rape"? Feminists have spent literal decades trying to get other people to understand that a date rape is a rape, period, and now along comes Michelle Goldberg to tell us, hey, it's no biggie, they were in a "relationship" anyway?
That is disgusting, Ann. And disappointing. A girl forcibly sodomized by a boy has been raped, period. I don't care whether he thinks he's a lesbian with a great whomping dick; he's a rapist. That Goldberg thinks this is in any way exculpatory appalls me.
One of the few amusing things for me over the last thirty years has been to watch the Feminist movement become what it is today. We've gone from "I am woman, hear me roar!" to cheering while men win woman of the year awards and calling mothers birthing people. It all started with the movement rolling over and disgracing themselves for Bill Clinton. (By the way, did it really end up being worth it?) Meanwhile today the Democrats nominate and elect a vice president who everybody knows got there by sleeping her way to the top.
The Feminist movement celebrates fiction as like the Handmaid's Tale as truth, while allying and defending a culture and religion that actually treats women that way. They defend the idea that men and women are interchangeable, merely depending on how one feels that particular day.
Here's my proposal. First admit and celebrate the fact that men and women are different. It's not only obvious to all but the willfully deluded, but it either denies the essential nature of nature, or the purpose of God, depending on your beliefs. Human life requires two different sexes to exist as nature, or God, has caused it to be. If either sex disappeared, humanity would go extinct.
Second, recognize the nature of the differences between the sexes, and account for them. The biggest thing here would be to stop denigrating motherhood. (When I first tried to talk about the whole birthing person thing with my Leftwing friends, they thought it was so absurd that I had to be lying) Every birth is a miracle, one that is denied to me by my sex. What other event could possibly be as meaningful, as self fulfilling as giving birth? You are either committing a godly act, or accomplishing the basic function of life, producing more life.
One of the most puzzling things of our time to me is that fact that as giving birth has become enormously safer and less painful, and infant mortality is at an all time low, is to see the rapid decline in the birth rate. Yes motherhood can be a sacrifice of one's goals and desires, but then again so is fatherhood. (at least in a sane world it is)
If you ask me, the best way to describe Feminism today is selfish and delusional.
Ann,
Golberg is muddying the waters, and you're falling for it. Trans bathroom policies in this specific event are incidental, except for the part where this incident would be seen as detrimental to the (then) *upcoming* policy the superintendent and board wanted. It's entirely possible, knowing the other shenanigans that board was involved in over CRT/DEI/SEL (that led to a resignation over doxing and intimidating parents) that they had an interest in hiding this incident from the public, and even having the father arrested (twice) over his complaints.
It comes down to a school board that acts like it's above the parents and students it SERVES. They were literally willing to allow a *rapist* access to schools, plural, in order to make sure it's sociopolitical agenda wasn't thwarted.
Althouse isn't usually a gaslighter.
Maybe some smart pyschologist can explain why Left/Liberals, especially Left/Liberal women, are so INTERESTED in having men in skirts, with penises, use the girls bathroom. I just don't get it. But its something they really, really care about. One day its lets stop segregation against black folks, and now in 2021 its lets have guys in skirts have freedom of choice in where to piss.
Even odder, they think that's the MORAL position. And anyone who disagrees should be at least be shamed, at worst cancelled. Only Wierdo religious nuts (mostly Christians) disagree. Secular Leftists (including Jews like Michelle) think they have the moral high ground..
Again I can't recall whether I read it on Twitter or Ace of Spades - my only on-line reading other than Althouse - but apparently 'Education' was not the #1 issue for Virginia voters in September, but now it is, and the question "Whom do you trust more on Education, McAuliffe or Youngkin?" has gone from McAuliffe by 33 points to Youngkin by 9 - all in a month or 6 weeks!
Barring truly massive cheating, Youngkin will win, and this issue is making all the difference. Thus proving what I wrote before, that the Democrats would rather lose the Virginia governorship than do the obviously right things on education.
And now we have Democrat operatives from the Virginia Young Democrats, dressing up as what they consider "White Supremacists" to look like, complete with Tiki torches and sunglasses in the rain, posing in front of Glenn Youngkins bus. McAuliffe's flaks are spreading this fake news like wild fire!! What a joke progressives are. They think the rest of us are as dumb and gullible as they are!!! Take a look for yourselves. Because ALL white Supremacists dress in tan khaki's and white shirts too!!! hahahhahahhaha!!!https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2021/10/29/i-have-the-receipts-eagle-eyed-tweeter-is-working-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-the-gross-false-flag-operation-against-glenn-youngkin-screenshots/
covering up the whole thing seems like a much larger lie than getting the trans issue confused. And yeah -the dude in a skirt. trans issue.
Well said, Gahrie.
“ Ann, so this was "only" a "date rape"? Feminists have spent literal decades trying to get other people to understand that a date rape is a rape, period, and now along comes Michelle Goldberg to tell us, hey, it's no biggie, they were in a "relationship" anyway? “That is disgusting, Ann.”
What a slimy misinterpretation of what I wrote.
I never said “only” or anything else to support your bullshit.
Absolutely despicable.
I confess to entering a men's restroom once. It was a long time ago - at the old mile high stadium - and I was desperate to pee. I hope I didn't rape anyone.
No penises in girls bathrooms in schools.
Or give us vouchers and let your kids go to a school that lets penises in the girls bathrooms.
But do not force me to support a school that lets penises in my girls bathrooms.
The fact our local media still refuses to even mention the rapist was wearing a dress in the girls' restroom tells me all I need to know about whose agenda is being pushed here.
There are claims that this same guy has sexually assaulted someone else. Does that matter?
The district tried to hide that this happened. Does that matter?
It does where the accused was a Catholic priest...
Let's also not forget that the girl has now been victimized a second time - her father has been arrested, she will inevitably feel responsible for this, as well as whatever harm his arrest and potential punishment may yield in family relationships, lost income and opportunities, further harassment from the government and/or its proxies, etc.
Greg The Class Traitor said...
Kay said...
I’m curious how a trans bathroom ban would even work. Do you have to show your genitals before you enter a public bathroom? Are we going to need gender identification cards? Seems like you can’t enforce it without trampling over people’s rights to privacy.
Hmm, let's think about this.
How, through the entirety of American history, have we managed to mostly keep males out of female restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, etc?
Why, we made it against the law! And when men were caught, we arrested them , tried them, convicted them, and punished them.
Do you have a driver's license over 5 years old? A US passport that wasn't issued in the last week? Then it identifies your sex, which is what we use to determine such things
Are you seriously trying to claim that we can't figure out what someone's sex is? Just how deluded are you?
10/29/21, 1:40 PM
Hmm, let's think about this.
How do they determine the sex on your identification? Let’s see, they take just your word for it, no matter who disagrees. So are you saying it’s okay for a trans person to be in the women’s room as long as their ID says f?
Ann said “ What a slimy misinterpretation of what I wrote. I never said “only” or anything else to support your bullshit. Absolutely despicable.”
Getting testy now that you are being called out on your hypocrisy. There was only one reason the boy was wearing a skirt. He knew that gave him power to do as he pleased even without an official vote on new trans rules. So does anyone else who is not blinded by very stupid and unscientific propaganda.
You are lying to yourself. Why? Does this reality impinge on your leftist beliefs and sense of self? Or do you feel you must defend trans because your son is gay? You do know that most trans are seriously mentally ill? Can you grasp that grouping trans with gays is going to end in more discrimination against gays, not less? And that it will be deserved in many cases because trans and the entire “any boy in a skirt can be a girl of he wants to” ideology is going to lead to more horrific crimes against girls and women. And that will be at the feet of all who defend this garbage.
Blogger tim in vermont said...Althouse isn't usually a gaslighter.
Althouse gaslights herself regularly. It used to be amusing. As there are now obvious victims of brutal crimes that have resulted from lefty women IMPOSING their absurd beliefs on their unwilling fellow citizens children it isn’t funny anymore.
Good old Michelle. I may have missed her explanation about why he was wearing a skirt, but none of the possibilities look good. For example, if he wore it to avoid notice, that comports well with concerns about joint bathrooms. He was just ahead of the game.
Also, this is not a transsexual brouhaha. It is a coverup brouhaha. Does anyone besides Michelle Goldberg believe this father is outraged about the forcible sodomizing of his daughter only because the perp wore a skirt? Is concern about the District’s coverup of sexual assault on campus limited to “right wing” parents?
Is this really what we have become?
This thread calls for input from Titus.
wendybar: "And now we have Democrat operatives from the Virginia Young Democrats, dressing up as what they consider "White Supremacists" to look like, complete with Tiki torches and sunglasses in the rain, posing in front of Glenn Youngkins bus. McAuliffe's flaks are spreading this fake news like wild fire!!"
Yep. The McAuliffe campaign went Full Reid Hoffman/PaidFakeConservative/LLR Chuck with this latest ploy.
Ann, I know what you said; I was complaining mostly about what Goldberg said. And she did say that it made a difference to the story that the two were "in a relationship." I say that it makes no difference whether they were or were not, because throwing a girl down on the bathroom floor and forcibly sodomizing her is rape, full stop.
But here is what you did say:
It was obvious to me that we did not have a good enough statement of the facts. People were making assumptions that nudged this case into serving as a great example of something they were worried about — that males would fake transgender status to victimize women and girls in bathrooms.
Um, exactly how is the statement of facts now "good enough"? "People were making assumptions" -- like why a guy would wear a skirt on the way to the girls' room. Exactly how has our understanding of that changed, apart from the technicality that the proposed official directive to let the "gender-fluid" use whatever bathroom their fluidity inclined them to at the moment hadn't been formally handed down? But it was already part of VA law, passed last year.
This guy -- I am calling him a guy, since we don't know his name, he obviously has a schlong, and he's now apparently sexually assaulted (convicted of one, the other case pending) two girls -- wore a skirt for some purpose. If you want information that might shed some light on the case, why not ask whether he wore the skirt habitually, or only changed into it for his little spot of rape? That would be actually valuable to know. We might also ask whether the two previous trysts -- you know, the ones that make it seem to Goldberg that this was an ongoing thing that just got a mite out of hand this once -- were BJs, or whether they, too, involved anal sodomy. From the girl's testimony, it doesn't sound like it.
Goldberg, IMO, comes perilously close to slut-shaming here, and you seemed to me uncomfortably fine with that sort of argument. I note that you posted your two clarifications that date rape is bad and that violence in schools should be the issue just as I was posting my own. That is something that might also have been better said upfront.
Once the grown-ups in that place reached a consensus that high school students having consensual sex in school bathrooms was not a problem that needed to be resolved, all sorts of mischief became inevitable.
Back in my days in school we were taught boys were boys and girls were girls. And boys dressed like boys and girls dressed like girls. Really wasn’t hard to figure out.
Now many, we’ll, the vast majority of actual parents, are still teaching our children boys are boys and girls are girls. And the professional educators are telling them to explore their sexuality, and tomboys are encouraged to identify as actual boys, which they can never be, and to mutilate their bodies with hormones and scalpels to become simulacrum boys. And show the slightest interest in anything feminine and boys are subject to that same pressure.
Regardless of parental desire. Parents are left totally out of the decision making process.
It never ends well for the children who have been deluded by “caring professionals” into thinking they could become something they’re not.
It’s one thing to encourage the young to take their best shot and encourage their dreams to become an astronaut, doctor, movie star, or professional athlete, though few will succeed. It’s evil to encourage them to try to be something they can’t be no matter what.
Beyond that, there's a big problem with date rape, and that's not about transgender people forcing themselves on people who are not interested in them.
Shouldn't you add "solely" in there someplace. It's "not solely about transgender people forcing themselves". Is it not possible for a trans person to commit date rape, or any kind of rape?
Does having a "penises allowed in the girls bathrooms as long as they wear a skirt" policy, enhance or detract from providing a secure facility? They obviously have a problem with maintaining security of the bathrooms even without the policy.
Conclusion: the left won't let mere rape get in the way of enforcing the progressive program.
Like anything else, even rape and women's rights are tools, to be cast aside when they outlive their usefulness.
the da that tried to charge the father, is one of soros minions who released nearly 500 sexual assaulters,
Once the grown-ups in that place reached a consensus that high school students having consensual sex in school bathrooms was not a problem that needed to be resolved, all sorts of mischief became inevitable.
If you POP-WOOD in a skirt is it still called a PUP-TENT.
I've avoided talking about this case until now — despite a lot of pushing from my commenters — and this is why. It was obvious to me that we did not have a good enough statement of the facts. People were making assumptions that nudged this case into serving as a great example of something they were worried about — that males would fake transgender status to victimize women and girls in bathrooms
Well, give this the "avoidance bullshit" tag. It's obvious that the school district and pro-trans radicals were all too happy to embrace this guy as one of their own before he became an embarrassment, but once they could no longer cover it up, suddenly they abandon this trans-girl and in an exercise of their own transphobia, misgender her as a male.
He walked around the school in girl's clothing. He was accepted as wearing girl's clothing. No one at that school challenged him. Why? BECAUSE OF THE SCHOOL'S PRO-TRANSGENDER AGENDA. It didn't need to be written down in some "official policy." EVERYONE knows that it was already their practice.
What are the details of the next encounter after he was transferred to another school?
Meanwhile, I don't trust that there was no pressure on the victim by the prosecutor and others to say that the earlier incidents were "consensual," especially her being a young minor.
Meanwhile, in the same Virginia school district, there is a boy being accused of groping (sexually assaulting) other boys in a junior high.
But let's not jump to conclusions that this in any way is gay activity.
Also -- people, the boy was NOT found guilty of rape.
RAPE IS PENILE-VAGINAL PENETRATION. He was found guilty of forcible sodomy. There is a difference. There was no vaginal penetration.
Back in my days in school we were taught boys were boys and girls were girls.
....and the effeminate boys got their asses-kicked during every recess.
"... that males would fake transgender status to victimize women and girls in bathrooms."
Whereas, we can now see that this was merely a case of a male who was faking transgender status victimizing a girl in a bathroom.
Gospace, amen! I was a "tomboy" -- not in the athletic sense (I was never the least athletic), but in everything else. I was never into "girl stuff," but natural history and botany and aircraft design and stuff like that. I got myself majorly hated by a bunch of kids at my new school in fifth grade b/c I brought in a three-foot-long dandelion stem to school. Other girls -- "mean girls," per the show and the meme -- hunted me out in the library and cornered me. All I wanted to do was be alone and play violin and design paper and balsa airplanes and play Nomic and D&D and do math club.
Thank God the current batch of harridans didn't catch my parents and convince them I was "really" a boy. Thank God. My parents are, btw, so far to my left that I can barely see there from here, but they had enough sense not to listen to that shit. Mom left home with $40 in her pocket, against her own parents' wishes, to go off to UW/Madison and become a biochemist.
The fault lies, as always, with the teachers and admin...leading us FORWARD! Throw in the Fed Edu Dept. The fella wore a skirt! The chick was a slut! There weren't any bathroom monitors! Oh, shut up! DotP...
Clearly the girl and the boy had worked out a system - ask not why he wore skirt this time ask what he wore at other times
Q: extra points .. was skirt professora apperoved Mini?
Gell-Mann Effect anyone? Any one?
Bender: Forcible anal penetration and oral action (or don't words mean what they mean anymore?)...thank Yeeze it wasn't rape!
It seems to me that the school system was eager to cover up a rape because it reflected badly on their trans-positive agenda.
Perhaps that was why the perpetrator wore his skirt; he knew appearing to be trans would allow him to get away with it. It almost worked.
OT - I'm glad all the liars and cheaters went to the Lincoln Project.
Lincoln Project takes credit for tiki torch stunt McAuliffe campaign passed off as genuine Youngkin supporters
Tho - Former President Lincoln should sue. And the Lincoln Project should re-named themselves the *pudge-pudding white supremacist leftist lying liars who lie club featuring never ending over-the-top obsessive Trump hate.*
wendybar said...
And now we have Democrat operatives from the Virginia Young Democrats, dressing up as what they consider "White Supremacists" to look like, complete with Tiki torches and sunglasses in the rain, posing in front of Glenn Youngkins bus
@wendybar, there was a hint that this was a false flag operation. One of the self-described “White Supremacists” was black.
“Why was the boy wearing a skirt?”
Because shim wanted to.
Gimme a Twix, gimme a Twix
Break me off a piece o’ dat damn Twix bar
PeenBoys in skirts is gonna be a thing…
Very curious. What about Michelle Goldberg makes her a timely or definitive source for reporting on this issue? Does the NYT in general or Goldberg specifically have a tendency to expose hoaxes and investigate powerful actors, instead of doing the opposite?
If the reporting is extensive, why don't we know the name of the convicted rapist?
"Perhaps that was why the perpetrator wore his skirt; he knew appearing to be trans would allow him to get away with it."
Of course that's what he was doing. All this talk about the policy not being "official" yet misses the point. Obviously, it was already being allowed. The exact thing parents were concerned with (a boy pretending to be trans to gain access to normally all-girl areas) happened. So yes, it is a trans issue.
thank Yeeze it wasn't rape
You miss the point entirely. Forcible sodomy isn't any less horrific than rape. But the law means something. The words that make up the law mean something.
Had this person been charged with rape, he would have and should have rightly been acquitted because there was no evidence of rape -- penile-vaginal penetration, no matter how slight. Virginia does not follow this relativistic trend of other states where words don't mean things and we can conflate different things as if they are the same. They still follow the common law.
It's not quibbling over unimportant matters to insist that people be precise and not play fast and loose with law and facts. It is merely insisting upon the rule of law that folks say that they believe in.
"The boy, however, expected sex and refused to accept the girl’s refusal."
Goldberg's description of rape is what is dispicable here. That the commenters are the ones that had to point this out is disappointing. Even worse, Goldberg completely mischaracterizes most of the objections to letting transgender females use the restrooms of females- it mostly isn't the belief that such transgenders are dangerous- it is the belief that such rules will be taken advantage of by non-transgender males, which is exactly what appears to have happened here. In short, I don't see what the big lie was here, and I don't think Goldberg added anything other than a few lies to the story here.
I eagerly await Chuck's defense of the Lincoln Projects latest efforts in Virginia.
Howard said...I'm surprised that you conservatives aren't blaming the girl for being a major tease like Hummus Aberdeen.
Careful Howard, your desperation is showing.
Ironically, in this story it’s the left that is running with the “she was asking for it” line. Adjust your trolling accordingly.
But Huma got french kissed by a SENATOR, and is put it out there because she is writing a book . I think a tranny boy raping a girl and same boy assaulting another girl is a LOT worse than Hillary's mistress crying about her "assault" that wasn't an assault. Huma was a 30 year old woman who went willingly up to his hotel room. If the girl wasn't rape raped....then nobody is. Stop talking about Sexual assaults at all then.
A girl was raped by a dude in a skirt in the bathroom. The school tried to cover it up and deny it existed. The same dude in a skirt ended up raping someone else. The first rape-victim's father tried to complain about the raping of his child at the school board meeting and he was arrested at the meeting and later called a terrorist. That's it, period.
Boat School,
" I’m so old I remember when the Times was an actual newspaper"
Older than Duranty, then?
Why is nobody asking the obvious question: if this boy sexually assaulted (sodomy is forcible oral or anal penetration) someone at this school and charged with a serious crime, why wasn’t he kept in a juvenile prison or locked therapeutic ward until his trial?
Also, why weren’t parents at the second school alerted that a sex offender was instead quietly transferred to their children’s’ school?
And if it turns out he used the same modus operandi the second time, and his modus operandi is befriending and dating his future victims, then why wasn’t that information given to parents and their children? Because that is statistically likely.
That second family, and possibly the first family are going to have a hell of a lawsuit against their school districts. Sure, it’s hard to sue the guvmint. But it isn’t impossible. And sex offenders at this age are extremely prolific — once in court, protected of course by his juvenile status, it might become known that many school officials have observed and covered up this behavior, many times. Right now we know he has been identified as a serial sex offender. There is a lot of fault in the juvenile courts — and the Soros no-bail movement — and the school administrators who covered this up.
By the way, it is completely normal for school districts to transfer students who have been caught committing sexual offenses but intentionally not prosecuted — and most aren’t, so this kid must be very dangerous and/or very prolific. One might think such students would be expelled. But the Obama administration, working off Chicago’s no-expel rules that were written and successfully lobbied for by terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, who ran a legal clinic creating model legislation like this, made it the policy of their DOE to use sticks and carrots to force districts to quietly transfer, rather than expel, minors who are sex offenders, many of whom are also in foster care and are additionally sexually abusing siblings and/or fellow foster children.
The media and the national school board association and these two-plus local school boards are culpable for far more serious offenses than the parents and the commenters here. And that IS the issue. We know when we are being played, though I imagine most here don’t know the real horrors rolling out thanks to these new rules. This case is just a glimpse of the harm being done to everyone. Including the perpetrator, who should be in an intensive locked therapeutic setting at the very least. Always follow the legislation. Until the FBI’s local flunky knocks down your door. And Ann, “cis” is a slur. Please don’t slur the victim or any other women. Please don’t sound triumphant that this is now allegedly heterosexual — serial — sex assault instead of transgender — serial — sex assault. I’m sure you don’t mean to do so. But it does sound triumphant to not ask the right questions and make this all about what some defense lawyer is telling his client, the accused double sex assailant, to say. To get off, possibly again. That is the Times’ sole message and unfortunately also yours. And this case does raise big questions about the abuses possible in the new gender regimes, which have already been amply documented in prisons.
JPS said...
The further he recedes into the rearview mirror, the less I admire him. The "modesty" violation is really a minor and incidental component to the forcible violation of someone's body.
Have you ever been punched in the face? Stabbed? Shot?
All of those are a "forcible violation of someone's body".
Kay decides to double down on stupid:
Me: Are you seriously trying to claim that we can't figure out what someone's sex is? Just how deluded are you?
10/29/21, 1:40 PM
Hmm, let's think about this.
How do they determine the sex on your identification? Let’s see, they take just your word for it, no matter who disagrees. So are you saying it’s okay for a trans person to be in the women’s room as long as their ID says f?
Well, generally speaking you have to have a birth certificate to get either your first Driver's License, or your first Passport.
The birth certificate states your sex. if you claim something different than that, in a functioning place you get pushback.
Because the point of the paperwork is that it has to match.
Now, psychotic left wing assholes are fighting to get rid of the sex designation on birth certificates. Are you one of those psychotic nuts?
Or are you fighting against them to avoid this "problem" that's circling in the sewer of your "mind"?
And no, here's what I'm saying, it's what every single sane person in the world who's thought about it is saying:
if you have a penis, you may not go into female "private spaces". It doesn't matter what you're wearing, it doesn't matter what you feel.
Now, if you're about to vomit, and there's only a female restroom close by, and you go in there, go to the toilet, and start to vomit into it, you'll probably get a pass.
If you're too young to go into a public bathroom by yourself, and your mother / female care-giver takes you into a female private space, then you get a pass.
If you're the male janitor whose job it is to clear such a space, and you've followed proper procedure to prevent you from walking in on a vulnerable female, you get a pass.
If there's some other rare circumstance ("I had to go right now, the female space was the only place I could get to, and there was no one in there to complain. I went, did my business, washed my hands, and immediately left", you'll probably get a pass.).
But if those rare circumstance "keep on happening" to you enough that other people notice, you'll probably, deservedly, end up in jail.
What is it about this taht you find so hard to understand?
"But the Left has announced that the rules have changed!" Fuck the Left. They don't get to do that. And we're not going to roll over and let them do that
Goldberg uses the phrase, so beloved now on the left, of "the Big Lie." But the Big Lie here is the Loudoun County School Board's lie -- KNOWINGLY told -- that no assaults had occurred in their bathrooms and that therefore this girl's father had no basis to be angry at them as he was. It is irrelevant to me with regard to this case whether the assailant was a trans girl or whatever. And Goldberg is full of it about "The Right's" anger. That anger here -- and it is very obviously NOT only "The Right's" -- is only tangentially about the school board's trans policies. The anger is at the board's outrageous and utterly depraved deceit about the assault and, also, its complicity in what is now a DOJ vendetta against parents angry about CRT mainly, mask mandates next, and trans policies last, but all together. That this boy was not trans, if that is so, does not diminish in the least the insanity of the official indifference regarding access to the bathrooms by both sexes and the depraved decision to cover this incident up in order to protect that right of access.
What happened to "No Means No?"
Kay said...
How do they determine the sex on your identification? Let’s see, they take just your word for it
BTW, Kay (or anyone else), can you tell me what State in the US lets you just walk in and say "hi, I"m Joe Shmoe, a male born on 7/4/76", and they just believe you and give you the State ID?
Because every 18- 20 year old would like to know where it is they can go to get that legal fake ID.
And I'd love to know where I can go to get a couple of fake identities setup for later use.
Enquiring minds want to know
https://www.theblaze.com/news/mom-loudoun-county-teen-alleged-rape-bathroom-identifies-as-male
Blogger Bender said...
Meanwhile, in the same Virginia school district, there is a boy being accused of groping (sexually assaulting) other boys in a junior high.
But let's not jump to conclusions that this in any way is gay activity.
"No penetration, no sodomy," as long as you are being such a stickler. Were their previous encounters legal? And if we may not call him a rapist, may we call him a sodomite? Is there a more in-vogue term?
And you see, calling both of those "sexual assault" is invidious.
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