Transgendered teacher inspires lesson in tolerance
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20081119/COLUMN0101/811190381/1066/COLUMN (http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20081119/COLUMN0101/811190381/1066/COLUMN)
Carol McAlice Currie
11/19/2008
For most of us, protecting our young is a primordial instinct.
It is a gut feeling that comes from deep within without reason or
warning. It keeps us awake nights and consumes our days, and we are
powerless to ignore this imprinted or inherited instinct, depending on
whose theories you believe.
It was that parental instinct, said Salem resident J. Hampton, that
prompted him to speak out about a transgendered staff member in his
7-year-old son's before- and after-school care program.
Hampton's son attends the Salem Family YMCA's child-care program at
Chapman Hill Elementary School in West Salem.
Hampton said he and his wife thought their son was being cared for by
three women. The Hamptons recently found that one of the women is a
transgendered woman (a man rejecting the physical gender of his birth
and assuming the identity of a woman).