Central Bucks Community Outcry Over 'Homophobic,' 'Transphobic' Incidents

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Central Bucks students protested outside Lenape Middle School on Tuesday over a teacher's alleged suspension, which some believe came after he offered support to a transgender student. At the evening's board meeting, the district's superintendent offered a response.

A petition to reinstate Andrew Burgess, an eighth-grade teacher at the school, had gained more than 3,700 signatures on Wednesday.

The petition on Change.org claims the teacher was suspended with pay pending a further investigation after providing a transgender student with a phone number to call if he felt bullied.

"Please hold the school and district accountable," the petition reads.

The Bucks County Courier Times reported one transgender middle schooler spoke at the meeting and said Burgess was one of the only people who offered him sustained support after he'd been harassed continuously by classmates.

Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh said at the beginning of the meeting that he himself had been able to speak with many LGBTQ+ students about their experiences of bullying this year. He said Burgess was not suspended for supporting a student in the LGBTQ+ community.

"No district would deign to take such action against an employee,” he said.

He also said he could not comment further on administrative action against Burgess. However, he did comment on "false narratives" in the district, insinuating protestors had misconstrued Burgess' case.

"It creates an environment that divides our students and divides our community," Lucabaugh said, according to WFMZ.

But this is not the first time Central Bucks has been under fire for LGBTQ+ issues — book banning efforts from some community members in March showed a community divided and specifically targeted some LGBTQ+ authors over "sexually-explicit" content.

A Central Bucks mother, Mindy Freeman, spoke to Congress on book banning in April.

"No book made my child become transgender any more than a book could have turned her eyes from brown to blue," she said, according to the Bucks County Herald.

Then, according to a story from WHYY, that same month Central Bucks administration said gender-nonconforming or trans students should attend the Human Growth and Development class that corresponded to the student’s sex assigned at birth.

They could also choose to watch a video on the content in the nurse’s office, watch a video at home, or opt out of the class entirely, reporter Emily Rizzo said.

On Tuesday, Lucabaugh said the district paused the classes and hopes to release a new plan next week reworking approaches for fourth- through sixth-grade students.

“What we’re trying to do is do a better job with the way that we deliver that curriculum," Lucabaugh said in the Bucks County Courier Times. "What we’re trying to do is to find a way that doesn’t in any way single out or marginalize anyone, and we think that we’ve come up with a better way to do it that is more inclusive and respectful.”

The Courier Times said an employee told its reporters that a Gender Clinic from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia covering how to teach about puberty for all students was suddenly removed from an employee training day before spring break.

Lucabaugh also said removal of affinity flags from district classrooms, for which Central Bucks had also come under fire, was not anti-LGBTQ+, saying "hanging a flag doesn’t do anything to keep a kid safe.”

Experts validated concerns from some in the district, though.

“They’re taking an awful lot of discrete actions that seem to target sexual orientation and gender identity that collectively could rise to the level of a hostile educational environment,” Witold Walczak of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania told the Courier Times.

He told the news organization that, if the district is unresponsive to student protests, they could file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education.

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