After her social media post suggested that a baseball player was transgender, resulting in such severe abuse that the college area sought police safety for the child, the Utah State Board of Education is urging the student to retire.
The girl attends Granite School District, which last week demanded the resignation of state board member Natalie Cline (R). Both Cline’s other board members and other Republicans in the state ‘highest workplace voiced their disapproval.
Utah’s governor Lt. Gov. and Spencer J. Cox (R) In a joint statement last week, Deidre Henderson (R) expressed their shock at Cline’s “unconscionable behavior” toward the student.
Cox and Henderson urged the state board to hang board member Cline guilty, saying that this is regrettably not the first time he has embarrassed Utah and the State Board of Education.
In a Facebook post last year, Cline stated that her unique, since-deleted article “never claimed the student was in the boy.” However, she did not immediately respond when asked for comment on Sunday.
Cline expressed regret for her deleted post and attributed her conviction to “the drive to restore transgenderism in our community.”
In Utah, where conservative numbers have recently highlighted anti-trans policies on the legislative agenda, Cline’s implication that the teen girl, who is transgender, was a child playing girls ‘hockey is particularly pointed.
Utah has been one of the state to introduce or enact legislation prohibiting transgender women from taking part in K–12 athletics since 2022. According to the Associated Press, state lawmakers outlawed gender-affirming care for transgender minors last time, and next month they made the 11th status to forbid transgender people from using restrooms that reflect their gender identity in public places like schools and government buildings.
The girl’s kids, Al and Rachel van der Beek, claimed that Cline owes their home a greater explanation than what she posted on Twitter.
In February. In a post on social media, Cline posted an image of the van der Beeks’s daughter on the flier for the girls ‘high school basketball game and wrote, “Girls’ basketball!” in the caption.
The van de Beeks informed NBC’s Salt Lake City online KSL TV that they were informed the following day of the Cline article and the barrage of challenges that ensued after they did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
Al van der Beek described the comments about his daughter as “disgusting” and said, “It was cyberbullying at its finest.” The van der Beeks referred to their child as a “girl” who often attends the gym, has short hair, and dresses in baggier clothing.
I don’t think it’s appropriate, Rachel van der Beek told the station, “To judge someone by their outward appearance and assume that they’re either playing in the right arena or not.”
The van de Beeks claimed that their child does not use social press on her mobile and that her name and school were never disclosed in order to protect her protection. The following morning, after school, they told her the information.
The consequences of such abuse could have been disastrous for his daughter’s mental health, according to Al van der Beek, who told the TV station that she was fortunate to have family and community support.
According to the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide prevention nonprofit, the 2023 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ Young Persons found that LGBTQ+ boys who face physical challenges due to their gender identity or sexual orientation reported a triple higher rate of suicide attempt than those who were never threatened.
After running on issues of religious liberty and society conflict, such as anti- LGBTQ+ plans, Cline was elected in 2020 to signify portions of Salt Lake City and a north part of Utah County.
She has consistently sparked controversy and rebuke for her remarks in a little more than three years. She referred to LGBTQ+ individuals as “gender-confused” and the “indoctrination” of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2021. Later that year, she officially identified a professor who, according to her, taught students that “socialism is better than our form of government” despite the lack of supporting evidence. She urged her followers to take action against the teacher. Schools are “complicated in the cleaning of children for gender smuggling,” according to Cline next year, and teach “gender- bending ideologies.”
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the state board of education issued a notice of censure for the first time in 2021 after posting an article disparaging LGBTQ+ high school students.
The LGBTQ lobbying group Equality Utah referred to Cline’s article about the baseball player as “a fresh level of depravity and bullying.”
According to Equality Utah, “Cline’s article perpetuates the modern-day monster hunt, where violent people officers the bodies of children to decide whether they are masculine or feminine enough.”
The state board of education claimed it lacked the authority to remove Cline from her elected position, which contributed to the pressure on her to withdraw. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the Utah House of Representatives unanimously decided on Friday to review a quality denouncing Cline. Members of the House made no mention of whether they would attempt to oust her as the legislative program came to an end.
The four-year name of Cline ends in January. She intends to run for reelection this slide, according to papers from the Utah State Board of Election.
