Parents in the Portland suburb of Forest Grove are outraged after learning that a local outdoor School has been permitting males to bunk with their young daughters in overnight cabins based on self-declared “gender identity.”
In a screenshot posted by one parent, who uses the X handle @whileursilent, the rules for the Oregon Outdoor School state that high school-aged male counsellors, who the user says may be between 15 and 18, were allowed to sleep in overnight cabins with much younger girls.
The cabins for the program are divided into Female+, Male+, and Gender Inclusive.
According to the description for the Female+ Cabins, the bunk is for “female students (regardless of sex assigned at birth), non-binary students who feel safe in this space, and transgender* students who feel safer in this space.”
To prepare parents for their children leaving for a week of Outdoor School, the Hillsboro School District sent out a PDF to parents detailing what the week at Outdoor School would look like for their children. But the PDF made no mention of the possibility that minor girls may be sharing cabins with opposite-sex camp counselors or other campers.
The camp counselors, who sleep in the cabins to supervise the 6th graders, are recruited from local high schools, and, until recently, were split up amongst the cabins in accordance with their biological sex.
While the schools have remained quiet on the cabin arrangements, the Northwest Regional Outdoor Schools website states there is a possibility of mixed gender cabins if someone “identifies” with a gender other than what they were born with. They also devote an entire page of their website to discussing “gender inclusive practices.”
The Outdoor Schools, which are operated separately from public school entities, are open about their desire to house transgender teens in whatever cabins they feel most comfortable, meaning a 16 year-old biological male could be in a cabin with 11 year old girls. Alternatively, an 11 year-old girl who self identifies as a boy would be housed with biological boys of her age.
The website of Northwest Regional Outdoor schools specifically notes out that once the children arrive in camp they are not typically allowed to change cabin placement, but they make a special exception for “gender identity.”
According to @whileursilent, if a parent objects to the mixed-gender cabins, their only option is to pull their child out of the outdoor school completely.
