Perhaps a small silver lining was created when Moms for Liberty visited Durango, sponsored by La Plata County Republican Secretary Hope Scheppelman. Our peaceful “good commotion” protest advanced an opportunity to examine their dangerous book bans, censorship, LGBTQI+ persecution and alleged school indoctrination accusations.

I was alarmed to read that Scheppelman used her nurse practitioner status to assert expertise in human sexual development. Her statement “there are only two genders” and “not telling them there’s like 26 or 27 genders” exhibits real flat-earth thinking. (Her word choice of “gender” simplifies documented science of DNA chromosome traits, embryo hormone exposure and Region Y gene studies that now recognize 40 human development variations, much greater than “26 or 27“).

The area of genetics and human sexual development is extremely complicated. I understand how people think there are only two genders. Since this is not the proper place to teach genetics, I urge serious education, not discrimination or censorship. It is wrong to bash LGBTQI+ and public-school teachers for “woke indoctrination” for political gain. For example, the “I“ stands for intersex human development and there are approximately 155 million intersex individuals worldwide.

When an intersex individual has both female and male anatomy traits, perhaps you can begin to understand why that person may feel that their pronoun is more ”they“ than ”he“ or ”she.“ Yes, there is an actual purpose to list personal pronouns.

With MFL holding up signs that read “Protect Our Children,” I need to ask, protect from what? Protect from whom?

Barbara Day

Durango