Kansas City-area school district awarded grant to create ‘gender-affirming closet’ to hide gender identity from parents, but later rejects it

The Kansas City-area Liberty Public Schools was awarded, but has rejected, a grant to create a “gender-affirming closet” for students to presumably hide their gender identity from their parents.

The LGBTQ “It Gets Better Project” this year has awarded $10,000 grants each to some 56 U.S. and 15 Canadian public and charter schools for LGBTQ initiatives and ideology, as reported by The Daily Caller.

Two such grants went to districts in Kansas – Piper, in Kansas City, and Hutchinson – and one to Liberty schools near Kansas City, Missouri.

But while Piper was said to be allocating the money for staff LGBTQ training, and Hutchinson for “a mural, a LGBTQ+ resource bulletin board, and adding LGBTQ+ books,” Liberty was said by the organization to be planning not just a mural but a gender-affirming closet for students to dress as their preferred gender while away from home.

After reaching out to the district Monday morning, The Lion received word through a back channel that the Liberty school district is not going to accept the grant.

“It was applied for by a group of high school students a couple months ago, not the district,” a source told us. “When it went through the proper channels to be vetted, it was determined to not align with board policies and, thus, not approved. No funds were received.”

A spokesman for the district later confirmed that account.

“Liberty Public Schools did not accept the grant that you referenced in your initial inquiry,” the spokesman wrote in an email. “There are no plans … related to a gender-affirming closet. Our district did not apply for the grant. It is my understanding that the application process for the grants oftentimes (has) been led by individual students in school systems across the country.”

A school in Oakland, California last year announced a “Transition Closet” that, according to its own sponsor, provides clothes “for teens who identify as transgender but don’t want their parents to know.”

“Nearly 6,000 US public schools hide child’s gender status from parents,” announced a New York Post headline earlier this year. 

“More than 3.2 million US public school students are covered by guidance that blocks parents from knowing whether their child identifies as a different gender in the classroom,” the Post reported, citing information compiled by Parents Defending Education. “At least 168 districts governing 5,904 schools nationwide have rules on the books that prevent faculty and staff from disclosing to parents a student’s gender status without that student’s permission …”

At least one supporter of gender-affirming closets made no bones about the fact that they’re intended to keep parents in the dark about their children’s gender identity.

“The goal of the transition closet is for our students to wear the clothes that their parents approve of, come to school and then swap out into the clothes that fit who they truly are,” said a teacher at the Oakland Unified School District.

The Daily Caller reports the $625,000 in grants to schools are intended “to promote gender ideology, support ‘Gender Sexuality Alliance’ (GSA) clubs and put on Pride Week celebrations.” Some districts, the report notes, are partnering with the controversial anti-Catholic group “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” – a group of men dressed as nuns – “to take transgender students ‘back-to-school shopping.’”

“The group is funding programs and curricula that are inappropriate for children and certainly inappropriate for classrooms in public schools,” Erika Sanzi, director of operations at Parents Defending Education, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The fact that they funded a program for a public school to work with the anti-Catholic organization Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence shows that the group is more than willing to work with those who practice bigotry against Americans who think and believe differently from them.”