An LGBTQ nonprofit organization that focuses on children wrote a check to Las Cruces Public Schools to fund a “transgender closet” in Centennial High School. These closets contain a variety of clothing for trans-identified students to change into apparel reflecting the opposite gender without their parents’ knowledge.

Instead, a records request from the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance shows the district spent $8,370 of the money on over 200 chest binders, which are tight fabrics used to compress breasts in order to “masculinize” a female’s chest. The school district said that it bought the chest binders because it already had a clothing closet at school “open for use to all CHS students.”

Chest binding can cause harm to women and girls, with one study showing that 88.9% of participants reported experiencing at least one symptom from chest binding, including pain and musculoskeletal or neurological problems, as well as scarring and rib fractures.

The records also show that the chest binders were handed out at a Pride Day event that the Independent Women’s Forum, which broke the story about the “transgender closet,” suspects was the Southern New Mexico Pride Celebration. The first-of-its-kind event included, among other things, cross-dressing men performing in front of children as drag queens.

Earlier this month, parental rights advocacy group Parents Defending Education (PDE) submitted a public records request to the district looking for guidance regarding the district’s transgender policies.

The district provided PDE with the training that staff received. The flyer for this training states that “participants will be able to differentiate between an individual’s gender and their sexual orientation,” “participants will know the appropriate way to address someone who is transgender,” and “participants will be able to identify an appropriate definition of transgender.” The training was scheduled for March 22, 2023.

One of the presentations contains a slide intimating that school staff should not inform parents if their child shows symptoms of gender dysphoria. “Many can’t be out to their families,” the flyer reads, also stating that “Many live as their true gender, but don’t want others to know they’re trans.”

This appears under the heading: “Enforce privacy around birth name and trans status.”

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What’s happening in the Las Cruces School District is similar to others across the country that have been fully taken over by progressive trans activists. It is part of a full-on effort to promote gender ideology to children with as little parental involvement and knowledge as possible.

Centennial High School’s transgender closet is one of many being used in schools – especially in blue states. They are specifically designed to ensure that children with gender dysphoria can conceal their social “transition” to the opposite sex with the school’s guidance.

This is why it is so important to get children out of government-run schools. While this effort is not happening in every single K-12 classroom, it is certainly happening in far too many. Indeed, much of this is even occurring in red states unbeknownst to parents. Groups like Parents Defending Education, Moms for Liberty, and others have been at the forefront of exposing this agenda. However, enacting the reforms needed to purge these schools of progressive influence will likely take years, which is why divesting from government-run schools as much as possible is necessary.