Trans boy forced by school official to "prove" himself at a urinal

[Madner Kami]

What I am not seeing in this article is proof. Innocent until proven guilty.

The official is accused of going into a restroom and demanding to see a student’s crotch. This sort of situation is precisely one where automatically believing the child over the alleged sex offender is standard procedure; treating the perpetrator as guilty, or at least best suspended and under surveillance, during investigation is standard procedure.

Not doing so is diminishing the nature and severity of the accusations.

Because this would be the first case in the history of ever, where the accused is not actually guilty, right? Not like anyone ever lied in any of these matters... And no, the alleged perpetrator needs to be treated innocent, unless there's sufficient evidence that he is more than just an alleged perp. Of course the removal of said teacher from his job is a wide decission, as it's going to protect everyone involved from any potential further harm, but treating the teacher as a perp is the dumbest thing to advocate for.

[CmdrKing]

Well, let’s phrase it this way.

Believing the child in such instances means treating the allegation seriously. Not pretending to with a few days suspension while the district tries to get the student or their parents to back down. Actually seriously: full investigation, checking for patterns of behavior (ie has this happened before with other trans/gender noncomforming students), and most importantly treating the boy’s statement as evidence requiring refutation.

In principle keeping the matter out of the press would be preferable. In practice without substantial outside pressure the school district would absolutely sweep it under the rug and let a bigoted abuser continue to harass the kid: trying to make problems quietly die is the first move, because even due diligence means effort and bad press. Moreover any trans person knows society will happily let them suffer in darkness, and reaching out to those few supportive ears is the best first move.

[Madner Kami]

Well, let’s phrase it this way.

Believing the child in such instances means treating the allegation seriously. Not pretending to with a few days suspension while the district tries to get the student or their parents to back down. Actually seriously: full investigation, checking for patterns of behavior (ie has this happened before with other trans/gender noncomforming students), and most importantly treating the boy’s statement as evidence requiring refutation.

No, let us not phrase it this way, because this is exactly the way of thinking that gets people's lives ruined for no good reasons. Imagine for a second, that the child actually lied or that the situation, while not being handled perfectly, actually can be explained reasonably. What now? You throw a person at a pack of hungry hyenas and once it turns out, that the child either lied or got a perfectly explainable situation wrong in a horrible way, you have two persons whose lives are ruined and, given how child molesters and the like are generally treated by society, one of which quitely likely being a victim of physical violence in a situation where not living might be the preferable state to continuing living.

An alleged victim's statements are just that: A person telling a story how the person percieved it happened. Without sufficient evidence to back up the story, it is just that: A story. We do not know how things happened in the eyes of the alleged perpetrator and we do not even know if these things actually happened at all and pretending that things happened just because someone said so, with no evidence backing up the claim, is ridiculous. Doubly so, if it's about judicial issues.

[CmdrKing]

Treating the words of victims as suspect is, by very nature, favoring the person in the conflict who has more societal power; invariably this is the perpetrator.
Put another way, assuming children are lying or misinterpreting their abuse is precisely why blowing the lid off the Catholic CHurch's decades of covering up abuse among their priests has happened only in the past 10 years.

Also note that I clearly laid out "believing victims" as conducting full and thorough investigations, with emphasis on disproving claims first, rather than sweeping them under the rug. But even this is somehow too much to ask to prevent abusers and bigots from targeting vulnerable children.
This is precisely the worldview that lets the world be awful.

But since I'm home and able to check the article and cross reference easily, let's dig into this case in particular! Because you're even MORE hilariously wrongheaded here than the sheer hypotheticals made you.

Harrison County Schools has not responded to the letter, but district officials apologized to the family and promised that there would be an investigation. That was the last they heard from the school district, two months ago.

While the family say that they hope to settle the matter without resorting to a lawsuit, they are keeping all their options open.

Oh hey, it's exactly that thing I said would happen: the school completely brushed off the allegations for months until the family went public and called in the ACLU.
My sympathy for the school is waning.

The confrontation lasted three or four minutes, and other students down the hall could hear what was happening.

A parent chaperone intervened, and Livengood said it was a “misunderstanding.”

Oh, look, corroborating witnesses. That hypothetical of "this is all a lie" is shot. What else we got here.

“I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything,” Livengood allegedly said. “I’m not going to lie, you freak me out.”

Yeah if that's verified that's the "misunderstanding" out the window too. That's open bigotry: he was targeting the student specifically because he was "freak[ed] out" by trans people existing.

So yeah, no. This man is a sex offender. The court of public opinion has ruled fairly.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Fair work, CmdrKing.

[Darth Wedgius]

Treating the words of victims as suspect is, by very nature, favoring the person in the conflict who has more societal power; invariably this is the perpetrator.
Put another way, assuming children are lying or misinterpreting their abuse is precisely why blowing the lid off the Catholic CHurch's decades of covering up abuse among their priests has happened only in the past 10 years.

Also note that I clearly laid out "believing victims" as conducting full and thorough investigations, with emphasis on disproving claims first, rather than sweeping them under the rug. But even this is somehow too much to ask to prevent abusers and bigots from targeting vulnerable children.
This is precisely the worldview that lets the world be awful.

But since I'm home and able to check the article and cross reference easily, let's dig into this case in particular! Because you're even MORE hilariously wrongheaded here than the sheer hypotheticals made you.

Harrison County Schools has not responded to the letter, but district officials apologized to the family and promised that there would be an investigation. That was the last they heard from the school district, two months ago.

While the family say that they hope to settle the matter without resorting to a lawsuit, they are keeping all their options open.

Oh hey, it's exactly that thing I said would happen: the school completely brushed off the allegations for months until the family went public and called in the ACLU.
My sympathy for the school is waning.

The confrontation lasted three or four minutes, and other students down the hall could hear what was happening.

A parent chaperone intervened, and Livengood said it was a “misunderstanding.”

Oh, look, corroborating witnesses. That hypothetical of "this is all a lie" is shot. What else we got here.

“I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything,” Livengood allegedly said. “I’m not going to lie, you freak me out.”

Yeah if that's verified that's the "misunderstanding" out the window too. That's open bigotry: he was targeting the student specifically because he was "freak[ed] out" by trans people existing.

So yeah, no. This man is a sex offender. The court of public opinion has ruled fairly.

I don't think the article says that he wanted to see the kid's crotch, as you've alleged. Unless I missed that.

That said,I wouldn't call "conducting full and thorough investigations, with emphasis on disproving claims first, rather than sweeping them under the rug" "believing victims," but I would approve it as a course of action.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I don't think the article says that he wanted to see the kid's crotch, as you've alleged. Unless I missed that.

That said,I wouldn't call "conducting full and thorough investigations, with emphasis on disproving claims first, rather than sweeping them under the rug" "believing victims," but I would approve it as a course of action.

I noticed this too. Forcing anyone to use a urinal though is quite perverting.

I'm fairly certain that king just assumed this before explicitly declaring that he would read the article. It wasn't really a factor in his final declaration. Though yes, I'm not sure if predator applies here.

[Yukaphile]

This is seven flavors of wrong. My fucking God. Once is... okay, if you wanna make sure someone new isn't taking advantage of this to perv, okay, as long as you remain inside "respectable boundaries." But if this shit has been going on for literal months? With no intervention? It's like those in the military who brush off allegations of sexual assault. It reminds me of that quote Yusuke had in Yu Yu Hakusho.

"I'm just like anyone with power, I don't do anything to help!"