A Hopkins principal accused Libs of TikTok of spreading “false and hateful claims towards LGBTQ youth” after a report from the popular Twitter account said the school is offering chest binders to students without parental knowledge.
The Libs of TikTok report begins with a picture of a flier that is hanging in a hallway at Hopkins West Junior High School. The flier includes the contact information for the school’s “health mentor,” Caroline Hickey, who offers to talk with students about “gender norms,” “gender and identity,” and “circles of sexuality.”
Libs of TikTok decided to contact Hickey, posing as a gender-confused student seeking hormones.
“If you want to come and chat we can talk about other options (like the possibility of a free binder from MyHealth) and further resources that might help,” Hickey responded.
In another message, Hickey assured the student that she would not inform their parents.
“Nothing is going on your record. I usually just email your teacher for that block to let [them] know we have an appointment. They won’t know what it’s about or say anything to your parents,” Hickey said.
Libs of TikTok explained that they “wanted to know if parents at Hopkins Public Schools were made aware of the types of gender services offered to their children so we pressed Caroline further. She confirmed that she will not notify parents.”
Hopkins Public Schools did not respond to a request for comment, but Hopkins West Junior High School Principal Leanne Kampfe, a member of the “Good Trouble Principals,” addressed the issue in an email to parents.
She said her school is in the process of “transitioning to a community school,” which is a type of school that “provides a full range of services that are co-located in our space and made possible through grant funding.”
“As part of our community school model, we have a partnership with MyHealth. The clinic operates within our space but is run and operated by MyHealth staff,” she said.
She then “condemned” the “content of Libs of TikTok and the approach they used to obtain information for their story.”
“This story presented our partnership with MyHealth in a way that is designed to provoke fear and division. We are not sharing this story as we don’t want to drive traffic to their site; however, it is being shared extensively in troll-like spaces on Twitter,” she wrote.
Kampfe said parents have the “right and ability to opt their children out of MyHealth services.”
“We want to make this absolutely clear as the story intentionally vilifies the adults at West and MyHealth and suggests that our goal would be to exclude parents from important conversations about their children,” she concluded. “This is not only not true, it has led to threatening messages being sent to our staff from people outside our community.”
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
