In a recent phone call with a constituent, Republican incumbent congressman William Timmons said that he can understand why gender ideology would be taught to elementary school children because he had sex-ed in sixth grade.
He then went on to insinuate that the teaching of gender ideology might not be a bad idea because children will already be exposed to it on the internet.
The call, uncovered by a citizen journalist and posted to YouTube, took place at the behest of a concerned citizen who didn’t want his fifth-grade son to be exposed to the trans agenda present in the book.
Timmons’s rationale in the phone call hinged on the idea that ideas like the LGBTQ and Trans agenda proliferate the internet, and that minor children will be exposed to them by various online sources.
Better that the young students be taught the facts of life, Timmons seemed to indicate, than to let them learn about the ideas in a less controlled environment such as social media.
“At some point people are gonna get this on the internet and on Instagram and on Tik Tok or whatever,” Timmons said.
Timmons went on to further defend transgender ideology when the interviewer pointed out the absurdity of it.
Timmons’s appeared to support the inclusion of the transgender curriculum because there are doctors who believe in trans ideology, and who believe that girls can be boys and that boys can be girls.
“If somebody says a boy can be a girl and a girl can be a boy, this is the most insane postmodern ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen,” the constituent said.
“But there are literally people that have medical degrees that disagree with this,” Timmons shot back.
Timmons emailed National File claiming he led the charge on getting the book removed from Greenville County Schools.
“I led the charge to get that book removed from schools in Greenville county and was successful. It was removed two weeks ago,” Timmons told National File in an email.
Any claim that the effort to remove Melissa/George from Greenville County Schools was successful leaves out the fact that the book was left in the middle schools and high schools. According to Greenville County Schools spokesman Tim Waller, the book was removed from elementary schools but is still available for students in Middle School and High School.
National File reached out to the former WFYY reporter and current Greenville County Schools spokesman Waller, who promptly replied, indicating that it’s not really a big deal that the book is in middle or high schools since the book was intended for younger audiences.
The Board of Trustees voted to remove the book from all elementary schools. They decided to keep it at the middle school level, but require parental permission to check it out. At the high school level, there are no restrictions, but it’s sort of a moot point since the book was written for readers much younger than high school age, which means there isn’t much interest at that level.
Melissa/George is currently in six elementary schools, six middle schools and one high school, according to Yahoo News.
The book, which the author now calls “Melissa,” in order to highlight the claim that George is evidently no longer a boy, is still available to students enrolled in Greenville County high schools on an unrestricted basis.
Melissa/George is also still available to Greenville County middle school students with permission from their parents.
Hundreds of districts across the country include books on gender ideology and LBGTQ issues — a number of which contain sexually graphic content — that are taught to students as young as Kindergarten age.
In one example, Jacob’s New Dress — a book about a boy who wants to dress like a girl — is a reading requirement for second-grade students in the Haverford School District.
Parents of school-aged children nationwide have joined their voices in opposition to the perceived evil of CRT and the invasion of overtly sexual themes into classrooms at every level.
The same was true in Greenville County, South Carolina, where the charge to rid Greenville of the pro-transgender book George was led by the Greenville County School Board, according to Greenville County Councilman Joe Dill.
The call about the trans agenda, which Timmons says happened on May 19th, preceded a vote by the school board by a week in which the board.
Congressman Timmons told National File that he “led the charge” to remove George/Melissa from Greenville Schools. Timmons also claimed that the book was, in fact, removed from the district’s public schools.
It does not appear that the book has been removed entirely from Greenville County Schools, however.
At least one County Councilman disputes Timmons’ claim to have “led the charge” against Melissa/George.
“I’m unaware of any involvement with respect to the Federal Delegation, including William Timmons, in removing George from Greenville Public Schools,” Dill told National File.
In an effort to examine Timmons’ claim that he led the charge against Melissa/George, National File performed a review of Rep. Timmons’s social media accounts. As of Thursday afternoon, June 9th, there were no recent posts on Timmons’s Twitter or Facebook accounts referring to the Melissa/George controversy in the Greenville County Schools.
In a follow-up email late on Thursday afternoon, Timmons detailed his position on teaching trans ideology in schools, saying he is “100% opposed” to such content being taught in K-12 education.
Timmons says it is “egregious” that such materials are available to kids and that he’s 100% opposed to exposing children to the left’s woke agenda.
Later in his email, Timmons told National File that he spoke with school board members, the head of government affairs with Greenville County Schools, as well as with Governor McMaster’s office so they could address the issue statewide.
McMaster has previously gone on-the-record in opposition to the inclusion of the book “Gender Queer: A Memoir”, which was available in the town of Fort Mill.
“For sexually explicit materials of this nature to have ever been introduced or allowed in South Carolina’s schools, it is obvious that there is or was either a lack of, or a complete breakdown in, any existing oversight processes or the absence of appropriate screening standards,” McMaster said late last year.
Governor McMaster even ordered an investigation of all school libraries in the wake of the Gender Queer scandal in Fort Mill, a week after Governor Abbott in Texas did the same.
The day after Governor McMaster initiated the investigation, Greenville County Schools reported that it would evaluate all illustrated novels in its inventory, according to a report by Greenville News, a subsidiary of USAToday, a Gannett paper.
It is unclear whether Gannett or the Greenville News ever followed up on the claim that the Greenville Schools planned to evaluate the obscene books in its collection.
The difference between the approach McMaster took against Gender Queer and the response Timmons apparently offered could not be more stark, according to one key activist in Greenville County.
“Timmons is leading from behind on the transgender issue!” said James Hoard, a conservative activist from Greenville County.
The difference in the leadership styles reflects Timmons’s comments made at a recent debate, in which the incumbent congressman derided the kind of approach where politicians raise their voices about certain hot-button issues.
In a subsequent email to National File, Timmons claimed that a link he provided to a Greenville News report proves that he was in direct communication with the Greenville County School Board.
Later in his email to National File, Timmons again repeated that the book was removed from Greenville Public Schools, and proceeded to answer questions about his positions on sex education.
He claims to have misspoken on the call with the constituent, saying that at Christ Church Episcopal, where Timmons attended private school, Sex Education was taught later, he says, in the eighth grade, at Christ Church.
In contrast to how his comments sounded during the phone call, Timmons says he is entirely opposed to transgender ideology being taught in K-12, and says he believes children should be shielded from such “radical viewpoints.”
He went on to characterize the phone call as a “strategy session” in which the participants on the call were trying to craft the best approach to achieving the objective, which was “protecting our youth.”
He further characterized the call recording as having been edited to misrepresent his views. He strongly believes in traditional values, he wrote, and says that faith should be the foundation of every child’s education.
In addition, Timmons told National File that his office is working towards legislation that would create a parental advisory board for books similar to movies, which he hopes to advance in the coming weeks.
William Timmons is currently facing multiple primary challengers in South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District.
This article has been updated to include additional statements from Rep. William Timmons in response to the earlier report. It also contains updated comments from Greenville County Schools Spokesman Tim Waller.