In a victory for far-left activists, a California mom was fired after she spoke at a school board meeting.
Janet Roberson, a mother of three and a real estate agent, spoke at a Benicia, California, school board meeting because she objected to a new sex education curriculum.
“They basically said that I was a homophobe, transphobic, a racist, and all these terrible things, none of which are true,” Ms. Roberson told The Epoch Times.
Her children attend a local school.
The new curriculum teaches children that they can be transgender, instructs 10-year-olds about puberty blockers, introduces 12-year-olds to the concept of anal sex, shows videos of men engaging in solo sex, and more.
This book includes discussion of anal sex, discussion of solo sex, cartoon images of solo sex, cartoon images of non-heterosexual sex, and radical gender ideology.
“How you feel, see, and describe yourself—whether it is according to the sex you were assigned at birth or the gender you now feel and know you are—is called your gender identity,” the book reads.
The sex-ed guide offers teachers and parents resource links to Amaze.org, a sex-education resource website with cartoon videos on gender identity and advice on feeling pleasure from solo sex.
“AMAZE envisions a world that recognizes child and adolescent sexual development as natural and healthy,” the website’s vision statement reads.
Punished for Public Comment
Ms. Roberson said that she spoke out against the curriculum at a school board meeting on April 20.“The Ed. Code 51933 requires that instruction and materials should be appropriate for use of pupils of all races, genders, sexual orientations, and ethnic and cultural backgrounds,” she said, citing California law. “Teaching children about oral and anal sex violates this law since several cultures would not find this teaching appropriate.”
During the meeting, Ms. Roberson said she knew the curriculum had an opt-out option and that only three families had voiced concern about the curriculum when it was under consideration. Even so, she said the curriculum was “a big concern” because it taught children transgenderism, took time away from math instruction, and introduced children to sexual topics they weren’t developmentally ready for.
“People are not gender-fluid, and to teach our children this is not OK,” Ms. Roberson said.
After this meeting, her life turned upside down.
Nathalie Christian, a story development coordinator for The Benicia Independent and treasurer of Progressive Democrats of Benicia (PDB), emailed Ms. Roberson’s employer, Compass Real Estate. She threatened the firm with bad press if it didn’t fire Ms. Roberson.
A Benicia resident, Billy Innes, planned to write an op-ed in the Vallejo Times-Herald about Ms. Roberson’s comments, Ms. Christian said. The article mentions that Compass employed her.
“Our post will reach between 1,300 and 1,500 people,” Ms. Christian said. She also said the op-ed would associate Compass with being “anti-equity, anti-trans, anti-Black, and anti-choice.”
The op-ed said Ms. Roberson might sell homes based on a “racial/sexual purity test.”
Without providing proof, Mr. Innes said in his op-ed that Benicia Freedom includes content that “favors eugenics.”
Benicia Freedom advises parents in the town on some of the radical racial and sexual material now promoted by local activists. Ms. Roberson said she created the site to protect local children.
Denying Responsibility
In an online statement, the PDB group said it had nothing to do with Ms. Roberson’s firing.The company caved to activist pressure, letting go of Ms. Roberson despite her excellent performance record, Ms. Roberson said.
“I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars branding myself to your company as a Compass agent,” Ms. Roberson said. “And now you’re basically pulling the rug right out from under all of my business.”
Ms. Roberson said she learned this information from a spy-movie-style clandestine drop. One day, she checked her mailbox and found someone had dropped off printed-out copies of the emails at night.
“Some unknown person dropped off a bunch of printed copies of these emails between the Progressive Democrats of Benicia in my mailbox, where they were kind of high-fiving each other about the fact that Compass did get rid of me,” she said.
On a phone call, a representative of Compass also told Ms. Roberson that the company let her go for political reasons, she said.
“Well, it’s just this last week has been a lot,” she said the representative told her but then refused to elaborate on.
However, after consulting a lawyer, Ms. Roberson said she has little legal recourse. Realtors are contractors, not employees, so companies can let them go at any time, she said.
“I was selling a lot of houses my prior year,” Ms. Roberson said. “I just came off a year where I'd sold over 7 million [dollars worth], which is pretty decent. And Compass benefited from that.”
According to Compass spokesman Devin Daly, the company didn’t disassociate Ms. Roberson’s license.
Fearful People
California law protects individuals from facing lawsuits for speech about publicly significant issues.This law makes it difficult for Ms. Roberson to sue the people who organized a campaign of political persecution against her, she said.
“I am such a huge advocate of free speech,” Ms. Roberson said. “But in my particular situation, what it means is if I do go after the letter writers or the Progressive Democrats of Benicia, or the newspapers, it is very, very likely that I will lose, and that the courts will find that not only do I have to pay my own fees, but I have to pay their fees.”
The PDB group didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
From her fellow town residents, Ms. Roberson said that she has received public silence but private support from those too fearful to be free.
“I think the town is aware that this more-liberal progressive side, particularly this progressive Democrats of Benicia group, is very powerful here,” she said.
Many people in Benicia don’t want their children to read sexually explicit curriculum that introduces them to radical gender ideology at an early age, Ms. Roberson said.
“I definitely have had some supporters reach out, but all of them are very much ‘Well, I’m just kind of reaching out quietly,’” she said.
Ms. Roberson said that as an American, she believes in freedom of speech rather than political intimidation.
“Even if everyone in the town disagrees with me, that’s OK,” she said.
Typically, Benicia hasn’t been a political town, Ms. Roberson said.
“Generally speaking, I'd say it’s a family-friendly, traditional town,” she said.
But her firing has transformed it from a place where people don’t talk politics out of indifference to a place where they don’t talk politics out of fear, Ms. Roberson said.
“I know there’s a lot of people who do agree who are just afraid to speak up,” Ms. Roberson said.
