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The “parental rights” movement is widespread across the country. Some credit a group called Moms for Liberty in Florida for starting the movement a few years ago, primarily in reaction to Covid-19 measures related to remote learning, mask-mandates and vaccination requirements. But the concept of parental rights in public education has long been used by conservative groups to oppose issues from desegregation of public schools to sex education, and to advance their policy positions. While the banner of “parental rights” has been used to generate mainstream support for a variety of education policy positions, many regional and local parental rights groups focus almost exclusively on opposition to inclusion policies in public schools for LGBTQ+ students.
A current candidate for the Sudbury School Committee, Richard Thalmann, indicated a desire to replicate the work of the Parental Rights Natick group in Sudbury in a Facebook post on November 9, 2023, and objected to a book in a classroom at Curtis Middle School during a school committee meeting on October 16, 2023. He has since posted clarifications of his beliefs on the Facebook group “One Sudbury.”
He wrote in November:
“I’ve submitted a request through parental rights Natick to work together. I’d like to replicate their amazing work in Sudbury. Looking forward to working with them Parental Rights Sudbury.”
The comment was on a post praising the Natick group’s new website in a related Facebook group called Massachusetts Informed Parents. Parental Rights Natick has focused almost exclusively on opposition to gender identity policies and inclusive curriculum at Natick Public Schools.
Massachusetts Informed Parents, much like the Natick group, focuses heavily on opposition to existing public school gender identity policies and inclusion policies for LGBTQ+ students, which are largely based on State-level guidance and laws.
A “Parental Rights Sudbury” Facebook group did show up on Facebook, but has since gone private or been deleted, according to Facebook. The links to that group still appear in search results on some search engines. Prior to the group going private or being deleted, Facebook displayed that it had dozens of members. We contacted Thalmann to ask if he was the creator of that group and to determine if it is still active. Thalmann did not respond.
It’s unclear if the Sudbury group has or had a platform similar to the Natick group, though Thalmann’s intentions to “replicate” the work of the Natick Parental Rights group were clear.
Thalmann joined the October 16, 2023, meeting of the Sudbury School Committee to object to books he found in a classroom at Curtis Middle School. (2:00)
Thalmann’s comments focused on one book in particular, Lily and Dunkin, which he felt was inappropriate for middle school. The description of the book states: “For readers who enjoyed Wonder and Counting by 7’s, award-winning author Donna Gephart crafts a compelling story about two remarkable young people: Lily, a transgender girl, and Dunkin, a boy dealing with bipolar disorder. Their powerful journey, perfect for fans of Wonder, will shred your heart, then stitch it back together with kindness, humor, bravery, and love.” The book is also part of the catalog at the Goodnow Library.
On October 16, after spending several minutes reading excerpts and commenting on the plot, Thalmann stated:
“The normalization of hormone blockers is a dangerous topic. It is in my opinion that subjecting children to puberty blockers is a criminal act, regardless of what the laws in our state say. Informed consent is not possible for a child. We don’t allow our 11-year-old children to drink, smoke, get tattoos, or drive, but we allow them to permanently alter their developing minds and bodies? Introducing topics like this to the minds of young and impressionable pre-teens is not the job of our sixth-grade social studies teacher. To suggest to our 11-year-old students at Curtis that Lily’s father doesn’t love her for who she truly is, because he’s not allowing her to get hormone blockers, is abhorrent. Parents should be appalled and outraged. Our kids should be protected at all costs.”
Richard Thalmann, October 16, 2023 excerpt of comments to the SPS School Committee
Lily and Duncan was published in 2016, and received awards and accolades from NPR, the New York Public Library, the Junior Library Guild, the Young Adult Library Services Association and the American Library Association. However, it has been subject to bans and challenges across the country. PEN America, a non-profit that supports free expression and writers, and tracks book bans, notes that books featuring transgender characters account for approximately 9% of banned books. Lily and Duncan appears on its list of commonly-banned books featuring transgender stories.
There were no explicit mentions of these topics on the platform page of Thalmann’s campaign website at the time this article was published. However, on February 29, Thalmann posted on a Facebook group called “One Sudbury,” sharing his personal family experiences that influenced his views. In that post he voiced his support of transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming students, as well as gender-neutral bathrooms in schools. He qualified his support for using preferred pronouns and the availability of LGBTQ+ literature:
“Do I support using the pronouns that match the student’s gender identity? Yes, but I believe this is a parent and family choice.”
“Do you support the free access to LGBTQ+ books and teachers who have these books? Yes, and I also support a process where parents and families are able to feel comfortable and welcomed to ask questions regarding any books in classrooms or at school. It is when we all have the same knowledge and understanding that we can all better support students.”
On his October school committee appearance, Thalmann said: “Getting back to my public comment at the School Committee meeting, first, I take responsibility for what could have been a better approach. I could have addressed my questions with the teacher, principal, and superintendent first.”
We contacted OUT MetroWest about the growing number of parental rights groups in the area. OUT MetroWest focuses on building “communities where LGBTQ+ youth thrive,” and they were also a sponsor of last year’s Family Pride Day in Sudbury. They provided the following statement:
“The goal of policies that remove LGBTQ experiences from our libraries, curriculum, resources, and policies is NOT youth safety. These policies make it less safe for all kids, not just LGBTQ youth. How safe can any student feel in an environment where policies are enacted that tell the student next to them that they don’t matter, that they don’t deserve to be seen? How are kids supposed to value each other–and each other’s lives–if the adults charged with their care are enacting policies that clearly state that some lives are more valuable than others? Or worse, that some lives are so devalued that they are structurally excluded? Nobody is safer or better off in an environment that codifies the exclusion of certain identities or experiences. Nobody.
LGBTQ+ people have always existed–and will always exist. These harmful measures do not change that fact. They only make it more dangerous for LGBTQ+ youth to exist authentically and participate fully in our communities, threaten their ability to succeed and thrive, and foster a culture where it is okay to act out harmful beliefs on our neighbors–in this case, children and youth.”
— OUT MetroWest