Mom persecuted by activists for opposing new sex ed curriculum.
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.
Local parental rights activist group Benicia Freedom uploaded information about this curriculum to their website.
The curriculum recommends the book, “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris, to children ages 10 to 12.
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 parent resource links to Amaze.com, a sex-ed 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.
The Benicia Unified School District (BUSD) voted unanimously to approve the curriculum, a school board meeting video shows.
The district said it also gave the curriculum to parents for them to view.
Punished For Public Comment
In an April 20, 2023 school meeting, Ms. Roberson said she opposed the curriculum.
“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.”
In the meeting, Ms. Roberson said she knew the curriculum had an opt-out option and that only three families 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 okay,” Ms. Roberson said.
After this meeting, Ms. Robeson’s life turned upside down.
Nathalie Christian, a story development coordinator for The Benicia Independent and treasurer of Progressive Democrats of Benicia (PBD), emailed Ms. Roberson’s employer, Compass Real Estate. She threatened them with bad press if they 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 (sic) 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.”
“It seems unfair to me that Compass, whose DEI policies I have reviewed at length, would be associated with such a hateful person,” Ms. Christian wrote.
The op-ed said Ms. Robeson 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.”
In a public statement on the parental rights website Benicia Freedom, Ms. Robeson said Benicia Freedom doesn’t support eugenics.
Benicia Freedom advises parents in the town on some of the radical racial and sexual material now promoted by local activists. Ms. Roberson created the site to protect local children.
A search by The Epoch Times of the Benicia Freedom Facebook and website revealed no references to eugenics.
Denying Responsibility
In an online press release, PDB said they had nothing to do with Ms. Roberson’s firing.
“As an organization, we did not write any letters or contact her employer,” the group’s press release reads. “The letter that was written to a local paper was not written by a member. A letter to her employer was written by a member but under her own name.”
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 learned this information from a spy-movie-style clandestine drop, she said. 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.
“There is a difference between cancel culture and consequences,” Ms. Christian said in a group chat with the Benicia Resist group. “I want to be very clear—this person is not being canceled. She is facing consequences.”
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.
The representative refused to elaborate, Ms. Robeson said.
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, said Ms. Roberson.
“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, which is pretty decent. And Compass benefited from that.”
According to Compass spokesman Devin Daly, the company didn’t disassociate Ms. Roberson’s license.
“Compass does not make decisions about agents’ affiliations with the company based on their personal, political, or social beliefs,” Mr. Daly said. “This person was not an employee of Compass—she was an independent contractor who worked on an agent team, and the decision to disassociate her license was made at the request of her team’s owner in April 2023.”
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 tha
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