North Carolina parent’s ‘anger’ after six year old non-binary twins outed in online hate campaign
Mortellus is a trans nonbinary bisexual parent and has called out other parents at their child’s school for “outing” their twins as non-binary (Facebook)
A North Carolina parent has spoken about the anger they felt after their children were outed as non-binary.
Their parent, Mortellus told BuzzFeed about the ordeal their six-year-old non-binary twins, called Sun and Moon to protect their identities, faced at North Carolina school – Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy.
Mortellus, who shares their children with co-parent Joe and who goes by @acrowandthedead on Instagram, said they run a “pagan household” and, as a trans non-binary person, has never liked the idea of being restricted by the gender binary.
Mortellus said Moon had been identifying as “girl/them” while Sun has identified as “she/her”, and, as parents, they supported “whatever feels right to them”.
Searching for a new charter school for their children, the couple asked Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy if gender-neutral toilets were available. They were assured single-stall loos were.
Under North Carolina law, non-binary people must be able to use public toilets of their choice.
Mortellus felt reassured, before discovering information about their children’s gender identity had been leaked to other parents, who then launched an online hate campaign.
A change.org petition, which has since been removed, garnered 1,300 signatures and opposed gender-neutral toilets and pronouns.
Facebook posts about the petition, discussed at a school board meeting in May, remain live, with one person calling non-binary children at school “a safety issue”.
‘I felt sad’
Another post called Mortellus and their children confused and said they were “attempting to confuse” others. One parent even brought up the devil, writing: “Some want to cram their satanic ideas down your throat so they can make a mockery of God.”
Mortellus, who is also a celebrated author of books about necromancy and paganism, told BuzzFeed they were aware of the backlash on 3 June, after it had been going on for more than a month.
“When I saw it all… I sat there quietly for a moment, feeling like my stomach bottomed out,” they said. “I felt nauseous. I felt sad. I battled with myself over what the right reaction was… but I settled on anger.
“They’d all put my children in danger, and the school had done nothing to make us aware.”
They feel their family has been villainized and wished more parents understood about raising non-binary children.
“There has been an assumption that I walked in the doors of the school like a cartoon villain shouting HERE ARE MY DEMANDS — but that’s not true at all,” they told BuzzFeed.
“I toured the school, chatting casually with staff and hoping to ensure that my children would get a good education and be afforded nothing more than what school policies already allowed and the same amount of support and protection that other children at the school enjoy.”
They – as a pagan parent – also opened up about the role religion played in the outrage. “We are not Christian. Our faith protects the right to express oneself as we see fit—not as imposed upon us by someone else’s god.
“The fact of the matter is that everyone participating in this discourse is intelligent enough to know that no rules or policies were changed and that kindergartners at that school already have gender-neutral bathrooms and always have.”
