A school district in New Mexico was given a $10,000 grant to spend on a “transgender closet” but instead spent the vast majority on “chest binders,” according to a public records request.
Las Cruces Public Schools was given the check by the nonprofit group It Gets Better, an LGBT organization with a focus on children, to build a closet in Centennial High School meant to fashion students with cross-dressing opportunities at school.
Instead, a records request from the New Mexico Freedoms Alliance shows the district spent $8,370 of the money on over 200 chest binders, which are tight fabrics used to compress breasts in order to “masculinize” a female’s chest. The school district said that it bought the chest binders because it already had a clothing closet at school “open for use to all CHS students.”
Chest binding can cause harm to women and girls, with one study showing that 88.9% of participants reported experiencing at least one symptom from chest binding, including pain and musculoskeletal or neurological problems, as well as scarring and rib fractures.
The records also show that the chest binders were handed out at a Pride Day event that the Independent Women’s Forum, which broke the story about the “transgender closet,” suspects was the Southern New Mexico Pride Celebration. The first-of-its-kind event included, among other things, cross-dressing men performing in front of children as drag queens.
The remaining $1,556 was spent on books for the school library, using a book list provided by It Gets Better.
Last week, a separate public records request submitted by Parents Defending Education showed that LCPS teachers are trained on transgender issues and told to hide changes in gender identity from parents.
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The training told teachers to use different names and pronouns than the ones transgender students are born with and allow students to use locker rooms and restrooms that do not align with their biological sex.
LCPS director of communication Kelly Jameson declined to comment on the redirection of funds from the closet but told the Washington Examiner that “the purchase of materials using grant monies was at the discretion of the students.”