Transgender teacher accused of showing 'coming out' video to elementary school students

A transgender teacher is accused of showing a "coming out" video to every classroom at a Wisconsin elementary school — kindergartners through fifth graders — last month.

In response, Liberty Counsel — a law firm dealing in religious freedom issues — said it sent a records request to the Madison Metropolitan School District in late May to "begin uncovering the full extent of this teacher's inappropriate activism in the classroom."

The teacher in question is Mark Vincent Busenbark, the firm said — a "male" who teaches science at Allis Elementary School.

Liberty Counsel provided a copy of the video in which Busenbark explained that there's "one truth that I've hidden from you ... I am transgender."

Busenbark added, presumably to students, that "maybe you've only heard" the word "transgender" through the "filter of those who hate and fear."

With that, Busenbark read from a transgender-themed children's book, titled, "They Call Me Mix," explaining that the character "starts as a girl, and they grow into who they're going to become." Busenbark added that, "I started as a boy, and I hope to grow into who I am going to become."

Image source: Dropbox video screenshot

'BOY or GIRL?'

Busenbark in the clip read the following passages:

• "'BOY or GIRL?' Are you a boy or a girl? How can you be both? Some days I am both. Some days I am neither. Most days I am everything in between."
• "As a kid, I never felt like just a girl. I never felt right knowing everyone was deciding and agreeing that I was a girl."

The video presumably shown to students also included images from the book depicting people who don't support transgenderism as scary, ghostlike figures, Liberty Counsel said.

After the book reading concluded, Busenbark said, "I hope you understand me a little better," and then announced a new name.

"And now, let me introduce myself, anew. ... I am going to take my wife Stella Steel's last name, and I am going to use, not mister, and not miss, but 'mix,'" Busenbark said. "So you can call me, 'Mix Steel.' ... And for my pronouns, I'm using 'they,' 'them,' and 'their.'"

What else did Busenbark allegedly say?

Liberty Counsel also provided a screenshot of a Facebook post from what the firm said is Busenbark's alter ego, Vica Steel. The post was from the day before Busenbark's "coming out."

It reads, in part:

All of my students will know my truth. And they are the last to hear. This is terrifying. And powerful. I teach in a school where some of our students have been taught by society that being transgender is wrong. That being gay is wrong. But I am still coming out ... And I hope to reach that kid, sitting it the corner with their hood pulled over their face that despite the taunts and the hate, their truth is real and their truth is beautiful. Amen.

What did Liberty Counsel have to say?

"It is outrageous that school administrators would allow a male science teacher to expose children to propaganda that promotes confusion about basic biology, and to instruct students to address him by a false name, title and pronouns," Liberty Counsel's founder and Chairman Mat Staver said. "These impressionable students do not exist to validate Busenbark's sexual identity. Parents send their children to school trusting that they will be taught academic curriculum, not become participants in a teacher's play acting."

The firm added that "one teacher emailed [Busenbark] that a kindergartner said, 'I feel the same way at times' as 'Mx. Steel.' Another teacher said that because of the video, other children 'just accepted' a girl's claim that 'she is a boy now.'"

Fox News said neither the school or the teacher responded to requests for comment.