Does Gaea Powell have nothing better to do than try and spread her anti-LGBTQ-plus rhetoric all over the county?
The twice-failed Arroyo Grande mayoral candidate just can’t help herself. And she’s offended that her “work” has been criticized. The South SLO County resident told a North County school board as much during its May 13 meeting. Why her opinion should matter to a Paso Robles governing body, I don’t know.
She decided to use her three minutes of speaking time before the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District board to wax poetic on her expertise about suicide rates among the transgendered population. She’s most definitely not an expert.
Increasing suicide rates among the trans population thanks to anti-transgender rhetoric and legislation? Not true, she said.
Actually, Powell, it’s a politically inconvenient truth for anyone in your camp—all the people who have taken up this crusade against reality and those who are different.
It’s real and raw for the minority of the population that identifies as transgender. Suicide attempts by transgender and gender nonconforming teens increased by up to 72 percent in states following the passage of such laws, according to a peer-reviewed study published late last year.
A four-decade study in Denmark showed higher suicide rates in the transgendered population. Among the 6.6 million people involved in the study, 3,700 identified as transgender—there were 92 suicide attempts and 12 suicides in that population. The study reported that the rate of suicide attempts among those who identify as trans is 7.7 times higher than the broader Danish population.
But we should trust the “breast thermographer” who doesn’t believe in mammograms?
Powell also believes that those who disagree with her lack intelligent and rational arguments. Hmm. I don’t think she knows what that means.
I’ve seen her make arguments. Rationality isn’t a strength. Did you catch her arguing about her First Amendment right to speak as long as she wants at an Arroyo Grande City Council meeting?
Paso school board member Jim Cogan was disappointed in her, disappointed in the “things that are said about our students and the ways that people justify the things that they’re saying.”
“For someone to get up and say, ‘I’m not going to believe this evidence because it counters my political opinion,’ is really upsetting,” he said. “Our students are not political pawns. This is not a political agenda.”
It is upsetting. But, whether you like it or not, Paso schools have a reputation for being at the forefront of the political culture wars, especially when it comes to LGBTQ-plus issues; students are absolutely used as political pawns and unfortunately are at the forefront of some of our most heated national political conversations; and cognitive dissonance is alive and well in political discourse.
Unfortunately for all of us, that means people like Powell and her South County counterpart, Shannon Kessler, feel like they can drive local conversations.
Just look south to Lucia Mar Unified School District and all the attention, both national and local, that’s been focused on one transgender athlete and the singular teammate who complained about it loudly enough to land a spot on Fox and Friends. I guess school board member Colleen Martin also got her moment in the spotlight, but it wasn’t pretty. She told the girl to “wrap it up,” and Fox went wild!
But a time limit is a time limit! That’s all you get to speak your piece.
Paso had several folks ready to take to the mic who didn’t get the opportunity because of a 20-minute time cap on the public comment. Where’s the Fox and Friends episode about that?
Identity politics is uniquely focused on our student population right now.
But—and this is a big BUTT—Paso is turning things around. The school board shut down transphobic board member Kenney Enney‘s suggestion to add a discussion about trans athletes to an upcoming board agenda. That wouldn’t have happened three years ago.
Moms for Liberty-backed board member Laurene McCoy also supported the motion. No surprises there. But the board voted against it 4-2. Now, that’s a surprise! I never thought I’d see it happen in Paso.
Cogan, for his part, wants to focus on issues like providing safe and secure campuses amid gun violence. Sounds intelligent and rational to me! He wants to move on, and I would too. But that’s not reality, unfortunately.
“It’s amazing to me that there are so many adults out there who are focused on the sexuality of minors with whom they have no connection whatsoever,” he said, “and in any other context, we’d be calling law enforcement if there were adults so focused on the sexuality of minors … because it’s not appropriate—it’s not their business.”
It’s not their business. And it’s certainly not Powell’s business what’s happening in Paso Robles. But ultra-conservatives don’t really believe in libertarianism or deregulation anymore. They believe that who people are, what they say, and how they treat their bodies are their business—and should be regulated to fit their belief system.
Freedom of expression. Freedom of religion. Freedom of thought. Freedom to protest against the government. Academic freedom. Bodily autonomy.
All of it is up for grabs. Powell’s brand of conservativism isn’t for freedom. And they aren’t afraid to use students as political pawns. Δ
The Shredder uses conservatives as pawns. Send more to shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Summer Guide 2025.
The description of Gaea Powell and the other local religious fanatics all show the traits of sociopathic narcissists.
Those who pervert religion are Religious Perverts. And they project their own evil actions onto those they call their “enemies” in this case school students who are different.
Being non-religious, but have studied the teachings of Jesus and Buddha, from what these local fanatics like Gaea Powell and Shannon Kessler have said and those they have attacked, Jesus would not know these fake religious posers.
people like this are only in the spotlight for themselves.
There is no “kindness” with these worshipers of Ayn Rand’s selfish hateful philosophy,
only manipulation and cruelty.
Scott Jenkins:
I’m not a practicing member of any organized religion, but you presume to speak for Jesus and Buddha?
Scott J:
Having castigated those with a different opinion as yourself, you now presume to speak for Jesus and Buddha? The folly.
You want religious fanaticism to go away? Make the economy work. People often hide in religion to escape the misery of their personal lives. It’s amazing how friendly people become when their families are fed and they have a few bucks in their pocket.
Further, people can become just as fanatic about secularism as they can about their personal religious preference, so you can get off your high horse now.
The GOP strategists must have been disappointed when the Supreme Court handed them the anti-abortion victory they’d been lobbying for, after every right wing SCOTUS nominee dismissed Roe as moot, as decided law. The GOP thought they’d have that sweet hook on which to hang their culture war for another generation, but the carpet was swept from under them. So now they’ve decided to focus on trans folks–and especially trans kids–to gin up their rubes and get the MAGA panties all bunched up. And it’s working: All the armchair “geneticists” are insisting there are only two genders, etc etc and claiming that trans girls are some big threat to cisgender girls, when every woman knows that the biggest threat to women and girls is a straight-identifying male. Period. Good job, GOP strategists. You found your cause to rile up the ignorant.
Collins:
“…when every woman knows that the biggest threat to women and girls is a straight-identifying male.”
As a straight-identifying male, that’s one hell of a statement. That statement is about as outlandish as me saying something like, “the biggest threat to men are [add description here] women.” It makes no sense. Within every group there are good and bad people. Your statement is a logical fallacy.
Fly, seems you assume all that you see… The old saying was “don’t assume or you make an arse of you and me.”
Since I don’t know you, nor do I want to, it just makes an arse of you, not me. I do not need to assume what you believe. It is obvious.
Many times it is better to step out of one’s own beliefs, but when it is one’s own cult, that is difficult.
See what Carl Sagan had to say about being “bamboozled.”
p.s. I never said I speak for any person that lived 1000s of years ago.
Your assumption makes you sound delusional, like most cristian nationalists, aka, fake cristians.
in the 80’s that was the trap mental health industrialist used that “do you feel like Jesus” question, and if you answered yes, they put people in 72 hour or 14 day hold up on Johnson ave. Freinds told me about that.
Scott:
That 80s reference was pretty funny. In your comment, you stated that, “Jesus would not know these fake, religious posters….” Actually, he would. He knew them very well and called them out. “Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ”My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers’ (Matthew 21:12-13).”
I could go on, but why? Anyone can interpret the Bible to suit their own interests, but in the end, as is written, (Hebrews 4:13) “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
I’m not religious myself, but have taken a religious studies course in college and attended a mainline protestant church as a youth in Indianapolis briefly where my maternal grandfather ministered (if it can be called that). In the army during basic training, I took the opportunity to leave basic training by going to a random local church and yes, I saw people crawl around and speak in tongues. As a cloistered, coastal Californian, it was shocking.
So leave God out of it, and let God do the judging. As much as I detest certain people and as unfair as life can be, we reap what we sow, whether in this life or the next (if there is one).
For every Christian you mock, there are millions more who live decent, charitable lives. And whether Christian or not, we can all benefit from religious principles.
Scott:
I would also warn you, Scott, as a historian, I hope you find God or some sort of faith that will carry you through the serious tribulations we are about to face. In 1928, there were millions of Americans riding high on the hog with a roaring stock market, who thought, like you, that they were untouchable and safe from problems, and then all of a sudden the market crashed in ’29, as ours is about to, who then found themselves in the soup line. Ironically, if it weren’t for Christians, whether operating the soup line or giving the occasional sandwich to a hobo, would have certainly perished. These kind people are gone, but not forgotten. In closing, may I leave you with a proverb:
“Proverbs 16:18 declares, Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
Rather than tear down Christianity, why don’t you try learning from it? Believe it or not, church can be a lot of fun. You ever had coffee and snacks after Sunday service? It’s fun.
Fly, you are sounding like the Jesus Freaks of the 80s. From what I observed being among them then, they soon became cult like, and half of them had a box of AmWay in their garages. I got the assistant paster at a local church fired over that, when he asked me to go talk about “God” and had me meet him at an AmWay meeting, at a rich guys house that the company I worked for had installed all of the cabinets just a few months before that meeting. I left after a few minutes.
Didn’t need any soap to sell…
I had a cousin that was a SB missionary in Mexico then, competing with the Catholic Church. I thought there was no way the SBs would win over the Catholics in Mexico.
I secretly heard him talking with my Dad before his family moved to Mexico, and the dogma he was spewing (though verses right out of the Bible) sounded so hateful of the “others” the heretics, that I wondered if he worshiped “God” or “Satan.” I didn’t and don’t think they are real.
I was happy I had learned other paths that were more harmonious with the health of the Earth.
That’s all I will waste my breath on Fly. If you reply, you will be talking into the wind.
I don’t have a lot to say about organized religion, but as I said, we can all benefit from religious principles, Christian or not. They’re all pretty much the same, humility, honesty, forgiveness, charity, atonement, etc. who can say anything bad about that?
I’m in my mid 50’s born and raised for the most part, on the various parts of our beautiful coast. Ive surfed Swami’s in Encinitas on a regular basis since the 70s, right next to Paramahansa’s Center for Self Realization, my late hippy mother had books on everything from Chakras, Dianetics, and Bagwhan Sri Rajnish. At the same time, my late grandfather was a missionary and minister with a mainline, liberal protestant denomination and with whom we would attend church in Indianapolis or Oklahoma when there. You aren’t living until your grandmother, born in the 30’s, takes you to what she called a “cafeteria” on mainstreet in Miami, Oklahoma in the early 80s, only to be greeted by macaroni, meatloaf, and pudding from a can.
Unfortunately for you, you may have not known the Christians I have known. The ones content to practice their faith without shoving it down anyone’s throat. Maybe not here on the coast or in large cities anymore, but Christianity still means a lot to certain Americans.
For the ones trying to impose what I consider anachronistic values, such as eliminating a woman’s bodily autonomy, or forcing homosexuals back into the closet, we have a SCOTUS. Unfortunately for us, born at a certain time, in a certain state, a majority of the Justices adhere to a strict reading of the Constitution that turns it from a living document into something only relevant to the 18th century when people still got around on horse and buggy. Worse yet, these same Justices belong to extremely conservative group like the Federalist Society or are members of a certain Christian religion based in Rome that doctrinally could see them cast into “hell” to burn for eternity and excommunicated for a judicial ruling that would do something as shocking as not putting a woman or doctor in prison for having a performing an abortion. The irony being that these pro-lifers are the same ones removing nutritional, medical, and financial support for low income women raising children.
In the political sphere, both the left and right are just as insane. One thing they both can agree on is to make damn sure working men and women can never get ahead. As someone with both a college degree and who has performed national service with my enlistment in the Army and honorable discharge three years later, who, to this day, struggles to make it to my next check. I have two jobs and work seven days a week and own nothing.
Meanwhile, a certain generation that preceded me, zips around in Teslas, with multiple houses, and not a care in the world, having literally done nothing more than scoop ice cream or performed throwaway administrative civil service jobs. Their good fortune wasn’t something special about them or their generation personally, they were simply born at the close of WWII and were handed a very powerful dollar that hadnt printed to infinity and until I believe 1971, was actually backed by gold. Their country also still manufactured products and exported things.
Despite all this, I still believe most Christians are good people as are most people of any faith. So good luck, it sounds your only faith is in yourself. You might need more than that when our economy collapses, and it surely will. Soon.
In closing, Scott, I’ll pray for you and your soul. If I may paraphrase, “Our lives are nothing more than a mist that appears for a while and then disappears.”