At Illinois K-5 School, Librarian Stages Public Gender Transition

An Illinois K-5 school’s male library director started publicly wearing female clothes Wednesday and insisting students call him “Ms. Madison Sabovik.” Until then, the former fourth-grade teacher had been known to students as Mr. Steve Sabovik.

Parents were alerted to the librarian’s impending transsexual exhibition in a letter Owen Elementary sent two days before it happened, Oct. 20. Many parents pulled their children from the elementary this week, at least temporarily.

Other parents are opting their children out of using the library. On Wednesday alone, more than 100 parents sent the school principal and district leaders emails protesting the public transition and its quick rollout, said Shannon Adcock, founder of the parent advocacy organization Awake Illinois.

Parents are unhappy the school gave them such short notice about exposing their children to inappropriate sexual information, a dad with a child in the school told The Federalist. He asked for anonymity to protect his child.

The school also sent a “talking points” memo to parents about the ongoing public exhibition, made public by Awake Illinois. Here’s a district-suggested response to “student questions or statements”: “Our LMC Director is amazing and continues to do great work here. Let’s support her [sic].”

“Our LMC [library media center] Director has always been amazing and continues to be amazing,” the talking points suggest as a “response to parent questions or statements.” “I fully support the work that they [sic] continue to do here at Owen.”

While Sabovik and the school district say in communications to parents they want to “focus on learning,” the father told The Federalist the students ages five to eleven are in confusion and uproar. The instruction to call a man “Miss” doesn’t make sense to his child, the father said, because his child knows Sabovik is a man. He said some children are asking if at some point they are going to switch sexes too.

Another father who appeared at the Indian Prairie school board meeting Monday expressed confusion and meekly asked for “resources” about what to tell his child who attends Owen Elementary about her librarian’s cross-dressing. “It’s unfortunate that I’m being forced into it without having the best and most correct way to do what’s best for my daughter and how to be respectful about it,” he said.

Sabovik says in a letter to parents about his public transition in front of their kids that he’s been teaching elementary-age children for 18 years. Owen Elementary’s library is at the center of the school, so it’s constantly visible to students, Adcock noted: “You can’t opt your kid out of seeing a man trying to be a woman in the center hub of the school environment.”

“A five-year-old does not have the constitution to rationalize this. They know that’s a man and you’re telling them to treat him as a woman? That’s a lie. You’re teaching them to blur the boundaries and disrespect the truth. This is not good for children,” Adcock said. “If it’s uncomfortable for you as a parent, why would you presume it is any more comfortable for your five-year-old, your nine-year-old? Parents have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. If you put your comfort or your social credit standing above your child’s welfare, I can’t help you.”

In August, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill enhancing employment privileges for people who identify as transgender. Pritzker’s billionaire-populated family invests heavily in transgender interventions and advocacy and his also-wealthy cousin, Jennifer Pritzker, is a biological male who identifies as transgender. Gov. Pritzker also signed a 2021 law that requires public schools to expose children to transgender ideology in all grades.

Adcock said she withdrew her first-grade daughter from public school and placed her in a Christian school over the sex ed law, because her young daughter didn’t even know she should be telling her mother when sex came up in school. Before that, Adcock said, she never expected her daughter wouldn’t attend public school.

“The school is in this difficult position because [the transgender librarian] is a protected identity and the children’s wellbeing is not even seen as a priority,” Adcock said. “This is where we are culturally now.”

Owen Elementary is in the upscale Chicago suburb of Naperville. It’s in Indian Prairie, Illinois’ fourth-largest school district, which has 26,000 students and 34 schools. Federal data say the district spends $18,544 per student per year, slightly above the national average of $17,000. The median household income in the district is $133,519, nearly double the national average, say federal data.

“We’re paying some of the highest taxes in the country,” Adcock noted. “People moved here for the schools and now the schools are betraying the parents’ trust on this issue.”

On local ballots this fall, the district has placed a nearly half-billion — $420 million — bond referendum. Votes are already being counted.

Owen Elementary Principal Heather Whisler did not return a Federalist request for comment.

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist. Her new book with Regnery is “False Flag: Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America.” A happy wife and the mother of six children, her ebooks include “Classic Books For Young Children,” and “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” An 18-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media including Tucker Carlson, CNN, Fox News, OANN, NewsMax, Ben Shapiro, and Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Joy is also the cofounder of a high-performing Christian classical school and the author and coauthor of classical curricula. Her traditionally published books also include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books.