The Teacher with Giant Prosthetic Breasts Dresses as a Man Outside the Classroom

Does That Change Our Opinion about His Behavior?

A friend recently shared this article about “Kayla Lemieux,” the teacher who dresses as a caricature of a woman with enormous prosthetic breasts while teaching high school. I wrote about this teacher last fall in “Challenge Accepted: Why Giant Prosthetic Breasts with Protruding Nipples Are Not Appropriate Work Wear.”

At the time, it made a painfully obvious point: No matter how one feels “on the inside,” certain items of clothing, such as swimsuits or giant prosthetic breasts, are not considered appropriate work clothing for high school teachers, regardless of whether they are men or women.

Certain items of clothing are just not appropriate for the classroom. Ever. Everyone knows this, even if the school board pretends not to know it. I wrote to the Halton District School Board (HDSB) expressing the opinion that Teacher Lemieux’s issue was not gender expression but rather inappropriate work attire, and they replied:

The HDSB is committed to establishing and maintaining a safe, caring, inclusive, equitable and welcoming learning and working environment for all students and staff. We strive to promote and support a positive learning environment in schools consistent with our values and to ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all students, staff and the community, regardless of their race, age, ability, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, cultural observance, socio-economic circumstances, or body type/size.

The HDSB recognizes the rights of students, staff, parents/guardians and community members to equitable treatment without discrimination based upon gender identity and gender expression. Gender identity and gender expression are protected grounds under the Ontario Human Rights Code.

So Lemieux has been allowed to wear fetish items on the basis of his “gender identity and gender expression” because apparently the school board thinks he believes he’s a woman, and this is how he wishes to express himself. The school board supports that, even though:

(1) a real woman wouldn’t be caught dead wearing such items; and

(2) expressing one’s “gender” to a school full of kids need not, and should not, include fetish wear.

The school board had spoken. They no doubt patted themselves on the back for abandoning all critical thought and being “on the right side of history.”

But….

Apparently the guy dresses one way at school, and another way elsewhere:

Same person. When he’s at school, he dresses like — sorry — a weirdo with a breast fixation, with the school board’s endorsement and protection. When he’s at home, he dresses like a guy.

According to the linked article above, Lemieux’s neighbor says, “He wears prosthetic breasts extremely infrequently.… He puts the breasts on to teach, occasionally when he goes for a walk or when the cops visit.”

The article goes on to say that since Lemieux started dressing as a woman, the neighbor has seen him dressed as a man more often than as a woman.

So What Is Lemieux “Expressing” at School, Then?

Every kind-hearted person who wants to be progressive and on the “right side of history” — and I count myself among them — has been told in recent years that the rules of dressing in public have changed. Anyone who is expressing any form of gender nonconformity is always right, no matter the setting or circumstances, and any decent person must accept their behavior.

In fact, in the left’s new authoritarian way of maintaining social control over its group members, if you suggest anything other than complete support for anyone dressed in any gender nonconforming way, at any time, for any reason, you will be told you are

• a bigot

• a hateful person

• wrong

…but is that really true? If you allow yourself to think for yourself, even keeping your kindness and compassion fully intact, will you really conclude that a guy who is driven to dress this way but only in front of the kids he teaches is really expressing something appropriate and authentic?

A Bit About Autogynephilia (Again)

We touched on autogynephilia (AGP) briefly in an earlier post: “Lots of Kids Have Real and Diagnosable Gender Dysphoria, But That’s Not the Same as Being Trans.”

We noted that before the current 21st century manifestation of the trans phenomenon, there were typically two types of “trans women” according to researchers in the 20th century West:

“homosexual transsexuals who [were] attracted exclusively to men and are feminine in both behavior and appearance; and autogynephilic transsexuals [typically heterosexual men] who [were] sexually aroused at the idea of having a female body. . . .”

One hypothesis as to why some men with autogynephilia wish to transition is that for some, their fetish becomes more like an addiction — what starts as a harmless sexual thrill gradually takes over their lives and gets out of control (much like any other addiction or obsession can get out of control). Why do some people have problems with alcoholism, and others remain social drinkers their whole lives? No one knows, really.

To me, Teacher Lemieux and his enormous prosthetic breasts look for all the world like a person who’s so addicted to his sexual fantasy that it’s getting more extreme and out of control. Is that what we want him to express at work, in front of a captive audience of high schoolers, many of whom have expressed discomfort with it?

What, Formerly, Was the Difference Between “Being Trans” and Being Someone with a Paraphilia?

In an older version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IIIR), a person who was suffering from transvestic fetishism was described this way:

The essential feature of this disorder is recurrent, intense, sexual urges and sexually arousing fantasies, of at least six months' duration, involving cross-dressing. The person has acted on these urges, or is markedly distressed by them. Usually the person keeps a collection of women's clothes that he intermittently uses to cross-dress when alone. While cross-dressed, he usually masturbates and imagines other males' being attracted to him as a woman in his female attire...

This disorder has been described only in heterosexual males….

Transvestic phenomena range from occasional solitary wearing of female clothes to extensive involvement in a transvestic subculture. Some men wear a single item of women's apparel (e.g., underwear or hoisery) under their masculine attire. When more than one article of women's clothing are involved, the man may wear makeup and dress entirely as a woman.

The degree to which the cross-dressed person appears to be a woman varies, depending on mannerisms, body habitus, and cross-dressing skill. When not cross-dressed, he is usually unremarkably masculine.

“When not cross-dressed, he is usually unremarkably masculine.” I refer you again to the picture above.

Why do I bring up an older version of the manual, rather than the current DSM-5? Because whereas the older version would diagnose this mental disorder if “the person has acted on these urges, or is markedly distressed by them,” the DSM-5 requires that the person be distressed.

By the old DSM-IIIR criteria, someone who acted on those urges (whether or not this “distressed” him) and thereby imposed his sexual thrills on others — for example, classrooms full of nonconsenting students — would be said to have a diagnosable mental disorder. By the new DSM-5 standards, a person who acts on these urges but is not distressed by them, as Teacher Lemieux seems not to be, is simply expressing a “sexual preference.”

During work.

To high schoolers.

For his own sexual gratification.

The old-fashioned word for someone who imposed their weird sexual preferences on nonconsenting others was a “pervert” — and “perverts” were people whom everyone agreed should be kept away from kids. Now, in our new enlighted way of looking at things, a guy like Teacher Lemieux who dresses that way at work, who then comes home and changes into regular male clothing, is lumped into the same category as someone like Blaire White, who always felt feminine and who lives as a woman full-time (and who doesn’t impose anything weird on anyone).

Both the person who has been gender dysphoric since childhood and who lives a quiet, inoffensive, law-abiding life and the pervert getting sexual thrills from forcing high schoolers to look at him are lumped in together and considered “trans.”

Does this make sense to you? Is this fair to the Blaire Whites of the world? Is this fair to Lemieux’s captive audience of high school students? Does knowing that this guy dresses this way, but only for the kids, change your opinion about what he’s doing and why?

Bring Kink-Shaming Back

The prohibition against “kink-shaming” is strong in 21st century progressive culture. And indeed, if people kept their “kinks” private and between consenting adults, there would be nothing to shame. It’s none of my concern what consenting adults do in private. In fact, I hope everyone is having fun (consensual fun with people capable of consent).

But when an adult in a position of authority has an obvious fetish, and he insists on living it out in front of his nonconsenting students for his own sexual gratification, the time for kink-shaming is long overdue.

The email address for the Halton District School Board is contact@hdsb.ca.