CDC RESPONDS TO FOIA REQUEST DIRECTED AT UNDERSTANDING ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH GLSEN
Sort Of
On January 20, 2023 I filed a Freedom Of Information Act request to obtain records from CDC regarding the Agency’s relationship with the Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Education Network (GLSEN).
That request sought:
Any memoranda or other written correspondence among any CDC employees including Director Walensky, and her staff in which GLSEN is discussed.
Any written correspondence between any CDC employee including Director Walensky, and any employee or board member of GLSEN.
Any notes of any telephonic communication including text messages between any CDC employee including Director Walensky, and any employee or board member of GLSEN.
Any Phone logs of calls between any CDC employee including Director Walensky, and any employee or board member of GLSEN.
Copies of any grants awarded by CDC to GLSEN.
Copies of any contracts awarded by CDC to GLSEN.
Records of any travel conducted by any CDC employee including Director Walensky, to GLSEN offices or other locations where she or other CDC employees met with GLSEN employees.
Records of any visits by any GLSEN employee to CDC’s Clifton Road facility.
Notes of any meetings held by any CDC employees including Director Walensky, in which coordination between CDC and GLSEN was an agenda subject or was discussed.
In response to that request Ms. LaShonda Clark of the CDC/ATSDR, FOIA Office wrote:
“This letter is to notify you that you have not submitted a proper FOIA request because your request lacks the specificity need to assist the agency retrieve (sic) the information with a reasonable amount of effort. To assist the agency in locating the records you are requesting , we need you to provide the following additional information:
Grant/or contract number
Provide the top one to three names or positions of the CDC employees to search
Domain for GLSEN
Provide a context with specificity as it relates CDC and GLSEN “memoranda, communications/notes”
Ms. Clark instructed and I complied. CDC wanted greater specificity and so I gave it to them. In a letter to Ms. Clark on 25 January 2023 I wrote:
”With respect to your first request that I furnish you with the: Grant/or contract numberfor any grant or contract that CDC may have issued to GLSEN; if I had those grant or contract numbers I most likely would not have needed to request copies of those contracts or grants. The CDC Office of Financial Resources can surely easily provide the requested information by conducting a search of their records to ascertain if such grants or contracts between CDC and GLSEN exist and if so furnish copies of them to me as requested. Please note, that I am now including by this letter copies of any responsive Cooperative Agreements between CDC and GLSEN.
With respect to “the top one to three names or positions of the CDC employees to search” for regarding “Any written correspondence between any CDC employee and any employee or board member of GLSEN”, my request specifically mentioned Director Walensky. However, for greater clarity and to more robustly comply with your request I have now included the names and titles of the following CDC employees which, of course, would include correspondence from any of their direct reports:
Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, Director CDC
Debra Houry, MD, MPH Acting Principal Deputy Director
Johnathan Mermin, MD, MPH (RADSM USPHS), Director National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis , STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP)
Christa Capozzola, Director, Office of Financial Resources
With respect to your request for the “Domain for GLSEN”; it is a surprising request since, as noted in my FOIA request, the CDC web page found here : NCHHSTP >LGBT Health >LGBT Youth provides a link to GLSEN here: Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN): Student Action which takes the reader here: https://www.glsen.org/student-and-gsa-resources. There is at least one other link to GLSEN on that CDC page. Nevertheless the domain for GLSEN is GLSEN.org. GLSEN Staff can be contacted here: https://www.glsen.org/about-us/contact-us.
With respect to your request that I provide “a context with specificity as it relates to CDC and GLSEN ‘memoranda/communications/notes’ “. I believed that the context of my request was clear , nevertheless I have added additional context for clarity.
Despite the fact that it has no scientific data demonstrating that there are more than two human genders ( see letter to me in response to #23-00460-FOIA, 18 January 2023 from Roger Andoh CDC/ATSDR FOIA Officer), CDC provides multiple links to GLSEN an organization that has been “Championing LGBTQ issues in K-12 education since 1990” (GLSEN.org). To be clear, “championing” includes sending books free of charge to public schools (K-12) throughout the United States which extol the virtues of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle and ideology and asserts that biological gender is often “miss-assigned” at birth.
On the LGBT Youth Resources page ( https://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth-resources.htm ) CDC (despite any disclaimer that CDC may offer) provides direct links to GLSEN, an organization that is promoting transgenderism in children in schools K-12. Less there be confusion about the meaning of “transgenderism” I refer you to the Merriam-Webster dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transgenderism. In short, there is no scientific or medical basis that supports the notion that a child is other than the gender they were born as - unless, of course, the definition of “gender” is obfuscated. Despite these facts CDC provides the clear impression that it is fully supporting GLESN and its mission. Thus the overall purpose of this request is to determine:
How did CDC arrive at the apparent conclusion that in the absence of any scientific or medical data, that there are more than two genders or that gender can be wrongly “assigned” at birth by a parent(s) or physician or that gender is “fluid”. And how did CDC determine that the data supporting GLSEN’s position on transgenderism in children in K-12 meets CDC’s well established standard of scientific and medical evidence?
How did CDC determine that children between the ages of 5 and 18 are intellectually and emotionally capable of discerning on their own that their gender is other than their biological gender and, therefore, they are capable of understanding the implications of following a transgender ideology? This is the position “championed” and promoted by GLSEN.
How did CDC determine that providing a link to the chat room, qchatspace.org where children in K-12 can interact with members of the LGBTQ+ community without their parents knowledge or permission is appropriate?
IF CDC does not agree with GLSEN’s position and mission then why is CDC providing any link to any GLSEN web page or more specifically any CDC web page that provides resources for LGBTQ+ youth and which is accessible to children in the absence of their parent(s ) knowledge or permission?
How extensive is the relationship between CDC and GLSEN?
The information that is sought by this FOIA request should answer those questions.
I trust that I have been responsive to your request. Please feel free to contact me if you need further information or clarification.
On 14 March 2023 CDC responded — sort of — in a letter from Roger Andoh. However, Mr. Ahdoh responded to my first “imperfect” request and not the “perfected” requested demanded by Ms. Clark. Andoh stated that CDC had located “…330 pages of responsive records.” which he dutifully supplied. However, none of those pages except perhaps five, were in the least bit responsive.
Those five pages consist of three memoranda. The first, written 18 Oct. 2016 was sent by Sara Zeigler, MPA, Associate Dir. for Policy and Planning, National Center for HIV/AIDS, STD, and TB Prevention to Johnathan Mermin (CDC/OID/NCHHSTP). In this memorandum Ms. Zeigler is proposing an agenda for a meeting. While most of the agenda items address infectious diseases item (2.) is “LGBTQ Youth Health Convening Summit”. Item 2.e is “Partners informing the planning include: HRC, Advocates for Youth, True Colors, GLSEN, Trevor Project, YUSA, MAC-AIDS.” and “2.e.i We have outreach to 2 transgender organizations in progress.”
The importance of this memorandum is that it appears to establish a time frame for CDC’s involvement and partnership with GLSEN and a number of other LGBTQ plus organizations. It is important to understand that GLSEN has never been an organization concerned with HIV/AIDS. The fact that they are included in this agenda and the fact that CDC reached out to “2 transgender organizations” seems to be a watershed moment in CDC’s effort to promote transgenderism.
In the second memorandum (see below) again from Zeigler to Mermin, Zeigler writes:
“Jono — per our conversation yesterday, it would be great if you can reach out to Eliza.
Eliza is Eliza Byrd who at the time was the Executive Director of GLSEN.”
The remainder of this memorandum lays out talking points for a discussion between Jonathan Mermin (Jono) and Eliza Byrd which are intended to chart a path forward for a continued and expanded relationship between CDC and GLSEN.
In a third memorandum, Melanie R. Ross DDID (Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases) to a number of division directors and senior staff identifies agenda items for an upcoming meeting between CDC and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Advisory Committee on HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The proposed agenda shows CDC’s intent to expand their relationship with GLSEN using the results of CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey which I showed in Volume I, Chapter 3 of The Book is the tool used to provide CDC and GLSEN with support for their predetermined finding that are an ever-growing number of LGBTQ+ children in our public schools.
These memoranda make it clear that CDC used the staff and imprimatur of their National Center for HIV/AIDS, STD, and TB Prevention as cover for supporting transgenderism among the nation’s children and they collaborated with GLSEN and other transgenderism organizations to do so.
The remaining 325 pages of CDC’s response to me were simply copies of a routine internal documents called “Coverage of Interest” which is a news digest of articles that may or may not be of interest to the various CDC operating Divisions and Centers.
And why did Roger Andoh provide such a shallow and non-responsive response? Because, as he wrote:
”After a careful review of these pages, some information was withheld from release pursuant to 5 U.S.C. §552 Exemption(s) (b)(5) and (b)(6). The foreseeable harm standard was considered when applying these redactions.”
Exemption (b)(5) covers predecisonal material which is those bits and pieces of paper that contain conversations that may be far from the final decision and do not necessarily reflect the final decision. (b)(5) material may also be withheld from disclosure during a legal proceeding. That’s fair, after all I’ve been on that side of a FOIA request and I am fully aware that in the process of arriving at a final policy statement the participants often consider things that are far removed from the content of the final document or policy. People need to be free to have those discussions. But I didn’t ask for that material.
It it clear within the context of my request which CDC demanded that I provide, no request for predecisonal material was made but I did ask for how CDC arrived at their conclusion to partner with GLSEN. In asking that question I have little concern for process but great curiosity as to CDC’s logic for engaging in that partnership.
The claim of an exemption under (b)(6) is just plain odd. You see, the purpose of exemption (b)(6) is to prevent an employees’ personnel records including importantly and quite properly their medical records from being provided to people who have no right to know what is in those records. But I asked for none of that; no employee personnel records, no employee medical records none of which is pertinent to my request
This dodging and delaying on the part of CDC was not unexpected. CDC does not want the information I requested to be made public and so CDC has called Mr. Andoh’s letter a “Final Response”. In short CDC wants me to believe that this matter is over. CDC will receive my response shortly and it is quite possible that an appeal will become necessary.
In the words of the immortal Bluto: “Nothing is over until we decide it is!”
Union, KY
19 March 2023
Some great investigative reporting there! Really appreciate your work here! ❤️