Transsexual Hawai`i Board of Education (BoE) member Kim Coco Iwamoto will be facing reelection in 2010.  Mr. Iwamoto leads the BoE’s efforts to undermine implementation of teachers’ drug-testing provisions.  This stand may be unpopular enough to endanger the reelection of Mr. Iwamoto and several other BoE incumbents. But voters will have to overcome Iwamoto’s supporters in the media, unions, business, and the Democratic Party.  They may also have to overcome his supporters in the Libertarian Party as well.

The Libertarian-transsexual connection came as a complete surprise to this writer in late 2006.  Shortly after Mr. Iwamoto was elected, Hawai`i Free Press ran an article analyzing the forces behind Iwamoto’s election.  These included hotel workers union “Unite Here Local 5”, the Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin, at least one transsexual porn actor, and the Hawai`i based transgender activist group “Kulia Na Mamo” of which Iwamoto was a board member at the time of his election.

The reaction to the article’s publication was swift.  Dick Rowland, a former state Libertarian Party chair—and the founder of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii—phoned this writer angrily complaining about the article—bizarrely threatening to “cut off national contacts” and withdrawing invitations to future GRIH events.  HFP was next contacted by then-GRIH board chair Jack Schneider who informed us he was canceling his one-year advertising contract for his Honolulu-based “employee leasing” payroll services company.

    
Sources pointed out to HFP that Mr. Tracey Ahn Ryan—a male-to-female transsexual—was chair of the Hawai`i State Libertarian Party.  Ryan is also active in efforts to legalize prostitution.  Reviewing the information gathered for the original story, it was discovered that Mr. Ryan also worked alongside Mr. Iwamoto on the board of Kulia Na Mamo.

While serving as a board member of the leftist Hawai`i Peoples’ Fund, Iwamoto provided funding to Hui Pu, a sovereignty group headed by Ikaika Hussey.  Hui Pu members participated in an attack on a Statehood Day celebration at Iolani Palace in 2006. Those attacked at the celebration included a high school band, several political leaders, and, ironically, several individuals tied to the Libertarian Party.

 
If voters are going to have a chance at school reform, they will have to know who their allies are.

Read: The transsexual agenda for Hawai`i schools

Update: HawaiiReporter Dec 10--Rowland, Schneider 'super heroes'