A small sample interviewed by the USA Today Network – Florida described similar paths to the summit. Some moms had rooted frustrations with public school that preceded the pandemic. Their child was bullied by a teacher, or their student with developmental disabilities lacked support.
Other members were turned onto the so-called parental rights movement by the pandemic. Shannon Ciecko, a nurse and mother of five, said she noticed her kids growing sad, almost depressed, when they were required to wear masks all day at school. She learned about the group at an anti-mask protest and decided to start a chapter in Wayne County, Michigan, where she lives.
“My goal is to educate and let people know what’s going on in a way that’s not in your face,” she said, invoking the group’s nickname for parents as “joyful warriors.”
Ciecko, 46, had just come out of a breakout session called “Gender Ideology in our Schools.” In it, about 75 participants heard from speakers that social contagion, in schools and on social media, has led children and teens to mistakenly believe they have gender dysphoria, a medical diagnosis for the distress one feels when their gender identity does not align with their sex assigned at birth.
“This is the biggest child abuse scandal in history,” said panelist Chris Elston, a father from Canada whose lone qualification for speaking on the panel was that he had traversed the U.S. engaging random people in conversations about gender.
A Journal of Pediatrics study found no evidence for such a theory, and the American Academy of Pediatrics and several other major medical associations support gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
Statistics that show trans kids face a higher risk of considering or attempting suicide than their cisgender peers because of societal stigma were dismissed as “emotional blackmail” by another speaker, a fellow for The Heritage Foundation.
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The issues explored in the session were still new to Ciecko, she said, and she found them compelling.
Moms for Liberty had made her realize that masks were just a smoke screen. If schools could force those, what else would they try to get past parents?
The words of one of the panelists resonated with her. Patti Sullivan described herself as a mom turned activist who helped author Florida’s Parents’ Bill of Rights. She implored that the long-term goal should be to assert parents’ rights “in every area of life.”
“It was never about the masks,” she said.
Beyond the summit
On the last night of the conference, a restaurant along the Hillsborough River buzzed with women in navy “Moms for Liberty” shirts clinking cocktails and splitting appetizers.
Cindy Johnson-Brown, 47, sat down at the bar and ordered a tequila mixed drink, a red, white and blue lei around her neck. She was part of the Bay County chapter, but she was running for school board in neighboring Washington County, where she lives in the rural town of Chipley, she said.
Her big platform point, she said, was to bring workforce programs to schools to give students technical skills, an idea that has been embraced by both sides of the aisle. But she had just attended Fillman’s packed social-and-emotional learning panel, which gave her an idea.
“I’m definitely going to be interested in going back to my local library,” she said, “and looking at the books that are not appropriate.”
At the end of the summit, Johnson-Brown and the rest of the participants would go back to their communities with the information and tactics they’d learned that weekend, and the fizzy energy that comes with feeling seen.
“I have been silenced a lot for being a woman trying to either ask questions, or try to get my voice heard on a concern I have,” said 34-year-old Kourtney O’Hara, a homeschool mom who started a chapter in Lexington County, S.C. “By joining Moms for Liberty, I have been given a voice and given more respect by my legislators and other community members.”
Even a participant with some skepticism about the group said she felt empowered by what she’d learned. Michele Hirata considers herself a lifelong Republican, but she didn’t care much for the anti-transgender rhetoric, and she wondered why the group chose “Liberty” for its name when it carries a conservative connotation that could subvert the group’s nonpartisan credibility.
But like many of the women, Hirata was concerned by what her children had experienced in their public school and was compelled to learn more. She wasn’t a member of her Virginia county’s Moms for Liberty chapter, but she appreciated the organizing skills she learned in panels taught by the Leadership Institute, a nonprofit that provides political training to conservatives.
“They’ve given me the resources and the opportunity to do something good with this,” Hirata, 56, said.
At the final breakfast Sunday morning, starring Ben Carson as the keynote speaker, Marie Rogerson, the group’s executive director of program development, delved into the group’s origins.
The year was 2020, and she and co-founder Tina Descovich had just lost their elections, Descovich for Brevard County School Board and Rogerson for Republican State Committeewoman. They started meeting every two weeks to read the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, calling themselves the Liberty Ladies.
Rogerson noticed the word freedom rarely appeared in the texts, but liberty was invoked often. She wanted to understand the nuances of each word, why one was used over the other.
“Liberty, it would seem from my research, has a moral foundation,” she said. “Freedom is a spectrum. On one end, you have chaos, where you have total freedom, but nothing to guide your use of it, no moral code to direct your choices. On the opposite side, the highest version of freedom is liberty, where you use your freedoms righteously.”
Soon, Descovich took the stage with co-founder Tiffany Justice for the closing remarks.
“We have felt very alone, which is why we started Moms for Liberty, and what we found is all of you in this room have felt very alone,” she said.
“I hope if nothing else these past three days, you realize you are not alone.”
Kathryn Varn is statewide enterprise reporter for the Gannett/USA Today Network – Florida. You can reach her at kvarn@gannett.com or (727) 238-5315.
