In recent months, much contested dialogue has been Cat-fiving around New Hanover County Schools (NHCS) Board of Education Chair Melissa Mason's committee assignments, specifically the Title IX Committee and Safety Committee B: Mental Health. The common denominator? Newly minted, pro gender ideology board member Timothy Merrick has been assigned to both, something many feel should have NEVER happened for any reason, not even on Opposite Day. 

On February 5, 2025, President Donald J. Trump dropped his first MOAB, an Executive Order aimed at neutralizing the threat of gender LIE-deology, a distorted constellation of Queer Marxist stars, dangling in the darkness against an anti-Capitalist sky in the Queer Theory galaxy. Titled, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” the EO seeks to neuter the “trans agenda” through the restoration of Title IX by removing gender identity as a benchmark for interpretation. Translated, Title IX can no longer be weaponized for ideological capture that results in literal, physical harm to women and girls or, “adult human females,” a term coined by gender critical (GC) activist Kellie Jay Keen. The bottom line? WE’RE DONE PLAYING.

As is fellow North Carolinian Payton McNabb.

Now 19 years old and fighting alongside Riley Gaines and the pro-women, GC community to shield women and girls from the fallout of gender ideology, Payton’s high school volleyball career violently, abruptly ended when, thanks to Biden’s attempt to force-team a queer-engineered weaponization of Title IX, she took a Wilson to the face, spiked by a transgender player. She was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, partial paralysis, loss of right-side peripheral vision and a brain bleed. Debilitating headaches and memory loss are now her reality. She was also recently kicked out of her sorority for standing up for not wanting a man in a woman’s bathroom.

Timothy Merrick's Radical Agenda

How does this relate to Ms. Mason’s contested committee assignments? She failed to read the room and granted the fox access to the hen house. Timothy Merrick is pro gender ideology. While campaigning, in a WHQR questionnaire published October 2024, he referred to Title IX as a “political football,” following with, “But it is essential that we preserve the rights of every child regardless of their gender or gender identity.” At the time, he was operating within the parameters of the Biden administration's paradigm and he made known his position: gender identity should be prioritized. Therefore, allowing him to chair the NHCS Title IX Committee, on its face, warrants a closer look, especially given board member Pat Bradford previously served on the committee and was an infinitely better option. As a former member of the committee, she had skin in the game. Fortunately, Conservative board member David Perry is also on the committee and his thoughtful commentary has certainly provided a bit of a fuel stop thus far.

Merrick held the first Title IX Committee Agenda Meeting on February 17, 2025 and I attended in person, as did board member Bradford. His proposed agenda included rolling “EDI” into Title IX, making gender equity and gender identity a primary focus and discussing a “culture shift” which, translated, looks like leveraging whatever soft power influence afforded him as the Title IX Committee chair to keep gender identity in the conversation. He even suggested turning the committee into an “advisory board” to the Title IX Department but such is quite the fever dream for it’s not realistic nor should such ever be deemed prudent.

Ms. Mason had weeks to reconsider yet pleas from the public and her peers alike didn’t land. Vice Chair Josie Barnhart, for example, did not want to move to dissolve the committee until her questions, sent via email, were answered. She wanted clarification on the 2021 changes. For context, that’s the year “gender identity” was added to the policy language a few months prior to former board member Stephanie Kraybill becoming chair of the committee.  Additionally, when Ms. Barnhart reached out to Merrick with polite suggestion regarding a previously discussed all-girls wrestling team, he disrespectfully told her to stay in her lane. Did the comrade miss the memo that this IS our lane? Barnhart is an adult human female but, beyond that, it is the board’s responsibility to follow all federal guidelines and dictations. Ms. Mason’s peers cautioned her of the threat of a potential loss of federal funding but this too seems to have been met with a lukewarm response. There were calls on social media for Merrick’s removal and emails voicing concern were sent yet his proposed agenda was allowed to remain, flying in the face of President Trump’s EO. As a former high school athlete (volleyball, like Payton) who now fights gender ideology, I feel he should have NEVER been let within a country mile of the Title IX Committee.

Concerns About Committee Assignments

I harbor additional concern that he was assigned to Safety Committee B: Mental Health. This committee was assigned to both Tim Merrick and Judy Justice who are, in my opinion, the two most radical left NHCS board members.  And where has gender ideology also been pushed? Anyone who has been paying attention knows that, across the entire country, gender ideology is woven throughout the entire mental health praxis and, in our K-12 taxpayer funded schools, thanks to SEL’s social contouring model, it has been filtered in through linguistic drivers like acceptance, kindness and, my personal fave, the Queer faction’s double-dutch holy grail: allyship and visibility. Need proof of how ingrained it has become at all levels of local governance? Head over to the county's official YouTube channel, search “gender equity” and listen in AWE as NHC’s DEI maestro Linda Thompson doggy paddles her way through an exploration of gender identity while two biological women who identify as non-binary they/thems wax poetic about allyship. LINCD has received funding through the New Hanover County Endowment Fund and DSS/CPS is taxpayer funded. Therefore, at the irreducible minimum, Safety Committee B: Mental Health should have been split for bipartisan representation and viewpoint discrimination. Instead, two gender woo “allies” have been assigned to that committee which defies logic.

I did not write this to “attack” Ms. Mason. This is bigger than her supporters’ aggressive online defense posturing or the unspecified criticism being tossed in her direction by disgruntled Conservatives. If she does, in fact, understand the concern for the reasons cited above, we simply request that action be taken to ameliorate the situation, preferably the removal of Merrick from Title IX and Safety Committee B: Mental Health entirely. I personally want the Title IX Committee dissolved as other avenues for filing discrimination complaints are in place. At the end of the day, this should not be reduced to narratives focused on “attacking” Ms. Mason OR the New Hanover County GOP looking for their pound of flesh. We need to take the temperature down and have an honest conversation. Ad hominem attacks in either direction serve no purpose and deflect from the issue. This is about taking the elimination of gender ideology seriously. Nothing more, nothing less. The reason the resolution failed at the New Hanover County GOP 2025 Convention should be because the language did not clarify any of the aforementioned. We cannot, in good faith, now or ever, expect a delegation to vote in favor of passing something that has not been clarified.

That said, ideological activists like Merrick would do well to do their bidding on their own time, not the district’s. Any form of fugitive pedagogy that seeks to platform bad ideas made relevant by keeping them in the conversation must be rejected by those unwilling to embrace the LIE that is gender ideology. It is not unreasonable to suggest that some course correction as related is a fair request and thus it is my sincerest hope that reasonable action will be taken to mitigate the damage so we can move forward in the right way. I fight gender ideology and threat neutralization to a gender critical advocate like me looks like knowing who you’re dealing with and moving accordingly.