The radical “Equality” Act—the pet project of sex-eradicationists (also known as “trans”-cultists)—is now in the U.S. Senate. The act would force the federal government to treat the nonsensical notion that spirit humans can be “trapped” in the wrong material bodies as if those disordered feelings constitute a reality equivalent to biological sex and one about which no one may make judgments. In other words, the Equality Act would enshrine in federal law a Gnostic superstition.

In addition, when the purported rights of cross-sex impersonators clash with First Amendment protection of the free exercise of religion, the Equality Act says cross-sex impersonation wins. Buh-bye Christian colleges whose students get federal aid. Buh-bye Christian adoption agencies that partner with the government. Buh-bye religious liberty. It was nice knowing you these past glorious 230 years.

If passed, “trans”-cultists will be well over halfway to their goal of eradicating all public recognition of biological sex. There are many reasons we have arrived at this insane, reality-denying, wrong-side-of-history moment, including the fact that citizens are not demanding their elected leaders dialogue on and debate the sandy foundation on which the “trans” cult is built. In the hope that sane people on the political right and left will start demanding such conversations, here is a list of questions that every lawmaker, school administrator, and school board member should have to answer:

1.) If sex and “gender” are two wholly different and unrelated things, with sex being an immutable objective phenomenon and “gender” being a subjective, internal, and sometimes fluid phenomenon, why should restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, prisons, nursing home rooms, and semi-private hospital rooms correspond to “gender identity” as opposed to biological sex which is both objective and stable?

2.) Why is it legitimate for girls to oppose sharing restrooms and locker rooms with objectively male peers who accept their sex (what the left calls “cisgender” boys) but not legitimate for girls to oppose sharing restrooms and locker rooms with objectively male peers who reject their sex? Why should a boy’s subjective feelings about his objective sex affect girls’ feelings or beliefs about undressing or going to the bathroom in front of or near him?

3.) Either biological sex has meaning relative to feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when undressing or engaging in intimate personal acts, or it has no meaning relative to modesty and privacy. If biological sex has no meaning relative to modesty and privacy, why do we have any sex-segregated restrooms or locker rooms anywhere? Why not make all of them co-ed for everyone? If, however, the desire of humans to be segregated from unrelated persons of the opposite sex when undressing, showering, or going to the bathroom is natural, understandable, reasonable, and good, why should some opposite-sex persons be allowed to violate those spaces just because they don’t like their sex?

4.) If cross-sex identifying students should not be required to use restrooms and locker rooms with those whose “gender identity” they don’t share, why should other students be required to use facilities with those whose sex they don’t share? Why should gender-dysphoric boys (or men) be able to use restrooms with only women, but actual biological females are prohibited from being able to use restrooms with only women?

5,) If anatomy is irrelevant to both “gender identity” and privacy, should boys who identify as girls be allowed to shower with objectively female peers or undress in open areas of girls’ locker rooms? If not, why not? If it’s unjustly discriminatory to prohibit gender-dysphoric boys from using girls’ locker rooms—as leftists claim it is–then is it unjustly discriminatory to prohibit gender-dysphoric boys from showering with girls or changing out in the open in girls’ locker rooms as some schools do?

6.) Female teachers and coaches are allowed in girls’ restrooms and locker rooms. Should objectively male teachers and coaches who “identify” as female be allowed in girls’ restrooms and locker rooms as well? If not, why not?

7.) Will school administrations allow those who identify as gender-fluid to choose daily which restrooms and locker rooms they will use? If not, why not?

8.) Should other subjective, internal feelings be reflected in policy and practice? For example, should those who identify as amputees (i.e., those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder) be allowed to use wheelchairs and handicapped parking spots at school? Should they be allowed to leave class early to have more time to get from one class to another?

9.) Is it unnatural or pathological for girls or boys to object to engaging in excretory functions in a stall next to an unrelated person of the opposite sex doing likewise? If not, should schools respect and honor those feelings through policy that prohibits co-ed restrooms?

10.) Those who identify as “trans” claim their biological sex as revealed in anatomy is unrelated and irrelevant to their “gender identity” (which is a subjective, internal feeling) and that anatomy doesn’t matter when it comes to restrooms, changing areas, and showers. They further claim they want to use restrooms with only those whose “gender identity” they share. So, why do boys who identify as girls demand to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms? How do they know the males using the boys’ restrooms do not “identify” as girls, and how can they be sure that the females using the girls’ restrooms do “identify” as girls? Is it possible that boys who identify as girls are basing their restroom/locker room choices on biological sex (i.e., the female sex) as revealed in anatomy? If so, why are they permitted to do so but objectively female students are not?

11.) If it’s not hateful for gender-dysphoric biological boys to say they want to share private facilities with only biological females, why is it hateful for biological females to say they want to share restrooms and locker rooms with only biological females?

12.) Why is it hateful to believe that locker rooms and restrooms should correspond to one’s objective sex but loving to believe they should correspond to subjective feelings about one’s sex?

13.) Do children and adults have an inalienable and intrinsic right not to share restrooms and locker rooms with persons of the opposite sex?

14.) If restroom stalls and separate changing areas provide sufficient privacy to allow students to use facilities with those whose sex they don’t share, then why don’t restroom stalls and separate changing areas provide sufficient privacy for a gender-dysphoric student to share facilities with those whose “gender identity” they (presumably) don’t share but whose sex they do share?

15.) Leftists argue that the word “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 actually includes “gender identity,” thereby prohibiting discrimination based on “gender identity” in restrooms and locker rooms. If gender-dysphoric boys or men are permitted in girls’ or women’s restrooms and locker rooms based on this reinterpretation, on what basis could other boys or men be prohibited from using women’s restrooms? “Cisgender” boys or men couldn’t be prohibited from using girls’ or women’s restrooms based on their male sex because other objectively male persons (i.e., those who are male but “identify” as women) would already have been allowed in. And wouldn’t prohibiting “cisgender” boys or men from using women’s restrooms based on their “identification” as males constitute discrimination based on “gender identity”?

16.) Leftists argue that separate restrooms and locker rooms for boys and girls are equivalent to separate drinking fountains for blacks and whites. Others would counter that while there are no substantive ontological differences between whites and blacks and that there are no differences that bear on drinking water at fountains, there are substantive differences between men and women. In fact, even homosexuals acknowledge that men and women are fundamentally and significantly different when they say they are romantically and erotically attracted to only persons of their same sex. Further, conservatives argue that the differences between men and women bear directly on the use of spaces in which private activities related to physical embodiment are engaged in. It is these important differences related to physical embodiment as male or female that account for the very existence of separate restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, and semi-private hospital rooms for men and women everywhere. If, however, separate restrooms and locker rooms for men and women are akin to separate drinking fountains for blacks and white as Leftists claim they are, are Leftists in favor of banning them everywhere?

17.) If separate restrooms and locker rooms for gender-dysphoric boys and girls are equivalent to separate restrooms and locker rooms for blacks and whites—as former Attorney General Loretta Lynch once claimed—then why aren’t separate restrooms and locker rooms for “cisgender” boys and girls equivalent to racism? Why aren’t separate restrooms and locker rooms for gender-dysphoric boys and “cisboys” equivalent to racism?

18.) When sex-segregation abolitionists accuse parents who oppose co-ed restrooms and locker rooms of being hateful, intolerant, bigoted, ignorant, heartless bullies, do they also smear children who object to sharing restrooms and locker rooms with peers of the opposite sex?

19.) Do school administrators, teachers, and community members think that Muslims and Orthodox Jews who don’t want their daughters sharing restrooms and locker rooms with objectively male students (or vice versa) are ignorant, bigoted, hateful, and unjustly discriminatory?

20.) Pronouns denote and correspond to objective biological sex—not subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex. So, if staff members, teachers, administrators, or students view the use of opposite-sex pronouns to refer to gender-dysphoric students as lying and for ethical, and/or religious reasons they object to lying, should schools accommodate their objections? Or, should schools—which are arms of the government—compel employees to lie?

21.) Liberal sex and gender researchers Michael Bailey at Northwestern University and Dr. Eric Vilain at UCLA write that 80% of gender-dysphoric boys—and most gender-dysphoric persons are male—will accept their real sex by adulthood. They claim that “it looks like parental acquiescence leads to persistence.” In other words, if parents accommodate their children’s efforts to pretend to be the opposite sex, their children are more likely to persist in their rejection of their sex. Are schools that allow gender-dysphoric minors to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms complicit in helping students persist in their rejection of their sex?

22.) If there is a mismatch between a person’s sex and his feelings about his sex, how can “progressives” be certain that the error resides in the healthy body rather than the mind? If a person has normal, unambiguous, healthy, fully functioning male anatomy but desires to be—or believes he is—female, might this not be an error or disorder of his mind?

23.) If a man “identifies” as “bi-gender” and has appended faux-breasts to his chest while retaining his penis and testes, as many cross-sex identifiers do, should he be to walk about unclothed in women’s locker rooms?

24.) Progressives routinely ask opponents of co-ed restrooms and locker rooms whether single-sex restrooms and locker rooms will require “genitalia police” to determine whether those seeking ingress are in reality the sex that corresponds to the spaces they seek to use. Well, will co-ed restrooms and locker rooms require “gender-identity” police to determine whether those seeking ingress are either the sex that corresponds to the spaces they seek to use or have proof that they have been diagnosed as gender-dysphoric? If not, how will we know if the persons seeking access to women’s restrooms are gender-dysphoric men masquerading as women or are male predators masquerading as gender-dysphoric men?

25.) Some argue that men masquerading as women have been successfully using women’s private spaces for years without women knowing and hence no harm, no foul. This suggests that if women’s privacy is invaded by men but they—the women—are unaware of the invasion, no harm has been done. By that logic, if voyeurs (not to be confused with men who “identify” as women) are able to secretly view women without women’s knowledge, have women been harmed or not?

26.) What is “gender identity”? If it’s defined as subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex, or one’s maleness or femaleness, on what basis do “trans”-identifying children determine their “gender identity”? Do they base their belief that they are the sex they aren’t or their desire to be the sex they aren’t on sex stereotypes, like which toys they play with? If so, is it “arbitrary, socially imposed” sex stereotypes that determine maleness or femaleness, or do biology and anatomy determine maleness or femaleness?

27.) When law enforcement agencies collect and disseminate information on crime, should crimes committed by biological men who pretend to be women be recorded as acts committed by men or by women?

28.) Should government contracts allocated for women business-owners be awarded to biological women only or also to biological men who “identify” as women?

29.) How will biomedical research into health issues that affect primarily women or primarily men be affected when the recognition of sexual differentiation is prohibited?

My hope is that these questions might help jumpstart a spirited conversation and perhaps help eradicate the pernicious and absurd “trans” ideology.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to our U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth to urge them to oppose the federal Equality Act (H.R. 5) which seeks to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections for an individual’s perceived sex, “sexual orientation,” or “gender identity.”

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Planned Parenthood has been called out by the National Black Pro-Life Coalition for “systemic racism” and targeting pregnant Black women in a racial discrimination claim filed against the organization.

According to Catherine Davis, president of the Georgia-based Restoration Project, “Systemic racism and abortion intersect at the door of Planned Parenthood, an organization that has targeted Black women and their babies for almost five decades. These intentional actions violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which made it illegal for recipients of federal assistance to discriminate on the basis of race.”

In a claim filed in early October with Office of Civil Rights (OCR), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the Coalition contends the discrimination has been taking place for close to half a century. The amount of federal assistance Planned Parenthood’s received over that time is no small sum. In the 2018-2019 fiscal year alone, it received $616.8 million in government revenue per its most recent report. The majority of assistance is said to cover Medicaid reimbursements for contraceptives and preventative services to low income and disadvantaged women.

The Coalition, a network of Pro-Life and Pro-Family organizations that embrace the biblical model, wants the federal government to “investigate and hold Planned Parenthood accountable for their continuing violations of civil rights laws as their services have had a tremendously negative and lasting impact on Black women and children–and overall, the Black family.” Several studies appear to back up the Coalitions claims. A study by the Guttmacher Institute found as many as 37% of abortions are obtained by Black women. In addition, a 2015 study found “nearly 80% of the organization’s surgical abortion facilities are located within walking distance of minority neighborhoods.”

In July, the American Conservative reported, one third of abortions in the U.S. “happen to black babies, despite the fact that black women comprise less than 15% of our population. Indeed, the rate of growth in black communities is slower than among most other major U.S. race and ethnic groups.”

The consequences of this were borne out in a statement released by the Coalition from Walter Hoye, founder of the Issues4Life Foundation. “Abortion has been grown into the leading cause of death for Blacks resulting in a fertility rate (1.8) that is less than the required number (2.1) to replace the population,” Hoye said. “At this rate, by 2050 the total Black fertility rate will be 1.3 or lower, a rate that is irreversible.”

For anyone who doubts Planned Parenthood’s ultimate agenda the Coalition makes it clear. According to its media release, “The 2008 FORM 990, PART III, LINE 1, filed by Planned Parenthood, they described their mission in these terms: to achieve ‘…a U.S. population of stable size in an optimum environment.’” It also noted a tweet from former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, proclaiming abortion is as “vital to their mission as birth control or cancer screenings.” The statements are faithful to the organization’s roots.

Planned Parenthood was founded in 1916 in New York by Margaret Sanger who was open about her plans for population control, primarily among those she deemed “unfit.” Now rarely discussed, Sanger’s “Negro Project” was a plan to control the Black birth rate. “To this day, by executing the agenda of their white supremacist founder, Planned Parenthood has developed what I consider to be a method of womb lynching,” said Johnny Hunter, of the Coalition member’s Founder of the Life Education and Resource Network. “That lynching has resulted in the termination of more than twenty million Black lives.”

Stephen Broden of Protect Life and Marriage Texas calls abortion “a brutal form of population control.” He shared, “Abortion has and continues to be a devastating and permanent blow to the Black community. Our children in the womb are decimated. Women are scarred mentally, emotionally and physically–its malicious application disintegrates our families.”

Members of the Coalition appear to view the claim against Planned Parenthood as an extension of the fight for civil rights and social justice. “As my Uncle Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded the nation in 1963, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’” shared Evangelist Alveda C. King, Director of Civil Rights for the Unborn. “It is my prayer that the arc of the universe will now impact HHS, igniting justice for our children in the womb. Now is the time!”

In 2018 (the most recent year reports are available), there were 42,441 abortions committed in the state of Illinois, 15,278 of which were on Black women, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

To learn more, please visit the National Black Pro-Life Coalition website.

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The “trans” cult argues that biological sex is unimportant and always, in every context and activity, subordinate to “gender identity,” which is constituted by subjective, internal feelings about one’s “maleness” or “femaleness.” In the “trans” mythology, “gender identity” has nothing to do with biological sex. Therefore, a human with XY chromosomes and a natal penis can be a woman if he so conceives himself to be. If he dreams it, he is she. No need to get rid of any appendages because women can have penises.

One of these mythological women–“Jessica” Yaniv (sometimes Jonathan) emailed esthetician Marcia da Silva, owner of a home-based salon in Canada who provides Brazilian waxes for real women. The mythological woman–complete with the anatomical accouterments of real men–requested a Brazilian wax around said accouterments. The owner of the salon refused because she was neither comfortable depilating nor trained to depilate hirsute dojiggers. You probably know what happened next.

Yaniv, the mythological woman, pirouetted right down to the Human Rights Tribunal in his stilettos to file a complaint against this woman for discriminating against him based on “gender identity.” This is the 16th female esthetician–“almost all of whom come from minority backgrounds”–against whom he has filed a complaint. He managed to extort $2,500 from one young, single mother who paid him to have the complaint dropped.  According to the Post Millennial, “Fighting JY’s discrimination complaint all the way through to a hearing would cost each esthetician between $20,000-30,000 or more.” But isn’t it sexual assault when a man forces a woman against her will to touch his dojigger? What does the #MeToo movement think about this?

But there’s more. The perverse Yaniv who fancies himself a woman and wants to force women against their will to wax his private parts also wants to help minor girls with their menstrual pads and tampons and wants to rent a public pool for a topless pool party for “LGBTQ” persons between the ages of 12-24. His request to appear before a Township Council asks for,

permission for LGBTQ2s+ organizations to be allowed to host an ‘All-Bodies Swim’ at… civic pools… for all people aged 12+ where these events will be restricted to LGBTQ2S, and individuals will be permitted to be topless (at their leisure), in compliance with the laws of Canada and where parents and caretakers will be prohibited from attending these events as it’s considered safe and inclusive.

Wait, the event is “inclusive,” but he wants to exclude parents? Hmmm…

As Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon has written about Yaniv’s complaint, “This will be compulsory in the U.S. if the “Equality Act” (so-called) is signed into law.” The Equality Act would change the definition of “sex” in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include “gender identity,” thereby legally prohibiting recognition of sex differences anywhere and everywhere. Further, it explicitly nullifies religious liberty protections.

I wonder, will those who claim Christian bakers should be forced to bake cakes for homosexual anti-weddings argue that Muslim estheticians should be forced to wax the nether regions of mythological women?

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They claim creating an election integrity commission is a way to advance voter suppression.

Progressives are in an uproar over the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, and we have to ask why?

Why not look into ways to protect our elections from fraud?

Because to do so would advance “white supremacy,” according to Democratic U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York, who tweeted on Aug. 24, that “If the president wants to truly show that he rejects the discrimination agenda of the white supremacist movement, he will rescind the Executive Order that created this commission.”

Then, he warned, “And if the president does not act, the Congress should prohibit its operation through one of the must-pass legislative vehicles in September.”

Wow. So, the Democrats would shut down Congress in order to keep a blue-ribbon panel from studying the vulnerabilities of our election process? Mr. Schumer must truly fear this commission. He wants it to disband even before its second official meeting on Sept. 12 in New Hampshire.

“The Ku Klux Klan and its sympathizers at all levels of government denied black Americans the right to vote for decades,” Mr. Schumer continued in his tweet without a hint of irony. The Klan was the militant wing of the Democratic Party, which enforced Jim Crow laws against black people for 88 years. More on that later.

“Today, voting rights are once again under assault,” the senator bleated, er, tweeted. “The misguided Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision gutted the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to the same voter suppression tactics that existed before the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.” He means back when Democrats ran the show in the South.

Instead of Jim Crow, the Democrats rely today on the bureaucratic behemoth created under Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, which shattered the black family and still keeps blacks and other minorities beholden to the Democrats’ federal welfare plantation. They just have to keep promising more and more stuff to the Free Stuff Army. Who needs the Klan when you’ve got Uncle Sugar? But, what does chronic dependence do to people’s souls? Hey, don’t be getting all religious on me.

Mr. Schumer was not the first Democrat to cry that the sky would fall. Former Attorney General Eric Holder called the new commission “another frightening attempt to suppress the votes of certain Americans.” This kind of balderdash is not harmless. Commission members that I have talked to have reported harassment and even death threats.

Mr. Schumer equates any and all election integrity measures such as voter ID laws as brutal instruments designed to “suppress” the votes of minorities, the elderly and the young. In fact, minority voting has increased following passage of voter ID laws. Perhaps folks have more of an incentive to vote when they know their ballots will actually count.

Mr. Schumer contends that vote fraud is a myth cooked up to advance voter suppression.

This is a serious charge, and nobody knows better how to go about suppressing voters than the Democratic Party, which benefited from it for nearly nine decades with its Jim Crow system before congressional Republicans rammed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But back to the original question. Why not have a bipartisan panel of experts make sure that election officials are doing their jobs to ensure fairness and integrity? Indeed, if you think vote fraud poses no threat, why oppose a study that might prove your point? If the panel comes up empty, you get to crow. But if it exposes sloppy practices that enable fraudulent voting, shouldn’t you want to know that and clean up the mess?

Progressives crowed that some liberal state officials initially refused to provide voter data to the commission. But as of now, virtually all states are complying with the request, having been told by their attorneys that it is entirely lawful, especially since the data are already in the public realm and commercially available. What? You hadn’t heard from the media that the states are now cooperating?

Here’s one more thing to consider: All of the allegedly vulnerable identity groups: minorities, elderly, the young — strongly favor voter ID laws, since, like everyone else, they don’t want their votes stolen by someone casting a fraudulent ballot. Survey after survey shows it.

So, I think I know what’s behind the Democrats’ fear of the election integrity commission: They have already lost the argument over voter IDs. In its eventual report, the commission will be making the case for how to ensure accurate voter registration rolls. And, accurate voter rolls prevent vote fraud.

If that isn’t frightening to a liberal, nothing is.

This article was originally posted by The Washington Times.

“Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe topful
Of direst cruelty!”
—Lady Macbeth

By the fall of 2017, kindergartners in Washington State will be taught to “understand the range of gender roles, identity, and expression across cultures.”1 For those unclear about what precisely will be taught, the kindergarten curriculum developers provide a helpful glossary that includes a definition of “gender”:

Gender: A social construct based on emotional, behavioral, and cultural characteristics attached to a person’s assigned biological sex. A person’s social and/or legal status as male or female.

• Gender expression. The way someone outwardly expresses their gender, whether consciously or unconsciously.

• Gender identity. Someone’s inner sense of their gender (see Transgender).

• Gender roles. Social expectations about how people should act, think, or feel based on their assigned biological sex.

Kindergarten now marks the starting point for government indoctrination of children into the brave, new, sexless, science-denying orthodoxy of the “transgender” movement, the end result of which is not a more compassionate society, but a society in which there is no public recognition of, or respect for, sexual differentiation.

In early May 2016, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) joined the ranks of the foolish by issuing guidelines pertaining to gender-dysphoric students in K–12 schools. Students who wish they were the opposite sex may now use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms, and on school-sponsored overnight trips, they may room with opposite-sex students.

These guidelines also apply to “gender non-binary” students who don’t “identify” as either male or female and to “questioning” students who aren’t yet sure which sex they would like to be. In other words, these students may make their restroom, locker room, and hotel room selections in accordance with their unstable sexual confusion.

In an effort to facilitate student confusion, the CPS “guidelines” mandate the use of Newspeak by faculty and staff, requiring them to lie by using opposite-sex pronouns when referring to gender-dysphoric students.

Exploitation of Title IX

One week later, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Education (ED) issued an almost identical edict, except theirs came with a threat of the loss of federal funds for non-compliance with what they euphemistically describe as “significant guidance.”

Elementary, middle, and high schools all around the country have been accommodating requests (or demands) from parents to have their gender-dysphoric children granted access to restrooms, locker rooms, and athletic teams that correspond to the sex these children wish they were rather than the sex they actually are. In a case in Illinois, a male student sued his district for the right to unrestricted access even to the girls’ locker room, which includes showers. Often school administrations are accommodating these requests without informing the parents of students whose privacy is being invaded.

The DOJ and the ED, through the intrusive Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is an unelected collective of bureaucrats, have proclaimed that henceforth, in the section of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 that prohibits discrimination based on “sex,” the word “sex” includes “gender identity” and “gender expression.” Further, sex-segregated restrooms constitute discrimination based on “sex,” meaning that schools have no legal right to maintain separate restrooms for boys and girls.

There are multiple problems with this creative argument, the first of which is that the word “sex” in Title IX means sex.

Second, progressives themselves relentlessly assert that sex and “gender identity” are wholly distinct.

Third, Title IX specifically states the following: “A recipient [of federal funds] may provide separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex, but such facilities provided for students of one sex shall be comparable to such facilities provided for students of the other sex.“2

Fourth, neither the DOJ nor the ED has lawmaking authority, so neither can change the definition of the word “sex” in Title IX.

Exploitation of Title VII

But the Barack Obama administration had still more government power to wield illicitly in its quest to eradicate sex-segregation. Like the ED, the DOJ under Attorney General Loretta Lynch has declared that the word “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes “gender identity” and “gender expression.” The abuse of Title VII is far more dangerous than that of Title IX because it has broader applicability.

Whereas Title IX applies only to schools, Title VII applies to every business in the private sector with over 14 employees, to every government entity, and to every religious organization, including religious schools of every grade level from elementary through college.It even applies to churches, which are exempt only from the prohibition of religious discrimination. Churches and other religious institutions are not exempt from the ban on “sex” discrimination.

So if the Obama administration’s redefinition of the word “sex” to include “gender identity” prevails, even churches couldn’t prohibit gender-dysphoric persons from using opposite-sex restrooms. The decree—it can’t veraciously be called a law—would mandate that gender-dysphoric guests at church weddings or attendees of concerts and athletic events at Christian colleges be allowed in opposite-sex restrooms.

Since men are permitted to go shirtless on beaches, at pools, in public parks, in high-school swim classes, and on swim teams, there would be no legal warrant for prohibiting women who “identify” as men but forgo bilateral mastectomies from going shirtless as well.

Sex Segregation versus Racial Segregation

Progressives, who never tire of exploiting race as an analogue for sexual deviance, compare racially segregated restrooms to sex-segregated restrooms, again misconstruing the issues. Racially segregated restrooms were unjustifiable because they were based on the false belief that people of different races are ontologically different. Sex-segregated restrooms are justifiable because they are based on the true belief that men and women are different—a true belief that even homosexuals implicitly acknowledge when they say they are attracted only to persons of their own sex.

When announcing the DOJ’s lawsuit against North Carolina following that state’s passage of a law prohibiting de-sexed, co-ed restrooms, Attorney General Lynch said, “It was not so very long ago that states, including North Carolina, had signs above restrooms, water fountains and on public accommodations keeping people out based upon a distinction without a difference.”

If there is no more difference between men and women than there is between blacks and whites—as Lynch clearly implies—then how is it justifiable to maintain single-sex restrooms or showers anywhere? Why not allow men and women and boys and girls to share the same restrooms, locker rooms, showers, shelters, and hospital rooms just as blacks and whites do?

Lynch also suggested that the unwillingness of women to share restrooms with gender-dysphoric men is evidence of fear, disrespect, misunderstanding, closed-mindedness, unfairness, lack of compassion, unjust regressive discrimination, and the denial of equality. If that’s the case, then how would she characterize the unwillingness of gender-dysphoric men to share restrooms with non-gender-dysphoric men? If separate restrooms for men and women are analogous to separate restrooms for blacks and whites, then aren’t separate restrooms for gender-dysphoric men and normal men also analogous to separate restrooms for blacks and whites?

Justifying Deception

The left uses the little-known history of some cross-dressing men successfully deceiving women in restrooms as a perverse ethical justification for allowing men in women’s restrooms. The argument goes something like this: Since gender-dysphoric men in especially convincing disguises have successfully deceived and violated the privacy of women who don’t want to share restrooms with men, let’s just openly allow gender-dysphoric men to continue to invade women’s privacy.

That’s analogous to arguing that since some peeping Toms successfully spy on women through windows without being found out, there’s no harm done, so no foul. Or, since some husbands commit adultery without their wives ever finding out—again, no harm, no foul.

Others believe, however, that the deception per se is harmful. The use of ever-more-elaborate disguises—including chemically and surgically facilitated ones—by gender-dysphoric men to conceal their sex from women who don’t want to use restrooms with objectively male persons is comparable to peepers using ever-more-sophisticated technology to peep.

Questions for Progressives

There are still more critical questions that should be posed to anyone who supports de facto co-ed everything, questions that will expose the incoherence of the subversive un-sexing of America:

1. Why should gender-dysphoric men and women be allowed to dictate that restrooms, showers, locker rooms, shelters, and hospital rooms no longer correspond to objective, immutable sex?

2. Why should gender-dysphoric men be able to dictate that they get to use restrooms with only women, but actual women are prohibited from saying they should get to use restrooms with only women?

3. If stalls provide sufficient privacy to separate gender-dysphoric men from women in restrooms, and curtains provide sufficient privacy to separate gender-dysphoric men from women in changing areas, why don’t stalls and curtains provide sufficient privacy to separate gender-dysphoric men from other men in men’s restrooms and changing areas?

4. If there is a mismatch between a person’s sex and his feelings about his sex, how can progressives be certain that the error resides in the body rather than the mind? If a person has XY chromosomes that have commanded his brain to produce and release male hormones to which his body is able to respond, thereby developing normal, unambiguous, healthy, fully functioning male anatomy, he is clearly male. If he nevertheless desires to be—or insists that he is—female, might this not be an error of his mind?

5. If a man “identifies” as “bi-gender” and has appended faux-breasts to his torso while retaining his penis, should he be permitted to decide at will which locker room he uses in the altogether?

6. Those who suffer from gender dysphoria claim that their DNA and the genitalia it shapes are wholly unrelated and irrelevant to “gender” and “gender identity,” and that genitalia shouldn’t matter when it comes to restrooms, changing areas, and showers. They further claim they want to use restrooms with only those whose “gender identity” they share. So, why do gender-dysphoric men demand to use women’s restrooms? How do they know that the males using the men’s restrooms do not “identify” as women, and how can they be sure that the females using the women’s restrooms do “identify” as women? Is it possible that gender-dysphoric men are basing their restroom choices on genitalia? If so, why are they permitted to do so, but actual women are not?

7. Leftists claim that people who don’t want to share restrooms, changing areas, showers, shelters, and hospital rooms with persons of the opposite sex are hateful. If it’s hateful for women to say they want to share these facilities only with other women, why isn’t it hateful for gender-dysphoric men to say they want to share them only with women?

8. Progressives routinely mock opponents of co-ed restrooms, asking whether historical restroom practices that require restroom-usage to correspond to sex will also require “genitalia police” to determine whether restroom-users are in reality the sex that corresponds to the restrooms they seek to use. Well, in the mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up progressive world, will there be “gender-identity” police demanding proof that all restroom-users are either the sex that corresponds to the restrooms they seek to use or have proof that they have been diagnosed as gender-dysphoric? If not, how will women know if their fellow restroom-users are actual women, or gender-dysphoric men masquerading as women, or male predators masquerading as gender-dysphoric men?

9. If the views of Obama and Lynch prevail and gender-dysphoric men are permitted in women’s restrooms, on what basis could all other men be prohibited from using women’s restrooms? Normal men couldn’t be prohibited from using women’s restrooms based on their male sex because men would already have been allowed in. And normal men couldn’t be prohibited from using women’s restrooms based on their “identification” as males because that would constitute discrimination based on “gender identity,” which Obama and Lynch argue violates Title IX and Title VII.

The Final Chapter

The editorial board of the Charlotte Observer opined that “the thought of male genitalia in girls’ locker rooms—and vice versa—might be distressing to some. But the battle for equality has always been in part about overcoming discomfort.”3 This comment reveals what many Americans don’t realize: identifying as the opposite sex does not require or necessarily include any surgery, cross-sex hormone-doping, or even cross-dressing; the mere assertion of one’s “gender identity” is sufficient.

Of course, none of those actions can efface the truth of sex; all they can do is mask it. But Americans should disabuse themselves of the rationalization that sharing a shower with Caitlyn Jenner might not be so bad as long as his testicles have been given the heave-ho and his pesky penis has been tucked inside.

And this brings us to the final chapter in the dystopian cultural narrative the left is writing: the end of sex-segregation everywhere. The elimination of the binary. No more public recognition of or respect for objective maleness and femaleness. “LGBTQQAP” activists and their ideological allies seek to create a solipsistic, make-believe world in which nothing outside the self is recognized as real or meaningful. Objective, immutable, biological sex, which is the source of feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy, will become a hoary relic of the past. Even language will be co-opted to serve an ontological and epistemic lie.

A compassionate society helps those who suffer from disordered thoughts and emotions. It does not affirm confusion or facilitate fiction. This most profound distortion of reality and morality must be resisted. •

1. Washington State Health and Physical Education Standards (March 2016), 32
2. 34 C.F.R. Part 106, Subpart D, §106.33: www2.ed.gov/policy/rights/reg/ocr/edlite-34cfr106.html.
3. “Taking the fear out of bathrooms,” The Charlotte Observer (May 13, 2016): charlotteobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article77475147.html.

Colin Kaepernick, NFL quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, has generated a dust-up over his refusal to stand during the “Star Spangled Banner.” Kaepernick said “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”

While some “progressives” are defending his stunt, arguing that a verse of the National Anthem that is never sung—anywhere—has a racist message, Kaepernick didn’t mention the National Anthem, he referred to the flag.

For those who don’t know, Colin Kaepernick was adopted by a white family after his destitute, 19-year-old, white birth mother gave him up. His black biological father abandoned him and his mother before his birth. Kaepernick excelled at basketball, baseball, and football in high school and in addition to a football scholarship, he was offered multiple scholarships to play collegiate baseball. He has made millions playing for the NFL since 2011.

So, some questions for Kaepernick:

When you say the country, what exactly do you mean? The government? Every branch of government? Every department? Every elected official? The Constitution? Laws? Which laws? The police? Every police department? Every police officer? Teachers in government schools?

Does your assessment of the unworthiness of America include the sacrifices of soldiers who have given their lives to defend and protect people all around the world? Does it include men like my father who served and suffered during WWII? Does it include missionaries and medical personnel like Jim Elliot and Natalie Bullock who sacrificed the comforts you enjoy and sometimes their lives because they love people of color?

Could it be that the “country” that oppresses people of color is primarily constituted by Democrats?

• After all, it was Democrats who supported Jim Crow laws in the South.

• It was only 23 percent of Democrats in Congress who supported the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, while 100 percent of Republicans supported it.

• It was Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

• It’s Democrats who have been promoting policies and laws that have incentivized fatherless families, which has long been known to be the central cause of poverty and anti-social behavior.

• It was Democrats who through their demand that homoerotic unions be legally recognized as “marriages” have now institutionalized fatherless (and motherless) families.

• It’s Democrats who for decades have controlled virtually every major American city where schools are failing people of color and where crime destroys lives.

• It’s Democrats like Barack Obama who, while sending their children to elite, expensive private schools, deny school vouchers for inner city families of color whose children are instead forced into underperforming and dangerous schools. And it’s Democrats who protect teachers unions that enable terrible teachers to keep their jobs.

• It’s Democrats who support Planned Parenthood, the baby-killing machine that profits from the deaths of far more babies of color than colorless babies.

One of the many problems with public schools today is the imbalanced and dishonest way they address the entwined issues of race and American history. Leftist “agents of change” (also known comically as teachers) present a lopsided view of American history, emphasizing the injustices that mar America’s history while de-emphasizing America’s social and political progress and acts of justice and compassion that ignite the imaginations of oppressed peoples around the world. America undeniably has a troubling history with regard to race, but that’s not the whole story.

America also has a remarkable history of racial and ethnic integration and an admirable history of self-correction. Is there a country on the planet that has as successfully integrated as many diverse racial, ethnic, and religious groups as America? Is it possible to walk through a mall or a public school in America without seeing interracial couples or interracial, inter-ethnic groups of teenagers chatting and laughing together? Can you enter a church without seeing families that are multiracial by choice through adoption?

This is a country whose founding principles and documents have made possible the kind of social progress that enabled a biracial baby to be adopted by a white family and go on to earn millions. This  is the country Kaepernick sees as “oppressive” and others see as a social and political marvel.

The American flag represents the greatest nation in history. It’s a country that countless people have died to defend or died in the attempt to arrive at its shores. While Kaepernick continues to publicly demonstrate his disappointment with our imperfect union, perhaps he could tell us which country’s flag he finds worthy of respect.

Presenting “Laurie’s Chinwags”

IFI is pleased to announce a new feature we are calling “Laurie’s Chinwags.” In light of changes in the way many Americans prefer to access information, we’re adding podcasts to our articles. Podcasts will accompany both our new articles as well as previous articles that are of particular importance and relevance. As we add podcasts to previous articles, we will republish them for our subscribers’ convenience.

We hope this new feature will serve the needs and desires of IFI subscribers, and we would appreciate any constructive feedback.

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Obamas-Radical-Revolution.mp3

The most radical cultural revolution in modern history is taking place, fomented and facilitated by Barack Obama’s egregious abuse of power. He is incrementally obliterating any public recognition of and respect for sexual differentiation. In Obama’s brave new world, immutable biological sex will be rendered meaningless.

Last week, reports surfaced that both the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the General Administrative Services (GSA) have issued “guidelines” or regulations essentially mandating that those government organizations and institutions that fall under the purview of these agencies must treat humans as if their intrinsic, objective, immutable biological sex has no meaning, not even in the most private and intimate contexts.

Department of Housing and Urban Development

In 2012, HUD published its “Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Regardless of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity final rule,” which stated that “Inquiries as to sex are permitted…when determining eligibility for a temporary, emergency shelter that is limited to one sex because it has shared sleeping areas and/or bathrooms.”

But no more.

A new document was published in February 2015 which reverses that position:

Best practices suggest that where the provider is uncertain of the client’s sex or gender identity, the provider simply informs the client or potential client that the agency provides shelter based on the gender with which the individual identifies. There generally is no legitimate reason in this context for the provider to request documentation of a person’s sex in order to determine appropriate placement, nor should the provider have any basis to deny access to a single-sex emergency shelter or facility solely because the provider possesses identity documents indicating a sex different than the gender with which the client or potential client identifies. The provider may not ask questions or otherwise seek information or documentation concerning the person’s anatomy or medical history. Nor may the provider consider the client or potential client ineligible for an emergency shelter or other facility because his or her appearance or behavior does not conform to gender stereotypes. [emphasis added]

This policy change means that any shelter that receives government funding may no longer take into account the sex of persons when assigning them to single-sex accommodations. In order to receive government funds, shelters must house men and women in accordance with the sex they wish they were or claim to be rather than the sex they actually are.

Shelters—like the 200 shelters run by Catholic Charities—will be prohibited from asking anyone seeking emergency shelter in single-sex accommodations about their sex. All that’s required for men to access women’s shelters where abused and traumatized women are often housed is the claim by men that they “identify”—whatever that means—as women.

According to the Washington political newspaper The Hill, this new “guidance” will be finalized in September.

General Administration Services

Just days after the HUD news came out, news broke that the GSA will be requiring all restrooms in the 9,000 buildings and offices it oversees, including “federal courthouses…the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs,” to be co-ed. This new regulation will apply to both federal employees who work in those government buildings as well as all visitors. According to GSA officials, this regulation “is based on a review of recent rulings and directives from the Departments of Education and Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”

And so, the ideological collusion comes to light.

The Departments of Justice and Education

Obama’s GSA is basing its decision on Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) and on Obama’s Department of Education (ED), both of which divined and declared that the word “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972 respectively didn’t actually mean sex but instead meant sex and “gender identity.”

For those who may have forgotten, it was Obama’s radical attorney general Loretta Lynch who proclaimed that separate restrooms for men and women are analogous to separate restrooms for blacks and whites. (I assume, therefore, that Lynch refuses to use women’s restrooms as an act of civil disobedience against unjust discriminatory practices. Come to think of it, what a paltry act of defiance using the men’s restroom would constitute in the face of such a grave social evil. Lynch should be showering with men in the Capitol Hill health club to demonstrate her commitment to “inclusivity, diversity, compassion and open-mindedness” and her solidarity with oppressed men who wish they were women.)

The ED is similarly abusing its power by requiring all minor children and college students in government schools to share restrooms, locker rooms, dorm rooms, and hotel rooms for school-sponsored overnight trips with persons of the opposite sex.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) also plays a role in this toxic ideological potage. Lesbian Chai Feldblum, Obama’s recess appointment to the EEOC, was instrumental in redefining the word “sex” for the purposes of advancing sexual deviance in the EEOC case Macy v. Holder. In 2010, “Mia” Macy, a male police detective who pretends to be a woman, applied for a job with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He was turned down and filed a complaint with the EEOC which found in his favor:

The EEOC stated that Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination prohibits discrimination on the basis of both biological sex and gender and that ‘gender’ encompasses not only a person’s biological sex but also the cultural and social aspects associated with masculinity and femininity. Thus, discrimination against a person because that person is transgender is discrimination based on sex. [emphasis added]

More recently, in a landmark case, the “EEOC as an agency of the federal government, sued a private business on behalf” of a man who pretends to be a woman. Fortunately, in a rare instance of judicial sanity, a judge ruled against “Aimee” Stephens who sued the private funeral home that fired him. The judge ruled that “Enforcement of Title VII ‘would impose a substantial burden on [the funeral home’s] ability to conduct business in accordance with its sincerely-held religious beliefs.’”

So, Obama has used the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the General Services Administration, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to advance his radical, anti-science social and political revolution. The expansion of the federal government into the behemoth it has become has made this revolution possible. This expansive, intrusive, coercive federal monster now demands that all Americans treat biological sex as if it has no meaning. Bureaucrats are forcing all Americans—including children—to treat gender-dysphoric, sex-rejecting persons as if they are, in reality, the sex they wish they were as opposed to the sex they actually are.

What next? Force us to pretend the world is flat?

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. Representative, urging him or her to rein in the un-elected, leftist federal bureaucrats who are putting our family members in uncomfortable and dangerous situations.

Demand that they take action to stop to the federal takeover of shelters, restrooms, and locker rooms.

You can also place a phone call to your federal lawmaker via the United States Capitol switchboard by calling (202) 224-3121.

IFI Faith, Family & Freedom Banquet

We are excited to have as our keynote speaker this year, former Congresswoman and Tea Party Caucus Leader, Michele Bachmann!  She distinguished herself by not only forming and chairing the Tea Party Caucus in 2010 in the U.S. House but also through her courageous and outspoken pro-life leadership as attested to by her rating of zero from NARAL.

Please register today before the early bird special expires.

Written by Richard Wiley

Freedom of conscience is at risk, and the attack upon it has officially enveloped the field of medicine.

Remember the 11,588,500 word bill passed by Congress in 2010, accompanied by the hopeful promise of easy-access healthcare? The bill that continues to cause the closure of small businesses and price hikes in the insurance market? That’s right, the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) strikes again. Pointing back to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is now using Obamacare to target the right to liberty of conscience.

Reminiscent of the rainbow colors projected on the White House after Obergefell v. Hodges, the HHS is doing everything it can to solidify its celebration and special treatment for those struggling with their sexuality. Pursuant to a final rule to become effective July 18th entitled “Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities,” every medical practice treating any patient who participates in HHS administered or funded health programs or in the health insurance marketplaces will be required to comply with Obamacare’s new “nondiscrimination protections”.

According to HHS, unlawful “discrimination” based on “sex” is not limited to choosing to operate on a female instead of a male simply because she’s a female and he’s a male; the new definition includes refusing to provide sex-reassignment surgery because you disagree with it as a matter of medical or moral judgment. The rule thus mandates that medical institutions provide sex reassignment surgeries to patients regardless of the religious interests of the institution or physician. Possible penalties for violating the rule include civil suits, fines, and criminal investigations.

It doesn’t stop with transgender conundrums, however; the new rule also includes those requesting abortions to the list of protected classes. Although the HHS declares that the rule (section 1557) does not replace the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act or other provisions pertaining to religion, it fails to articulate any means of seeking relief under religious exemptions and is silent as to which provisions would be lifted and which would be stayed, should any relief be requested. The rule simply states, “[i]nsofar as the application of any requirement under this part would violate applicable Federal statutory protections for religious freedom and conscience, such application shall not be required.” No other mention of religious exemption is provided, leaving further procedural steps in limbo to be determined on a case-by-case basis with no uniform application.

Regulations will typically lay out a section detailing which providers are exempt under which circumstances because not doing so produces nebulous interpretations of the law. The practice is more than a courtesy, and omitting such a provision is a telling action indeed.

In addition to breaking down the freedom of conscience and religion, the rule erodes doctors’ professional judgment regarding which procedures are necessary, effective, and plausible for their patients. It’s another case of micromanagement that will have additional economic and moral ramifications for the medical field.

In the end, it’s clear that the rule is a ruse. While the federal government brandishes the colorful flag of the downtrodden class of sexual revolutionaries in its hand, it tramples on the ashes of truth, proudly proclaiming its fidelity to the cause of the deceived. Ironically and tragically, the very thing that can cause healing, that can provide some long overdue stability to struggling families, is the very thing the government continues to deride: the truth.

This article was originally posted at the FamilyFoundation.org blog.

The last two weeks have been, of all things, about bathrooms. First, the U.S. Department of Justice notified the state of the North Carolina that HB2, or the bathroom law, violated the Civil Rights Act. Now to be clear, HB2 requires people to use public bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificate. Note the word “public.” The law allows businesses to determine their own bathroom policies. And, individuals who have undergone sex reassignment surgery can have their birth certificate changed to reflect their transition.

But according to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the common sense protections of HB2 is akin to Jim Crow laws. Sex specific restrooms are like segregated restrooms, water fountains, entrances, and lunch counters of the racially segregated south.

North Carolina responded to the DOJ’s threats to withhold federal funding by filing a lawsuit. And the DOJ responded by filing a lawsuit back of its own.

Then on Friday, lest we think North Carolina is an isolated case, Obama administration officials — specifically the assistant secretary of education for civil rights and the head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department — directed schools, including “all public schools and most colleges and universities that receive federal funds,” to — as the Washington Post described it — “provide transgender students with access to suitable facilities — including bathrooms and locker rooms — that match their chosen gender identity.”

Schools that fail to comply with this edict from on high are, the officials announced, in violation of Title IX, the federal sexual anti-discrimination act, and would therefore — you guessed it — risk losing federal funding. Comply or you don’t get the money. It’s ideological extortion, not policy making. Please visit BreakPoint.org and we’ll link you to a legal analysis of this decree from our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom.

So how should Christians respond? We have to start by understanding the issues at stake. Did you catch all the references to civil rights in these stories? Transgender rights, like gay and lesbian rights before them, have been placed in the historical narrative of overcoming discrimination and bigotry. We aren’t dealing with just a policy issue; we’re dealing with a fundamental view of what it means to be human.

Also, many have long pushed to separate concepts of sex and gender. Sex is how you were born, they say, but gender was self-determined and therefore flexible. But in citing the Civil Rights Act, the administration is saying that the right of self-determination is sacred, akin to non-chosen traits such as ethnicity and race. And by citing Title IX the administration is going even a step further, saying that sex discrimination legislation now applies to gender. In other words, our biological sex should be considered as malleable as our conception of our genders.

Now if all of this sounds like a strange exercise in denying reality, well, it is. That’s the power of worldview. Like prescription glasses, worldviews will either clarify reality or distort reality. The ideas at work here are reality-denying.

Here’s an example of what I mean by reality-denying. Again quoting Attorney General Lynch, “None of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something or someone they are not.” Now in light of Friday’s edict, who exactly is legislating identity and insisting that persons — now school children across the nation — pretend to be something they’re not?!

You’ve heard us say on BreakPoint ideas have consequences, and they certainly do. But we must also say ideas have victims.

In this case, an edict advancing the sexual revolution will make victims by granting special rights to the few while trampling the rights of the rest. And those who resist will be victims of name-calling and public shaming. And precious, gender-confused children, taken deeper into their confusion, will be made victims of our illusions of moral progress.

This article was originally published on Breakpoint.org

There was good news from North Carolina Monday morning, when Governor Pat McCory announced North Carolina would be suing the Department of Justice (DOJ). That news was followed by bad news from the Department of Justice, announced in a stunning statement from Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who compares those who believe that restrooms should correspond to sex to racists who supported separate restrooms, restaurants, drinking fountains, schools, libraries, and parks for blacks and whites.

Here is an excerpt from the ignorant, bigoted, and demagogic statement from Lynch:

Today, we are filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state of North Carolina, Governor Pat McCrory, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety and the University of North Carolina….

This action is about….the dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens and the laws that we… have enacted to protect them–indeed, to protect all of us. And it’s about the founding ideals that have led this country–haltingly but inexorably–in the direction of fairness, inclusion and equality for all Americans.

This is not the first time that we have seen discriminatory responses to historic moments of progress for our nation. We saw it in the Jim Crow laws that followed the Emancipation Proclamation. We saw it in fierce and widespread resistance to Brown v. Board of Education…. Some of these responses reflect a recognizably human fear of the unknown, and a discomfort with the uncertainty of change….This is a time to summon our national virtues of inclusivity, diversity, compassion and open-mindedness. What we must not do–what we must never do–is turn on our neighbors, our family members, our fellow Americans, for something they cannot control, and deny what makes them human. This is why none of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something they are not, or invents a problem that doesn’t exist as a pretext for discrimination and harassment.

…This law provides no benefit to society–all it does is harm innocent Americans.

Instead of turning away from our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues, let us instead learn from our history….[S]tate-sanctioned discrimination never looks good in hindsight. It was not so very long ago that states, including North Carolina, had signs above restrooms, water fountains and on public accommodations keeping people out based upon a distinction without a difference….Let us not act out of fear and misunderstanding….

Let me also speak directly to the transgender community itself. Some of you have lived freely for decades. Others of you are still wondering how you can possibly live the lives you were born to lead….[T]he Department of Justice and the entire Obama Administration wants you to know that ….history is on your side.

Just a few thoughts about her remarkable piece of sloppy and insulting thinking:

• Lynch’s pernicious comparison of Americans who believe that objective, immutable sex matters and is the source of feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy to hateful, ignorant bigots is both morally indefensible and intellectually vacuous.

• Neither inclusivity, fairness, equality, diversity, compassion, open-mindedness, dignity, nor respect requires humans to ignore the objective, immutable sex of others. None of these qualities requires humans to treat objective, immutable sex as if it has no meaning. None of these requires women to share restrooms, changing areas, or showers with persons of the opposite sex. None of these requires Americans to make restrooms, changing areas, and locker rooms co-ed. None of these requires Americans to accept the view that restrooms should correspond to the feelings of people about their sex rather than their sex.

• Equality demands that we treat like things alike. It does not require us to treat unlike things as if they are alike. Men and women are substantively different as even gender-dysphoric persons and homosexuals acknowledge.

• Lynch urges Americans not to “turn” on friends, neighbors, and colleagues for “something they cannot control.” In her view, requiring restrooms to correspond to objective sex constitutes “turning” on gender-dysphoric persons. Does Lynch apply that odd principle consistently? Does she believe that a compassionate society must accommodate all behaviors impelled by powerful, persistent, unchosen, and seemingly intractable feelings, including those feelings that deny objective reality? Being loving and welcoming does not require women to share restrooms with objectively male neighbors, friends, and colleagues or vice versa. In fact, a case can be made that it is profoundly unloving to facilitate a desire to be the opposite sex.

• Lynch asserts that not allowing men in women’s restrooms is tantamount to denying “what makes them human.” Her claim is based on an arguable assumption about what makes a person human, which seems to stand far outside her professional bailiwick. Many would argue that physical embodiment as male or female is central to humanness—indeed, more central than feelings about physical embodiment.

• Lynch rightly states that separate facilities for blacks and whites were based on a “distinction without a difference,” implying that the difference between men and women is similarly insubstantial. This statement reveals a profound ignorance. Blacks and whites are distinct by virtue of their skin color, which is, indeed, a distinction without a difference. But men and women are substantively and significantly different. They’re so different, in fact, that gender-dysphoric men insist that they must use restrooms, changing areas, and showers with women only. If the difference between men and women constitutes a “distinction without a difference”—like the difference between blacks and whites—then why must gender-dysphoric men share private facilities with women only? Surely the differences between objectively male persons and objectively female persons are more significant than the differences between objectively male persons and objectively male persons who experience gender dysphoria.

  If there is no more difference between men and women than there is between blacks and whites—as Lynch seems to think—then why not eliminate all single-sex restrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms everywhere? Why not allow all men and all women to use the same restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, showers, and shelters? After all, blacks and whites do.

• Since Lynch suggests that the unwillingness of women to share restrooms with gender-dysphoric men is evidence of fear, disrespect, misunderstanding, closemindedness, unfairness, lack of compassion, unjust regressive discrimination, and the denial of equality, how would she characterize the unwillingness of gender-dysphoric men to share restrooms with non-gender-dysphoric men?

• How can Lynch possibly know that those who experience gender dysphoria were “born” to lead lives pretending to be the opposite sex? How can she possibly know with certainty that when there’s mismatch between one’s objective sex and one’s feelings about his sex that the error rests with his healthy, normally functioning body?

• America’s founding ideals did not include a commitment to deny objective ontological distinctions that have profound meaning.

North Carolinians and Americans everywhere better not treat this issue like they have treated every other incremental advance of a sexual ideology corrosive to truth and thus to human flourishing. They better be prepared to fight this with every fiber of their objectively male and female beings.

The federal government through its highly partisan Department of Justice (DOJ) is attempting to make law—again—by attacking North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom bill.” Last Wednesday, the DOJ sent a letter to NC governor Pat McCrory demanding that he rescind the law within three working days or face legal action and loss of federal funds.

The DOJ letter erroneously states that the NC law violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination based on sex. In its infinite ignorance and hubris, the DOJ, has proclaimed that the word “sex” includes “gender identity.”

By attacking North Carolina’s law that requires restrooms in government buildings, state colleges and universities, and highway rest stops to correspond to sex and which does not apply to any private sector entity, the DOJ seeks to make law for the entire country.

This is the same stratagem the Department of Education (ED) is using to blackmail public schools into allowing gender-dysphoric students into opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms. While the DOJ is using the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the ED is using Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Both departments—neither of which have law-making authority—have unilaterally redefined the word “sex” in such a way as to make law.

If successful, the DOJ’s effort will be even more profound and destructive because of the scope of the applicability of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Whereas Title IX applies only to schools, Title VII applies to every business in the private sector with over 14 employees; every government entity; and every religious organization, including private elementary, middle, and high schools, private colleges, and churches.

Religious organizations and churches are exempt from Title VII only with regard to the prohibition of religious discrimination and only in hiring practices. Churches, synagogues, and mosques and religious organizations may discriminate based on religion in hiring. In other words, churches, synagogues, and mosques may not be forced to hire persons of other faiths. But how would this redefinition of “sex” in Title VII affect restroom or locker room usage in religious organizations or businesses owned by Christians like Hobby Lobby?

Would the redefinition of the word “sex” to include “gender identity” and “gender expression” require religious organizations, colleges, and churches to allow gender-dysphoric persons to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms? Would this fanciful reinterpretation of Title VII require that a gender-dysphoric father visiting his daughter at a Christian college or a gender-dysphoric woman attending a wedding in a church be allowed in opposite-sex restrooms?

Don’t let deceivers distract you with mocking arguments about how few gender-dysphoric people will be using opposite-sex restrooms; or how few incidents there are of gender-dysphoric men assaulting women or are likely to assault women; or how few predators are pretending to be gender-dysphoric in order to access women’s restrooms, locker rooms, showers, dressing rooms, or shelters.

And certainly don’t be distracted by the stupid comparison of separate restrooms for blacks and whites to separate restrooms for men and women. While there are no substantive differences between blacks and whites, there are substantive differences between males and females,  which even gender-dysphoric persons and homosexuals acknowledge.

The central issue is with the meaning of physical embodiment as male and female.

• Policies and laws mandating that gender-dysphoric persons be allowed to use opposite-sex restrooms embody and teach the lie that objective maleness and femaleness do not have objective meaning or value.

• These policies and laws teach that it is not one’s objective, immutable sex that matters but one’s feelings about one’s sex (“gender identity) that matter.

• These policies and laws teach that modesty and privacy have no intrinsic link to objective maleness and femaleness.

Leftists dismissively claim that anatomical parts are irrelevant when it comes to “gender identity,” modesty, and privacy. They’re demanding that everyone in society treat gender-dysphoric persons in all contexts and ways (including grammatical ways) as if they are in reality the sex they wish they were. So, what are the logical out-workings of this pernicious ideology?

Ultimately, if this view prevails, society will be unable to maintain any separation between men and women—including between normal men and women—in any context. If sexual anatomy has no intrinsic meaning, if privacy and modesty have no connection to objective sex, if objective males must be allowed in women’s showers and restrooms, then there remains no rational justification for separate facilities for men and women or girls and boys.

Since, in the mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world of lunatic leftists, all that matters are feelings about one’s sex, there is no need for surgery, cross-sex hormones, or cross-dressing. So, that “transwoman” (i.e., an actual man) walking naked past your 14-year-old daughter in the health club locker room just might have a chest full of hair, a wooly beard, and a penis. Remember “gender identity” has no fixed meaning, and sexual anatomy is only important if people feel it’s important, so that “transwoman” in the locker room may even have a penis and furry breasts.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. representative, urging him or her to rein in the unelected, leftist federal bureaucrats in the Departments of Justice and Education. Demand that the federal government remove itself from issues of local control and stop misusing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972.