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Privacy in Transtopia

Virtual ink has been saturating the Internet on the allegedly discriminatory laws pending or passed in many states that limit girls’ sports to girls or prevent the medical malpractice of mainlining cross-sex hormones into the healthy bodies of children in order to “treat” unhealthy, obsessive thoughts about their sex. Less has been written about legislation that would prohibit schools from forcing boys and girls to share locker rooms and bathrooms with opposite-sex peers.

For example, the Tennessee House and Senate recently passed a commonsense bill that will allow not only students but also staff and faculty to refuse to share multi-occupancy bathrooms and locker rooms as well as sleeping quarters during school-sponsored overnight events with persons of the opposite sex. The bill would also permit students, staff, or faculty to sue schools if they encounter opposite-sex persons in those private contexts. While schools will be required to make reasonable accommodations for students who pretend to be the sex they aren’t, those reasonable accommodations do not include the construction of new facilities. As of this writing, the bill awaits Governor Bill Lee’s signature.

Satan’s henchmen and henchwomyn at the Human Rights Campaign describe this bill and all other bills that oppose “trans”-orthodoxy and “trans”-praxis as “appalling,” “anti-equality,” “Slate of Hate” bills. The henchians don’t explain why it’s not appalling to force girls to undress in front of boys in girls’ locker rooms. Nor do they explain exactly how treating all biological males the same violates the principle of equality or how it constitutes hatred.

To rational people, treating some biological males as if they were biological females is the epitome of inequality. And to compassionate people, forcing girls to undress, go to the bathroom, or tend to menstrual needs in the presence or proximity of male peers is cruel.

Moreover, policies that abolish sex-segregation in private spaces teach all children that biological sex as manifest in sexed bodies has no intrinsic meaning and that to be compassionate and inclusive requires the suppression of all natural and good feelings of modesty. Such arguable ideological indoctrination falls far outside the purview, expertise, and moral rights of partisan educrats whose salaries are paid by all taxpayers.

“Progressives” in thrall to science-denying “trans”-cultism assert that private spaces in which humans undress or tend to intimate bodily functions should no longer correspond to objective, immutable biological sex. They argue that these spaces should correspond to “gender identity”—that is, to disordered feelings about maleness or femaleness. But in Transtopia, maleness and femaleness are untethered to anything objective, including to either of the two biological sexes that comprise the human species. In Transtopia, malenesss and femaleness are disembodied conceits.

How “trans”-cultists know their “gender identities” when maleness and femaleness have nothing to do with biological sex is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. But solving riddles tightly wrapped in mysteries, buried deep inside enigmas pose no obstacle to the construction of revolutionary laws and policies for delusional people wrapped inside artificially constructed skin costumes and buried inside incoherent dogma.

Cartesian “trans”-cultists overlook a host of enigmas as they seek incrementally to eradicate sex-based segregation. For example, why should private spaces correspond to “gender identity” rather than objective biological sex?

Or, if gender is the aggregate of socially constructed and imposed conventions associated with males or females, how can, for example, toy choices, hair fashions, and sartorial preferences—socially constructed and arbitrary as they are—point to anything “authentic” about one’s identity?

Or, if it’s not bigoted for “trans”-cultists to want to use private spaces with only those whose “gender identity” they share, why is it bigoted for reality-tethered persons to want to use private spaces with only those whose biological sex they share?

Or, how do men like “Caitlyn” Jenner know the “gender identities” of the men in men’s locker rooms or the women in women’s locker rooms? “Trans”-cultists claim that “gender identity” is wholly unrelated to biology, anatomy, clothing, behaviors, or interests, and that it’s impossible to know another person’s “gender identity” unless they declare it publicly, so why their obsession with which private spaces they use?

(“Buck Angel” before)

More than a few “trans”-cultists will point to women like porn star “Buck Angel” (formerly Susan Miller), who now identifies as a “man with a pu**y and looks indistinguishable from buffed up, steroid-doping real men. “Trans”-cultists ask what they view as the “gotcha” question: “So, would women be okay with Buck Angel using their locker room?”

This is, indeed, a thorny problem. No woman will want to share private spaces with Buck Angel wearing her elaborate chemically and surgically constructed flesh costume. Nor should any woman have to share private spaces with her. Conversely, no man should be deceived into undressing or going to the bathroom in front of a woman wearing a chemically and surgically constructed disguise. But this is a problem “trans”-cultists have created, and the consequences are theirs to bear.

If humans have an intrinsic right not to undress in the presence of persons of the opposite sex, then that right is not abrogated by “trans” deception. If Buck Angel had any integrity, she would honor the rights of others by using single-occupancy private spaces.

If, on the other hand, there exists no human right to be free of the presence of strangers and other unrelated persons of the opposite sex when undressing, going to the bathroom (or in the case of women and women only, tending to menstrual needs), then all sex-segregated private spaces should be abolished, which is the end goal of “trans”-cultists.

(“Buck Angel” after)

The “trans” cult is abusing anti-discrimination laws and policies to eradicate public recognition of sexual differentiation and sex-based rights, and people who know better have facilitated this work of the devil through their silence and cowardice.

If “discrimination” based on both sex and “gender identity” is legally prohibited, there remains no legal justification for maintaining any sex-segregated spaces anywhere for anyone. If no organization or facility is allowed to consider either sex or “gender identity” when designating private space usage, there remains no legal way to prevent any Tom, Dick, or Harry—whether they fancy themselves women or men—from accessing heretofore “women’s” spaces.

That, my friends, is Transtopia.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Privacy-in-Transtopia.mp3


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South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem Disappoints on “Trans” Law

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has revealed multiple times that she lacks both wisdom and courage when it comes to the issue of cross-sex impersonation. She just vetoed a bill (HB 1217)  that would have required participation in school athletics at all levels to correspond to objective, immutable biological sex rather than immaterial, subjective feelings about “maleness” and “femaleness.” In so doing, she failed girls, disappointed conservatives, and reneged on her enthusiastic and public commitment on March 8 to sign the bill.

Noem has sent the bill back to the legislature with changes she says must be made in order for her to sign it, and she’s now doing what weaselly politicians always do: She is using weasel words to try to conceal that she has capitulated to the “trans”-cult and to those who will profit from leaving bad enough unmolested.

Noem offers several rationalizations for her disappointing capitulation. She claims she’s merely tinkering with the “Style” and “Form” of the bill—not with its substance—and she claims she’s merely trying to prevent potential lawsuits that may emerge from language pertaining to the prohibition of anabolic steroids. Oh really? See if you, kind readers, think these are merely changes in “Style” and “Form.”

While Noem has focused publicly on language pertaining to anabolic steroid use, she has not mentioned that her changes entail removing Section 13-67-2 language that says before permitting a student to participate on an athletic team or in a sport, schools must obtain a written statement verifying.

The student’s biological sex, as ascertained at or before birth in accordance with the student’s genetics and reproductive biology.

Noem’s changes include replacing Section 13-67-2. Section 13.27-3.1 instead requires that a certified copy of a student’s birth certificate be provided. But here’s the kicker: Birth certificate sex designations can be changed in South Dakota.

In fact on February 5, 2021, a South Dakota Senate committee killed a bill that would have prevented birth certificate sex designations from being changed. A 17-year-old girl who pretends to be a boy testified that she was in the process of changing her birth certificate. Noem surely knew about this defeated bill when she made her changes to “Style” and “Form.”

In short, it appears that by replacing the section that requires sports participation to correspond to biology with a section that would require sports participation to correspond to birth certificates—which can be changed—Noem has neutered the bill.

Noem also stripped the bill of references to collegiate athletics, thereby leaving female athletes unprotected from being forced to compete against males. In defending her claim that the bill is “unrealistic in the context of collegiate athletics,” Noem inadvertently reveals the truth, saying “we are proud of our universities’ athletic programs, and in particular the great strides we have taken to gain national exposure and increase opportunities for our next generation.”

Translated, she means she doesn’t want to take on those organizations that regulate collegiate sports and perhaps lose opportunities to host NCAA meets and tournaments. And she doesn’t want to risk what “trans”-cultists and their ideological collaborators did to North Carolina.

The Argus Leader reports on the salient considerations of Noem and those who will sell girls’ Title IX rights and our First Amendment rights a for a mess of money:

[O]fficials tied to groups like the Greater Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce and the Sioux Falls Sports Authority … worry that such a law could result in economic backlash.

In 2016, for instance, dozens of events scheduled in North Carolina never happened after the Legislature there passed a measure that would have stopped local governments from requiring businesses allow transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice.

And the NCAA, which brings collegiate athletic tournaments to Sioux Falls regularly, has an inclusion policy that could conflict with HB 1217.

Apparently the collegiate athletic careers of a few women are a small price to pay in order to be able to host NCAA tournaments and meets. Money. Yum, yum, eat it up.

Imagine, however, if Noem had not buckled. And then imagine if other states had followed her lead. Only principled stances pertaining to biological sex will revert rules, regulations, policies, and laws to sanity.

If spineless lawmakers cede power to the NCAA and chambers of commerce to determine that males can usurp female athletics and access their private spaces, America is lost.

Some are not surprised by Noem’s equivocation on policies related to the “trans” issue, citing her odd reluctance to comment on both the sports and birth certificate bills when asked about them in Feb.

Many outside South Dakota didn’t hear Noem say this in answer to a question about what message she wanted to send to cross-sex passers:

Everybody understands that South Dakota is a welcoming place, especially after this last year that we went through in 2020. … So if they would like to be a part of our communities, our way of life, if they value their freedoms, I would encourage them to come visit.

Any true-red conservative politician knows that cross-sex impersonators do not value America’s foundational freedoms. All conservatives know the “trans” cult seeks to force all Americans to pretend that men who claim to be women are, in reality, women. All conservatives know that cross-sex impersonators do not want freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion to be extended to those who disagree with science-denying “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices.

Take ACTION: Please click HERE to send Gov. Noem a message about her failure to protect women and girls from the radical agenda of the LGBTQIA agenda. Gov. Noem publicly promised to sign into law a bill that would ban biological men from competing against girls and women in sports. Unfortunately, when the pressure was on from powerful special interest groups, she caved and publicly rejected the bill.

More ACTION: You can also call Gov. Noem’s office at (605) 773-3212 or send a fax to her at (605) 773-4711.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Gov-Noem-Disappoints-on-Trans-Law.mp3


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Questions for Sex-Eradicationists, Lawmakers, and School Leaders

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.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Questions-for-Sex-Eradicationists.mp3


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Christian Teachers and Parents: What Will You Do?

This past weekend, I contacted a committed Christian friend who is a public middle school administrator in another state to ask if his school mandates that staff, faculty, and administrators use incorrect pronouns when referring to “trans”-identifying students. He responded that his school does not currently have any such students; that neither the administration nor school board has discussed the issue; and that if or when a “trans”-identifying student demands to be referred to by incorrect pronouns, the administration will consult school attorneys about what to do.

I was, as the British say, gobsmacked.

The “trans” issue has been roiling the cultural waters for years now. Students who masquerade as the sex they are not are suing school districts; teachers are being fired for refusing to use incorrect pronouns (i.e., they refuse to lie); a male middle school teacher was disciplined for refusing to supervise a masquerading girl as she used the boys’ locker room; Obama sent “Dear Colleague” letters to every public school in the country ordering them to treat sexual delusions as reality; children are being taught that in order to be compassionate, they must share restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex peers; and girls and boys are being forced to compete in sports against opposite-sex peers. In the face of this science-denying, privacy-eradicating, intellectually and morally vacuous ideology, it’s both incomprehensible and indefensible that school districts are burying their heads and moral compasses deep in the shifting sand.

It’s also baffling that deeply committed Christ-followers who work in public schools have not begun preparing for the inevitability that they will be ordered by the government—that is, their employer—to speak lies in the service of a body- and soul-destroying ideology.

In answer to a question regarding how Christians should refer to “trans”-identifying persons, esteemed pastor, author, and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary, John Piper, writes that he would “probably… submit to [using the preferred first name] in the short run at least” because the gender-association of proper names is arbitrary and shifting. For example, the name “Joycelyn” is a boy’s name in France, and “Aubrey” is a boy’s name in England, whereas both are deemed girls’ names in the United States. More important, Piper provides the reasons Christians must not use incorrect pronouns when referring to “trans”-identifying persons:

[I]f in the office…  I was compelled to identify every so-called transgendered person by the pronoun they preferred in all of my emails, or conversations… or I would get disciplined… I would say to my superiors, I cannot treat he’s as she’s and she’s as he’s.

“I will draw a line and say that I will not call he ‘she.’ I will not call she ‘he.’”

…. I would be lying to call a he a “she”…. And it would be contrary to my understanding of sexuality and I would start looking for another job.

The same thing applies to bathrooms, locker rooms, and hotel rooms where women identify as men or vice versa. I would refuse to have a roommate who said she was a man, even though I share a room in my travels with my assistant all the time. He is a man, and I know he is a man, and that is a perfectly normal thing to do. But if they insisted that I share the same bathroom, share the same locker room, or share the same hotel room, I am looking for another job.

…. Naming may have a certain ambiguity and arbitrariness to it, but the language of “he” and “she” and the use of bathrooms and hotel rooms does not. And I will draw a line and say, I will not call he “she.” I will not call she “he.” And I will not intrude on the sexual privacy of a person of the opposite sex or walk into a situation where they would intrude upon mine.

So, what should every Christian administrator and teacher employed by Big Brother in government schools do? They should immediately ask their superiors and school board this question:

If a “trans”-identifying student were to request that I use incorrect pronouns when referring to them, would I be required to do so even if it conflicts with beliefs about sexuality and about lying that derive from my religious faith?   

No parent should place their children in a purportedly educational environment in which the adults charged with teaching do not respect the reality and meaning of biological sex, who use incorrect pronouns, who pretend that boys can be girls or vice versa, who teach implicitly or explicitly that compassion and inclusivity require students to share private spaces with opposite-sex peers, and who require them to lie about the sex of peers through the use of incorrect pronouns. So, parents too should ask their administrators and school board these questions now:

1.) If a “trans”-identifying student were to request that teachers use incorrect pronouns, will teachers be doing so?

2.) If a “trans”-identifying student were to request that peers refer to them by incorrect pronouns, would peers—like my child—be required to do so?

3.) If a “trans”-identifying student were to request use of opposite-sex locker rooms and restrooms, will they be permitted to use them? If so, would those students whose parents do not permit them to share private spaces with opposite-sex peers—like my child—be forced out of restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their sex?

4.) Will teachers be telling students—like my child—that in order to be compassionate and inclusive, they must use incorrect pronouns when referring to “trans”-identifying students and should share private spaces with opposite-sex peers?

Parents are entitled to this information and should have it sooner rather than later so that they can make informed decisions about how and where to train up their children in the ways they should go. And Christian employees in public schools are entitled to this information because they need to know whether they should start looking for alternative employment.

We don’t get to choose whom God calls to the frontlines of cultural battles or to what task he may call us. Right now, it seems obvious that he has called—among others, including church leaders—Christians employed in wedding-related businesses and in government schools to the frontlines. I hope I’m wrong, but it appears that, apart from a handful of notable cases that become court cases and news stories, Christians are taking the broad and easy road, seeking the approval of man over God.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Christian-Teachers-and-Parents-What-Will-You-Do.mp3



Save the Date!

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?

Click here for more information.




Batavia Middle School’s Presumptuous and Ill-Informed Leadership

Another invasion of children’s privacy and another attack on parents who object to their children’s privacy being invaded has taken place, this time at Rotolo Middle School in Batavia, Illinois. Without any notification to parents whose children’s privacy in restrooms and locker rooms would be invaded—which is potentially every girl—Rotolo administrators and school board members gave their unholy blessing to a boy who pretends to be a girl to use girls’ restrooms and locker room with no restrictions.

When the parent of a girl complained about the administration’s decision to sexually integrate girls’ private facilities, the principal, Bryan Zwemke, suggested her daughter use a restroom in the nurse’s office, or use a restroom near the front door that the boy may but is unlikely to use due to its location, or to holler in restrooms first to make sure they are being used by only girls, or to have a school monitor stand outside while she’s in the restroom. Zwemke also recommended that girls who don’t want to change clothes in front of or near the boy in the girls’ locker room should change in a small utility closet.

Really? Does Zwemke really think those options are just, reasonable, and compassionate? “Progressives” argue that “trans”-identifying children who aren’t comfortable using facilities with persons of their same sex should not be expected to use separate facilities but now administrators expect students who aren’t comfortable sharing facilities with opposite-sex persons to use separate facilities. Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.

At a recent school board meeting in which three parents respectfully expressed their concerns (from 17:30-25:50) about the introduction of co-ed restrooms and locker rooms, unhinged board member John Dryden melodramatically walked out for several minutes and then later posted this on his Facebook page:

Sometimes School Board meetings are like Mr. Toad’s wild ride. (Enjoy it on BATV) You can watch me try really hard not to launch myself over the table and strangle an anti-transgender lynch mob. The Board Comments at the end are worth listening to. Cheers Batavia – let’s move ahead, not backwards….

A report in the Daily Herald reveals more of Dryden’s bigotry:

I watched a lot of people throw a middle school kid under the bus.

In Dryden’s skewed view, opposing co-ed restrooms and locker rooms constitutes throwing children under a bus. Nice rhetorical attempt to silence dissent.

Following Dryden’s break for the vapors, two additional speakers expressed concern over the sexual integration of private spaces: two actual girl students (26:10-28:10). It appears big, burly board member John Dryden called three moms and two middle school girls a lynch mob that he wants to strangle. Clearly, Dryden neither respects nor tolerates the diversity within his own community as he embraces an intellectually incoherent ideology and morally bankrupt policy.

Near the end of the meeting, after Dryden mustered the wherewithal to resist his urge to strangle three moms and two little girls, he smugly, incorrectly, and perhaps dishonestly lectured the purported “lynch mob” on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, saying this (1:01:49-1:03:42):

Federal law Title IX requires, allows the right to be treated according to one’s gender identity, that the name and pronouns used for that individual will match the gender identity. They cannot be forced to used separate facilities. The right to use restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity is protected under Title IX.

Here’s what Dryden failed to say. He failed to admit that Title IX says precisely nothing about “gender identity” or pronouns. Title IX does, however, say something about restrooms and locker rooms. Here’s what Title IX says:

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.

Moreover, the Illinois Human Rights Act, which is state law, states this:

The Act permits schools to maintain single-sex facilities that are distinctly private in nature, e.g., restrooms and locker rooms. 

And the Illinois Association of School Boards explicitly acknowledges that the Illinois Human Rights Act permits schools to maintain single-sex restrooms and locker rooms.

Neither Dryden’s wishes, nor Obama’s edicts, nor the lawsuits of “trans” activists have transformed Title IX (or the Illinois Human Rights Act) into a command to sexually integrate private spaces in government schools or to mandate untruthful speech (i.e., incorrect pronoun-usage). The board must correct this misstatement, and Dryden owes the moms and girls a public apology.

Dryden wasn’t done yet. He next scolded parents who used pronouns correctly:

I hope in the future when we’re discussing publicly this issue that we can respect the person’s right to be addressed by their preferred pronoun.

No person has a right to compel others to participate in a fiction, speak a falsehood, or compel others to adopt their new politically constructed grammar rule. For those who believe that the “trans” ideology is both false and destructive—which it is—referring to boys who think they are or wish they were girls is a destructive lie. Believing that referring to boys as girls is respectful or good depends on prior assent to Leftist assumptions, which no one is obliged to do. Neither Dryden-the-Scold, nor the “trans” community, nor this boy and his family have a moral right to dictate how people think or speak about this science-denying ideology.

Board member Tina Bleakley made this ironic statement:

To come publicly to speak about a child disappoints me.

The administration, apparently in cahoots with the school board, allow a boy to invade the private spaces of girls and then has the audacity to suggest that this unnamed boy’s privacy has been violated by the expression of opposition to the policy? Surely Bleakley jests. It is the adult leaders of Rotolo Middle School who have committed a disappointing act, which is expecting girls to feel comfortable sharing private spaces with a peer of the opposite sex.

Here are some questions that the administration and board should be asked and should answer:

  • What is “gender identity”? If the administration defines it as subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex, or maleness, or femaleness, on what basis do “trans”-identified children determine their “gender identity”?
  • Why should private spaces correspond to subjective, internal feelings about one’s maleness or femaleness as opposed to objective, immutable biological sex?
  • Why is it legitimate for girls to oppose sharing restrooms and locker rooms with objectively male peers who accept their sex, 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?
  • Does objective, immutable biological sex have any intrinsic meaning relative to modesty and privacy? If not, why do we have any sex-segregated restrooms or locker rooms anywhere? Why not make all of them co-ed for everyone?
  • If this objectively male student should be permitted to use facilities with only girls, why shouldn’t objectively female students be permitted to use facilities with only girls?
  • Will the administration allow those who identify as gender fluid choose daily which restrooms and locker rooms they will use?
  • Since, according to Leftists, anatomy is irrelevant to “gender identity” and privacy, should boys who identify as girls be allowed to shower with objectively female peers? If not, why not?
  • 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 wheel chairs 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?
  • Are the feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when engaged in personal activities—which are the reasons for sex-segregated restrooms, locker rooms (not to mention dressing rooms, shelters, semi-private hospital rooms, dorm rooms, nursing home room assignments)—pathological?
  • 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 choices on biological sex as revealed in anatomy? If so, why are they permitted to do so but actual girls are not?

School board members and administrators are never asked these questions. Nor are they confronted with the fact that de facto co-ed restroom mandates teach all children that unless they are willing to relinquish their privacy and their beliefs about the profound meaning of biological sex; unless they accept unproven, Leftist assumptions about biological sex, “gender” and “gender identity”; and unless they silence the expression of their beliefs, they will be deemed ignorant, hateful, intolerant bigots hell-bent on lynching those who identify as the sex they are not and never can be.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Rotolo-Middle-School.mp3


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PODCAST: Batavia Middle School’s Presumptuous and Ill-Informed Leadership

Another invasion of children’s privacy and another attack on parents who object to their children’s privacy being invaded has taken place, this time at Rotolo Middle School in Batavia, Illinois. Without any notification to parents whose children’s privacy in restrooms and locker rooms would be invaded—which is potentially every girl—Rotolo administrators and school board members gave their unholy blessing to a boy who pretends to be a girl to use girls’ restrooms and the locker room with no restrictions.

When the parent of a girl complained about the administration’s decision to sexually integrate girls’ private facilities, the principal, Bryan Zwemke, suggested her daughter use a restroom in the nurse’s office, or use a restroom near the front door that the boy can but is unlikely to use due to its location, or to holler in restrooms first to make sure they are being used by only girls, or to have a school monitor stand outside while she’s in the restroom. Zwemke also recommended that girls who don’t want to change clothes in front of or near the boy in the girls’ locker room should change in a small utility closet.

READ MORE




Co-Ed Restrooms in Government Schools Led by Fools

As the school year begins, public elementary, middle, and high schools across the country are being asked by parents of “trans”-identifying children to sexually integrate restrooms and locker rooms. These parents are making the presumptuous request for all children to be forced to share private spaces with opposite-sex peers. School boards and administrations are acquiescing, some because they’ve embraced “trans”-cultic assumptions and others out of fear of litigious leftists. All suffer from indefensible ignorance on an issue of urgency and critical importance.

Here are just a few of the things about which most school board members and administrators remain ignorant:

  • They’re ignorant of the possible causes of sexual confusion and bodily alienation, which can include family dysfunction, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment.
  • They’re ignorant of the phenomenon called “rapid-onset gender dysphoria.” Fortunately for them, a study by Dr. Lisa Littman, physician and associate professor of the Practice of Behavioral Sciences at Brown University, was just published that examines this troubling phenomenon:

In on-line forums, parents have been reporting that their children are experiencing what is described here as “rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” appearing for the first time during puberty or even after its completion. The onset of gender dysphoria seemed to occur in the context of belonging to a peer group where one, multiple, or even all of the friends have become gender dysphoric and transgender-identified during the same timeframe. Parents also report that their children exhibited an increase in social media/internet use prior to disclosure of a transgender identity.

The worsening of mental well-being and parent-child relationships and behaviors that isolate [adolescent and young adult children] from their parents, families, non-transgender friends and mainstream sources of information are particularly concerning. More research is needed to better understand this phenomenon, its implications and scope.

  • They’re ignorant of the dramatic and troubling increase in the number of teens who identify as “trans.”
  • They’re ignorant of the relationship between gender dysphoria and autism.
  • They’re ignorant of the low rates of suicide among gender-dysphoric children and that there “is no persuasive evidence that gender transition reduces gender dysphoric children’s likelihood of killing themselves.”
  • They’re ignorant of the high rates of desistance in gender-dysphoric children who don’t socially and chemically transition. Desistance is the abatement of gender dysphoria and opposite-sex identification.
  • They’re ignorant of the phenomenon of “detransitioning” (also called “trans” regret), which is when people stop pretending to be the sex they are not. The fundamental feature of “detransitioning” is ceasing to take risky cross-sex hormones.
  • They’re ignorant of the conditioning that they facilitate when they allow co-ed restrooms and locker rooms. “Trans” activists and their “progressive” collaborators believe that society “conditions” children into believing that biological sex matters. They maintain the peculiar belief that stereotypes precede and shape male and female differences rather than the other way around. “Trans” activists and their water-carrying school leaders ignore that through their actions, they are engaging in egregious social conditioning. Through pronoun policing; mandatory co-ed private spaces; litigation; falsified birth certificates and driver’s licenses; public shaming and epithet-hurling; and cultural indoctrination on a massive scale through control of government schools, academia, the press, the arts, and professional medical and mental health communities, public recognition of sex differences in all contexts is being eradicated.

Ignorance and cowardice are on full display in a Kansas City, Missouri school district that has installed co-ed restrooms in two new elementary schools and retrofitted two middle schools and one high school with sexually-integrated restrooms. The walls and doors in stalls are floor-to-ceiling, and there are common areas with shared sink troughs, so boys and girls can wash up together.

Executive director of organizational development, Rochel Daniels, suggests that co-ed restrooms were necessary because of the district’s “policy about non-discrimination.” Hmmm, that’s weird because Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 says that “A recipient [of federal funds] may provide separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex.”

Of course, the signs on the spanking new restrooms don’t say “co-ed.” That would expose too much. The signs say “gender-neutral.” That term is silly because the “trans” cult asserts with sacrilegious fervor that “gender” refers to the socially-constructed roles, conventions, and behaviors arbitrarily associated with males or females. It makes no sense to designate restrooms “role-neutral.” No one has ever cared what roles restroom-users assume or conventions they adopt as they live and move and have their being before and after excreting. All that has mattered when it comes to restroom-usage is their biological sex. The signs, however, inadvertently admit the co-ed nature of the restrooms: They also include the symbols for the two only two sexes that exist.

What these silly signs are likely alluding to is not “gender” but “gender identity,” which “trans” cultists define as the subjective, internal, felt sense of being male or female. If “trans” cultists are to be believed—which they shouldn’t be—there are scores of existing “gender identities.” If “trans” cultists win the day, signage should say something like “all gender identities,” and those pesky male/female symbols erased. As with “gender,” when it comes to restroom-usage, no one has ever cared about the subjective, internal, felt sense of the maleness or femaleness of restroom-users. Why should they? What do I care if the woman in the stall next to me wishes she were a man?

“Trans” cultists view the idea that restroom-usage should correspond to biological sex as arbitrary and socially-constructed, but it’s no more arbitrary, socially-constructed, and culturally-imposed than is the radical idea that restroom-usage should correspond to subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex or that restroom-usage should correspond to no human attributes.

In addition to the aspects of the “trans” debate listed above of which school administrators and board members are largely ignorant, there’s another relevant matter never discussed or likely even contemplated by our fearless leaders: epistemology. That’s a big word for the study of knowledge. What do we know and how do we arrive at knowledge? Can we rely on the truth of our beliefs? The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains that epistemology is,

the study of knowledge and justified belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits?

School administrators and board members are making revolutionary changes in restroom and locker room practices and policies based on assumptions and information. What are those assumptions? Are they sound? What criteria do they use to evaluate the soundness of these assumptions? If they base their decisions on information, what criteria do they apply to the research cited or the organizations that publish the research? Do they seek out and evaluate dissenting views applying the same standards to all research? So many necessary questions completely ignored.

The request by children or teens to have all others refer to them by incorrect pronouns or to force opposite-sex peers to share private spaces with them is what the “trans” cult and its collaborators refer to as “social transitioning.” The word “social” implies society, which in turn assumes the notion of the common good. How do we know whether its good for children to access opposite-sex spaces? Is it good for all children? It’s arguable that it’s good for gender-dysphoric children; it’s even more arguable that it’s good for all children. How is “good” defined?

Schools are discussing whether co-ed restrooms equipped with toileting closets and shared sinks undermine modesty. Will these types of restrooms serve as an incremental step in desensitizing students at young ages to engaging in private bodily functions with opposite-sex peers? Will these types of facilities thereby cultivate or undermine the virtue of modesty? Will these types of facilities reinforce the belief that objective, immutable biological sex per se is profoundly meaningful or will they reinforce the “trans”-cultic belief that biological sex per se has no intrinsic meaning?

So many necessary questions completely ignored.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Co-Ed-Restrooms-in-Government-Schools-Led-by-Fools.mp3



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