A remarkable and revelatory debate took place on IFI’s Facebook page on Sunday between me and Alan Mills, the executive director of the Uptown People’s Law Center, who received his undergraduate degree in philosophy from Ivy League Brown University and his law degree from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. I don’t want to speak ill of the irrational, so I will let you figure out what this debate reveals.

It all began with this question from another commenter: “Does it create a better environment if 1 percent of the students are uncomfortable getting undressed and dressed for gym class, or 99 percent of the students?”

Mills responded, “Would you apply the same test to racial segregation? Why not?”

And the debate was afoot.

Laurie:  I would think that with an Ivy League education and law degree from Northwestern you would have greater facility with analogies.

First, in order for your analogy to work there have to be some points of correspondence between opposite-sex “identification” (or impersonation) per se and race or skin color per se. There are none.

Second, there would have to be some points of correspondence between racial segregation everywhere and sexual segregation in private spaces where sexually differentiated humans undress. There are none.

Segregating races in buses, restaurants, and housing was based on false beliefs about the races. There are no ontological differences between races that meaningfully bear on riding buses, eating in restaurants or being housed. In contrast, sexual segregation in restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, semi-private hospital rooms, jails, and prisons are based on real ontological differences between biological men and biological women. Moreover, these differences meaningfully bear on undressing and engaging in bodily functions.

If sexual segregation per se is as intrinsically evil as racial segregation per se, then there should be laws prohibiting all sexual segregation. Is the Uptown People’s Law Center fighting for the eradication of all sex-segregated spaces?

Alan Mills: This is not about sexual segregation. It is about insisting that biological differences justify discrimination. That is EXACTLY what racial segregation was about. Just like sex, there is indisputably a biological difference between white and black skin. The question is whether that difference in biology justified treating people as second class citizens.

Laurie: Yes, the issue is precisely about sexual segregation—sexual segregation in high school locker rooms.

You evidently didn’t understand my argument, so, I’ll try again.

I did not argue that there are no biological differences between blacks and whites. I argued that those differences did not bear meaningfully on riding buses, eating in restaurants, or being housed. In contrast, the differences between men and women do, indeed, bear meaningfully on private spaces. In fact, those real differences between men and women are the reason sex-segregated spaces exist. The reason drinking fountains exist is decidedly not to recognize racial differences.

Nice try with the “second-class citizen” comment, but treating all men as men and all women as women does not constitute treating any man or any woman as a second-class citizen. Treating sex differences as real and meaningful in contexts where sexually differentiated humans (who are often strangers) undress does not constitute treating anyone as a “second class citizen.”

Not all forms of “segregation” (a loaded term chosen by leftists for its political loadedness) are created equal. I’ll choose a better term: separation. Not all bases on which humans separate are analogous. Some forms of separation are not merely acceptable but good.

Racial segregation was based on erroneous and pernicious beliefs about white superiority and on white hatred of blacks. Sexual segregation in private spaces is based on the true belief that boys and girls, men and women are biologically different and that those differences are meaningful when it comes to being unclothed. Such separation does not reflect any animus of women toward men or vice versa.

Again, biology is irrelevant to the acts of riding buses, drinking at fountains, eating in restaurants, and being housed. Racial segregation was based on animus. In contrast, biologically based sex segregation is relevant to undressing and engaging in personal bodily functions. Separate facilities for men and women when undressing or engaging in personal bodily functions are based on these real differences—not on false beliefs or animus. The reason women don’t want men in their locker rooms is not based on sexual hatred.

So, I’ll ask again, if you believe sexual “segregation” is as intrinsically evil as racial segregation, are you fighting for the end of all sexual “segregation”? How do you justify leaving some sexually segregated spaces? Would you allow some racial segregation to remain legal? Using your deeply flawed analogy, would you allow some “whites only” spaces to remain if some whites wanted them?

Alan Mills: You specifically said that trans women unlike any other women need to use special changing areas—segregated from all other women. Sounds exactly like racial segregation to me.

Laurie: I specifically said no such thing. “Trans-women” are biological men (also known as men), and I specifically said that no biological men should use the private spaces of biological women, which is wholly different from separate lunch counters and drinking fountains for blacks and whites. While skin color differences have no meaning relative to eating, drinking or riding buses, sex differences have profound meaning relative to undressing. In fact, sex differences are the very reason we have sex-separated private spaces for men and women.

Trying a third time: If you believe sexual “segregation” is as intrinsically evil as racial segregation, are you fighting for the end of all sexual “segregation”? How do you justify leaving some sexually segregated spaces? Would you allow some racial segregation to remain legal? Using your deeply flawed analogy, would you allow some “whites only” spaces to remain?

Alan Mills: Gender differences are the reason, not sex differences. As I say, you are demanding that women who do not conform to your notion of what a woman should look like should be segregated, because it would make women who look different uncomfortable.

This is exactly the argument used for segregated neighborhoods, separate drinking fountains, public accommodations, etc.

Laurie: Leftists define “gender” as the aggregate of arbitrary socially constructed conventions that we associate with maleness and/or femaleness, both, or neither. Your claim about the reason for segregated private spaces is patently and demonstrably false in addition to being idiotic.

“Gender” differences are not the reason society created separate restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, dorm rooms, semi-private hospital rooms, jails, and prisons. Biological sex differences between men and women are the reason we have sex-separate private facilities for women and men.

I have never “demanded” that “women who do not conform to” my “notion of what a woman should look like” be segregated in private spaces. Rather, I am asserting that biological men should not be in the private spaces of biological women, which—as I have explained—is wholly different from racially segregated drinking fountains, neighborhoods, or restaurants. Skin color differences are irrelevant to eating and drinking. Whereas racial segregation was based on irrelevant biological differences and animus, sex-segregation in private spaces is based on biological differences relevant to undressing and has no basis in biological sex animus.

My father, my husband, my son, my sons-in-law, and my male friends do not want biological women in their locker rooms. My sister, my daughters, my daughter-in-law, and my female friends do not want biological men in their locker rooms. None of these relatives and friends believes they are superior to persons of the opposite sex, nor do they hate persons of the opposite sex. Rather, they know that sexual differentiation matters when it comes to undressing.

Trying a fourth time: If you believe sexual “segregation” is as intrinsically evil as racial segregation, are you fighting for the end of all sexual “segregation”? How do you justify leaving some sexually segregated spaces? Would you allow some racial segregation to remain legal? Using your deeply flawed analogy, would you allow some “whites only” spaces to remain?

CONCLUSION

Well, that’s where our debate ended. Alan Mills employed lousy analogies; grossly misrepresented my statements, actually lying about what I said; grossly mispresented history; and refused to answer direct questions. Figuring out whether he is obtuse or engaging in deceitful lawyerly rhetorical manipulation is above my pay grade. What I do know is his beliefs based on nonsensical analogies and lies are dangerous and destructive.

Once the term “gender identity” is added to antidiscrimination policies and laws, sex-segregated private spaces begin their slow but ineluctable death march. Banning discrimination based on both sex and feelings about sex (i.e.,“gender identity”) spells the end of all sex-segregation everywhere. If society can no longer separate humans according to either biological sex or “gender identity,” then there remains no legal rationale for retaining any sex-segregated private spaces for anyone anywhere.

For example, if a school allows one boy who “identifies” as a girl to use the girls’ locker room, there is no legal rationale for preventing normal boys (i.e., “cisgender boys) from doing likewise. The school could not prohibit normal boys from using the girls’ locker room based on the fact that they’re biological boys for that would constitute discrimination based on sex (In addition, they’ve already allowed one biological boy to use the girls’ locker room). And schools could not prohibit “cisgender” boys from using the girls’ locker room, because that would constitute discrimination based on gender identity.

Unless the masses of people tethered to reality and morality rise up and oppose this irrational ideology, this is the end of physical privacy, my friends, the end.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Uptown-Peoples-Law-Center.mp3

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A painfully honest and disturbing editorial by New York University PhD candidate Andrea Long Chu, a young man who longs to be a woman, recently appeared in the New York Times. Chu’s central thesis is that gender-dysphoric persons are entitled to surgery and that surgeons have an obligation to provide it regardless of their beliefs about what constitutes harm. In Chu’s skewed and revolutionary view, “surgery’s only prerequisite should be a simple demonstration of want…. [N]o amount of pain, anticipated or continuing, justifies its withholding.”

Chu, who has been taking estrogen and evidently had breast implants, is scheduled for “bottom” surgery on Thursday, November 29 and in this pre-op editorial admits what many “trans”-identifying people likely wish he hadn’t:

This is what I want, but there is no guarantee it will make me happier. In fact, I don’t expect it to…. People transition because they think it will make them feel better. The thing is, this is wrong…. I feel demonstrably worse since I started on hormones. One reason is that, absent the levies of the closet, years of repressed longing for the girlhood I never had have flooded my consciousness. I am a marshland of regret. Another reason is that I take estrogen—effectively, delayed-release sadness, a little aquamarine pill that more or less guarantees a good weep within six to eight hours.

Like many of my trans friends, I’ve watched my dysphoria balloon since I began transition. I now feel very strongly about the length of my index fingers—enough that I will sometimes shyly unthread my hand from my girlfriend’s as we walk down the street. When she tells me I’m beautiful, I resent it…. I know what beautiful looks like. Don’t patronize me.

I was not suicidal before hormones. Now I often am.

I won’t go through with it, probably.

Chu goes on to criticize opposition to the chemical sterilization and surgical mutilation of healthy and often very young bodies as “‘compassion-mongering,’” describing it as “peddling bigotry in the guise of sympathetic concern.” Apparently, Chu is unwilling to concede even the possibility that such opposition is motivated by genuine concern and sincere commitments to do no harm.

But harm is a concept that Chu inverts and twists in his effort to compel doctors to medically ravage the bodies of girls and boys, women and men. His confusing thicket of childish rationalizations for compelling doctors to concede to the “wants” of gender-dysphoric persons come down to these:

1.) Doctors shouldn’t be allowed to “gatekeep,” (i.e., to decide which treatment modalities will be prescribed for gender-dysphoric persons), because, Chu alleges, many doctors view “trans”-identifying persons with “suspicion and condescension,” and are motivated by “bigotry.”

2.) Doctors shouldn’t use the alleviation of suffering as a criterion for assessing treatment modalities, because some of the treatment modalities desired by gender-dysphoric patients will not alleviate suffering and may increase it.

3.) Allowing doctors to determine the best course of action constitutes an illicit dictatorial control over the bodies of gender-dysphoric persons and encourages them to lie by pretending that such treatment modalities will, indeed, end their suffering:

As long as transgender medicine retains the alleviation of pain as its benchmark of success, it will reserve for itself, with a dictator’s benevolence, the right to withhold care from those who want it….  [A]s things stand today, there is still only one way to obtain hormones and surgery: to pretend that these treatments will make the pain go away.

Chu wants what he wants, and any impediment—including the knowledge and expertise of doctors—to the satiation of his desire for self-negation is ipso facto wrong. This raises the question, does Chu believe his principles should be applied consistently to all medical and psychological conditions or just gender dysphoria?

Chu’s explanation that doctors are motivated by the goal of alleviating pain is myopic or incomplete. Many doctors believe the practice of medicine—both means and ends—is circumscribed by objective standards that determine the appropriateness of medical options. Those standards derive from objective measures of bodily health and wholeness. The goals are the eradication of disease, the restoration of proper form and function, and the alleviation of pain. The alleviation of pain is limited too by ethical principles. Most doctors won’t alleviate the suffering of those who identify as amputees by amputating healthy arms. Most doctors won’t treat insomnia with propofol. And many doctors won’t treat gender dysphoria by chemically sterilizing pre-teens, lopping off the healthy breasts of girls, and castrating boys.

Chu’s troubling editorial reveals the primacy of subjectivism in the “trans” ideology. Subjectivism is the philosophical belief that knowledge “proceeds from or belongs to individual consciousness or perception” and that “there is no external or objective truth.” Subjectivism is foundational to the “trans” ideology, which subordinates objective biological sex to subjective feelings about one’s maleness, femaleness, both, or neither. This exaltation of subjective experience is exposed in Chu’s implicit denial of the objective truth of his surgery: “Next Thursday, I will get a vagina.”

Chu is not getting a vagina. He will be getting a surgeon-constructed facsimile of a vagina. It won’t be materially or functionally a vagina. It will be composed of either the inverted skin of his penis and scrotum or a segment of his sigmoid colon. If skin from his penis and scrotum are used, his fake-vagina will not be self-lubricating as vaginal tissue is, and it may grow hair. If a segment of his sigmoid colon is used, his “vagina” may produce a smelly, mucus-y discharge, will be at risk for colon cancer, and will not have the sensitivity of an actual vagina.

Even while claiming he will be getting a vagina, Chu acknowledged that his body won’t see it as that: “Until the day I die, my body will regard the vagina as a wound; as a result, it will require regular, painful attention to maintain.” His body will always recognize this gaping hole as the unnatural wound it is and will seek to close it unless Chu regularly inserts dilating stents.

Ironically, while Chu places his subjective, internal feelings at the center of his identity and bases his actions on them, like many other opposite-sex impersonators, he denies the same freedom to others. In fact, he believes his subjective desires place obligations on others. His subjective feelings about his sex require actions of others that deny their subjective feelings and beliefs about the meaning of biological sex and of harm. Chu seeks to force doctors to violate their moral convictions, ethical principles, and concomitant feelings in order to serve his “wants.”

Chu writes this about the real possibility that more and new forms of suffering may follow surgery:

The negative passions—grief, self-loathing, shame, regret—are as much a human right as universal health care, or food. There are no good outcomes in transition.

While grief, self-loathing, shame, and regret are common experiences, it is nonsensical to refer to them as human rights. Chu seems to be suggesting that surgery and the ensuing suffering are not only human rights but also that they’re positive rights, which are rights that oblige others to do or provide something. Chu believes doctors, in violation of their own ethical convictions—convictions that are central to their identities—are obliged to provide services that will damage bodily functions and wholeness and may result in grief, self-loathing, shame, and regret.

In the mixed up, muddled up, shook up world of Andrea Long Chu, doctors will mutilate, treatment will harm, and men will be women. Isaiah writes, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

In his spiritually dark, inverted world, Chu seeks self-erasure and longs for woe:

Tragically I still want this, all of it. I want the tears; I want the pain. Transition doesn’t have to make me happy for me to want it.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/boy-ERASED.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; and Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman.

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Stay tuned for more information!

The recently released policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in support of chemical and surgical interventions for children and teens who experience gender dysphoria, or who falsely believe they are the sex they are not, or who wish they were the sex they are not is being trumpeted far and wide by “progressives” and “progressive” organizations. That document, dripping with leftist, politically-constructed language, is titled, “Ensuring Comprehensive Care and Support for Transgender and Gender-Diverse [TGD] Children and Adolescents.”

First some facts:

1.) The policy was created by only 28 medical doctors, 2 psychologists, 1 nurse practitioner, 1 social worker, and 1 person with a PhD in behavioral sciences. At least 4 of those involved in creating the policy are not members of the AAP.

2.) In addition to the 33 people listed as writers, contributors, or liasons at the conclusion of the policy, only about another dozen members of a board would have voted on it.

3.) The policy was not presented to all 67,000 members of the AAP for a vote, nor are minority reports solicited. In fact, most of the 67,000 AAP members would not have seen the policy before it was released to the public.

So, all we know is that fewer than 60 members of the 67,000-member AAP created and voted for the new policy affirming the chemical sterilization and surgical mutilation of minors. One would think the mainstream press would include this salient information when reporting on the destructive and politicized policy.

You can read the AAP recommendations here, but a plain-speaking summary should suffice. According to the AAP,

• The medical and mental health communities should embrace and affirm the anti-science “trans” ideology by chemically sterilizing and surgically mutilating minors.

• All health records should identify only the subjective, internal feelings of minors about being “male, female, somewhere in between, a combination of both, or neither” and should conceal the biological sex of minors who seek to pass as the opposite sex.

• Insurance plans should cover all Mengelian science experiments performed on minors in their futile quest to become the sex they are not and never can be.

• Pediatricians should actively promote the “trans” dogma in public schools, community organizations, and the law.

• Federal government research should “prioritize research that is dedicated to improving the quality of evidence-based care for youth who identify as TGD.”

Note what the AAP doesn’t recommend.

• It doesn’t recommend that medical and mental health communities should provide comprehensive, biological-sex-affirming health care in a safe, clinical space.

• It doesn’t urge medical and health care professionals to ascertain when a patient’s feelings first emerged or to determine the presence of comorbidities (i.e., other conditions present simultaneously).

• It doesn’t call for research into 1. the safety of lifelong cross-sex hormone-doping, 2. the effect of social “transitioning,” and chemical and surgical interventions on desistance/persistence rates, 3. the rate of detransitioning/sex-change regret, 4. the phenomenon called “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” or 5. all the possible causes for the “high rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm, and suicide” among adolescents who self-identify as “gender diverse,” which could include abuse, molestation, social ostracism, bullying, and family breakdown.

Do the 33 AAP members know with absolute certainty that in every case of feelings of incongruence between a child’s objective, immutable biological sex and his internal feelings about his sex, the error rests with his sex and not his internal feelings?

Maybe the 33 AAP members could explain why adolescents who experience incongruence between their anatomical wholeness and their internal sense of themselves as amputees (i.e., those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder) should not be permitted surgical intervention to achieve a sense of congruence. Why is it justifiable to amputate the healthy breasts or testicles of those who identify as “gender diverse” or “trans” but not justifiable to amputate a leg below the knee in order to alleviate the feelings of incongruence that those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder experience? Why shouldn’t we allow “amputee wannabes” to socially transition at school even without surgery by being permitted use of wheel chairs and handicapped parking, and allowed more time for passing periods? Why shouldn’t school forms be required by law to falsely identify bodily whole students as having orthopedic impairments?

The 33 AAP members cite the non-medical, highly political Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) whose sole reason for existence is to exploit government schools in its quest to normalize homosexuality and the “trans” ideology. GLSEN’s non-medical, non-objective claim cited by the AAP is that schools that prohibit co-ed restrooms are guilty of having “antibullying policies” that don’t provide “specific protections for gender expression.” Never mind that sex-segregated restrooms provide specific protections based on biological sex. That doesn’t matter to either GLSEN activists or the 55 people who devised and voted for this boneheaded AAP policy.

While wandering through the thicket of citations carefully selected by the 33 AAP members, I made an interesting discovery. The AAP policy statement cited an article titled “Gender Variance and Dysphoria in Children and Adolescents,” which in turn cited an AAP document titled, “Childhood Gender Nonconformity: A Risk Indicator for Childhood Abuse and Posttraumatic Stress in Youth,” which examines the prevalence of abuse among “gender nonconforming” children. That AAP article states this:

Our study cannot determine the causal relationship between abuse and gender nonconformity; in other words, the extent to which nonconformity is a risk factor for abuse versus an indicator of abuse. (emphasis added)

The 33 members of the AAP’s pro-sterilization/pro-mutilation contingent likely don’t want the public to learn that it’s possible that childhood abuse may cause gender nonconformity, just like “trans” activists don’t want the public to learn that the well-known phenomenon of “social contagion” may lead to adolescent self-identification as “trans.”

One of the contributors to the AAP pro-sterilization/pro-mutilation policy is Dr. Robert Garofalo. He is the openly homosexual, HIV-positive doctor who is the Division Head of Adolescent Medicine at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. In a May 2015 Chicago Magazine profile of him titled “The Change Agent,” Garofalo admits that he “has had patients as young as 15 undergo top surgery.” That was then… this is now, and now double-mastectomies are ravaging the healthy bodies of girls as young as 13.

Another contributor to the new AAP policy and chief architect of the first policy is Dr. Ellen Perrin. A Tufts University profile of Perrin reports that for her, “pediatrics is more than just medicine; it’s a vehicle for social change.” A 2006 Boston Globe profile of Perrin says, “Politics, specifically politics with a progressive tincture, is in Dr. Ellen Perrin’s blood.” Further Perrin, who was “chair of Pro Family Pediatricians—a group of pediatricians opposed to the Federal Marriage Amendment,” shared that “[a]dvocacy is one of the things I do.”

Fortunately for children, there’s another medical organization that has sprung up precisely because of the radical positions taken by the AAP: the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds). You may have heard of ACPeds because the very name sends shivers of revulsion (or is it fear) up the spines of “progressives” everywhere. Why? As I asked a year ago, is it because ACPeds is composed of charlatans and snake oil salespersons who received their medical degrees from Rufus T. Firefly’s University of Freedonia?

Nope.

ACPeds is ridiculed because it holds different positions on the treatment of gender-dysphoric minors. Leftists are reluctant to discredit ACPeds based solely on disagreement about treatment protocols because that argument becomes circular: “You can’t trust ACPeds because it doesn’t support ‘gender affirmative’ protocols, and we all know ‘gender affirmative’ protocols are right.”

So, how do liberals attempt to discredit ACPeds which was founded just sixteen years ago? They do so by citing the fact that the number of members is lower than the number of AAP members—which was founded 87 years ago. That’s still a fallacious argument (i.e., appeal to popularity), but it works as a soundbite and it works for the  ignorant among us of which there are many.

Dr. Joseph Zanga, ACPEDS member who serves “as Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia,” Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at Mercer University School of Medicine, and is a past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, further clarified the policy-making process that liberals would likely prefer concealed:

• Policy Statements are produced by 10-12-member Committees or Councils, or Section or more commonly by Section Executive Committees.

• The 10 members of the AAP Board of Directors are elected by the AAP members of their district (elections never garner votes from even 40% of members) and the Executive Committee consisting of the president, president-elect, immediate past-president (elected by the AAP members nationally with equally small numbers voting), and the paid executive director (hired by the Board)

• Statements are sent to the board for review and vote. Often there is discussion at a board meeting. Rarely is there outside opinion sought, and there is never a minority report.

• AAP members often don’t even see the report until after it appears in the media. They have no direct input.

Meanwhile the AAP continues to provide reasons for pediatricians to join ACPEDS. In September 2016, the AAP discredited itself as an impartial, unbiased medical organization when it announced that henceforth it would be partnering with the nation’s largest pro-homosexual/pro-“trans” activist organization, the radical Human Rights Campaign (HRC). I wonder how many of the 67,000 AAP members voted to partner with the HRC.

Here are some HRC recommendations  from its guide for schools:

• “While this guide focuses primarily on transgender youth who are transitioning from male to female or female to male, it is important to note that a growing number of gender-expansive youth are identifying themselves outside the gender binary, and many use gender-neutral pronouns. While it may be more difficult to adapt to gender-neutral pronouns, it is still important to do so in support of the student.”

• “Another crucial element in supporting a transitioning student is giving them access to sex-separated facilities, activities or programs based on the student’s gender identity [including] [r]estrooms, locker rooms, health and physical education classes, competitive athletics, overnight field trips, [and] homecoming court and prom.”

• “Any student who feels uncomfortable sharing facilities with a transgender student should be allowed to use another more private facility like the bathroom in the nurse’s office, but a transgender student should never be forced to use alternative facilities to make other students comfortable.”

Leftists assume that hard science provides all the answers to our ethical questions, and, therefore, we need only defer to our objective scientific organizations to point the way to sexual Shangri-La. But science does not provide answers to moral questions, and our scientific organizations are not objective. When in ten or twenty years the medical community and public at large are faced with the enormity of the harm done to children and teens by the “trans” ideology, I hope feckless doctors, school administrators, teachers, and “progressive” pundits are still around to answer for the damage they facilitated.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/New-Recording-4.mp3

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On August 20, 2018, in an article on foolish public school administrators and board members who are permitting co-ed restrooms, I referred to a recently published study by Dr. Lisa Littman, physician and associate professor of the practice of behavioral sciences at radical Ivy League Brown University. Her study is on “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” (ROGD) among mostly female “adolescent and young adult” (AYA) children, a relatively new phenomenon discussed by concerned parents in online forums. Dr. Littman describes this phenomenon and urges further study:

In recent years, a number of parents have been reporting in online discussion groups… that their adolescent and young adult (AYA) children, who have had no histories of childhood gender identity issues, experienced a rapid onset of gender dysphoria. Parents have described clusters of gender dysphoria outbreaks occurring in pre-existing friend groups with multiple or even all members of a friend group becoming gender dysphoric and transgender-identified in a pattern that seems statistically unlikely based on previous research. Parents describe a process of immersion in social media, such as “binge-watching” Youtube transition videos and excessive use of Tumblr, immediately preceding their child becoming gender dysphoric. These descriptions… raise the question of whether social influences may be contributing to or even driving these occurrences of gender dysphoria in some populations of adolescents and young adults. 

On August 22, 2018, Brown University crossed the Leftist line and published a news story about Dr. Littman’s study and hoo boy did Brown feel the wrath of men in dresses with flowing tresses and bearded women in dungarees. Five days later, Brown took down the offending article and invented a rationalization to mask their censorship. First, they claimed concern about Littman’s study design:

In light of questions raised about research design and data collection related to the study on “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” the University determined that removing the article from news distribution is the most responsible course of action.

As anyone who pays attention to studies related to homosexuality and gender dysphoria knows, “progressives” are much fussier about research design in studies whose conclusions they don’t like than they are about studies whose conclusions they do like. The criteria they use to evaluate the soundness of studies whose conclusions they favor—like the infamous study by Simon LeVay of a tiny part of the hypothalamus of 35 men, or the infamous “lesbian study,” or the newest poorly designed study on homosexual parents out of Italy—barely exist. But when it comes to better-designed studies whose conclusions they don’t like, like University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus’ study, the criteria are impossibly stringent.

Even as “LGBTQQAP” activists have touted these deeply flawed studies everywhere for years, how often have Leftist academicians criticized them for convenience sampling, confirmation bias, small sample size, non-replicated conclusions, and self-reported responses?

Brown’s statement also included a risible and embarrassing attempt to feign commitment to free inquiry:

The University and School have always affirmed the importance of academic freedom and the value of rigorous debate informed by research. The merits of all research should be debated vigorously, because that is the process by which knowledge ultimately advances, often through tentative findings that are often overridden or corrected in subsequent higher quality research. The spirit of free inquiry and scholarly debate is central to academic excellence. 

But their de facto apology to Big Brother (who now identifies as Big Sister and uses the pronoun “ze”) exposed what’s really going on and contravenes their claim to be committed to “academic freedom” and “rigorous debate”:

At the same time, we believe firmly that it is also incumbent on public health researchers to listen to multiple perspectives…. This process includes acknowledging and considering the perspectives of those who criticize our research methods and conclusions…. There is an added obligation for vigilance in research design and analysis any time there are implications for the health of the communities at the center of research and study.

The School’s commitment to studying and supporting the health and well-being of sexual and gender minority populations is unwavering. Our faculty and students are on the cutting edge of research on transgender populations domestically and globally. The commitment of the School to diversity and inclusion is central to our mission, and we pride ourselves on building a community that fully recognizes and affirms the full diversity of gender and sexual identity in its members. These commitments are an unshakable part of our core values as a community. (emphasis added)

If I may be so presumptuous as to translate sophistry into plain English, Brown is saying that the feelings of “trans”-activists trump all other considerations. No matter how well a study is designed and executed, if trannies don’t like the findings, “progressive” universities will not draw attention to it even if the study is conducted by their own faculty.

How could the health of “trans”-identifying persons be put at risk by studying whether there may be environmental causes for feelings of bodily alienation, the examination of which may result in the dissipation of gender dysphoria without social “transitioning,” surgery, or lifelong cross-sex hormone-doping?

To fully grasp how troubling this censorship effort is, it’s important to know a bit about what Littman’s study found:

The description of cluster outbreaks of gender dysphoria occurring in pre-existing groups of friends and increased exposure to social media/internet preceding a child’s announcement of a transgender identity raises the possibility of social and peer contagion. Social contagion is the spread of affect or behaviors through a population. Peer contagion, in particular, is the process where an individual and peer mutually influence each other in a way that promotes emotions and behaviors that can potentially undermine their own development or harm others. Peer contagion has been associated with depressive symptoms, disordered eating, aggression, bullying, and drug use.

…

It is plausible that online content may encourage vulnerable individuals to believe that nonspecific symptoms and vague feelings should be interpreted as gender dysphoria stemming from a transgender condition. Recently, leading international academic and clinical commentators have raised the question about the role of social media and online content in the development of gender dysphoria. Concern has been raised that adolescents may come to believe that transition is the only solution to their individual situations, that exposure to internet content that is uncritically positive about transition may intensify these beliefs, and that those teens may pressure doctors for immediate medical treatment.

According to Littman, parents report that their children “had many comorbidities and vulnerabilities predating the onset of their gender dysphoria, including psychiatric disorders, neurodevelopmental disabilities, trauma, non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), and difficulties coping with strong or negative emotions.” Here are three of the case studies Littman summarizes to illustrate some possible causes of ROGD, including social contagion and trauma:

• A 12-year-old natal female was bullied specifically for going through early puberty and the responding parent wrote “as a result she said she felt fat and hated her breasts.” She learned online that hating your breasts is a sign of being transgender. She edited her diary (by crossing out existing text and writing in new text) to make it appear that she has always felt that she is transgender.

• A 14-year-old natal female and three of her natal female friends were taking group lessons together with a very popular coach. The coach came out as transgender, and, within one year, all four students announced they were also transgender.

• A natal female was traumatized by a rape when she was 16 years of age. Before the rape, she was described as a happy girl; after the rape, she became withdrawn and fearful. Several months after the rape, she announced that she was transgender and told her parents that she needed to transition.

This effort to quash dissemination of the study exposes again the hypocrisy of “progressives.” Remember the oft-recited argument for all sorts of policies, practices, and laws, “If we could save one life…” Well, don’t expect sexual anarchists to apply it consistently. If one or one hundred teens could be spared chemical sterilization and surgical mutilation by examining reasons other than body misplacement for feelings of bodily dissatisfaction, don’t expect the “trans” community to support it. No sireee, their doctrinaire dogma must be defended at all costs, even the cost of children’s bodily integrity and psychological health, and academic freedom.

All of America’s essential and historically most treasured principles, like speech rights, association rights, religious liberty, and sound pedagogy, are being devoured and vomited out by sexual deviants with inordinate amounts of cultural power, and most conservatives do exactly what Brown University did: We hold their barf bag.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Brown-University-Caves-to-Cross-Dressers-and-Their-Collaborators.mp3

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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

IFI works diligently to serve the Christian community in Illinois with email alerts, video reports, pastors’ breakfasts, special forums, worldview conferences and cultural commentaries. We do not accept government funds nor do we run those aggravating popup ads to generate funds.  We depend solely on the support of readers like you.

If you appreciate the work and ministry of IFI, please consider a tax-deductible donation to sustain our endeavors.  We need your support, and are deeply grateful for those who stand with.

In a 20/20 interview with Diane Sawyer in April 2015, Bruce Jenner announced he is a “transgender woman,” saying that he had dealt with gender dysphoria since his youth and that, “for all intents and purposes, I’m a woman.”

In the summer of 2017, Pastor Paul Williams, who led the conservative church-planting organization Orchard Group for 20 years, announced he is a “transgender woman.”

We see co-ed bathroom policies in many school districts and in corporate giants like Target. So, does biological sex matter?

The term “transgender” was invented by the homosexual and “trans” community to refer to a person who pretends to be the sex he or she is not. As Christians, however, our starting and ending points for understanding human sexuality is the Word of God:

He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female….’ (Matthew 19:3-6)

God fashions each of us. He is the one who created us male or female. Our feelings about our God-given sex do not change reality.

He created the two sexes for particular roles and functions within the home and the church. For example, Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11 explain men are to be leaders in the home. Genesis 3 states what rational people should not need to be told, which is that women alone bear children. In other words, there is no such thing as a “pregnant man.”

Some proponents of the “trans” ideology point to Galatians 3:28 as a justification for their beliefs:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Such a claim takes the passage out of context. The passage is talking about how we are all equal when it comes to salvation. It does not mean there exist no distinct sexes. The verses leading up to this passage say that we were held captive under the law but since Jesus’ coming, we are now justified by faith. Salvation is given freely to all without respect to external factors such as ethnic background, economic status, or sex.

Biological sex matters to God. Therefore, what should persons who want to be the sex they are not (and never can be) or who feel as if they were “born in the wrong body” do?

They should surrender those feelings to Jesus.

They don’t need to fly another flag. They don’t need to march in another parade. They don’t need surgery. They don’t need another court ruling.

They need the healing hand of Jesus Christ.

Those who desire to be the sex they are not can be freed from bondage to those feelings through faith in Christ and continued reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit. Sin can be overcome and lives changed through the salvation that Jesus freely offers.

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Thanks to Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner and many others, we’re all familiar with the concept of being transgender. But what about being transabled or transracial or transspecies or transage? Are these all valid and real? Or are all of them — including being transgender — based primarily on mental or emotional disorders?

The question of being “transage” — referring to someone who feels he or she is a child trapped in an adult’s body — was recently in the news with this shocking headline: “TRANS-AGE: Pedophile Charged With Abusing 3 Girls Says He’s A 9-Year-Old Trapped In Man’s Body.”

Putting aside the inexcusable nature of this man’s alleged crimes, he’s hardly the first to make this claim. Consider the story of a married man with 7 children who now lives as a 6-year-old girl with his new adoptive “parents.”

Then there are those who identify as “transabled.” This headline explains: “Becoming disabled by choice, not chance: ‘Transabled’ people feel like impostors in their fully working bodies.”

Yes, people like this are tormented by their healthy bodies, feeling the compulsion to be crippled or without a hand or blind. Some have even frozen a foot until it had to be amputated, sawed off their legs (literally) or blinded themselves, all in a desire to find inner peace and wholeness. And once the gory job is done, they are thrilled with their radical choice.

Then there are those who identity as transracial. Wikipedia defines this as individuals “who claim to have a racial identity that differs from their birth race,” like Rachel Dolezal.

And then there are those who identify as transspecies, like the young woman who lives her life as a cat.

A story by Daniel Greenfield on Frontpage Magazine dating back to 2013 addressed this growing phenomenon. But, as Greenfield noted, the transgender community was not too happy with this.

He wrote,

Like most newly minted civil rights groups, Trannies are intolerant of Transpecies Americans accusing them of only pretending to think that they’re cats and playing the old, “How dare you compare your pain to my pain and your imaginary identity to my imaginary identity” game.

Where is the Test?

And herein lies the problem. There is no more a test to prove that someone is (or is not) transgender than there’s a test to prove that someone is (or is not) transabled, transracial, transage or transspecies. Where is the test? When are detailed neurological studies required before someone has sex-change surgery? When are chromosomal tests required before a child is put on puberty blockers or given hormones?

I’ve read transgender blog posts about people identifying as transspecies. On the one hand, the transgender community wants to be compassionate, recognizing the validity of what others perceive as reality. At the same time, not a few of them said, “But there’s a big difference, since some of us really do have male brains in female bodies, but no human being has a leopard’s brain or a wolf’s brain.”

But that raises the question: Where’s the test? How do we differentiate the case of someone who identifies as transabled? What’s the difference between a mind map telling someone that their left hand shouldn’t be there, and someone who believes she’s a woman trapped in a man’s body?

Insanity as Identity

Greenfield had this to say:

Insanity. It’s not just a mental illness. It’s also an identity. Men in dresses claim that gender is in the mind, not in the body. If you think you’re a woman, then you are a woman. What used to be a minor form of eccentric insanity has now become educational policy in schools.

But why stop at gender when you can also do species? There are people who believe that their true identity is that of an animal. And who is to say that species isn’t in the mind, just like gender is in the mind?

This isn’t just a thought-experiment or satire. It’s reality.

Species dysphoria is the equivalent of Gender dysphoria. Mentally ill persons with gender dysphoria are fashionably diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder. There is as of yet no Species Identity Disorder, but that is no doubt coming.

And, he notes, like those who identify as transgender, “Transpecies Americans create special pronouns for themselves and insist that refusing to pretend that they’re cats or wolves is a hate crime.”

Love Doesn’t Do What’s Easy

Do I write this to mock those who identify as transabled or transgender? Quite the contrary.

I write this to ask what makes transgender identity different from these other, deeply perceived identities, some of which have been documented to produce deep personal pain.

And if we can agree that it is far from ideal to mutilate healthy body parts to accommodate someone who identifies as transabled, then it is far from ideal to do the same for someone who identifies as transgender.

And if we can agree that it is far from loving to affirm someone’s false sense of reality — like Rachel Dolezal — than we can agree to continue to work towards finding positive cures for transgenderism rather than affirming Bruce as Caitlyn.

It’s easy to affirm, but love doesn’t always do what’s easy. This is a call for sanity as much as a call for love.

This article was originally posted at Stream.org.

The Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) has got a collective case of the vapors over their discovery of a “covert campaign to recruit girls into programs run by the Boy Scouts.”  How dare the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) even consider allowing girls in the BSA!

Does someone have a towel to wipe up the irony that drips from the brows of the conspiracy theorists who man the helm of the Left-listing GSUSA ship?

It’s ironic in that the GSUSA was the first of the two organizations to admit opposite-sex children into its program six years ago. Now, of course, the BSA does as well. GSUSA admits boys who seek to pass as girls, and BSA admits girls who seek to pass as boys.

A spokesperson for the GSUSA told BuzzFeed that the sexual integration of the BSA is a “‘potentially dangerous and bad idea,’…citing research supporting ‘single gender programming’ which says that girls learn best in an all-girls environment when it comes to scouting.”

I suspect the spokesperson meant to say “single-sex” programming, rather than “single-gender” programming, but he/she/ze/they should be forgiven for his/her/zir/their error. It’s hard to keep up with the shifting definitional sands upon which the Leftist sexuality/gender ideology is built.

If the sexual integration of scouting is at minimum a “bad idea” and “potentially dangerous,”—as the GSUSA claims—why the heck has the GSUSA been admitting boys for six years?

Now that both clubs admit opposite-sex children, what possible justification could the GSUSA offer for opposing a decision by the BSA to admit all girls who want to join? If a club for boys allows girls to be members based on nothing more than the desire of those girls to be boys, why not admit other girls based solely on their desire to be boy scouts? What if these girls internally identify as boy scouts? What if they need to be boy scouts to live authentic lives?

The GSUSA determined six years ago that being objectively, immutably biologically female is not a requirement for membership. Subjective, internal desires supersede objective biological sex when it comes to membership. So why can’t subjective, internal desires about which club a girl desires to be a member of trump biological sex?

Isn’t the GSUSA arguing for discrimination based on sex when it seeks to prevent objectively female children from joining the Boy Scouts?

Or since the GSUSA is hunky dory with objectively female children who “identify” as “trans” joining the BSA, maybe the GSUSA is arguing for discrimination based on “gender identity” when they seek to prevent “cisgender” girls from joining the BSA.

Either way, it seems that the GSUSA has been hoist by its own petard. Its perverse sexuality ideology applied consistently permits no sex-segregation anywhere for anyone.

Either objective, immutable, biological sex as evidenced in anatomy is profoundly meaningful and should be recognized and respected—or it isn’t.

The “trans” cult, borrowing tactics from homosexual activists, exploit the historical plight of blacks, repeatedly claiming that single-sex private spaces constitute the same kind of invidious discrimination that blacks experienced during the slave era and era of Jim Crow laws.

Of course, such a claim is absurd and invidious.

While there are no ontological differences between people of different skin colors, there are significant differences between males and females, which even homosexuals tacitly acknowledge when they say they are romantically and erotically attracted to only persons of their same sex. So, too does research that demonstrates that single-sex educational contexts serve the needs of boys and girls best.

When I worked at Deerfield High School, even “progressive” teachers inadvertently acknowledged these differences when they would good-naturedly gripe about having classes heavily weighted with students of one particular sex. Take a stab at which students—male or female—are generally more disruptive and harder to manage en masse in a classroom context (PE excluded).

The differences between males and females include–but are not limited to–anatomical differences, and it is anatomical differences that account for natural and good feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy. If anatomy has no meaning relative to modesty and privacy and if segregating humans based on objective, biological sex constitutes unjust discrimination, there should be no sex-segregated spaces anywhere for anyone, and that’s exactly what “trans”-cultists seek.

The BSA claims it will continue to allow girls to join only certain of its programs but not all. Remember when it claimed it would not change its membership policy on homosexuality and on girls who wish they were boys? Remember when it took seriously its oath to honor God? Does anyone really believe the Boy Scout leadership will stand firm in the face of pressure from the National Organization for Women to allow girls to join all BSA programs and the Change.org petition started by a young “activist” who is determined to be an Eagle Scout? What reason could the BSA have for allowing girls who wish they were boys to join the Eagle Scouts but not this young activist?

It’s only a matter of time.

Remember, “trans” cultists do not believe that surgery, cross-sex hormone-doping, cross-dressing, a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, or even the experience of gender dysphoria is necessary to identify as “trans” and access opposite-sex spaces and activities. All that’s necessary is their claim that they identify as the opposite sex.

If conservatives don’t speak up as loudly and persistently in defense of the meaning and value of sexual differentiation as Leftists do in defense of their cultic, science-denying “trans” ideology, we will witness one of the most profound cultural revolutions the world has ever seen: We will see the eradication of all public recognition of sex differences everywhere for everyone. This will not result in a handful of gender-dysphoric persons accessing opposite-sex private spaces—which is pernicious enough.

Rather, it will mean all restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, saunas, steam rooms, semi-private hospital rooms, shelters, athletic teams, nursing home room assignments, and clubs will be co-ed.

We’re just one step closer to the phantasmagorical “progressive” world that pretends that sex differences are meaningless.

I wonder, which scouting club should “gender-non-binary” and “gender fluid” kids join?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Boy-Scouts-to-Go-Co-Ed-Yikes.mp3

IFI works diligently to serve the Christian community in Illinois with email alerts, video reports, pastors’ breakfasts, special forums, worldview conferences and cultural commentaries. We do not accept government funds nor do we run those aggravating popup ads to generate funds.  We depend solely on the support of readers like you.

If you appreciate the work and ministry of IFI, please consider a tax-deductible donation to sustain our endeavors.  

It does make a difference.

Traci O’Neal Ellis, the school board member in Illinois School District U-46, which was embroiled in a controversy last spring over the superintendent’s secret decision to sexually integrate restrooms and locker rooms, has joined the fracas over the Chicago Tribune’s biased reporting about State Representative Jeanne Ives. This is the twisted comment Ellis has offered on her school board member Facebook page, accompanied by a link to the dishonest Trib article…

Read more…

For years conservatives have asserted that homosexuals are pursuing children, and for years homo-activists have mocked that claim. Due to either their profound ignorance or their commitment to deception as a tactic for advancing their pernicious goal of normalizing homoeroticism, homo-activists misrepresented what conservatives were claiming.

Homo-activists falsely claimed that conservatives were worried that they would try to “turn children gay,” when, in reality, most conservatives were claiming that homo-activists were feverishly working through every cultural institution to eradicate conservative views on the nature and morality of homosexuality. In other words, homo-activists were pursuing the hearts and minds of other people’s children.

The same goes for “trans”-activists who, like homo-activists and their ideological allies, are hell-bent on using public schools to pursue the hearts and minds of other people’s children.

These activists teach other people’s children that homoeroticism and biological-sex rejection (i.e., “transgenderism”) are phenomena to be celebrated.

They teach them that there is no difference between a marriage between a man and a woman and an anti-marriage between two people of the same-sex.

They teach them that expressing the belief that homoerotic activity or cross-dressing and bodily mutilation are wrong is equivalent to bullying and the cause of teen suicide.

They teach them that men can be mommies, and women daddies.

They teach them that to be loving, compassionate, and inclusive, they must lie by calling gender-pretending peers by opposite-sex pronouns, and they must be willing to relinquish their privacy.

They expose them to plays, novels, and essays with obscene language that depict deviant sexuality positively.

They teach them that every person who believes homoeroticism and co-ed locker rooms are wrong is hateful—which includes many children’s parents.

Christian parents charged by God to train up their children in the way they should go have no biblical warrant for placing their children all day, all year in schools that refuse to recognize the immutability and profound meaning of sexual differentiation, particularly as it relates to modesty and privacy.

No Christian should teach in an institution that requires them to facilitate the body- and soul-destroying fiction that humans can be born in the “wrong” body.

No Christian teacher should refer to boys and girls by opposite-sex pronouns. If they do, they teach all students that the “trans” ideology is benign at best, if not good. They teach all children that it is justifiable to participate in the grievous fiction that subjective feelings about one’s sex have greater value and import than does one’s objective, immutable sex.

Hawaii just issued guidelines that direct schools on how “trans”-identifying students should be accommodated. The guidelines include the false claim that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibit “discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression.” They do not. They prohibit discrimination based on sex and sex did not then, nor does it now include “gender identity” or “gender expression.”

Here are some of the other guidelines:

1.) Schools should accept a student’s “gender identity” based on nothing more than his or her claim. No medical or mental health diagnosis or treatment is necessary.

2.) For students who will be pretending to be the opposite sex at school, there should be a meeting with school officials. Parents need not be included or notified about the meeting or the student’s opposite-sex impersonation. This directive applies to elementary, middle, and high schools.

3.) “Trans”-identifying students should be allowed access to opposite-sex restrooms, locker rooms, and hotel rooms on overnight school-sponsored trips.

4.) Schools should not require “trans”-identifying students to use single-occupancy restrooms or locker rooms.

5.) Schools may not share the true sex of “trans”-identifying students with students of the opposite sex whose privacy they are invading. Nor may schools share this information with the parents of students whose privacy is being invaded. So, a girl who pretends to be a boy should be able to use the boys’ restrooms—where boys use urinals—and no parents may be notified.

6.) Schools should make special accommodations for normal students who don’t want to share restrooms and locker rooms with peers of the opposite sex. In other words, normal girls will be forced out of girls’ restrooms and locker rooms so that boys with a mental disorder may use them.

7.) “Trans”-identifying students should be allowed to play on opposite-sex athletic teams.

8.) Students should be permitted to cross-dress at school.

9.) School staff and faculty should use the “preferred” pronouns of “trans”-identifying and “gender nonconforming” students.

Minnesota has just issued similar guidelines but include this startling statement regarding restrooms, locker rooms, and hotel accommodations for overnight trips:

Privacy objections raised by a [normal] student in interacting with a transgender or gender nonconforming student may be addressed by segregating the student raising the objection provided that the action of the school officials does not result in stigmatizing the transgender and gender nonconforming student. [emphasis added]

So, what exactly will happen if “trans”-identifying students feel “stigmatized” when normal students of the opposite sex don’t want to share restrooms or locker rooms with them? Will normal students be forced to share private facilities with persons of the opposite sex?

The purportedly Catholic governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) just signed a bill into law requiring schools to allow co-ed restrooms and locker rooms, and requiring teachers to refer to “trans”-identifying students by opposite-sex pronouns. The government is requiring teachers to speak falsehoods to and in the presence of children. Will theologically orthodox Christians comply? Will they bear false witness by pretending that boys are girls or vice versa? Will they render unto Caesar that which is not Caesar’s?

These things are happening in public schools all around Illinois, and where they aren’t yet, they will be soon.

Unfortunately for the countless children and teens who attend public schools, the 2017/2018 school year is just around the corner, and like dirty old men in trench coats lying in wait to expose children to sordid things, so too await public school administrators and teachers to do likewise. Unlike perverts who lurk in darkness, however, these government employees have no shame. They do their dirty work of exposing children to wickedness openly and call it “love.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie HERE.

IFI works diligently to serve the Christian community in Illinois with email alerts, video reports, pastors’ breakfasts, special forums, worldview conferences and cultural commentaries. We do not accept government funds nor do we run those aggravating popup ads to generate funds.  We depend solely on the support of readers like you.

If you appreciate the work and ministry of IFI, please consider a tax-deductible donation to sustain our endeavors.  It does make a difference.

Christians who hold to historic and traditional teachings of the Bible believe that God created us from the beginning “male and female” (Genesis 5:2; Matthew 19:4; Mark 10:6). Biology and physiology empirically affirm that there are only two genders. Christians who hold to this theologically orthodox and scientific view believe that “gender-confirmation” surgery, hormone-blockers and cross-dressing damage human beings. We do not believe that medical intervention changes the fact that God created us “fearfully and wonderfully” in His image as either male or female (Psalm 139:13-16). That truth simply cannot be changed.

Leftists believe that “gender” is fluid and changeable. In fact, some on the far left believe that there are more than fifty “gender” options.

Leftist in the media, academia and the entertainment industry reject the orthodox beliefs of Christians (as well as Jews and Muslims) and label these beliefs hateful, while accepting the controversial and science-denying, evolving beliefs of Leftist activists.

Why are Leftist beliefs considered sound and compassionate while historical beliefs are rejected as illegitimate and intolerable? While few Leftists would likely admit it, I believe the reason they reject biological reality is that they hate God. More specifically, they reject His standards of righteousness and choose to openly rebel against those standards. They shake their fists at God and loudly proclaim with their lives that God has no authority over them.

Those who suffer from gender dysphoria are discontented with how God created them, so they choose to recreate themselves. It is the same for those who embrace their same-sex attraction or other paraphilias. It is a rejection of God’s design and purpose for the gift of sexuality.

They have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. They have become filled with unrighteous, evil, covetous and malicious thoughts, and approve of those who do the same (Romans 1:18-32).

At the heart of all this is the sin of rebellion, and unbelief, the sin from which there is no dispensation or reprieve (1 John 5:16-17).

The importance of exposing these lies (Ephesians 5:11) and opposing this agenda is critical if we hope to protect young, vulnerable and/or impressionable family members, neighbors from the snares and lures of today’s culture (Psalm 124:7; Proverbs 29:6).

We have to recognize that the lures of the world are very real and can be very strong. There is a reason why the Apostle Paul tells us to “walk circumspectly” or look carefully how we live, “not as fools but as wise…because the days are evil,” and to “understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:15–17).

As such, we must be aware of the godless worldviews and lies that are constantly being presented to us. Moreover, we must identify them as lies or deception for ourselves and our for our family members and friends. If we do nothing, others may assume we think the Christian worldview is just one option among many–just one way to find fulfillment.

The Christian faith must offer truth to a dark and decaying culture. We cannot affirm the lies of the culture with our silence or misplaced compassion. The Christian message exposes false beliefs and practices, illuminates the best way (Psalm 119:15), and points to eternal hope in Jesus (Matthew 11:28).

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Yesterday, Larry Yellen of Fox News 32 Chicago sought a comment from IFI for a segment he was doing on Trump’s “transgender” tweet.

Here are the comments that were included in Yellen’s segment from opponents of Trump’s ban on gender-dysphoric men and women serving in the military:

• From “Danielle” Love, a cross-dressing man who works at the “LGBTQ” Center on Halsted: “It’s disheartening to the say the least. I think that transgenders of all kinds are just as equally able to provide for our country just as anyone else would be.” (30 words)

• From “Vanessa” Sheridan, a cross-dressing man who works as the director of transgender relations at the Center on Halsted: “That’s a shame. It keeps people from moving forward with their lives, from being the full contributors that they might otherwise be.” (22 words)

• Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, bristling melodramatically with unrighteous indignation: “I cannot think of a thing that is more abhorrent on the 69-year anniversary of President Truman integrating the Armed Forces racially.” (22 words)

• Senator Tammy Duckworth: “I didn’t care about the gender identity of the soldiers who were risking their lives to save me. I only cared that they were American troops and that they were there to rescue me.” (34 words)

• Colonel “Jennifer” Pritzker, the cross-dressing brother of gubernatorial candidate Jay Pritzker. Yellen reported this about Jennifer Pritzker: “While she’s [sic] a long time Republican, she [sic] has reached out to the president to express her [sic] disappointment.” (17 words)

• Ed Yohnka, ACLU Chicago spokesperson: “This is really beneath what we want America to be and certainly what we want our military to be.” (19 words)

IFI sent this statement to Yellen:

Gender dysphoric men and women who wish they were the opposite sex seek to force all citizens to pretend that subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex are more important than objective, immutable biological sex. They seek to force all of society to treat them as if they are the sex they are not. They also seek to serve openly in the military, which means impersonating and being housed with persons whose sex they do not share. That is a violation of the rights of the men and women who serve every American and every non-citizen who lives in this once-great nation. It’s outrageous that the military stood poised to force men and women who are willing to sacrifice their lives for us to suffer the indignity of showering and toileting with persons of the opposite sex.

Never in the course of human history has a society denied the reality, immutability, and meaning of the sexual binary. Subjective feelings do not trump reality. No matter how Americans feel about President Trump, his tweets, or his positions on other issues, the position he expressed this morning is something for which all Americans who care about the military should be thankful.

This is what Yellen’s segment included from IFI’s statement:

“All Americans who care about the military should be thankful.” (10 words)

144 words from “progressives,” 10 words from conservatives.

So much for fair and balanced.

IFI did not expect our entire statement to be included but maybe two sentences, one of which would have addressed the substantive privacy issue. And perhaps if IFI were to be the only conservative voice included in the segment, Fox could have included even four sentences, which would still have been only half the number of words allotted to “progressive” voices.

Here are some thoughts about the comments made by “progressives” in Yellen’s segment:

• Is it the responsibility of the military to help soldiers ‘move forward’ with their lives as Sheridan claims? And what precisely does ‘moving forward’ mean?

• Since the faux-enraged Emanuel clearly believes that pretending to be the opposite sex is analogous to race, perhaps he could enlighten everyone as to what specific ways these two conditions correspond.

• If I were lying bleeding on a battlefield, I, like Duckworth, wouldn’t care about the gender identity or anything else about those risking their lives to save me. I wouldn’t care if they were anemic, or had orthodontic braces, gout, polydactyly (an extra finger), irregular menstrual cycles, or undescended testicles, all of which are conditions that preclude military service. If I were bleeding to death on a battlefield, I wouldn’t care if the person rescuing me were an infantilist, frotteurist, voyeur, or kleptomaniac. But does the military assess fitness for service based on what criteria matter to those being rescued from imminent death? If that is how fitness should be determined than there would be virtually no criteria.

• What is beneath America and beneath the military is adopting the reality-denying view that objective, immutable biological sex has no intrinsic meaning or value, particularly with regard to modesty and privacy.

• What is beneath America and the military is forcing men and women to share barracks, restrooms, and showers with persons of the opposite sex.

• What is beneath America and the military is coercing Americans to pretend to believe that subjective, internal feelings about one’s biological sex determine maleness and femaleness.

• What is beneath America and the military is facilitating the rejection and mutilation of healthy bodies and compelling Americans to bear false witness in the service of disorders of the mind, heart, and will.

• Either the objective, immutable sex of humans matters or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t matter, then all sex-segregated spaces, contexts, and activities should be eradicated. Everything should be co-ed for everyone everywhere. If objective, immutable biological sex has no intrinsic and profound meaning, then there should exist no public recognition and accommodation of sex differences. No single-sex restrooms; locker rooms; dressing rooms; shelters; semi-private hospital rooms; nursing home rooms; athletic teams; or prisons. No more single-sex military barracks, restrooms, or showers. And this would constitute being on the most perverse side of history–a side of history no civilization has ever before witnessed.

Written by Hendrik van der Breggen

Should the use of public multiple-occupancy restrooms, showers, and changing facilities be based on biological sex or “gender identity”? I think the answer is biological sex.

Before I set out the reason for my answer, here are four clarifications.

Clarification 1. All people are made in God’s image and deserve respect, including those who identify as “transgender.” (To identify as transgender is to feel oneself is, or wishes oneself to be, the opposite of one’s biological sex; a.k.a. gender dysphoria, formerly known as gender identity disorder.)

Clarification 2. According to John G. Stackhouse Jr., “Gender dysphoria in particular, and the wider range of trans issues, are matters disputed at the highest levels of psychological and psychiatric expertise.” (Of related interest: A tracking of children who at one time reported transgender feelings reveals that 70-80 percent of these children spontaneously lost those feelings.)

Clarification 3. The percentage of the general population that is transgender is small, apparently less than 1 percent and perhaps even less than 0.5 percent.

Clarification 4. Love requires careful thinking. In our desire to promote the well being of some, we also need to consider the well being of others.

So why do I think the use of public multiple-occupancy restrooms, showers, and changing facilities should be based on biology instead of gender identity?

My reason is simple: prudence.

I think it’s prudent (i.e., an exercise in sound judgment on practical matters) to protect girls and women from the very real possibility of sexual predators and perverts.

No, I am not saying that all transgender people are sexual predators and perverts (though perhaps some are).

Rather, I’m saying that there are too many rapists and pedophiles (whether transgender or heterosexual or whatever) from whom we, as responsible citizens, must protect women and children. The concern here, then, is not with transgenders, but with rapists and pedophiles who pretend to be transgender.

We must also protect women and children from the voyeurism of men and boys pretending to be transgender.

In other words, opening physically intimate spaces such as public multiple-occupancy bathrooms, showers, etc. to anyone who claims a transgender identity allows sexual predators to stalk their prey much, much too easily.

Prudence also involves practicality. The fact is that girls and women account for roughly 50 percent of the population whereas (as mentioned) transgenders account for less than 1 or 0.5 percent.

Yes, the well being of transgenders is important. But their bathroom and shower room needs can be easily accommodated by adding some single-occupancy gender neutral facilities. And this can be done without opening all women’s bathrooms and shower rooms to every man or boy who claims he feels female. Ditto for men’s facilities and women or girls who feel they’re male.

Let me put it this way: I care about the comfort and well being of a transgender person in his/ her using a bathroom or shower room, but I think it’s wise not to allow this care to trump the comfort and well being of my wife, daughters-in-law, aunts, mother-in-law, and future grand-children.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz put it this way: “As a father of daughters, I’m not terribly excited about men being able to go alone into a bathroom with my daughters…And I think that is a perfectly reasonable determination for…people to make.”

Stackhouse puts it this way: “[Government and school] authorities can be sure that many children will be uncomfortable and even traumatized by the presence of members of the other sex in bathrooms, change rooms, gym classes, swimming classes, and the like. To knowingly plan to upset millions of young people in the disputed interests of the very, very few is not enlightened, but [ideologically] doctrinaire.”

So, should any person who claims to feel they are the opposite sex be permitted to use whatever public restroom, shower room, and other related facilities they choose?

The reasonable (and non-transphobic) answer is No.

For further thought:

• The Unintended Victims of Bathroom Bills and Locker Room Policies(11 minute video)
• These Sex Assault Victims Want You To Know Why Open Bathroom Bills Are a Bad Idea (article for above video)
• Bathrooms, Identity, Rights, and Wisdom: Helping All Students in the Light of Trans* Issues (by John G. Stackhouse Jr.)
• A Rape Survivor Speaks Out About Transgender Bathrooms (by Kaeley Triller)
• Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme (by Paul McHugh)
• I Used to Be Transgender (by Walt Heyer)
• I Am Ryland – The Story of a Male-Identifying Little Girl Who Didn’t Transition (by Lindsay Leigh Bentley)

Dr. Hendrik van der Breggen is an associate professor of philosophy at Providence University College, a Christian college  in Manitoba, Canada.

This article was originally posted at Dr. Henrik’s Apologia blog.

In just six weeks, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) will again attempt to ram their sexuality ideology down the throats and into the hearts and minds of other people’s children via the hijacking of government schools for the political protest called the Day of Silence.

On Friday, April 21, 2017 at thousands of middle and high schools around the country, GLSEN will ask students to refuse to speak all day in support of the promotion of Leftist assumptions about homosexuality and gender dysphoria.

GLSEN laughably calls this a “student-led” event while providing 15 resources that direct students into pro-homosexual school activism.

And those resources don’t include the for-profit merchandise GLSEN sells to adorn students on the Day of Silence, Ally Week, and other days. This merchandise includes t-shirts, pins, temporary tattoos, keychains, wristbands, lanyards, socks, sweatshirts, hoodies, and a $500 denim trucker jacket made by “Levi Brand.”

Although technically it is students—often students who belong to the “gay” clubs in schools—who sponsor the Day of Silence, all their activities are directed by the biased, Leftist organization GLSEN. Here are some of GLSEN’s “Jump-Start” documents to help students start “gay” clubs (also known as Gay and Straight Alliances) in their schools:

• “Building and Activating your [Gay Straight Alliance] or Student Club”
• “Strategies for Training Teachers”
• “Understanding Direct Action Organizing”
• “Power, Privilege and Oppression”
• “Your Student Club Trans-Inclusive”

In addition, GLSEN incentivizes participation in the Day of Silence by offering free materials to all participants and extra “free swag” to the “first 3,000 registrants.”

In addition to the Day of Silence, there are numerous trends in public elementary, middle, and high schools regarding the controversial topics of homosexuality and gender dysphoria that make a vigorous public response necessary:

• Increasing numbers of schools are allowing gender-dysphoric students to share restrooms and locker rooms with students of the opposite sex, including even elementary schools, and often with no parental notification.

• Teachers—who are government employees—are being forced by the government to lie by being compelled to refer to gender-dysphoric students by pronouns that designate the opposite sex.

• Girls students are being permitted to run for prom king, and boy students are being permitted to be prom queens.

• Elementary schools are marching in “gay” pride parades.

• California schools are legally required to teach positively about homosexuality and gender dysphoria in all social studies classes in grades 6-12, and all resources that espouse dissenting views are by law censored.

• Schools—including elementary schools—promote Leftist views of homosexuality and gender dysphoria in sex ed curricula, in presentations about “family diversity,” in bullying prevention programs, and via “social and emotional” learning standards.

• Elementary schools make picture books that depict homosexuality positively available to children in their libraries.

• Schools host dances for homosexual students.

• School theater departments mount productions of The Laramie Project; Zanna, Don’t!; and Rent. And English teachers teach Angels in America, The Laramie Project, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

• Film teachers show Brokeback Mountain.

• Schools promote the normalization of homosexuality and gender confusion through Spirit Day, Ally Week, National Coming Out Day, “LGBT” History Month, and the queen of all homosexuality-affirming days: the Day of Silence.

What can parents and teachers do?

While “progressives” in and outside of schools are using countless resources and activities to promote the normalization of homosexuality and gender dysphoria, there is only one organized annual event that allows conservatives to express their opposition to the hijacking of government schools for the pernicious purposes of homosexual activism: the Day of Silence Walkout, which offers several ways the Day of Silence can be opposed:   

1.)  The Day of Silence Walkout is sponsored by a coalition of pro-family organizations that is again urging parents to keep their children home on the Day of Silence if their school administrations permit students and/or teachers to refuse to speak during class time on the Day of Silence. The Day of Silence Walkout Coalition does not object to student silence during passing periods or free periods, but neither teachers nor students should be permitted to refuse to speak during instructional time.

2.)  Parents should insist that their school administrations notify all parents that the Day of Silence political action is taking place on April 21 and insist that their administrations inform all parents about what students will be permitted to do or be prohibited from doing on the Day of Silence.

3.)  Conservative teachers should plan activities that require student participation. The ACLU—which supports the Day of Silence—has issued this statement: “[Students] do NOT have a right to remain silent during class time if a teacher asks you to speak.”

For years, teachers have been either modifying their lesson plans to accommodate student silence, creating lesson plans to reinforce the ideology of GLSEN’s Day of Silence, or participating in the Day of Silence themselves. It’s time for conservative teachers to do something constructive and courageous in the service of removing political hijinks from instructional time.

Every year a new crop of students enters middle and high schools whose parents naively believe that public schools value diversity, honor all voices, foster critical thinking, and are committed to creating a “safe” place for all views to be expressed. Those parents and many others whose children are returning students have no idea the extent of the pro-homosexuality propaganda that pervades their schools. And many have never heard of the Day of Silence.

The Day of Silence Walkout alerts parents to the exploitation of their public schools in the service of transforming the moral and political beliefs of their children.

The Day of Silence is not centrally a day committed to the eradication of bullying—a goal all decent people support. Rather, the Day of Silence organizers, promoters, and participants seek to exploit legitimate anti-bullying sentiment to normalize homosexuality and the “trans” cult. Despite what GLSEN says, it is possible to oppose bullying and oppose GLSEN’s Day of Silence.

The Day of Silence Walkout offers an easy, safe way for parents to express to school administrations, school boards, and their children’s teachers that they oppose the promotion of non-factual Leftist beliefs about disordered sexuality in taxpayer-funded public schools.

Student absences cost many schools money, and often that matters much more to school administrations and school boards than the beliefs and feelings of parents.

For more information on the Day of Silence Walkout and a list of the coalition partners, please visit the Day of Silence Walkout website.

Read more recent articles from Laurie:

Former “Transgenders” Talk About De-“Transitioning”

Beauty and the Beast: A “Gay” Tale for the Kiddies

New Trier High School Needs Accounting, Diversity, and Logic Lessons

The Radical “Trans”-Formation of America

IFI Forums: Climate Change & the Christian

Join us during the last week of April as we have Dr. Calvin Beisner, the founder & national spokesman for The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation discuss the Christian responsibility to the environment as we learn how to discern truth and myth in the climate change controversy.

April 25th in Rockford
April 26th in Arlington Heights
April 27th in Orland Park
April 28th in Peoria

Click HERE to learn more!

On Tuesday afternoon, radio host Mark Elfstrand interviewed IFI’s Laurie Higgins about her recent article addressing the Black Lives Matter movement and the foolish and false statement made by Chicago Urban League president Shari Runner on the “root cause” of gang-on-gang and black-on-black violence.

Mark and Laurie also discussed her article about Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s decision to join other liberal states in filing an amicus brief in a federal district court in Texas in support of mandatory coed restrooms and locker rooms in all public schools.

Additionally, Mark asked Laurie about IFI’s letter of warning written by attorney Jason Craddock that was sent to Illinois State Board of Education Superintendent Dr. Tony Smith and Board Chairman Rev. James Meeks in June.  In this letter, we warned them of anticipated lawsuits (which could cost our school districts millions) and asked them to prohibit school administrators from implementing a policy that would permit gender-dysphoric students to use opposite-sex restrooms and/or locker rooms.

We also have an important call-to-action for this issue:

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send  Superintendent Smith and Board Chairman Meeks an email or a fax to let them know that you are resolutely against any policy that would have male and female students sharing restrooms or locker rooms.

You can also call Dr. Smith’s office at (312) 814-2220 and/or Rev. Meeks’ office at (217) 557-6626 to leave a message of concern.

To listen to this 10-minute interview, please click the link HERE or the graphic below:

https://soundcloud.com/lets-talk-with-mark/mark-interviews-laurie-higgins-august-2-2016

IFI Faith, Family & Freedom Banquet

We are excited to have as our keynote speaker this year, former Congresswoman and Tea Party Caucus Leader, Michele Bachman!

Please register today, before the early bird special expires…