Evanston Follows “Trans” Cultism & Equity Logic to Their Indecent End
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On September 6, the Human Services Committee of Evanston City Council voted unanimously to send Alderman Devon Reid’s proposed ordinance to allow women to go topless in “all public places (forward to 51:25)” to the “Equity and Empowerment Committee.” Reid wants his proposed ordinance reviewed over concerns that “it excluded the transgender community.” How might it have done that, you may wonder. Well, apparently, someone objected to the ordinance’s “gender binary” language. Sex-deniers cannot tolerate any public acknowledgment that the human species is a sex-binary species.
Reid, is a “queer, 29-year-old” activist and former city clerk who was arrested in 2018 for driving on a license that had been suspended since 2013 and ticketed for “possession of under 10 grams of marijuana.” This was two years before Illinois legalized recreational marijuana. It seems Reid has little respect for either public decency or the law.
Here is what Alderman Devon Reid’s ideal transgressive world would look like: Women would be free to go topless in all public places. Men who identify as women and have received breast implants as part of their skin costume would be free to go topless in all public places. And women who identify as men but have chosen not to have their breasts excised would be free to go topless in all public places.
The committee meeting is well worth watching, especially from 3:15-8:14 during which time attorney and president of Evanston’s Parks and Recreation Board, Robert Bush, shared his opposition to the proposed ordinance as well as his concern about the lack of public input on it. Later in the meeting, “political consultant,” community organizer, and Human Services Committee member Bobby Burns unprofessionally described his colleague Mr. Bush as “irresponsible” for spreading “misinformation.” Ah yes, the “misinformation” ploy–the last refuge of a political scoundrel.
Reid believes that “equity” demands that if men may go topless in all public places, so too should women be allowed to go topless in all public places. The wokester opposes any ordinance that “regulates women’s bodies in a way that we do not regulate men’s bodies.”
According to WBBM, Reid says “he wants to treat men and women equally and eliminate ambiguity for trans people.” Perhaps Reid doesn’t understand that “equality” demands we treat like things alike. One would think the “queer” Reid would know that men and women are not alike in critically important ways. One important way they are unlike is in their sexed bodies.
While Reid’s ordinance will harm men, women, boys, and girls, the harm done to girls and women will be far greater.
This is the rotten fruit of both the ideology of “equity” and the ideology of the “trans” cult. And it serves both the anarchistic impulses of radical leftists who seek to destroy America by a thousand cuts and the prurient desires of men and women unmoored from morality.
Equity used to mean to treat something or someone fairly, justly, or impartially. The left now uses it to mean either to treat unlike things alike or to ensure identical outcomes for dissimilar people, acts, or other phenomena. To treat men’s bodies different from women’s is not unfair, unjust, or a manifestation of partiality. Treating men’s bodies different from women’s bodies grows out of the recognition that men and women are different. They are different in their bodies, emotions, desires, and their sexual responses to one another’s bodies.
Men’s chests are wholly different from women’s breasts. This commonsense statement shouldn’t need to be spoken, but in this time when society is awash in or in thrall to foolish doctrinaire ideologies, commonsense has no purchase and no home.
“Trans” cultism is assaulting commonsense, children, and families at every turn, preaching the poisonous (Gnostic) lie that sexed bodies have no intrinsic meaning and that male and female bodies are interchangeable. So, ignorant (or wicked) Evanston leaders say that female-sexed bodies have no intrinsic meaning and are interchangeable with male-sexed bodies.
Not coincidentally, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss—who is a member of the city council—is a “trans” cult collaborator. In June 2021, just a month after he became mayor of Evanston, he was asked, “What is your favorite charitable cause or causes.” Biss responded,
At the end of each year we sit with our kids and discuss what we want to focus on. We often donate to causes focusing on issues of racial justice or justice for the LGBT community especially transgender and non-binary people.
So, what do business owners and the Evanston Chamber of Commerce think about this ordinance? Will families stop taking their children to downtown Evanston, choosing instead to shop and go to restaurants in neighboring Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, and Lake Forest, all of which have charming, family-friendly downtowns and plazas?
Will decent families want to move to Evanston? Will decent Evanston families consider moving out of Evanston?
What will happen to Evanston’s annual Art & Big Fork Festival held for three days every August? Will attendance by families decrease? Maybe the increase in attendance by anarchists and perverts will financially compensate for the loss of funds from decent people.
Where are Evanston church leaders on this issue? Do pastors and elders feel an obligation to lead on an issue of this magnitude?
What about Evanston Christians? Will they step up to oppose this assault on public decency?
Leftists don’t seem to understand that the structures of government have a purpose beyond facilitating the sexual desires of the deviant and transgressive among us. A good government protects the most vulnerable, promotes the public good, and maintains public order, in part by establishing boundaries that restrain the perverse impulses of fallen humans. Abandoning this function will make cities like Evanston unfit for human flourishing.
As Parents Resisted Transgender Push, Teacher Suggested Sending in Child Services
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If Erin Lee had known what her 12-year-old daughter would be exposed to during an afterschool “art club” last May, she would have never allowed her to go.
It began innocently enough. Lee received a text from her daughter asking if she could stay late for an “art club” at Wellington Middle School near Fort Collins, Colorado.
What happened next, though, would change their lives forever.
The “art club” was actually a meeting of the school’s Genders & Sexualities Alliance (GSA) club, a group dedicated to supporting homosexuality, transgenderism, and other nontraditional ideas about gender and sexuality.
When the leader told Amanda (name changed to protect the minor) she must be “queer” if she didn’t feel sexually attracted to anybody, and that she must be “transgender” if she didn’t feel fully comfortable in her own body, the shy little girl suspected something wasn’t right.
According to Amanda, that same leader told her not to tell her parents about what would be discussed that day.
The woman in charge, Kimberly Chambers, who works as a “health equity initiatives coordinator” for Larimer County and director of the pro-LGBT organization SPLASH Youth of Northern Colorado, also handed out her personal contact information to the children and urged them to contact her anytime.
Chambers’ organization has boasted of teaching children ages 12 to 16 about “polyamory”—relationships with multiple sexual partners simultaneously—and other controversial ideas.
During the afterschool GSA club, according to Amanda, Chambers explained to the children that their family homes may not be a “safe space,” but that there were “resources” available. She also handed out transgender flags and stickers that Amanda understood were supposed to represent the children in the club.
As soon as Lee picked up her daughter at school, it was clear that something was “off,” the mother told The Epoch Times in a series of interviews about the incident.
Amanda, looking confused, showed her mother the transgender paraphernalia she had received from Chambers. The transgender flag represented her, Amanda told her mom.
“My heart started racing and my mind blacked out,” Lee recounted. “I was in so much shock that I struggled to get out any words.”
Even though the GSA leader at school had told Amanda it was OK to lie to her parents, Amanda knew better. Over the days that followed, she told her parents everything, Lee said.
Amanda’s parents could hardly believe what they were hearing. Lee, who has described herself as an “ally of the LGBTQ community” and said she has a history of voting “pretty progressively on social issues,” was appalled.
But that would be just the beginning of an ordeal that continues to haunt the family.
The Fallout
Amanda never went back to the school after that. Instead, her parents put her in a local Christian school, even though it meant Lee would have to work nights to afford it. But as Lee and her husband saw it, there was no other choice.
Despite being pulled out of Wellington Middle School, the family’s difficulties grew.
After the lesson, Amanda began to wonder whether she might truly be queer and transgender. Her mental state began to rapidly deteriorate, her mother said.
Multiple family members confirmed that prior to what Lee describes as the “grooming” of her daughter at school, Amanda never showed any signs of “gender dysphoria,” the term used by psychiatrists to describe discomfort with one’s biological sex.
Afterward, though, it was hard for the girl to shake the idea.
Lee and her husband, who was outraged by the ordeal, struggled for months with how to talk to their daughter about what had happened.
“We didn’t want to say something that would push her further into this dark hole or further into this transgender label,” Lee said. “And we did exactly what the trusted adults who indoctrinated her told her we would do. We played right into their narrative.”
Weeks after the incident, as her mental state got worse, the parents decided to take Amanda to a therapist. The therapist also ended up being “queer,” and sought to affirm the young girl’s confusion about her gender.
By December, between the COVID isolation and the questions surrounding her gender, Amanda’s mental state was spiraling downward, Lee said.
The pediatrician immediately prescribed powerful psychotropic drugs for depression—medications that she has since been weaned from—in an attempt to deal with the crisis.
“I don’t know if that fear will ever go away,” Lee said about her own concerns. “I don’t expect to ever stop being struck with sadness about what happened.”
Fighting Back
The more she thought about the whole ordeal, the more Lee realized she had to do something.
First, she contacted Chambers, the woman who Lee says “groomed” her daughter and who also sometimes works as a substitute teacher for the district. “Her response was alarming,” Lee said. “It was delusional. She doubled down on her actions.”
Next she contacted the principal, who seemed empathetic but confirmed that secret GSA meetings with children were an intentional part of creating a “safe space” at school.
There are more than two dozen self-proclaimed LGBTQ children in the small middle school, according to social media posts by SPLASH. And the district is determined that they be “affirmed” without parental involvement, Lee said.
After all that, Lee spoke out at a school board meeting and contacted all its members by email. None responded. When she was finally able to sit down with two of them, they both “supported everything that transpired and refused to address any of my concerns.”
Finally, exasperated and realizing her first call would have been to the police if this had occurred on a playground or any other setting, Lee contacted the sheriff’s office.
While law enforcement was deeply sympathetic to her plight, and urged her to speak out loudly, there was nothing they could do from a legal perspective, Lee said.
District officials, meanwhile, saw nothing wrong with what had occurred, Lee said. Indeed, some expressed shock that a parent would be upset over the incident.
As Lee fought back, school officials were working on their next move.
Among other tactics, documents and communications obtained by The Epoch Times revealed a discussion about the possibility of reporting the parents to child-welfare authorities.
When Chambers was informed by the art teacher that Amanda’s parents had not been sending her to school since the incident, Chambers wrote back urging her to consider filing a report and have child-protection officials visit the home.
“If that persists, you’ll want to talk to admin about doing a well-child check or whatever is within the policies of the school,” Chambers wrote, describing upset parents as “barriers” and citing an “extreme case” in which a family did not allow their transgender child to leave the home unsupervised.
Lee was flabbergasted after receiving the documents.
“I knew this woman was evil, but I didn’t see this coming,” she said. “This teacher and Kimberly [Chambers] forced us to pull our child out of school by creating an unsafe environment, then discussed sending CPS into our home because we pulled her out, at our most vulnerable moment as a family—that they caused.”
“If my child had indicated that we were not affirming her pronouns and trans identity, I believe the authorities would’ve taken our child away,” Lee added. “And everyone involved knew this.”
District and LGBT Activists Respond
The Epoch Times reached out to Chambers for comment, asking whether she considered non-affirmation of a child’s gender ideas to be abuse and seeking confirmation about the story details.
“Given the private nature of this specific youth and family’s needs, I’d like to share with you a couple of Colorado and National resources around gender identity to help inform your article rather than provide any comment,” she said before providing a number of links on transgenderism and legal issues.
Wellington Middle School referred inquiries to the district. A message left on the principal’s phone was not immediately returned.
Poudre School District Executive Director of Communications Madeline Noblett told The Epoch Times that the district couldn’t comment on “specific student matters.”
When asked about policies on getting child protection services involved in cases such as Amanda’s, Noblett noted that all district staff are “mandated reporters” under Colorado law. That means they are required to report suspected child abuse.
Noblett didn’t respond to follow-up questions about district policy on whether parents’ refusal to support their children transitioning to a new gender constitutes abuse.
“It is the role of the Department of Human Services to investigate the suspected/reported case; to determine whether the child is safe; to determine if abuse occurred; and to provide appropriate services to the family,” she said.
However, the district aims to “create and uphold equitable, inclusive, and rigorous educational opportunities, outcomes, and experiences for all students,” she said.
“As a district, we are committed to making our schools safe spaces in which all students can learn,” Noblett said, adding that the district has “a LGBTQIA+ coordinator who works to advance the resources, support, inclusion, and advocacy of LGBTQIA+ students, staff, and families.”
“Gay Straight Alliances were established as safe spaces for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, allies, and any individual to come together with the goals of ensuring inclusivity, safety, and support,” Noblett said.
When asked how GSA adult leaders were trained, the communications director said there were no training requirements to lead any club in the district. However, GSA leaders could use resources from the GSA network and from One Colorado, the network’s state affiliate.
Gillian Ford of One Colorado didn’t specifically address questions about how GSA adult leaders are trained, whether it’s standard practice to tell children not to talk to their parents about these issues, or whether the escalating parental outrage was appropriate.
“Schools are often places where LGBTQ+ young people don’t feel safe or included,” said Ford, whose pronouns are listed as “she, her, hers” in her email signature.
“Since 2011, One Colorado has worked with both statewide education associations, as well as local educators, parents, and students to create and sustain the Colorado Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) Network to support and empower LGBTQ+ young people and their allies against the bullying, harassment, homophobia, and transphobia in their schools.”
National and State Trends
What happened to the Lee family in Northern Colorado is hardly an isolated incident, experts told The Epoch Times.
“At first, we wanted to believe it was an isolated incident,” Lee said. “We didn’t want to believe that there could be such evil in our public school system, in our local government, in our community.”
What happened to Lee’s family is part of an accelerating national trend. Numerous European nations are witnessing similar phenomena.
The Epoch Times spoke with other families across the nation who had similar experiences, but almost none were willing to go on record due to fears of retaliation by government officials and activists.
While the American College of Pediatricians describes teaching children that it’s normal or healthy to impersonate the opposite sex as “child abuse,” larger and more established associations have taken a different approach.
A new “puberty guide” for children between 9 and 12 published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) claims that boys can menstruate and that girls can experience erections.
“Most babies who are born with a penis grow up feeling like a boy on the inside too. That’s called being cisgender (cis- means ‘same’),” the guide states. “But there are some babies born with a penis who grow up feeling like a girl on the inside. That’s called being transgender (trans- means ‘cross’ or ‘opposite’).”
Other surveys show even higher numbers. One from UCLA found over one-fourth of California teens were viewed by peers as “gender non-conforming.”
Those numbers are rising rapidly.
Pam Benigno, director of the Education Policy Center at Colorado’s free-market think tank the Independence Institute, told The Epoch Times that she has heard numerous “disturbing stories” from parents across the state about their children coming home from school confused about their gender.
“I spoke with a dad who told me that without his knowledge, staff from his daughter’s middle school drafted a transition plan for his daughter to become a male,” Benigno said. “This is not uncommon. In fact, teachers have been ordered not to tell parents if students take on a new identity while at school.”
Districts across the state, under the guise of being “inclusive,” are “pushing a radical-left agenda on children” and have even “adopted the non-scientific theory that gender identity is fluid,” she said.
This includes hiring “queer” organizations to smash traditional notions of normalcy in the minds of students, she added.
A recently published paper by The Independence Institute aims at helping parents ensure transparency in school curricula. But parents must be vigilant and protect their children from “devastating emotional and sometimes physical harm,” Benigno said.
Conservative states are no exception to the trend. In Utah, state controlled-substance data revealed a 10,000 percent increase between 2015 and 2020 in the number of minor girls undergoing medical transitions.
In Ludlow, Massachusetts, a major lawsuit by parents against the school district is alleging that education officials encouraged children to experiment with alternate gender identities and hide it from their parents.
Andrew Beckwith, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute who is involved in the case, is dealing with a surge in such cases in his state.
“We see the same aggressive attack on the integrity of the parent-child relationship here in Massachusetts,” he replied when asked about parallels between Lee’s story and what’s taking place there.
“Many of the LGBTQ activists want to brand traditional sexual morality as ‘child abuse,’ and their accomplices in child services terrorize families who won’t just go along with this agenda,” he said, calling these sorts of policies an “appalling and dangerous violation of the rights of parents.”
“What is happening in Ludlow is part of a larger national agenda to deliberately circumvent the authority of parents over the mental health and religious beliefs of their children,” Beckwith said. “School officials around the country are secretly affirming, or even promoting, discordant gender identities in young children.”
The Biden administration has started threatening legal action against local communities, schools, states, and other institutions that don’t submit to the transgender agenda.
Warning to Parents
As a result of the ordeal, Lee has lost all trust in the media, the government, the medical profession, and the public school system.
“Now I don’t trust a single person in the public school system,” she told The Epoch Times. “Not a single one.”
Lee said she has been in contact with numerous attorneys about the case as she considers her legal options. She is still seeking counsel.
Today, Amanda is doing much better, her parents say.
But in an effort to help protect other families from similar situations, the family has decided to continue sounding the alarm while encouraging parents to become more aware and get more involved.
Among other suggestions, Lee is also urging parents to remove their children from public school.
“Get them into private schools if you can afford it,” she said. “Get them into homeschool co-ops or homeschool them yourself.”
This article was originally published by The Epoch Times.
ERA Is Back From The Dead, Again!
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Written by Victoria Cobb
It’s back! The decades-old Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) has been brought back from the dead — again.
As a refresher, the ERA was passed by Congress in 1972 with a deadline of getting 38 states to ratify it by 1979. It fell short of that deadline, so Congress extended it to 1982. However, the ERA still fell short of the necessary number of states needed for ratification. In fact, some states rescinded their original ratification after recognizing that this was not just about elevating the status of women in society as it purports, but that it was also about putting into the U.S. Constitution the right to an abortion. Fast forward about fifty years and liberals have latched on to this “Trojan horse” as a way to push their entire abortion agenda, as well as their radical LGBT agenda.
If all “sexes” are equal, and our society no longer has a shared definition of sex, biological men who believe they are another sex must be treated and validated in the same fashion as biological women. This new viewpoint of sex actually ensures the undermining of the original stated goals of the ERA. If men can play within women’s sports, Title IX need not exist because biological girls must compete on identical grounds as biological males in all areas including sports, negating the very programs that were expressly put into place to provide opportunities for girls.
But now the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill, H.J.R. 17, that would strip the ERA of its original deadline. This bill is now heading to the U.S. Senate. Should it pass, states that made a decision about the intents and purposes of language fifty years ago will be held to that decision, regardless of changes within the elected leaders of the state and our society as a whole.
Take ACTION: Please contact your U.S. Senator today and ask them to vote “no.”
This article was originally published at the Family Foundation blog.
The Starbucks Stop Here
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Written by Tony Perkins
Lynn Meagher seriously considered killing herself. Desperate, tormented, and out of options, she went to see a therapist. How should she cope, she cried, knowing that two of her children wanted nothing to do with her? Two children, who, through horrible, mutilating surgeries, destroyed the bodies she’d carried inside her? “I felt I was living in a dream, a nightmare,” she says quietly. That nightmare, the one she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy, is real. And from now on, every time you walk through the door of a Starbucks, you’re telling moms like Lynn you couldn’t care less.
“I can’t even describe what it’s like to see your own child’s face with the opposite gender superimposed on it. It’s just… I can’t even describe it…” Parents like Elaine Davidson still struggle to talk about the bloody bandages covering the place where their daughters’ breasts used to be. “I begged everyone I could [to stop the surgery]. I begged her. I couldn’t stop it.” Losing a child to this tortured life is like a death in the family. Only, there was no goodbye. No ceremony. “No one sent us flowers,” Lisa grieves. “No one dropped off a casserole.”
So imagine their horror when they scanned the headlines and saw an American company — one as large and powerful as Starbucks — trying to inflict that pain on as many people as possible. In an announcement shocking even for them, the coffee chain is launching a campaign to actively push kids into sex changes that damage them for life. Using #whatsyourname as its call sign, Starbucks started placing ads in the U.K. featuring a young girl (dressed like a boy) who wants the barista to write “James” on her cup. “Taking a customer’s name, writing it on a cup, and calling it out is a symbol of our warm welcome,” Starbucks says.
But it isn’t just the “welcome” customers are supporting. The mega-chain has a much more serious agenda — donating piles of money to trap kids into this lifestyle of pain and suffering. “In addition to the ad campaign, Starbucks states it is partnering with Mermaids,” an activist group for “supporting trans and gender-diverse children.” “Transgender children,” the website says, “deserve the freedom and confidence to explore their gender identity wherever their journey takes them, free from fear, isolation and discrimination.” The goal? For Starbucks to raise at least 100,000 euros for the cause.
These aren’t grown men and women the coffee giant is after. These are children — young girls and boys who are hurting, confused, and being destroyed by adults pushing them to chase these identities, despite the cost. And the cost, hundreds of parents and patients will tell you, is irreversible.
“I remember breaking down. It was like, this was a mistake. It should never have happened. But what do you do about it? How do you go through another harrowing transition? What do you do? I’ve got no hair. I’ve got a beard. I’ve had all [of] my body mutilated. How do I go back?” Debbie was 17. She would do anything to turn back time. “There are thousands of us,” another young woman told the BBC, desperately wanting a way out. A way out from the life companies like Starbucks are telling children is the way to finally get noticed and valued. They don’t mention the heartbreak. The regret. The years of physical agony.
But then, it’s not as if Starbucks’s agenda is a surprise. The liberal business has never truly cared about kids — not after spending thousands of dollars helping Planned Parenthood abort them — or working to deprive them of a married mom and dad. And yet, despite it all, plenty of Christians will still rationalize turning their cars into the first drive-thru sign they see. “We’re uncomfortable with boycotts,” they’ll say. But surely we’re all more uncomfortable funding a war against innocent children. Try clicking through these stories and finding peace at Starbucks — or any company where your dollars help create more victims. Is the coffee really so good that you’re willing to give a portion of every cup to promote this self-destruction? Ask yourself when you read this plea from a mom whose family will never be the same.
“Once we have cut that beautiful body, when the voice is permanently broken, the beard is there for good, the breasts are gone, what happens if the body was never wrong to start with? What will you tell the daughters that realize, too late, that they have destroyed their ability to bear children, or to nurse them? When they find that their wounds had other causes, other origins, and required other treatments? I plead with you to hear the parents, and the many stories of young people who have changed their minds after medical transition. This is not health care, this is a medical experiment. This is not life-saving care, these are criminal actions. And [it] must be stopped.”
You can help. Contact Starbucks and ask them to stop contributing to agendas that permanently scar our kids. Meet Lynn and hear why below.
Ask the Female Rugby Players If Biological Sex Is the Same as Perceived Gender
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You knew it had to happen sooner or later. It’s bad enough that biological males are beating biological females in races, both in high school and college. It’s bad enough when biological males are beating biological females in weightlifting contests, setting new world records in the process. But it’s even worse when the men are injuring the women in full contact sports.
That’s exactly what could be happening now in female rugby games, and the insanity needs to stop before someone gets seriously injured.
This is not just unfair. It is dangerous.
A September 28 story in the UK’s The Times announced that, “Too strong trans players in women’s rugby are driving referees away.”
Then, quite remarkably, the story reported this. (And remember, this is The Times, not The Onion. No satire here!)
“Rugby referees are quitting the women’s amateur game because they fear rules allowing transgender women to play will lead to serious injuries.
“Referees say they have been warned not to challenge bearded or heavily muscled players appearing for women’s teams.”
How about reading this last sentence again slowly and out loud, digesting every word? Am I the only one who wants to scream at the top of my lungs, “Has the whole world gone totally crazy?!”
Under the condition of anonymity, one referee told the Times,
“Being forced to prioritize hurt feelings over broken bones exposes me to personal litigation from female players who have been damaged by players who are biologically male. This is driving female players and referees out of the game.”
And if you dare raise a question about the testosterone level of the bearded player (a lower testosterone level is required), you are branded a bigot.
Interestingly, just last month, a new study out of Sweden revealed that, “Biological males who identify as transgender women are likely to retain strength advantages over biological females, even after undergoing 12 months of hormone therapy.”
Well, what do you know!
“The researchers who carried out the study found that biological males who underwent 12 months of hormone therapy lost muscle mass in their legs, but still retained leg strength.”
And that’s why, earlier this year, a British Olympian criticized Olympic rules that would allow biological males to compete against biological females.
According to medal-winner Sharron Davies, “‘quite a lot’ of female athletes . . . are afraid to publicly share their concerns about biological males who identify as transgender women competing in women’s sports.”
This is grossly unfair and it really must stop.
Earlier this year, in Australia, “Hannah” Mouncey, “formerly known as Callum and a member of the Australian men’s handball team in 2016,” withdrew his nomination “from the draft for the Australian Football League’s professional women’s competition and accused the league of blocking her [sic] from playing in the top flight.”
I would hope that the league would block his efforts to play along with the women. Does it take a rocket scientist to figure this out?
Now, in the States, all this is coming to a head in the form of a case just heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. As explained by the ADF,
“The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit over the discharge of an employee who refused to comply with a Michigan funeral home’s sex-specific dress code, which requires employees to dress in a manner sensitive to grieving family members and friends. The EEOC attempted to force the business to allow a biologically male employee to wear a female uniform while interacting with the public.”
At question is the meaning of the word “sex” under federal law. Does it refer to biology, as it was originally intended to, or does it include perceived gender identity?
In her op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, titled, “Justice Ginsburg, a Woman Isn’t a ‘Demiboy’,” Ashley E. McGuire wrote,
“The problem with diluting the meaning of sex is more than rhetorical. It weakens the legal status of the sex that laws such as Title VII and Title IX are designed to protect. Women’s rights hinge on our clearly defined status as women. We have endured centuries of discrimination because of our sex. In seeking to strip the term ‘sex’ of legal meaning, gender-identity advocates would turn the clock back 55 years for women.”
Indeed, the radical transgender movement, which seeks to impose itself on society as a whole, threatens women’s rights on many fronts, not to mention challenges the very meaning of female.
If we care about the rights of our daughters, our wives, and our mothers, we need to push back against this radical activism. And we need to hope and pray that the U.S. Supreme Court justices make a strong, definitive, and correct ruling.
This, of course, does not mean that we mock the very real pain experienced by those who identify as transgender. But it does mean that we say to everyone involved, “Perceptions do not trump reality and biology is not bigotry. The ultimate goal is to find wholeness from the inside out.”
For my part, I look forward to the day when I no longer have to add the word “biological” before “female” or “male” to make myself clear.
And, as if we need one more sobering word, a new report speaks of a “tidal wave” of young people who now regret transitioning to the opposite sex. One of them is Charlie Evans, now 28, was born female but lived as a male for 10 years.
Evans said, “I’m in communication with 19 and 20-year-olds who have had full gender reassignment surgery who wish they hadn’t, and their dysphoria hasn’t been relieved, they don’t feel better for it.”
That is even more dangerous than a female rugby player getting injured by a bigger, stronger male.
When we will wake up and put a stop to this social madness?
This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.com.
Illinois Association of School Boards’ Disturbing Document
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Solecism: a grammatical mistake in speech or writing
On March 9, 2017, the Illinois Association of School Boards issued an update to a 2016 guide titled “Transgender Students in Schools Frequently Asked Questions for Public School Boards and Staff,” which is a publication of the National Association of School Boards (NASB). Since so much of what goes in our government schools is barely visible through the noxious bureaucratic fog that envelops them, conservative parents and teachers should peruse this document to get a clearer picture of where the “trans” cult and its sycophants are shoving us.
Let’s take a quick look at just three of the questions, all dealing with pronoun mandates:
Question: If a school administrator has advised school staff that a transgender student wants to be addressed by that student’s preferred name or pronoun, can a school staff member refuse to do so?
Under most circumstances, a school staff member should abide by the parent’s/student’s wishes as to how to address the transgender student. In accepting employment with a school district, administrators and school staff agree to abide by, uphold, and enforce all of their school board’s policies and procedures, as well as federal and state laws, including a wide variety of non-discrimination, harassment, and bullying policies and procedures. Complying with the school administrator’s directive and abiding by the school district’s anti-discrimination policies and procedures likely will not interfere with an employee’s personally held beliefs. Moreover, consistent with the school board’s mission, an employee’s religious or other sincerely held beliefs should not prevent that employee from treating all students with respect and dignity.
To be clear, according to the NSBA (and IASB) all staff members should use incorrect pronouns or newly invented words when referring to students who masquerade as the opposite sex, or those who “identify” as both male and female (e.g., “pangender,” “bigender,” or “genderfluid”), or those who claim to be “genderless” (e.g., “agender”). Maybe the NSBA will next direct teachers to ask daily how their “gender fluid” students wish to be addressed.
How many teachers are made aware in job interviews that their prospective administrations are going to compel them to use incorrect grammar in the service of a controversial ideology? How many teachers are made aware in job interviews that a condition of employment is that they must be willing to bear false witness (i.e., lie)?
There are no laws in Illinois that require teachers to use incorrect pronouns for students who have decided that pronouns have no connection to their sex. There are no federal laws that require such a bizarre practice. And yet, school administrators are issuing pronoun diktats to their staff without notifying the public and despite never having created policy mandating the use of solecisms.
How can the NASB possibly know that mandating lying does not “interfere with,” for example, a theologically orthodox Christian “employee’s personally held beliefs”? And what does a willingness to lie say about staff members? What does a teacher’s willingness to lie about biological sex teach students?
“Progressives” seem to believe they have a unilateral right to control language. They establish Orwellian language rules, changing grammar and redefining terms like “safety,” “hate,” and “tolerance.” And now they’re trying to circumscribe what respect and dignity entail. Don’t be bullied. No one has an obligation to defer to Leftist Newspeak. For many people of faith, treating others with respect and dignity includes respect for the truth and meaning of their physical embodiment as male or female. To deny the truth that they are created in the image of God—male or female—is to disrespect them. To facilitate, affirm, or appear to affirm a lie as true is an act of profound disrespect.
Question: Can an employee be disciplined for insubordination for failure to comply with an administrator’s directives, or the student’s or parent’s expressed name and pronoun preferences?
A school district could pursue disciplinary action against the offending employee for insubordination for failing to comply with the administrator’s directives and/or the student’s/ parent’s wishes…. Where the employee has refused to comply based on her genuine belief that the directive is contrary to her religious convictions, she may claim that the district has violated her First Amendment rights by disciplining her. Whether that claim would be successful in federal court is unclear…. If the employee not only refuses to comply with the directive, but also allows other students to disregard the student’s name and pronoun preference, which creates a harassing or hostile environment for the transgender student, the school board also could pursue disciplinary action against the offending employee for allowing student-on-student harassment.
Pronouns denote and correspond to objective biological sex. Referring to objectively male students by female pronouns is a lie and disrespects something real and profoundly meaningful about them: their physical embodiment. To the government, a refusal to lie is an act of insubordination for which an employee could be disciplined.
Worse still, it appears that administrators may order teachers to require their students to lie as well. How can any serious Christ-follower be part of such malfeasance and ontological treachery?
Question: How should schools handle objections by non-transgender students or families to sharing locker rooms or restrooms?
Ensure that your schools are places where all students are made to feel welcome, respected, and protected. While remaining sensitive to the rights of all students, a practical way of addressing these concerns is to make spaces available for any student who does not want to share locker rooms or restrooms with other students. Such options can include privacy curtains in locker rooms and separate restrooms. Keep in mind, however, that OCR takes a strong stance on this issue. In at least one recent case, OCR indicated the use of such separate facilities must be voluntary, and contrary policies could result in enforcement action.
To the relief of many conservatives, on February 22, 2017, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to all public schools informing them that the OCR has “decided to withdraw and rescind” the “policy and guidance” issued by the OCR under President Obama, which commanded schools to sexually integrate restrooms, locker rooms, and even hotel accommodations for school-sponsored overnight events. The relief of conservatives may have been premature because on June 6, 2017, the OCR sent out further clarifications that included this:
OCR may assert subject matter jurisdiction over and open for investigation the following allegations…:
failure to assess whether… gender-based harassment (i.e., based on… sex or sex-stereotyping, such as refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred name or pronouns when the school uses preferred names for gender-conforming students…) of a transgender student created a hostile environment.
Schools do not now nor ever have used pronouns in accordance with “gender-conforming” students’ preferences. Schools use pronouns in accordance with the objective, immutable, biological sex of students. All students are, therefore, treated equally. And yet, the OCR may come after Newspeak transgressors.
There are several reasons why the incoherent, deceitful, anti-science “trans” ideology is transforming the country at breakneck speed, two of which are the ignorance and cowardice of conservatives. Conservatives need to learn about this ideology and resolutely resist the efforts of “trans” cultists to control language and sexually integrate private spaces. Church leaders need to teach about the “trans” ideology. Church leaders need to help their congregations understand the biblical view of maleness and femaleness, and they need to help them understand the fallacious propositions that comprise the “trans” ideology. Conservatives need to expect far more knowledge, wisdom and courage from political and school leaders. And finally, conservatives should think deeply about whether it’s wise and good to have their children trained up by those who don’t understand that the body and soul constitute an inseparable unity.
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.
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IFI’s Higgins Discusses the Transgender Agenda With Rios
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American Family Radio* (AFR) talk radio host Sandi Rios is familiar to many Illinoisans since for many years her show was based in Illinois, on WYLL. Last week on her “Sandi Rios in the Morning” show, Laurie Higgins was a guest – and it is a podcast worth listening to. Their topic was the “Transgender Agenda and How to Combat It.”
Discussing the growing problem of leftist ideologues running our taxpayer funded government schools, Rios and Higgins agreed that increasingly the pro-LGBTQIA advocates are succeeding in indoctrinating students with views that are contrary to the values of the parents of those students.
Among the issues Rios and Higgins covered include the problem of both Christian teachers and informed parents who are surrendering the field without a fight. That must change, Higgins says, even if it means facing a backlash from the school administrators or neighbors. “Christians need to be ready to suffer for Christ” and bear witness to the truth.
“School administrators are not deep thinkers,” Higgins says, as they rarely consider the long term consequences of the policies they promote. Every leftist argument is easily countered, Higgins said, though work on our part is needed to learn how to engage in this combat.
Also discussed is the fact that some schools are even promoting the notion that gender identity can change from day to day. “I can’t believe we’re talking about this,” Rios says at one point, calling much of the left’s reasoning “nonsense.”
We highly recommend that you stream or download the podcast of this program and take time to listen to it in the near future, and then please consider sharing this interview with your friends, family and neighbors. It will bless you and equip you in defending our faith.
Click on the button below to stream the MP3 or click, “Download” to save it to your computer:
If you like this interview, you may want to check out Laurie’s interview with Craig Dellimore for his weekly “At Issue” news program to discuss religious liberty versus the radical LGBT agenda.
You can also check out Laurie’s visits with Monte Larrick and Dave Smith on the Illinois Family Spotlight podcast:
*AFR has seven radio station in central, southern Illinois, and one in Geneseo. Click here for more information.
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