There is an old fable which illustrates well what has happened to our nation’s standards of sexual morality over the last few decades. An Arab was making a journey on camelback through the desert. When he found a place to stop for the night, he tethered his camel, set up his tent, and crawled inside to sleep. However, his camel interrupted him, complaining about how cold it was outside and wanting just enough space to warm his nose inside the tent. No sooner had the Arab graciously agreed than the camel asked for space for his whole head, then for his front legs, than for his back legs, and finally for his whole body. Once inside, the camel innocently observed how there wasn’t enough space for both of them and booted the Arab out into the cold winds of the desert.

Our culture wasn’t filled with sexually deviant ideologies overnight. The sorry shape in which we see our culture—and especially our schools—is the culmination of decades of granting evil “just a little more room.” Now that many schools are in the grip of twisted curricula and policies bowing the knee to the idol of sexual insanity, we may be finally beginning to wake up.

The Florida State Board of Education recently passed a new rule curtailing the use of school transgender bathrooms. The rule forces school boards to notify parents—both on the school website and by mail—if the school has adopted a policy that separates restrooms around any other criterion than biological sex at birth. Such a policy, the rule mandates, must include a method for supervising students in restrooms, and parents must be informed about which restrooms will be not sex-separated.

According to State Board of Education chair Tom Grady, this rule doesn’t mandate “what a particular bathroom looks like or doesn’t look like or who can use it.”tRather, he said, “What this rule is about, as I understand it, is parental notification” (The Hill). So while the rule still allows for transgender bathrooms in schools—not at all ideal—it at least ensures that parents know about it. This is definitely an improvement because it recognizes that parents ought to know what’s happening at the school where they send their kids five days out of seven.

Parents’ authority over their child’s education is an oft-ignored principle in the days of government nannying, yet it is one that is both alluded to in U.S. jurisprudence and rooted in biblical truth. In the 1923 U.S. Supreme Court case Meyer v. Nebraska (262 U.S. 390), the Court held that

“it is the natural duty of the parent to give his children education suitable to their station in life,” and that parents have “power . . . to control the education of their own.”

And as recently as the 2000 case Troxel v. Granville (530 U.S. 57), the Court observed that

“there is a presumption that fit parents act in their children’s best interests,”

and affirmed

“parents’ fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”

While these cases admittedly were addressing very different scenarios than school bathrooms, the overall principle of parental authority over their children’s upbringing and education remains standing in the law to this day.

This is but a reflection of the biblical perspective on parental authority over education. Scripture teaches that parents have authority over their children’s behavior (Ephesians 6:1), discipline (Proverbs 13:24), education in godliness (Deuteronomy 6:7), and upbringing (Ephesians 6:4). Schools are essentially hired hands that help parents teach their children; parents don’t abdicate their primary responsibility of education just because they choose to have their child taught certain subjects somewhere else. Schools are the employees of parents; parents aren’t the slaves of schools. This is why Florida’s small rule change is such a big deal. While it didn’t ban transgender bathrooms, it at least acknowledged that parents ought to know what’s happening at school.

This shouldn’t be just a “yay, you-go-Florida” moment. This should be a “why-doesn’t-my-school-system-have-this-rule” moment! Among all the forms of government we have in our already remarkably democratic system, school boards are among the easiest for ordinary citizens to influence. School board meetings are not hard to attend, school officials are not hard to contact, school board positions are not hard to run for. And if every concerned family protested to school leadership about how the school system is treating their kids . . . As the quote often attributed to Edmund Burke warns:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Right now, a lot of evil is doing a lot of triumphing because a lot of good men are doing a lot of nothing.

Hopefully and prayerfully, policies like Florida’s are the beginning of a turnaround point in our nation’s gender policies. But now that the camel is mostly inside the tent already, it’s going to be a difficult task to kick it out. However, “with God all things are possible.” If, through His power, a camel can pass through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24-26), I’m sure it can pass through the door of a tent. Only through the power of God—and our prayers and efforts directed to that end—will such a miracle happen. Let’s get to work, before we find ourselves booted out into the cold winds of irrelevance as the enemy makes his home in our kids’ hearts.

A public-school board in Virginia (Gloucester County Schools) has been court ordered to pay a $1.3 million dollar settlement to a transgender student who wanted to use the boys’ bathroom.

“Gavin Grimm” was born a biological female in 1999, but eventually underwent a legal name change in her freshman year and reconstruction and hormone therapy treatments to transition to her desired status of being considered a male. (Throughout this article, the author will refer to Grimm as a biological female to avoid unnecessary confusion.)

In an attempt to accommodate Grimm, the school built a single-stall restroom as an “alternative” for students with “gender issues.” Apparently, the concession from the school wasn’t good enough for Grimm. Grimm reportedly occasionally refused to use the provided restroom and in 2015 embarked on a six-year court battle to earn the legal right to use the boys’ bathroom (even though she has long since graduated from the school herself).

According to the court decision, “Grimm suffered from stigma, from urinary tract infections from bathroom avoidance, and from suicidal thoughts that led to hospitalization.”

Judge Henry F. Floyd of the Fourth Circuit Appeal Court wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge James A. Wynn joined. Their decision, straight out of Critical Legal Studies, sounds more like an LGBTQIA+ apologetics manual than a legal ruling: “There is no question that there are students in our K-12 schools who are transgender. For many of us, gender identity is established between the ages of three and four years old.”[i]

The justices go on to assert:

“Of course, there are other gender-expansive youth who may identify as nonbinary, youth born intersex who do or do not identify with their sex-assigned-at-birth, and others whose identities belie gender norms. See generally PFLAG, PFLAG National Glossary of Terms (July 2019 – website omitted — explaining that ‘transgender’ is ‘also used as an umbrella term to describe groups of people who transcend conventional expectations of gender identity or expression’)”[ii]

This legal battle regarding transgenderism in schools will help establish case law precedent around the nation. The usual suspects were involved. When it comes to cases involving the destruction of morality and the traditional family, we expect to see the ACLU on scene, and they did not “disappoint.”

Grimm’s case was elevated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, who decided not to hear it, thus allowing the favorable Fourth Circuit Court decision to stand. Immediately, Grimm turned her activism to other school boards.

Speaking recently to the nearby Newport News public school board, Grimm said, in what sounded like a legal threat: “I’m speaking to you to make it very clear that discrimination is an open-and-shut conversation here in the Fourth Circuit in Virginia, and it’s very expensive.” She also said: “Any further resistance to affirming the transgender young people in this county is an act of aggression to these students and an act of political preservation by members of the school board.”[iii]

The school board quickly changed their school’s policy and will allow transgender students to use the restrooms of their choice moving forward.

What Could This Mean for Students?

According to the Fourth Circuit Court, there are approximately 150,000 transgender students in the United States today. Now that Grimm has successfully won a heavy lawsuit against a public school, most schools will not risk paying out millions of dollars. They will do as Newport News did and throw open the bathroom and locker room doors as a free-for-all. Far from providing security and protection this puts many students at risk.

One example is the case of an 18-yr-old female student in Seattle, WA who was attacked in a gender-neutral high school bathroom by a male football player named Demonte Rigney. She was forced against her will to perform sex acts on him. [iv]

Another is a 5-yr-old girl in Decatur, Georgia who, because of the school’s pro-transgender policies allowing boys in girls’ bathrooms, was attacked by a male student who identifies as “gender fluid”. The predator student “forcibly touched her genitals despite her protests, causing her both pain and fear.”[v]

The courts are clearly deciding that the rights of some students who pretend to be (or believe to be) of the opposite gender (less than 1% of all students) trumps the right of all students to be assured of their safety on a school campus.

Too many parents hold to the naïve assumption that the public schools of today are the same as the ones they grew up in. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Today’s public school system is an absolute tsunami of leftist indoctrination on topics ranging from Marxism to Critical Race Theory, to gender fluidity, to naturalistic atheism. It is anything but neutral and has strayed far from promoting true academic education.

It is well past time for parents to remove their children from the immoral government school system and choose explicitly Christian education.

Footnotes

[i] https//www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/191952.P.pdf, p. 11.

[ii] Ibid, p. 12.

[iii] https://www.dailypress.com/news/education/dp-nw-newport-news-special-meeting-trans-policies-20210827-pmm3vs4kabdnxda6vcvwqmhuta-story.html

[iv] https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/ballard-high-student-charged-with-on-campus-rape/797502564/

[v] https://adfmedia.org/press-release/us-opens-investigation-sexual-assault-minor-child-georgia-violation-title-ix

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(“Buck Angel” before)

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

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

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

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

(“Buck Angel” after)

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

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

That, my friends, is Transtopia.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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

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In June 2019, Governor J.B. Pritzker issued an executive order that should have been the proverbial straw that broke the backs of already oppressed conservative families with children remaining in our broken school indoctrination centers. The order had two parts.

The first part mandated the establishment of a “trans” task force whose members “have experience or expertise related to supporting transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming students in schools,” and who would concoct the many and diverse ways that government schools must participate in the “trans”-cultic fiction.

The second part mandated that the Illinois State Board of Education “develop and make publicly available a model policy or procedures” that does the same thing as the “trans” task force was charged with doing.

Take note of the unstated assumptions embedded in the words “related to supporting” sexually confused minors in the executive order. In the Upside Down, where Pritzker and his collaborators live, “supporting” does not mean helping minors accept their immutable biological sex and scientific reality. Oh no, “supporting” means affirming their sexual confusion and their rejection of objective reality.

The recommendations were posted in Jan. 2020 and are as destructive as all “trans”-cultic beliefs are.

They include the following:

• Schools are to add the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” as protected bases for extracurricular opportunities. In other words, schools must allow biological males—also known as boys—to participate in girls’ sports.

• Schools are to allow students who pretend to be the sex they are not to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms.

• Schools are to “provide ongoing training to all staff members.” In other words, taxpayer-subsidized schools are expected to indoctrinate all staff and faculty with leftist beliefs about gender dysphoria.

• All school employees are to use the incorrect or goofy invented “pronouns” that sexually confused and tyrannical teens want them to use, and schools are to discipline “promptly” any district employee who refuses to use such pronouns.

• Schools are to hire “Gender Support Coordinators” to provide “gender-affirming support for transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming students.” Yes, Illinois taxpayers will be paying the salaries of school employees to harm children.

• And straight from the task force recommendations: “When a transgender, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming student does not have a supportive home environment, regardless of their age, the Gender Support Coordinator can work with the student to identify what course of action will prioritize their safety.” Can you discern the meaning in the thicket of weedy rhetoric? In plain English, the task force is saying that if parents oppose their children’s participation in a sexual masquerade, viewing it rightly as false and destructive, then school employees led by the Gender Support Coordinator will help these students deceive their parents.

The task force recommendations also include this remarkable statement about student privacy:

Under state and federal law, the discomfort or privacy concerns of students, teachers, or parents are not valid reasons to deny or limit the equal use of facilities by transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming students. Rather, the interest of any student seeking more privacy should be addressed by providing that student a more private option upon their request. “The prejudices of others are part of what the [Human Rights Act] was meant to prevent.” …  “[T]here is no right that insulates a student from coming in contact with others who are different than them or a Bathroom Privacy Act, unless the behavior violates a school policy or is criminal.” … The presence of a transgender student in a locker room simply does not “implicate the constitutional privacy rights of others with whom such facilities are shared.”

Note the obfuscation: Boys in girls’ locker rooms are described as merely “different.” By not specifically identifying the nature of this difference, the “trans” task force avoids discussion of whether sex differences have any meaning relative to undressing.

Now girls who do not want to undress in the presence of a biological boy in the girls’ locker rooms have to request a “more private option.” In other words, girls’ locker rooms are no longer private spaces for girls.

Just curious, why is student opposition to using private spaces with persons whose sex they don’t share a “prejudice,” but student opposition to using private spaces with persons whose “gender identity” they presumably don’t share is not a prejudice?

Moreover, since gender identity is a subjective internal experience, how do boys who pretend to be girls know the gender identities of the boys in boys’ locker rooms or girls in girls’ locker rooms?

Who—you may be wondering—concocted these God-forsaken policies? Serving on this ideologically non-diverse task force of 27 people were 3 recent high school graduates and 2 then-current high school students. So, five leftist students were involved in setting policy for all Illinoisans but not one conservative adult was involved.

One of the propagandists was A. J. Jennings an early childhood education teacher at the University of Chicago Lab Schools, who wrote about her goal of using her classroom to indoctrinate other people’s children with her sexuality ideology:

As an educator (and a person), I value conversation as a way to build understanding and transform perspectives. It is an incredible curricular tool for addressing issues of identity (e.g., race, class, size, gender, sexuality, ability, religion). It can be especially meaningful when our students initiate the conversations. So I work to create a classroom environment where differing points of view can be addressed and explored. My goal is for the children to feel confident about articulating their point of view and safe enough to consider other perspectives. As teachers. … we can model nonjudgmental behavior and challenge binary thinking.

This is especially significant in early childhood education. As young children develop their understanding of the world, they tend to rely heavily on binaries. If we understand the binaries a child is working within, we can encourage that child to think of counterexamples or introduce counterexamples ourselves into the conversation. These provide useful stumbling blocks that encourage them to expand their thinking.

Does “transforming perspectives,” “challenging binary thinking,” and introducing “stumbling blocks” to children’s binary thinking constitute non-judgmentalism, or is it tendentious leading?

Jennings also provided an illustration from her own class of 4-year-olds on exactly how she leads little ones, baby step-by-baby step, into her dark world of ignorance while they are yet too young to understand sexuality issues in their moral, ontological, and epistemic complexity:

One day, Rory approached me during playtime, visibly shaken. “Those kids are telling me that girls can’t marry girls and they can!”

“Well, let’s go and talk with them about it,” I responded. When we reached the two girls, I told them that Rory was worried about the conversation they were having and asked what they were talking about. I learned that, just as Rory reported, the two girls had been discussing marriage and how girls couldn’t marry girls. Rory had been insisting they could. He was certain of it. His mom had told him. The other two were skeptical. They all looked to me to clarify this point of contention. …

I was delighted to be a part of the conversation. …  I generally feel that when talking about marriage, most children mean adults loving one another, so I went that route.

“Two girls can be in love with each other,” I responded.

“Yeah!” agreed Rory, vindicated by his teacher’s affirmation of this point.

I continued: “And girls can love boys. And boys can love boys.” The three children mulled this over.

“Like my mom and dad love each other,” one of them answered.

“Right,” I said. The kids continued their conversation of marriage and were no longer looking for my input. I listened for a few more minutes as they tossed around the idea that love might not be constrained to a mom loving a dad. Rory mentioned that he had a friend who had two moms who were married. The other two children were willing to accept this and incorporate the new information into their understanding of the boundaries of love and marriage.

There you have it. Binaries successfully challenged. Perspectives changed. Love is love, man. And no need to introduce the confounding ideas of different types of love. This “teacher” is one of the people setting policy for all Illinois public schools.

Here are a few more members of Pritzker’s Posse Propagandus:

Jax Wokas is a girl who pretends to be a boy and is committed to “intersectional activism.”

Jordon Eason is a girl who pretends to be a boy. She testified on behalf of a male student who pretends to be female—“Nova” Maday—in Maday’s  lawsuit against District 211 and conservative community group Students and Parents for Privacy. Maday was suing for the legal “right” to have unrestricted access to girls’ private spaces.

Benton Goff is a girl from Marion, Illinois who pretends to be a boy and is also a “trans”-activist.

Tre Graham is a cross-dressing boy from Marion, Illinois who identifies as “genderqueer.” Here’s a Dec. 2020 tweet from Graham:

i just want you to know that you insulting my gender expression will not get you head!!! You dumbass faggot!!! BTW it is 2020! Come out!!! We don’t care that you [want] men to suck your d***!!!!

Yes, this is the kind of young person Pritzker thinks should set policy for all Illinois schools.

Graham and Benton Hoff have been friends for years, so, the “trans” Posse Propagandus is not even finding a diverse cross-section of current students/recent grads. Of the five students on the Posse, all are activists and two are from the same social group.

Myles Brady Davis is a Chicago woman who pretends to be a man who is married to a man who pretends to be a woman. So, they are a heterosexual couple deeply involved in cosplay. Davis like many cross-sex narcissists manages to get herself in the press—a lot—most recently for the perfectly natural thing for women to do. She gave birth. The Chicago press refers to Davis and her husband as a “trans” power couple.

Jamie Gliksberg is a senior attorney with Lambda Legal, a law firm that self-identifies as a “civil rights” organization and is dedicated to the proposition that all sexually deviant men and women are more equal than the rest of society.

Channyn Lynne Parker is a man who pretends to be a woman and identifies as a “human rights advocate” even as he works like the devil to deny women and men the right to be free of opposite-sex persons in private spaces. He also works for the “LGBT”-affirming Howard Brown “Health” Center.

Jordee Yanez is a young woman and former CPS student who pretends to be a man.

Nat Duran is a young woman who pretends to be a man and works for the pro-“trans/pro-homosexuality propaganda machine deceptively named the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance

Veronica Noland: Her name should be familiar to regular IFI readers. She’s the Illinois School District U-46 board member who referred to parents who oppose co-ed locker rooms as “narrow-minded fear mongers.”

Mika Yamamoto is the mother of a 10-year-old boy who pretends to be a girl. His parents, mother Yamamoto and father Brian Freireich, have renamed their son. His new name is “Admiral Ocean Freireich.” The family moved from Chicago to Oak Park, which jumped aboard the “trans” train long ago.

We cannot expect culture to improve if we keep placing our children under the tutelage of activists who teach children that body- and soul-destroying sexual deviance is good. Remember, these “trans” recommendations are in addition to the Illinois law requiring that all children in grades K-12  be taught positively about homosexuality and “trans”-cultism.

Parents, the fix is in. Get out now.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Transing-Gov-Schools.mp3

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A recent headline of a Chicago Sun-Times article alarmingly reports that a Chicago Public School watchdog is fielding 3 complaints of sexual misconduct per school day. This comes on the heels of a 2018 Chicago Tribune report that exposed Chicago public schools of having more than 520 sexual assault cases all across the city over the past decade.

According to the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR), only 38 percent of Illinois public school students meet proficiency expectations in English Language Arts, only 32 percent of students meet proficiency expectations in math. This despite the fact that the NEA reports that taxpayers pay $16,925 per student per year in Illinois. For that kind of investment, the vast majority of students should not only be meeting proficiency expectations but exceeding them.

In addition, we now have the serious problem of gender-confused boys demanding unrestricted access to girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms, and school boards and administrators affirming this nonsense. We also have a new state mandate that requires all students in K-12 public schools be taught, in a positive manner, about the “roles and contributions” of homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators; as well as, textbooks purchased must include discussions of the those purported “roles and contributions.”

And let’s not forget that we have a state mandate in favor of highly objectionable sex ed material for the impressionable minds of government school children in 6th through 12th grade.

As if that isn’t enough, government schools are using instructional time to promote left-wing political views on climate change; open borders and global citizenship; Islamic studies and prayers to the god of Islam; Howard Zinn’s warped view of America’s Founding Fathers; and the pernicious ideology of “intersectionality” that is designed to divide and pit Americans against each other.

Christian parents and grandparents must seriously consider the great options they have for their students, and make the move away from government schools. The prevalence of perversion, subversion, and indoctrination are becoming more pronounced, and in order to protect the hearts and minds of our children, it is wise to consider other options.

We invite you to join us on Saturday, April 25th, to hear from a great line up of experts as we explore what we need to do to begin to rebuild the culture through education. The event is free and open to the public. Click HERE for a flyer for this event.

2020 IFI Education Forum

WHEN: Saturday, April 25th
WHERE: Church of Christian Liberty
  502 Euclid Avenue
Arlington Heights, IL  60004
TIME: 9:30 AM – 1:00 PM

Our tentative schedule includes:

9:30-10:15        Rescuing Our Children from Government Schools (Alex Newman, The Liberty Sentinel)

10:15-11:00       Homeschooling: What in the World is Going On? (Dr. Brian Ray, NHERI)

11:00-11:30       Home Education is Possible (Kirk Smith, Illinois Christian Home Educators)

11:30-Noon       The Benefits of Christian Schooling (Rev. Calvin Lindstrom, Christian Liberty Academy)

Noon-12:15        The State of Education Choice in Illinois (Lennie Jarret, Heartland Institute) 

12:15-1:00         Q&A Session

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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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-and, please-

Just when you thought civilized first-world countries had deposited mythology and science-denying irrationality in the dustbin of history, the “trans” cult emerged seeking to force science-loving Americans to embrace the solipsistic, “trans”-centric worldview in which biological sex has neither reality nor meaning. Worse, you have ostensibly non-mentally ill school leaders capitulating to the “trans” cult’s absurd and offensive demands—people like Township High School District 211 superintendent Dr. Daniel Cates. Cates wants District 211—the largest high school district in Illinois with 12,000 students and five high schools—to sexually integrate locker rooms.

Cates wants to allow students who pretend to be the sex they aren’t to have unrestricted access to opposite-sex locker rooms. If Cates gets his druthers, whatever girls are permitted to do in girls’ locker rooms, boys who pretend to be girls will be permitted to do also. If girls are permitted to partially undress or wholly undress openly in girls’ locker rooms, then boys who pretend to be girls will be allowed to do so as well. Presumably, if girls are permitted to shower nude, so too will pretend-girls (aka boys) be allowed to shower nude.

Prior requirements that these boys change in private changing areas will be rescinded. In an email sent to parents on Thursday, Sept. 12, Cates referred to boys and girls in tortured, hilarious, politically correct language, calling them “adolescents with different anatomy.” I kid you not. He said that.

Cates is jim-dandy with girls and boys undressing together in locker rooms. How do I know Cates—who should be fired—is jim-dandy with co-ed locker rooms? I know because he said this in his pro-“trans” email:

[U]nderstanding and acceptance of transgender identity have advanced—societally and in our immediate communities—for the better. In our district and countless others, students, families and staff honor, respect and celebrate all manifestations of the human condition. (emphasis added)

Did an educated man really say that? Does he celebrate all manifestations of the human condition? How about racism, disease, intergenerational love, Genetic Sexual Attraction, polyamory, infantilism, sadomasochism, and zoophilia?

How does Cates demonstrate respect for those who believe “adolescents with different anatomy” should not undress or engage in bodily functions in the presence of peers of the opposite sex? How does he communicate his respect for those who believe the sexual integration of locker rooms undermines the belief that modesty derives from anatomical differentiation?

Cates has explicitly and unequivocally announced that the district has embraced a radical set of Leftist ideological assumptions created and advanced by the “trans” cult, without providing a persuasive reason why private space usage should correspond to subjective and often fluid “gender identity” as opposed to objective immutable biological sex. Nor has he shared his view on which locker rooms “gender fluid” students use.

Someone should ask Cates this question: Is it legitimate, valid, sound, reasonable, and good for girls not to want to share private spaces with opposite-sex persons? If it is, then what difference should it make to girls if opposite-sex persons wish they were girls? If it’s not legitimate, valid, sound, reasonable, or good, then why have any sex-segregated private spaces?

“Progressives” often ask snottily, “So, are we going to have genitalia police outside restrooms and locker rooms to confirm the presence of the right genitalia before people enter,” to which I reply, “Are we going to have ‘gender identity’ police outside restrooms and locker rooms to prove that the man seeking to enter really is ‘trans’ rather than a predator pretending to be ‘trans?’”

Since “gender identity” is subjective and internal, how do, for example, boys who “identify” as girls know the “gender identities” of the students in the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms? Let’s try this thought experiment: If most of the boys in the boys’ locker room at a particular school were to identify internally as girls and most of the girls were to identify internally as boys, which locker room should boys who impersonate girls use and why? It’s likely Leftists would answer that they should use whichever private spaces they want. And that, my friends, is where this is headed: The end game is the eradication of public recognition of biological sex everywhere for everyone, which means no private spaces anywhere for anyone.

Cates has either become a true believer in the “trans”-cultic mythology or he has sacrificed his principles and integrity on the altar to the almighty god of the greenback. Faced with a lawsuit against the district by a boy who pretends to be a girl, perhaps Cates—a graduate of the University of Notre Dame—would rather sacrifice science and the privacy and modesty of girls and boys than either district money or his job.

A man of real courage, principle, and integrity would never adopt such a foul policy. Rather, a man of courage, principle, and integrity would resign instead of adopting a policy that teaches girls and boys that biological sex has no meaning relative to feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when undressing.

A man of courage, principle, and integrity would resign before adopting a policy that implicitly teaches that opposition to sharing locker rooms with opposite sex peers is ignorant, bigoted, and hateful.

A decent and wise leader would know that it’s wrong to put normal children in the awkward position of having to ask for special accommodations because they don’t want to change clothes or go to the bathroom in the presence of opposite-sex peers.

A decent and wise leader would know that such a pernicious policy will desensitize children and teens to engaging in private acts in the presence of opposite-sex peers, thereby undermining what is left of respect for the necessary virtue of modesty.

I’ve had “progressive” parents tell me that their daughters are fine undressing in the presence of “trans”-identifying male peers. These parents are happy about their daughters’ socially constructed, unnatural feelings. They—like Cates—view the belief that biological sex has no meaning relative to modesty and privacy as social and moral progress. Compassion—in their distorted worldview—demands we pretend maleness and femaleness have nothing to do with biological sex.

Ironically, while rejecting the importance of biological sex, which wholly determined by biochemistry, “progressives” believe that if biochemistry influences the desire to be the opposite sex, such desires are supremely important and morally legitimate to act upon. But do they apply that principle consistently? If biochemistry influences the desire to be an amputee (i.e., Body Integrity Identity Disorder), should we allow students to socially transition at school? Should schools allow anatomically whole students who identify as amputees to use handicap parking spaces, use a wheelchair in school, and be given extra passing-period time?

Since we know that biochemistry can be disordered and influence both thoughts and feelings, how do “trans” cultists know that when there is a mismatch or incongruity between their biological sex and their “gender identity” (i.e., their subjective, internal sense of their maleness, femaleness, both, or neither) the error resides in their bodies rather than their minds?

How many dads and moms will show up to publicly and courageously oppose this feckless policy proposal? How many staff or faculty charged with supervising locker rooms will oppose supervising students of the opposite sex who are undressing?

District 211 encompasses a large geographic area in which there are many churches. It will be interesting to see if any pastors—who are citizens that enjoy the privilege of self-government and whose congregations include children in this district—will turn out to oppose the sexual integration of locker rooms. (Don’t hold your breath.)

Conservatives, get your kids out of government schools now. No child should be trained up by foolish, cowardly adults who refer to boys and girls as “adolescents with different anatomy” and let them undress together. Trust me, no matter what empty blather “progressive” government school administrators and faculty members spew about respecting diversity and “all manifestations of the human condition,” they don’t like conservatives or want them around—especially conservative Christians, you know, the “haters.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Largest-Illinois-High-School-District-Opposes-Single-Sex-Locker-Rooms.mp3

IFI depends on the support of concerned-citizens like you. Donate now

-and, please-

As back-to-school shopping season nears, I’m asking your family to avoid shopping at Target stores… and to warn your friends about the danger Target presents to women and children.

Together we are making an unprecedented financial impact on a corporation whose policy is to allow men to use women’s restrooms and dressing rooms. Target’s decision is unacceptable for families, and their dangerous and misguided policy continues to put women and children in harm’s way.

We must keep the pressure on Target by avoiding their stores during back-to-school shopping. Let’s educate Target to the fact that their bathroom policy earns them a failing grade. 

Target is dependent on a large back-to-school sales season. By spending your money with their competitors, you are sending a strong message to Target that their policy is bad for business.

1.) If you haven’t already, sign the #BoycottTarget pledge. Invite your family and friends to sign the pledge too.

2.) Forward this information to friends and family. Invite them to sign the boycott pledge at www.afa.net/target.

3.) Call Target headquarters at 612-304-6073 and personally let them know you are boycotting their stores.

4.) Visit www.afa.net/target for more tools and information on the Boycott Target pledge.

This article originally posted at AFA.net.