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

Please support the work and ministry of IFI.  

Your tax-deductible donation is greatly appreciated!

Last Thursday night, District 211—the largest high school district in the state with 12,000 students and five high schools—held a board meeting to discuss Superintendent Daniel Cates’ boneheaded proposal to allow students who “identify” as the opposite sex to have unrestricted access to the locker rooms of opposite-sex peers. Expecting a large crowd, the district moved the meeting to Palatine High School. The Daily Herald reported that 25 speakers were randomly selected, 16 of whom opposed the proposal, which is well over 50 percent.

Several years ago, when the district was first sued by a biological boy who was self-“identifying” as a girl, Cates allowed him to use the girls’ locker room as long as he changed clothes behind a privacy curtain. Cates steadfastly opposed this boy’s request for unrestricted access to the girls’ locker room. That was then, this is now. Now Cates proposes allowing boys and girls who pretend to be the sex they aren’t to have unrestricted access to the locker rooms of their opposite-sex peers. Perhaps Cates is spineless and follows the path of least resistance, which now leads into darkness. Perhaps he has morally devolved as so many school administrators have. Or perhaps his retirement at the end of this school year has freed his authentic inner corrupt self to emerge.

Cates couldn’t do this dirty work alone. It takes a village and at least four board members to indoctrinate children with an incoherent, irrational, and harmful ideology. One of those sorry villagers is the newly elected, morally corrupt, and unpleasant District 211 board member Kim Cavill, who is a sex “educator” when she’s not promoting feckless locker room policies.

If her name rings a bell, it’s because I mentioned her in an article about former District U46 school board member Jeanette Ward, a fearless, wise, and gracious woman who endured egregiously disrespectful treatment from fellow board members Traci O’Neal Ellis, Veronica Noland, and Melissa Owens. In an online post, Cavill referred to Jeanette Ward as the “High Priestess of the Order of Moron.” Oddly, that comment has been scrubbed from the Internet. Maybe she thought such a comment wouldn’t help her get elected to the District 211 board. Sounds a wee bit intolerant and hateful.

The curious story of the April 2019 election of Kim Cavill actually goes back to the even curiouser story of the 2017 school board election. Three well-qualified people who opposed co-ed private spaces for minors were running against three people who supported co-ed private spaces for minors. The three well-qualified challengers were,

Jean Forrest, a Chinese-American woman with an MA in economics who works as an actuary

Katherine Jee Young David, a Korean-American woman with a BS in Business Administration from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Ralph Bonatz who has a degree in electrical engineering and is a global quality control manager for an international corporation

On March 22, 2017, just 13 days before the 2017 election, LaSaia Wade, a 29-year-old “black trans woman” (i.e., a biological man), and Daye Pope, another biological male who passes as a woman, set up a Super PAC called Trans United Fund Illinois. Pope is the organizing director for a 501(c)(3) called Trans United Fund.

Two days later, on March 24, 2017—11 days before the 2017 election—Kim Cavill and her sister Lindsay Christensen set up a Super PAC called Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education (PNQE).

Just days after the founding of Trans United Fund Illinois, donations from some surprising people came pouring in:

• Matrix Director “Lana” Wachowski, a biological man who pretends to be a woman and lives with his dominatrix wife in Chicago, donated a whopping $10,000.

• Far left Illinois State Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago) also donated $10,000.

• Homosexual Clark Pellet, a retired attorney and development chair for the “LGBTQ” Center on Halsted who lives in Chicago, donated $5,000.

• Executive director of Gender Rights Maryland, Dana Beyer, a man who pretends to be a woman and lives in Chevy Chase, MD donated $1,000.

• Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) who lives in Brooklyn, NY donated $500.

• Homosexual Douglas Hattaway, president and CEO of a Washington D.C. strategic communications firm who lives in D.C., donated $500.

• Architect Kira Kinsman, a biological man formerly known as Kyle Kinsman who lives in Wilkes Barre, PA, donated $250.

The more than $26, 000 in donations for a school board election from donors who don’t live in District 211 then went to—you guessed it—Cavill’s Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education.

Enquiring minds may wonder why Cavill and her sister set up PNQE, since Trans United Fund Illinois was already established. Why the extra step to fund the defeat of conservatives? The answer to that question might be found in mailers and yard signs. State law requires that campaign mailers and yard signs identify the groups that pay for them. Signs must say “Approved by….”

Which sounds better—and by “better” I mean less likely to arouse suspicion: “Approved by Trans United Fund Illinois” or “Approved by Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education”?

Flush with filthy lucre, the Cavill sisters got busy smearing good people with nary a backward glance.

As reported by the “LGBTQ” newspaper Windy City Times, a local mom (Who could that have been?) reached out to Trans United Fund, “a national trans-led advocacy group,” who agreed to help them defeat the three candidates who supported single-sex locker rooms:

Trans United Fund (TUF) and a group of local parents, youth, and allies, worked together to launch the first trans-led, trans-focused independent expenditure in history. TUF assembled a powerful team of thoughtful allies to quickly build and execute a research-informed and strategic plan to help the parents and youth get their message out. TUF supported the parents’ efforts through digital, mail, phone banking and helping to train volunteers to reach their neighbors at the door.

The Windy City Times made clear this campaign was a smear campaign in which good people who believe locker rooms and restrooms should correspond to biological sex were vilified. District 211 community member Tracey Salvatore, spewing venomous lies said this about the good people who were defeated:

We are fed up with this small group of vocal, transphobic people guided by a national hate group [Alliance Defending Freedom] wreaking havoc in our community…. Our District 211 community will not tolerate adults bullying kids or intimidating us for one more day. The ADF-inspired slate of candidates ran with the agenda of inserting a hate-based, national agenda into our schools. They didn’t care that their policy changes would increase bullying and violence against kids…. So we reached out to Trans United Fund and they helped us to get our message out to our neighbors and community members. (emphasis added)

Neither Salvatore nor anyone affiliated with PNQE felt the ethical obligation to provide evidence that the three candidates feared or hated “trans”-identifying students, or that they bullied kids, or that they intimidated community members, or that ADF has a “hate-based agenda,” or that single-sex private spaces for minors increase “bullying and violence.” Why try to provide impossible-to-find evidence when hate-mongering rhetoric does the job.

The belief that biological sex is the source of feelings of modesty and the right to privacy when undressing does not constitute hatred of persons no matter how many times people like Salvatore and Cavill spread their repugnant lies.

I wonder if Salvatore spreads these same ugly and false lies about feminists—including lesbians—who oppose biological males in women’s private spaces. Perhaps Salvatore is unaware of the growing schism in the “LGBT” alliance. Just a week ago, a group of influential supporters of the “LGB rights” movement in the United Kingdom, including Stonewall UK founder Simon Fanshawe, published an open letter in the Sunday Times in which they criticize Stonewall and suggest it’s time for the formation of a new organization that is “committed both to freedom of speech and to fact instead of fantasy.” Here’s an excerpt from that letter that Salvatore, Cavill, and Cates should ponder:

Last October a group of LGB rights supporters asked Stonewall to “commit to fostering an atmosphere of respectful debate rather than demonising as transphobic those who wish to discuss, or dissent from, Stonewall’s transgender policies.” Since then, Stonewall has refused repeated requests to enter into any such dialogue…. We believe it has made mistakes in its approach that undermine women’s sex-based rights and protections. The most worrying aspect of this is that all primary-school children are now challenged to review their ‘gender identity’ and decide that they may be the opposite sex if they do not embrace outdated gender stereotypes.

Does Salvatore demonize teens as hateful transphobes if they don’t want to undress in the presence of male peers? What about female teachers who don’t want to undress in front of male colleagues? Does she accuse them of hate-based bullying?

Almost immediately after the school board election and defeat for all three good candidates, Cavill and her sister deactivated their Super PAC. Malignant Mission Accomplished.

And now we return our story to the school board election of April 2019. Kim Cavill, the person who orchestrated the ugly and deceitful campaign smear of three good people by creating a Super PAC front for a Super PAC financed by “LGBTQ” donors from out of the district, ran for the District 211 board and won. Is she really an emblem of good government and transparency?

If you are not yet convinced of her unfitness for serving on a school board or her unfitness to serve as a role model for children, here are just a smattering of quotes from her sex ed podcasts for children and teens.

From her podcast for tweens and teens on anal sex titled “All About Anal”:

Before trying anal sex, people need to talk about their own and their partner’s boundaries like any other type of sex. It should be preceded by a conversation about what the people participating in sex are consenting to, what they aren’t consenting to, how they’re expecting sex to go, and how they’re going to communicate during sex to make sure everyone’s still on the same page. Anal sex also requires a lot of lube.

From her podcast for “tweens and teens” titled “Let’s Talk About Porn”:

Porn can certainly cause relationship problems but so can a lot of other things. Porn causing relationship problems isn’t inevitable, it depends on the relationship and it depends on how the people in that relationship feel about porn…. [T]he evidence says that if you think porn’s bad, it is, and if you think porn’s fine, then it is.

One thing notable from sexpert Cavill’s podcasts is how studiously she avoids the words boy, girl, man, and woman. Even in her podcast explaining how babies come into existence, she never mentions men and women. Instead, she describes a “grown-up with a penis” and a “grown-up with a vagina.” Huh. I wonder what those are.

There are two lessons to be learned from this incredible story:

1. Local communities no longer control their own school boards and, therefore, their schools.

2. Cultural regressives are targeting the hearts, minds, and bodies of other people’s children—your children—and they’re using your money to do it.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Incredible-Story-of-District-211-School-Board-Elections_AUDIO.mp3

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

-and, please-

School District U46 (Elgin, Illinois) School Board Member Jeanette Ward offers a profile in courage, grace, and wisdom, while fellow board members Veronica Noland and Melissa Owens offer profiles in hypocrisy and ignorance. Their hypocrisy and ignorance were revealed during a recent school board meeting discussion about proposed changes to the “Student Code of Conduct.”

In 2013, the board voted to add the terms “sexual orientation,” “gender identity” and “gender-related identity or expression” to the section of school board policy on bullying and harassment. Those are the only conditions constituted by subjective, internal feelings and volitional behavior to be specifically identified. Since board policy then concludes with the inclusion of “any other distinguishing characteristic,” there exists no necessity for naming any characteristic, let alone ones constituted by subjective feelings and volitional behavior.

But bad became worse this past Monday night when the board voted to add this language from board policy to the “Student Code of Conduct,” which all parents must sign in order to enroll their children in District U46. Prior to the 5-2 vote, with Phil Costello joining Ward in opposing the change, Ward asked if, under the policy change, students would be guilty of bullying if they refused to use the “pronoun preference for a gender dysphoric student.”

She offered this commonsense and compassionate explanation for her opposition to punishing students for refusal to lie in the service of a science-denying ideology:

I don’t think it helps the student who is struggling with this issue to help them in their denial of reality. And I don’t view that as a form of bullying. I think to join them in what is not real, in the real world, only hurts them.

Hoo boy, the leftist ideologues on the school board did not tolerate well her dissent from their dogma.

The self-righteous Noland huffed:

I have to say something. Using the terms “gender dysphoric” and making the statements that you make hurt the students of this district. They go against what the accepted practices from major major organizations in this country… the American Academy of Pediatrics… I could bring out my list of references from a year and a half ago… but I will strongly strongly condemn your terms that you use and the language that you use in hurting the students of this district. I think it’s an ideology of yours, and it’s a minority in this district and a minority in this country. It goes against our policies that we have voted on. It goes against against so many things. You can continue to use this as a political platform of your own because you have that right, but I will vociferously object to the comments and the terms that you use for our students.

When Noland suggests students are “hurt” by the term “gender dysphoric”—a term which is not a pejorative and is used commonly in the mental health community—what does she mean? Does she mean students who seek to pass as the sex they are not don’t like the term? If so, how does her strong, strong condemnation of and vociferous objection to Ward’s beliefs make students in the district who share those beliefs feel? Might they be hurt by Noland’s words?

Noland cites—again—the American Academy of Pediatrics’ endorsement of “trans”-affirmative experimental protocols without mentioning that all anyone really knows is that a small committee of leftist members of the AAP created this policy, which an even smaller group then voted on. The rest of the thousands of members of the AAP had no input or vote on the policy. In fact, most didn’t know about it until the public learned about it.

Noland believes that Ward’s “ideology” is shared by only a minority in the district and country. To which of Ward’s positions specifically is Noland referring? Does Noland believe most people in the country oppose the use of the term “gender dysphoric”? Does she believe most people in the country want students punished for refusing to use incorrect pronouns? If so, perhaps at the next board meeting, she can provide conclusive, research-based evidence for her claims.

Further, is Noland—who is apparently a true-blue “progressive”—arguing that minority groups should be denied a voice? The hypocrisies just keep piling up. Commitments to tolerance, diversity, and minority voices gone in slavish servitude to the disordered, doctrinaire sexuality ideology of the left.

Perhaps the most laughable of Noland’s statements was her characterization of Ward’s views as an “ideology” that informs a “political platform.” Why are Ward’s views on the science-denying “trans” ideology part of an ideology but Noland’s views are not? Why when Ward expresses her views on the “trans” ideology is she guilty of using school board discussions for a political platform, but when Noland expresses her views on the same subject, she’s not guilty of using board discussions for a political platform? Noland should be asked to answer these questions publicly.

Then board member Melissa Owens made clear the Orwellian, anti-First Amendment—even fascist—nature of this policy (fascism: “A political philosophy characterized by authoritarian views and a strong central government—and no tolerance for opposing opinions; tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control”):

If sitting at a table in a position of power and saying that our students don’t live in reality, if that’s not bullying, I don’t know what bullying is to be quite honest with you.

Well, I would argue that if sitting at a table in a position of power and saying that students must speak lies or risk being disciplined for bullying is not bullying, I don’t know what bullying is—to be quite honest.

Objectively male students who claim to be girls are denying the reality of their sex. Stating that objective truth no more constitutes bullying than does saying that Rachel Dolezal denied reality when she claimed to be African American.

Throughout multiple board meetings in which Jeanette Ward has repeatedly contended for the truth, enduring uncivil and open hostility from arrogant colleagues and community members, Ward has demonstrated courage, grace, wisdom, restraint, and humility. In addition, with grace, she weathers despicable attacks on her school board Facebook page from people like “Sex Positive Parent/Sex Education Teacher” Kim Cavill, who earlier this week called Ward the “High Priestess of the Order of Moron” (nice role model for kids).

Here’s some apolitical truth.

At birth, doctors do not assign or designate “genders” (as redefined by “progressives”). Rather, doctors identify the sex of babies, which is virtually always correct except in the very rare cases of babies born with Disorders of Sexual Development (i.e., intersex disorders, which are wholly irrelevant to discussions of the “trans” ideology). “Gender” (as redefined by “progressives”) denotes the arbitrary socially constructed behaviors, conventions, and expectations associated with maleness or femaleness. It’s beyond silly to claim that at babies’ births, obstetricians assign to them arbitrary socially constructed behaviors, conventions, and expectations. Obstetricians identify the sex of babies, and the sex of humans can never change. Pronouns denote and correspond to biological sex.

No administrator, faculty member, staff member, or student should be compelled by Big Brother to lie by being forced to use incorrect pronouns when referring to someone who masquerades as the sex they are not. Punishing students—or staff—for resisting mandatory speech codes is institutional bullying at its worst. The government has no right to compel speech—let alone deceitful speech. For an arm of the government—which is what schools are—to require employees or students to lie is a frightening exercise of tyrannical power.

Thank you to Jeanette Ward for standing bravely and almost alone for truth in the District U46.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Jeanette-Wards-Profile-in-Courage-Grace-and-Wisdom.mp3

Subscribe to the IFI YouTube channel
and never miss a video report or special program!

A new controversy has erupted in School District U-46, and this time it doesn’t involve compulsory co-ed locker rooms or offensive statements from board member Traci O’Neal Ellis. This time 18 local religious leaders have objected to school board member Jeanette Ward’s Facebook post about a controversial article on religion assigned in a sixth-grade class.

A teacher had her sixth-graders read an article by Australian history of religion professor and agnostic Philip Almond and then answer questions based on that reading. Here are some of the controversial statements from that article:

“Judaism, Christianity and Islam are three of the world’s major religions. While they have many differences, they all believe in the same God.

“Some of the prophets that Jews follow were Noah, Abraham and Moses. Christians follow these prophets too. They also think that Jesus was another prophet of the same God.”

“Jesus, Muhammad and the Hebrew prophets all described the same God.”

“The God of the Old Testament can be both good and evil.”

“Like the prophets of the Old Testament, Jesus predicted a day when God will punish humankind and will be merciless in doing so.”

 “Muslims, Christians and Jews all worship the same complex God. But each religion believes that its books and teachings reveal the true nature of that God. This disagreement has shaped the course of history. The followers of each religion believe that only they will be saved by God. They see all others as damned. This way of seeing people, as damned by God and beyond saving, has led to violence and hatred.”

After reading the assignment, Ward posted the entire article by Almond along with these innocuous comments:

Do you know what your children are being taught: Muslims believe in the same God as Christians and Jews?

My 6th-grader came home with this assignment today. She was supposed to read the article and answer the questions. (She will not be completing this assignment). The full text of the article is below. Quiz questions are depicted in the pictures. This article is utterly incorrect and false on many levels. This is one of the many reasons I voted no on this curriculum resource.

In response to Ward’s Facebook comments, a statement signed by 18 religious leaders—mostly from apostate denominations—was read at Monday’s school board meeting (see names and affiliations below*). They began by mildly critiquing Almond’s article for its lack of “nuance” and “generosity”:

None of us saw our faith traditions represented in their fullness in the article as represented from the school’s curriculum.

The central problem with the article was not lack of “nuance,” “generosity,” or  “fullness.” The central problem was theological errors taught to children as facts. For many Christians such theological errors are offensive, and having government employees present such errors to their children as facts compounds the offense.

Then, with insufficient nuance and generosity, these religious leaders criticized Ward’s Facebook comment:

[W]e feel that more important than the content of the article is the question of how we are to engage with inevitable differences of opinion, theology, and world view. Here, we strongly take exception to Ms. Ward’s approach… We believe that these instances represent a valuable opportunity to practice civil discourse and to express our differences with both respect and humility.

Seriously? Ward’s “approach” is more important to purported Christian pastors than a public school presenting resources that teach children that the God of the Old Testament is evil and that Allah and Jesus are the same?

Moreover, what specifically did Ward write that is uncivil, disrespectful, or prideful? Maybe these faith leaders could tell everyone exactly what the permissible ways to “engage with inevitable differences of opinion, theology, and world view” are.

One wonders why these religious leaders didn’t publicly chastise school board member Veronica Noland when she referred to opponents of co-ed locker rooms as “narrow-minded fear mongers.” And why didn’t they condemn school board member Traci O’Neal Ellis’ “approach” when she three times referred to Republicans as the equivalent of KKK’ers. Curiouser and curiouser.

This theologically imbalanced coterie of critics next claimed it’s the job of some unnamed persons to correct the misinformation provided to young middle schoolers by government employees:

[W]hen such articles and statements are presented to our children, we believe it is helpful to use these instances as opportunities to teach our children why we disagree with the information being presented and how to do so with respect and humility. Indeed, we believe teaching our children to identify, understand, and even challenge ideas with which they do not agree is helpful training for them as students, citizens, and people of faith.

The subject of their recommendation remains unclear. Who should teach children that the material presented at school is incorrect? Religious leaders? Parents? How can religious leaders or parents engage in the work of correcting misinformation if they don’t know that such misinformation was disseminated to their children?

This raises critical questions: Who selected this article? Did a department chair and curricula review committee read it? And why are teachers using resources that present arguable assumptions and errors as facts?

Continuing their criticism of Ward under the guise of offering their definition of proper leadership, the faith leaders inadvertently revealed their fealty to government employees as opposed to parents and other taxpayers:

[F]aithful, respectful leadership means engaging teachers and administrators directly.

This may be the most troubling part of their troubling statement. They failed to mention that the primary responsibility of school board members is to directly engage parents and other stakeholders—you know, the people who elected them and for whom they work.

How can Muslim, Jewish, or Christian parents have the kind of conversations with their children that this group of mostly “progressives” recommend unless a school board member or members engage directly with those parents to inform them of what was taught? Clearly the teacher didn’t do that.

From working for a decade in a public school, I learned that there is an unwritten principle that teachers, administrators, and board members cling to as if it were sacred. The rule is that if parents have a concern with resources, they should first express their concerns to teachers, and then if unsatisfied with the response, move up the food chain. In my humble opinion, that’s an arbitrary, socially constructed rule that parents need not honor.

Ironically, teachers, administrators, and board members who believe there’s no need to honor the practice of segregating boys from girls in restrooms and locker rooms think parents must honor the practice of keeping controversial resources on the down-low in order to avoid controversy. How “progressives” arrive at their ethical and moral imperatives is baffling.

Unfortunately, given the desire of “progressives” in government schools for absolute autonomy and their self-identification as “change agents,” controversy is both inevitable and necessary. To borrow from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:

[W]e who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

There’s a lesson to be learned from this mess. It’s that “progressives” control schools in part because they act. Perhaps at the next board meeting, 20, 25, or 30 theologically orthodox Christians could make a statement about the problem of using taxpayer money to teach young children that Jesus and Allah are the same God or that the God of the Old Testament is evil. Surely there are a few pastors in the Elgin area who find such teaching objectionable. And surely  there are some who feel empathy for Jeanette Ward who stands in the gap for children when no other school board member does.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Faithless-Faith-Leaders-Protest-Jeanette-Wards-FB-Post_01.mp3

*Lois Bucher, associate pastor, First Congregational Church (United Church of Christ), Elgin; Richard T. Carlson, pastor, First United Methodist Church, Elgin; David Daubert, pastor, Zion Lutheran Church, Elgin; Marlene Daubert, deacon, Zion Lutheran Church, Elgin; Dr. Paris Donehoo, senior pastor, First Congregational Church (United Church of Christ), Elgin; The Reverend Dr. Nathaniel Edmond, Second Baptist Church, Elgin; Rev. Donald J. Frye (“married” to a man), rector, St. James Episcopal Church, West Dundee; Sulayman Hassan, Baitul Ilm Academy, Streamwood; Ed Hunter, chaplain, Presence Saint Joseph Hospital, Elgin; Margaret Frisch Klein, rabbi, Congregation Kneseth Israel, Elgin; Steven J. Peskind, rabbi and chaplain, Streamwood; Fred Rajan, reverend (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) and vice president, Office of Spiritual Care, Advocate Hospital; Karen Schlack, reverend, First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), Elgin; Jill Terpstra, reverend, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Kane County; Katie Shaw Thompson, pastor, Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren; Rev. Denise Tracy, president, Coalition of Elgin Religious Leaders President, Elgin; George Wadleigh, Christian Scientist; and Mark Weinert, pastor, First Christian Church, Elgin.

End-of-Year Challenge

As you may know, IFI has a year-end matching challenge to raise $160,000. That’s right, a great group of IFI supporters are colluding with us to provide an $80,000 matching challenge to help support IFI’s ongoing work to educate, motivate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.

Please consider helping us reach this goal!  Your donation will help us stand strong in 2018!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 876
Tinley Park, Illinois 60477

Hard to believe but another offense was just exposed in Illinois School District U-46, and ironically, CEO Tony Sanders inadvertently exposed it.

Last Thursday, September 29, CEO Tony Sanders released a statement regarding the controversy over his secret decision to allow a gender-dysphoric student to use a locker room and restroom designated for persons of the opposite sex. Here is an excerpt from that statement:

Earlier this school year, I agreed to provide access to one transgender student to the locker room and restroom based on that student’s gender identity….As I shared in a prior weekly message, we could have done a better job communicating the change….For the sake of transparency, I am sharing with you the guidelines  we have established to support transgender students.

The guidelines assure community members that “The District is committed to proactively address the needs and concerns of…gender expansive students.” (trigger warning: sarcasm coming) It’s hard to imagine that for almost 200 years public schools failed to address the concerns of “gender-expansive” students. What was wrong with those people?

On a cursory read, Sander’s statement may seem innocuous, maybe even positive in that Sanders admits his prior poor communication and lack of transparency. But spend a few moments cogitating on the implications of what he has implicitly acknowledged and admitted. They ain’t pretty.

In his statement Sanders shared that there is a gender-dysphoric student in the district who has been given permission to use an opposite-sex locker room and restroom, which is exactly what school board member Jeanette Ward communicated and was vilified for communicating.

Tony Sanders implicitly admitted that Jeanette Ward is the only school board member who did a good “job communicating the change.” She is the only board member who was transparent.

Because Sanders chose to conceal information to which parents have a right, Mrs. Ward posted this on Facebook on September 5:

Starting tomorrow, U-46 Administration is changing its practice concerning students’ access to locker rooms of the opposite sex. Students who identify as the opposite gender (regardless of biological sex) will be able to use the locker room that corresponds with the gender with which they identify, at the same time as other students. U-46 has opted not to inform parents or the community at large of this change. I am informing you. I encourage you to contact U-46 administration about this matter if you have concerns.

Mrs. Ward did not release the name of the student, the sex of the student, or the name of the school the student attends. She provided no identifying information. The only additional information she provided in a press interview was that the student attended a middle school. U-46 has eight middle schools that serve 5,827 students. Communicating that the student is one of almost 6,000 middle school students hardly constitutes identifiable information.

The day after Mrs. Ward’s post, Sanders, evidently feeling some heat, posted this defensive and dissembling post: “Did we notify families? No, we did not. Why? Because it would be a violation of state and federal laws that protect students from the release of personal information.”

Was Sanders intentionally trying to mislead the public by playing fast and loose with language? His statement seems to suggest without stating that the district was prohibited from sharing with the public the information contained in Mrs. Ward’s post. His statement seems to suggest that Mrs. Ward violated federal and state laws with her September 5 statement—a statement which mirrors his very own statement published 3 ½ weeks later on September 29.

Surely in the past 3 ½ weeks, Sanders knew the public thought he had said that Mrs. Ward had violated state and federal laws. He must have known that because “progressives” have been accusing her on social media and at school board meetings of doing so. And in the midst of this unseemly spate of false accusations, Sanders never once stepped in—as a person of integrity would have—to correct the public. Never once did Sanders clarify that Mrs. Ward had not released any information that violated federal or state law.

Please absorb this: Sanders has now implicitly admitted there is no federal or state law prohibiting Mrs. Ward from making the statement she did on September 5. He implicitly admitted it when he said the very same thing. And every board member who claimed that it was illegal for Mrs. Ward to share the general information she—and finally Sanders—shared has been lying. Either that or they have utterly inept legal counsel (i.e., Miguel Rodriguez, you know the school attorney who “liked” board member Traci O’Neal Ellis’ reference to the Republican National Convention as the “Klanvention.”) Either way, Mrs. Ward is owed an apology—many apologies.

Sanders said “we could have done a better job communicating the change.” Surely he jests. Does he think all of his community members just fell off the turnip truck?

Most of the board did no job “communicating the change.” And the only board member who in fact did do a “better job of communicating the change” has been treated like a pariah by four board members, Tony Sanders, and many community members.

Speaking of which, every community member who insulted and attacked Mrs. Ward on the Facebook pages “Connecting the Dots in U-46” and “School District U-46 Uncensored,” wrongly accusing her of violating laws and releasing private information owes her a public apology for saying what Sanders has just said.

Now that Sanders has inadvertently admitted that the board should have communicated the information Mrs. Ward communicated three weeks ago, perhaps Rebecca Vogt-Miller, Dana Michelle, and Sandy Achler Reeves who wrongly accused Mrs. Ward of violating state and federal laws will apologize to her.

Perhaps Reeves, who was not content merely to accuse Mrs. Ward of violating laws but also wanted to kick her in the gut, will apologize for this:

I want Mrs. Ward to think about this. What if this student decides to take their own life because of what YOU did? What about their family losing their child because YOU violated federal and state law?? Can YOU live with yourself? Mrs. Ward please resign because YOU don’t care about these kids.

Perhaps Phil Novello who called Mrs. Ward’s act of good communication and transparency “a blatant hateful act” will apologize.

And surely failed school board candidate Larry Bury will apologize for not only wrongly accusing Mrs. Ward of violating laws but also for penning this malignant accusation:

Monday evening will be the true test of character for the members of our U46 Board of Education.

…

Do they stand in support of state and federal law?
…

Or do they stand in support the ugliness being perpetrated on U46 by a certain Board member who is willing to destroy the life of a U46 student in the name of political self-promotion

A feckless CEO and four feckless board members stumble from one offense to another—all of their own making—leaving the community with more than ample justification and motivation to give the sorry four (also known as the gang who can’t shoot straight) the heave ho. Two of them, Donna Smith and Veronica Noland are up for re-election this coming April.

And maybe, just maybe some of the people who have bullied Mrs. Ward for doing exactly what Sanders has finally done will have the humility and integrity to apologize to her (mark your calendars for the 12^th of never).

There is another school board meeting this Monday night, October 3 at 7:00 p.m.  at 355 East Chicago Street in Elgin. Please try to attend and perhaps ask CEO Tony Sanders and board members Donna Smith, Susan Kerr, Traci O’Neal Ellis, and Veronica Noland how it is that Tony Sanders didn’t violate any laws for saying virtually the same thing Jeanette Ward said.

And then there remains that pesky problem of co-ed locker rooms and restrooms in U-46. Sanders likes to emphasize that only one student is currently using an opposite-sex locker room and restroom, but someone should ask the board what they will do when more gender-dysphoric and “gender-expansive” students ask to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms. And what will the board do when these students and their parents assert that privacy stalls and adult supervision are unjustly discriminatory, because that’s what’s a’comin’.

Please prayerfully consider how you can support
the work and ministry of IFI through a donation.

At Monday night’s board meeting in School District U-46 about the controversial and secret decision to permit a co-ed locker room for a gender-dysphoric middle school student, it is estimated that of the 53 people who spoke, 43 opposed the decision, while only 10 approved of it. Approximately 29 of the speakers who spoke against co-ed locker rooms were from within the district, while only 5 of the speakers who spoke in support of co-ed locker rooms were from within the district.

A close look at the comments of a senior student (referred to henceforth as student X) from Elgin High School who spoke (and was quoted in both the Daily Herald and Chicago Tribune) provides evidence of the ignorance and hubris of “progressive” teens who are the products of the ignorant and tyrannical anti-culture that pervades taxpayer-subsidized schools. Her comments encapsulated many of the flawed arguments Leftists use to defend co-ed restrooms and locker rooms.

Legal landscape

Student X began by incorrectly claiming that “transgender individuals are…by law allowed to use the bathroom or locker rooms that corresponds with their gender identity. Illinois provides nondiscrimination protections on the basis of both gender identity and sexual orientation”

There are no such federal or state laws. In fact, the Illinois Human Rights Act specifically states that “The Act permits schools to maintain single-sex facilities that are distinctly private in nature, e.g., restrooms and locker rooms.”

Unjust discrimination

Requiring restroom and locker room usage to correspond to biological sex is no more unjustly discriminatory than is requiring school showers to be sex-segregated—which U-46 and every other school district does.

By requiring the U-46 student at the center of the controversy to change in a privacy cubicle under the supervision of a staff member, the board is implicitly acknowledging that biological sex matters deeply. Parents who oppose gender-dysphoric students using opposite-sex locker rooms are saying the very same thing. They’re just applying the principle rationally.

If prohibiting gender-dysphoric students from using opposite-sex locker rooms is unjustly discriminatory, then why is requiring them to use a separate changing cubicle acceptable? And if prohibiting gender-dysphoric students to use opposite-sex locker rooms is unjustly discriminatory, why should they be prohibited from showering with opposite-sex students? That is, after all, what the ACLU is seeking for the gender-dysphoric student in District 211. The ACLU is seeking unrestricted access for gender-dysphoric students to opposite-sex locker rooms.

Suffering of gender-dysphoric persons

Student X then listed a litany of truly sad afflictions that plague the gender-dysphoric population, including high rates of physical and sexual assault, bullying, depression and suicidal ideation, all of which suggest that gender-dysphoria is profoundly disordered and that in some cases—perhaps many—the cause of gender dysphoria may be external (e.g., sexual assaults or other trauma)—rather than innate.

What student X did not explain is how co-ed locker rooms and restrooms would solve the many problems she listed. If her chief concern is ensuring that gender-dysphoric students are not bullied or assaulted in restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their sex, U-46 can provide them with access to single-occupancy restrooms.

But ensuring safety isn’t the chief goal of student X or “trans” activists. Their chief goal is compelling everyone to treat those who rebel against their sex as if they are in reality the sex they wish they were. But the desire and demand of gender-dysphoric persons to be treated as if they are the sex they are not does not supersede the rights of others to physical privacy. And despite what “progressives” claim, gender-dysphoric boys have no moral right to use girls’ facilities, and gender-dysphoric girls have no moral right to use boys’ facilities.

Safety

Student X finds fault with community concerns over student safety if gender-dysphoric students are allowed into opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms. Student X and others imply that prohibiting gender-dysphoric students from using opposite-sex facilities puts them at risk, but as already discussed, that is a a risk that can be eliminated by providing access to single-occupancy restrooms.

What student X and others ignore is that if Leftist locker room and restrooms policies are permitted, there remains no way to limit co-ed restrooms/locker rooms to gender-dysphoric students only. If the public is forced to accept the absurd idea that it is unjustly discriminatory to separate restrooms and locker rooms by sex, then there remains no rational argument for maintaining any sex-separated facilities. And the elimination of sex-separated restrooms and lockers rooms does, indeed, put girls at risk.

Biological sex, modesty, and privacy

But an equally or more important argument against co-ed restrooms and locker rooms pertains to the intrinsic meaning of biological sex from which feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy derive.

Girls and boys ought not see unrelated persons of the opposite-sex unclothed nor be seen unclothed by unrelated persons of the opposite sex. Boys and girls ought not engage in private bodily activities in the presence of unrelated persons of the opposite sex. The fact that some teens in our confused and corrupt culture have already lost their feelings of modesty and are comfortable changing clothes in the presence of unrelated opposite-sex students is no justification for government schools participating in the erosion of modesty.

Deception, gender dysphoria, and intersexuality

Student X concluded her comments by challenging the audience to guess her sex (I’m guessing female, hence my use of female pronouns). She was trying to make the point—and again, I’m guessing—that if a person’s sex is in some cases difficult to discern, biological sex is unimportant.

She reinforced her belief that it is impossible to discern the sex of some students by pointing out that gender-dysphoric students often disguise their sex through cross-dressing, cross-sex hormone-doping, and surgery. Apparently her point was that if humans can masquerade as the opposite sex so successfully that others are deceived, then biological sex has no intrinsic meaning. She was evidently suggesting that if, for example, a gender-dysphoric boy can through clothing, chemicals, and surgery successfully convince girls that he is objectively female, those actual girls have no right to physical privacy.

Student X also made this ludicrous statement: “Biology, psychology, sociology and any other science that has to address sex differences all support the idea that sex is a spectrum.” Student X declared imperiously that “Sex is a spectrum! Fact!”

Interestingly, she then cited intersex conditions—which are wholly different from gender dysphoria—as evidence for her claim. She specifically mentioned trisomy conditions in which children are born with extra chromosomes that result in a host of serious health problems including ambiguous genitalia, heart problems, and sterility.

In stark contrast, self-identified “trans” persons have no genetic anomalies. Therefore, with male or female brains that determine the release of male or female hormones, their bodies develop and function normally as males or females.

The problems of sexual development caused by missing or extra chromosomes are no more normal or good than are the sterility and heart problems caused by missing or extra chromosomes. These problems of sexual development are not proof of the existence of a sex-spectrum. Would student X argue that genetically caused blindness is evidence of a vision-spectrum?

Student X demanded that the board tell her how the school could possibly enforce single-sex bathroom and locker room policies: “How are you going to enforce that? Have students carry their birth certificate around? Require them to show you their genitals before entering? Put “F” or “M” on student I.D.s?”

In bygone years, decency, honesty, and respect for sexual differentiation existed and were sufficient to ensure widespread compliance with bathroom expectations.

Perhaps student X could explain how school administrators will ensure that only students who are gender-dysphoric will use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms?

What kind of proof will gender-dysphoric students be expected to provide to prove they are “trans”?

Which restrooms and locker rooms will “gender fluid” or “gender non-binary” students use?

And what about the estimated 70-88% of children with gender dysphoria who will come to accept their sex by adulthood? Should other children be forced to share restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex students who experience a temporary period of discomfort with their sex?

What should conservatives do?

The U-46 School Board has stated that it has no intention of revisiting the secretly adopted practice of allowing students who reject their biological sex to use opposite-sex private facilities—no matter how the community feels about this decision.

The majority on the board believe that inclusivity and compassion demand that girls and boys relinquish their privacy. Girls and boys who don’t want to share locker rooms or restrooms with students of the opposite sex must seek special accommodations from the anti-science ideologues who run the district. Girls who don’t want to change clothes near a boy in the girls’ locker room will have to move elsewhere—oh, yes, and be labelled hateful, exclusionary, discriminatory, heartless bigots.

“Progressive” and cowardly administrators respond to three things (none of which is reason):

1.) A huge public outcry: Administrators couldn’t care less if 2, 12, or 22 parents object to a practice, policy, activity, or resource. They care if 200, 300, or 400 parents object.

 2.) Bad PR: To be effective, press coverage of a controversial story needs to be extensive and sustained. Local press coverage is far less effective than national press coverage of a school controversy.

 3.) Lawsuits: Lawsuits are the Big Kahuna. Lawsuits speak with the loudest voice to school boards and administrations. Unfortunately, progressives are much more willing to sue school districts than are conservatives—particularly naïve Christians who think words of reason winsomely expressed will effect change. Conservatives need to disabuse themselves of that quaint and quixotic notion. The well-being of children is at stake. Leftists pursue their perverse goals for a more comprehensive sexual revolution with a fervor unmatched by conservatives. It’s time conservatives match Leftist fervor, boldness, tenacity, perseverance, and ingenuity. Parents of U-46 students should contact the Thomas More Society at (312) 782.1680 and pursue a lawsuit just as 50 families in District 211 are doing.

The Left wants to end the historical and commonsense practice of requiring that restrooms and locker rooms correspond to objective, immutable biological sex. Instead, Leftists want restrooms and locker rooms to correspond to subjective, unfixed, and unverifiable feelings about one’s sex. And the Left will not cease until the wobbly knees of every school administrator bow before this anti-science, anti-morality, anti-child ideology. If U-46 CEO Tony Sanders and board members Traci O’Neal Ellis and Veronica Noland think the privacy cubicle for gender-dysphoric students will long be tolerated by Leftists, they’re sorely mistaken.

District U-46 has an election coming up next April. Board president Donna Smith (who has served on the board for fifteen years) and board member Veronica Noland are up for reelection and need to be given the heave ho if for no other reason (and there are other reasons) than to establish balance and fair representation for a segment of the U-46 community that is currently underrepresented. Surely, in the second largest school district in the state, two fine conservatives can be found to give Smith and Noland a run for their money.

Remember, school board members need not have children enrolled in the district or even have children. In fact, of the current board members, only two have children enrolled in the district.

Signatures must be gathered and turned in by December 23, so get moving folks!

Finally, thank you to everyone who prayed for the U-46 School Board meeting on Monday evening, and a special thanks to those who attended and spoke.

Please prayerfully consider how you can support
the work and ministry of IFI through a donation.

A second article was needed to address adequately the problems exposed in Monday’s school board meeting in Illinois School District U-46 in which the decision to allow a middle school gender-dysphoric student to use an opposite-sex locker room and the decision of school CEO Tony Sanders’ to conceal that information from parents were debated.

It is important for taxpayers in every community to pay close attention to what is being done and said by leaders in U-46, because the serious issues regarding modesty, privacy, the meaning of biological sex, parental rights, and gender dysphoria will confront every community. And the arrogance, ignorance, and hypocrisy of “progressives” who are driving this destructive assault on truth and reality will need to be identified and boldly confronted.

Anti-discrimination policy bait and switch

Board member Traci O’Neal Ellis inadvertently let the cat out of the bag “progressives” furtively carry about and use to humiliate conservatives into silence and submission. But first some background is in order.

Any conservative who opposes the inclusion of “sexual orientation” (code word for homosexuality) or “gender identity” in anti-discrimination policies is routinely called hateful and falsely accused of either not caring about the bullying of homosexual and gender-dysphoric students or of actively supporting such bullying. School board member Jeanette Ward has been on the receiving end of such malignant and false accusations.

It is not a desire to harm students that leads conservatives to oppose the inclusion of conditions constituted by subjective feelings and volitional acts (as opposed to objective, non-behavioral conditions like race, sex, and national origin) in anti-discrimination policies. All decent people—and yes, the vast majority of conservative people are decent—oppose bullying of any person for any reason.

Rather, the reasons conservatives oppose the inclusion of these conditions in anti-discrimination policies are these:

1.)  It opens the door for other conditions similarly constituted to be added to anti-discrimination policies.

2.)  It inevitably leads to the erosion of religious liberty, as we are currently witnessing.

3.)  Such policies are later exploited for purposes perhaps intended but never mentioned. In other words, “progressives” use the old bait and switch stratagem, knowing that gullible or gutless conservatives will fall for it.

So, back to Ellis’ revelatory comments.

She referred to the district’s “existing anti-discrimination policy,” that she said “has not changed.” Well, she means it hasn’t changed since 2013 when it changed.

Ellis implied without stating that the non-changing, existing policy mandates that gender-dysphoric boys be allowed in girls’ locker rooms and vice versa. Is that how the addition of the term “gender identity” to school anti-discrimination policies is ever explained, promoted, or justified to community members?

In 2013 U-46’s School Board—which had exactly zero conservative representation—added “gender identity” to its anti-discrimination policy at the recommendation of school attorney Miguel Rodriguez. I can’t find in board minutes an account of the discussion that took place prior to the vote, so I wonder what arguments were put forth to defend the addition. Did school board members inform parents that this policy change was needed in order to ensure that gender-dysphoric boys would be allowed in the girls’ restrooms and locker rooms? Or was it promoted as an effective tool for curbing bullying? Did community members assume the policy change was made in order to prevent harassment and abuse only to see it now used to justify co-ed locker rooms?

Ironically, the footnotes in the board documents recommending the change—a change that Ellis now suggests  requires sex-integrated locker rooms—cites the Illinois Human Rights Act which states the exact opposite: “The Act permits schools to maintain single-sex facilities that are distinctly private in nature, e.g., restrooms and locker rooms.”

It’s important to note that the policy that was changed applies only to “educational and extracurricular opportunities”—not to bathroom and locker room usage. In addition, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 specifically states that schools may maintain sex-separated locker rooms and restrooms.

Ellis, the school board member who suggested that those who oppose co-ed locker rooms are exercising “authority without wisdom” and are “bruising” children, is the same board member who referred to the Republican National Convention as the “Klanvention” on her Facebook page.  Enquiring minds want to know if such a slur might erode the trust conservative community members have in her ability to honor her oath to “represent all school district constituents honestly and equally”?

Ellis concluded her school board statement Monday night with these hollow words:

And to our students, I offer this to you. If you are straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, gender non-conforming, queer, questioning, white, black, Latino, Asian, Native American, bi-racial, or any other racial, ethnic or national origin…if you score a perfect score on the SAT and are headed to Harvard, or you graduate dead last in your class, if you are able-bodied, or disabled, if you are low income or the child of the most affluent family in this district; if you have one, two, or no parents, if you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Scientologist, atheist, agnostic or of any other belief…however you show up in U-46, when you cross the threshold of a U-46 school, I welcome you. You are not “less than”. And because you are welcome here, that means that as a district, we have to work to meet your unique needs and well-being, while balancing others’ needs and well-being. In other words, we must exercise our authority with wisdom, in order to polish, not bruise you.

I wonder if Republican students who may have Republican parents believe those words.

And who “liked” Ellis’ “Klanvention” Facebook comment? None other than U-46 attorney Miguel Rodriguez, the person who recommended adding “gender identity” to school board policy.

Macro-aggressive government employees 

Although Bartlett High School English teacher Gary Lorber’s macro-aggressive conduct at the board meeting may have been unusual conduct for a teacher, his views are widely held by “progressive” teachers in government schools who self-righteously view themselves as “agents of change” and have assigned themselves the duty of shaping the moral and political views of other people’s children. In my experience, this kind of arrogant teacher is over-represented in English departments. They, like many on the U-46 school board, want government schools to have no conservative representation in leadership or teaching positions. One conservative member on a board of seven is one too many for the disciples of diversity.

Lorber’s intemperate treatment of Mrs. Ward, especially his maudlin concluding insult was both unprofessional and cruel. I hope you can find three minutes to watch this video of Lorber’s performance, but in case you can’t, here’s a bit of what he said to his board member, Mrs. Ward:

I do not know how you…have become…so hateful….I wonder what a little girl thinks of you when she looks into your eyes. I wonder what hatred you indoctrinated into her eyes when she looks into yours.

I have never seen a teacher so brazenly and perniciously attack his own school board member. If a conservative had said anything approaching this, he or she would be vilified as a hateful bully. No child of mine would ever sit in a classroom under the tutelage of a teacher so devoid of tolerance, respect, decorum, civility, and humility.

U-46 board policies state the following: “All District employees are expected to maintain high standards in their school relationships, to demonstrate integrity and honesty, to be considerate and cooperative and to maintain professional relationships.” When the board and administration review Mr. Lorber’s statement, do they hear the voice of a considerate, cooperative, and professional staff member?

“Fringe” political “hate” group 

Two speakers at Monday’s meeting alluded to Mrs. Ward’s support coming from a hate group. Rich Jacobs, “husband” of homosexual activist and Kane County judge John Dalton, referred to “fringe political groups known for hate and divisiveness,” and board member Veronica Noland referred to a group labeled a “hate group” by the (ethically dubious) Southern Poverty Law Center. Because of my keen powers of deduction, I suspect the allusions were to the Illinois Family Institute, and, therefore, some context is warranted. And I know from assertions made by multiple board members that the board takes pride in listening and learning from diverse voices (after which some members hurl epithets).

Since the Left loves them some yum yum southern impoverished law center putrescent potage, below are five articles about the SPLC. The first three detail my experiences with the infamous Mark Potok and his laughably named “Intelligence Report.” They reveal how deceitful and hapless Potok is and how bogus is his “hate groups” list:

“IFI Labeled Hate Group”

“When Will the Southern Poverty Law Center Stop Bullying?”

“The Morality Police at the Southern Poverty Law Center”

“The Church of Morris Dees” (originally published at Harper’s)

“The SPLC exposed – Southern Poverty Law Center – Morris Dees and hate crimes”

It is clear that some of the U-46 board and faculty members, like the SPLC, have redefined “hate” to include the expression of moral and ontological propositions with which they disagree. Perhaps these particular board and faculty members hate those with whom they disagree, but they ought not project their habits of mind onto others.

Most people are fully capable of deeply loving those who hold different beliefs and act in accordance with those beliefs. Most of us in this wildly diverse world do it every day. I wonder if these board and faculty members hurl the same ugly epithets at Muslim and Orthodox Jewish students and their parents who likely hold conservative views regarding co-ed restrooms and locker rooms?

Who really foments hatred?

Finally, I would argue that it is “progressives” who act and speak in destructive ways that foment hatred by relentlessly telling children and teens that those who believe that biological sex is profoundly meaningful hate those who reject their biological sex. That is a pernicious lie that undermines the possibility of dialogue with and relationships between people who hold different beliefs. Such a lie works against the purported goal of school boards everywhere to create and sustain diverse communities. By its nature, a diverse community will include those who hold diverse views, including on matters sexual. What “progressives” seek is a “diverse” community (and a “diverse” school board) in which everyone thinks just like them.

Here’s what “progressives” in their arrogance and self-righteousness refuse to acknowledge: Conservatives believe as strongly that “progressive” views on modesty, privacy, biological sex, and gender dysphoria are ignorant and destructive as “progressives” believe conservative views are.

Treating unreality as reality harms the entire U-46 community and undermines the very essence of education.

Last Call for IFI’s Faith, Family & Freedom Banquet

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

Don’t delay, act today!

(Please make sure to watch the linked video excerpts!)

So much to say about Monday night’s barn-burner of a school board meeting in Illinois School District U-46, so little time.

The meeting started at 7:00 p.m. By 6:00 p.m. the meeting room was filled to capacity, and attendees were sent to two upstairs overflow rooms to watch a livestream of the meeting. Approximately 58 visitors spoke, with 37 speaking in opposition to the school board’s decision to allow a student to use the locker room designated for persons of the opposite sex and to do so without telling U-46 parents of this decision. The remaining 21 spoke in favor of these decisions. In the overflow room where I was seated, pro-transparency/pro-single-sex facilities supporters vastly outnumbered anti-transparency/pro-co-ed supporters.

Accusations of hate flew during the lengthy meeting. Well, to be more accurate, accusations of hate flew from the Left to the Right as usual. Leftists accused those who reject Leftist assumptions about modesty, privacy, the meaning of biological sex, parental rights, and gender dysphoria of being hateful. Ad hominem epithets are infinitely easier to hurl than arguments are to make.

Some of the most obnoxious comments were expressed by school board member Veronica Noland, Rich Jacobs, and (my personal favorite) Bartlett High School English teacher (why am I not surprised) Gary Lorber.

Lorber is also the 1^st vice president of the local teachers union, the Elgin Teachers Association.

Lorber’s theatrical performance is a must-see, replete with fallacies of logic (e.g., ad hominem, appeal to ridicule, moral high ground, appeal to emotion, appeal to spite, bandwagon, and strawman). Lorber was shockingly unprofessional, referring to two of his own school board members as part of a “cast of cackling cronies.” His performance included repeated melodramatic proclamations that he will “be there,” wherever injustice—as he defines it—is to be found, and he presumptuously asserted that the students he is paid by taxpayers to teach English are his kids.

Rich Jacobs’ comments too were replete with fallacious reasoning, beginning with misrepresenting Jeanette Ward’s actions and then imputing ugly motives to her by accusing her of “intentionally fanning the flames of hatred.” Now that’s what I call “sickening” bullying.

Jacobs also stated that Mrs. Ward reached out to “fringe political groups known for their hate and divisiveness.” Some questions for Jacobs: What are the names of the “fringe political groups” to which he referred? What makes them “fringe”? What specifically constitutes hatred in Jacobs’ view? Is it the expression of moral and ontological assumptions with which he disagrees that constitutes hatred? Does he believe that love requires the affirmation of every desire, belief, and action held by others? Or is he the arbiter of which desires, beliefs, and actions must be affirmed in order to love others? How is the decision to allow gender-dysphoric students in opposite-sex locker rooms less divisive than opposing such a practice?

Jacobs is the “husband” of homosexual activist and Kane County judge, John Dalton. In 2011, Dalton was asked by the homosexual newspaper Windy City Times, “Are you active in the LGBT community?” Dalton responded, “I have for the last 20 years…worked, whenever the opportunity has presented itself, for equal rights. Some of the things I’ve done more recently include working with the School District U-46, which is the second largest school district in the state.”

Board member Veronica Noland, using Leftist language to convey Leftist dogma, referred to children whose “gender is not the same as the one assigned to them at birth.” News flash for Noland: No one is “assigned a gender” at birth. The objective sex of persons is identified at birth.

Noland implied wrongly that opponents of co-ed restrooms seek to force gender-dysphoric students into restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their sex. She either didn’t listen to all the speakers or dishonestly ignored their comments, because multiple speakers who oppose co-ed restrooms and locker rooms recommended a compromise of allowing gender-dysphoric students to use existing single-occupancy restrooms.

After claiming to listen to all stakeholders, Noland proceeded to call those who dissent from her ideology “narrow-minded fear mongers.” Nice to see how she “represents” the whole community

Not to worry, folks, in the service of representing “all children,” compassionate Noland will make special accommodations for those non-gender-dysphoric students who don’t want to share private acilities with the opposite sex. Objectively female children have Noland’s kind permission to exit the formerly all-girls locker room and change elsewhere, and objectively male children are similarly permitted to exit the formerly single-sex boys’ locker room and change elsewhere.

Perhaps the most arrogant and ironic statement came from school board member Traci O’Neal Ellis who began with this quote from Anne Bradstreet: “Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.” Ellis futilely attempted to suggest that allowing gender-dysphoric students into opposite-sex locker rooms and restrooms without informing parents constitutes exercising authority with wisdom, and that those who oppose such a decision are exercising authority devoid of wisdom and consequently are “bruising” children.

She further asserted that district policy that prohibits discrimination based on “gender identity” requires the district to allow gender-dysphoric students in opposite-sex private spaces. Such a claim flies in the face of the Illinois Human Rights Act which prohibits discrimination based on “gender identity” and says the following in its section on exemptions:

Nothing in this Article shall apply to: Facilities Distinctly Private. Any facility, as to discrimination based on sex, which is distinctly private in nature such as restrooms, shower rooms, bath houses, health clubs and other similar facilities for which the Department, in its rules and regulations, may grant exemptions based on bona fide considerations of public policy.

In addition Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 explicitly states that public schools may maintain separate restrooms and locker rooms for boys and girls.

For those who prefer not to listen to Ellis pontificate, the full text of her statement can be read by clicking here.

Here are some questions for the U-46 epithet-hurlers, including but not limited to Lorber, Jacobs, Ellis, and Noland:

1.) Why is it more hateful to believe that locker rooms and restrooms should correspond to objective sex than to believe that they should correspond to feelings about one’s sex?

2.) Do parents have an intrinsic right to know if their children will be sharing restrooms and locker rooms with persons of the opposite sex?

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

4.) Does objective biological sex per se have any meaning?

5.) Would you object to gender-dysphoric students changing clothes out in the open areas of a locker room designated for persons of the opposite sex?

6.) Would you object to a gender-dysphoric student showering in the locker rooms designated for persons of the opposite sex if those students didn’t object? If so, why would you object?

7.) Since U-46 believes that existing anti-discrimination policy requires the district to allow “trans” students to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms, may “cisgender” students use opposite-sex facilities as well? Wouldn’t prohibiting “cis boys” from using girls’ facilities constitute discrimination based on “gender identity”?

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

9.) Does the district have any Muslim or Orthodox Jewish students? If so, does the district know how these students and their parents view co-ed restrooms?

10.) Some supporters of sex-integrated restrooms and locker rooms object to the term “co-ed.” How many gender-dysphoric boys must be allowed in a girls’ locker room (or vice versa) before it can be called a “co-ed” locker room? 1, 2, 5?

11.) Will gender-dysphoric students be required to use opposite-sex facilities?

12.) What are the restroom and locker rooms practices with regard to “gender fluid” students?

Who has a “personal agenda”?

While “progressive” U-46 board members routinely promote and implement their subjective assumptions about modesty, privacy, parental rights, the meaning of biological sex, and gender dysphoria through practices and policies, they accuse those who dissent from their views of promoting a “personal agenda.” Hmmm…Curiouser and curiouser.

Long-Range Leftist Plan

Some find solace in the delusion that U-46 will continue the current practice of providing overseers who  stand near the private changing area when the gender-dysphoric student is using it. How charmingly naïve–or ill-informed.

The Left will allow no such accommodation to long remain. During this transitional period (pun noticed but not intended), cunning Leftists will allow privacy curtains. But not for long. They will continue their quest for total societal capitulation to their make-believe world. They will not stop demanding that everyone treat gender-dysphoric persons as if they are, in reality, the sex they wish they were. In the Orwellian world of Leftists, who insist even on controlling speech through force of law if necessary, there will be no long-term compromise. Resistance—so they believe—is futile.

Unless conservatives act with tenacity and boldness, there will be no separate changing areas for students who reject their sex. Everyone will be compelled to join them in their delusional, immodest world. Boys will have unrestricted access to girls’ facilities and vice versa. Everyone will be forced to refer to delusional boys by pronouns that correspond to and denote those who are objectively female. You see, it’s harder for gender-dysphoric boys and men to maintain their delusion when people keep using those darn correct pronouns.

It’s only a matter of time before Leftists tear down those walls segregating boys from girls, because the ultimate goal is “dismantling the gender binary.” Leftist ideologues have “deconstructed” marriage, and now they seek to “deconstruct” human nature. It’s quite a remarkable feat to delude hordes of sheeple or coerce them into pretending that the naked Emperor is actually an Empress wearing a dress. But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not the first time in history that tyrants have managed to delude or coerce masses of sheeple into acquiescing to lies.

Rights

Not one Leftist responded to the idea expressed multiple times during the meeting that students are entitled to physical privacy when engaged in intimate bodily activities. Moreover, they also conveniently avoided saying that students have no such rights.

Harm

While many Leftists took umbrage at any suggestion that any gender-dysphoric student might ever engage in harassing or abusive behavior toward an opposite-sex student in a locker room, they studiously avoid discussions of what constitutes harm. Is harm only constituted by physical assault, or might harm include being seen partially unclothed by persons of the opposite sex? Might harm include the erosion of modesty? Some speakers last night shared that their children and others find nothing objectionable about sharing private spaces with opposite-sex persons. Is that a good thing, or is it an indication that harm has already been done?

“Progressives” routinely exploit children to advance their perverse, morally relativistic, culturally oppressive, anti-science agenda. Leftist adults caterwaul that any public expression of views they don’t like about what constitutes the good for children who suffer from gender dysphoria harms those children. In truth, it is “progressives” who harm confused and suffering children, first by affirming disordered thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and then by using those children as human shields to silence dissent.

Love vs. hate

U-46 “progressives” seem to believe that love, respect, and support necessitate affirming whatever each individual believes, feels, and chooses to do. Conservatives, in contrast, believe that love, respect, and support necessitate knowing and affirming what is true, which often entails disapproval of the beliefs, desires, and volitional acts of others. The two worldviews are irreconcilable. Ironically, “progressives” don’t apply their principles consistently. Not only do they not affirm the beliefs, feelings, and actions of conservatives with regard to modesty, privacy, the meaning of objective biological sex, parental rights, and gender dysphoria, but they also call conservatives ugly names.

Equality, empathy, compassion, inclusivity, diversity, tolerance, and liberty

U-46 “progressives” referenced equality, but commitments to equality demand that society treat like things alike. Boys and girls are by definition different. Even homosexuals implicitly acknowledge that reality when they say they are romantically and erotically attracted only to persons of the same sex. It is not hateful to acknowledge and respect those differences—which include meaningful bodily differences—in private spaces.

During the meeting “progressives” talked about empathy, compassion, and inclusivity, implying that these admirable qualities require boys and girls to share private spaces with persons of the opposite sex. And this illuminates one of the many problems with these subversive practices and policies: They teach all children  that in order to be empathic, compassionate, and inclusive, they must be willing to relinquish their privacy.

Those who once claimed to value diversity, tolerance, and liberty have become bitter Orwellian control-freaks. Welcome to Oceania.

Please Prayerfully consider how you can support
the work and ministry of IFI through a donation.