The Left Has Chosen Open Rebellion to Science

Written by Peter Heck

Pro tip: If you’re promoting the embarrassing pseudoscience of transgenderism, you’re an enemy not advocate of science.

It’s a fascinating spectacle to behold. On Monday of this week I wrote a piece defending the Christian conception of a much younger Earth than what modern scientists relying on a number of unproven assumptions propose. Though the target audience for that piece was Bible-believing Christians, it was widely panned by agnostic skeptics and non-theist scoffers who are all-in on the Darwinian faith and its requisite “millions of years” conception of Earth history.

That’s okay with me, and honestly to be expected. But you’ll have to excuse me when I snicker at the same voices, virulently attacking me for my betrayal of “science,” simultaneously promote the embarrassing pseudoscience of transgenderism. Please, for the sake of your own reputation, don’t appeal to the efficacy of science when retweeting this anti-science howler from the New York Times:

“The idea that a person’s sex is determined by their anatomy at birth is not true, and we’ve known that it’s not true for decades.”

The degree to which liberal progressives are willing to beclown themselves over something so objectively, scientifically clear is remarkable. Take Hollywood activist George Takei. His abuse of science is exceeded only by his desperate political crusading:

“The Trump administration is trying to make Trans people disappear by defining gender as only male and female, determined by genitalia at birth. This is an egregious, callous attack on the LGBT community. Send a clear message on Nov 6th that there is no place for hate in America.”

This is just shockingly irrational. What the administration is prepared to do is correcting the confused, politically-motivated nonsense the Obama administration committed in muddling federal definitions of sex and gender as part of a pandering campaign. The Times explained it, albeit in their characteristically slanted manner:

A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. The policy prompted fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.

Now the Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.

Did you catch that? The administration is seeking to establish a logical, objective, rational legal definition of sex for programs falling under Title IX. George Takei’s politics notwithstanding, sex is only male and female, determined by genitalia at birth. Anyone who denies this, denies science.

And despite the hysteria, which again, is all generated for political purposes, this move would not make transgender people “disappear.” That is unless you believe that transgender people only “appeared” when the Obama administration meddled with Title IX to raise campaign funds from LGBT activists.

Having compassion towards people who are confused about their sexual identity is noble and good. It’s a hallmark of a moral society. But compassion never includes denying scientific reality or facilitating delusion for the sake of political profit. That is what the Obama administration egregiously and callously did. Correcting their error and restoring scientific sanity isn’t lacking in compassion, it’s embodying it.

This article originally posted at TheMaven.net

Trump Administration Stands for Biological Reality and Sexual Sanity

The New York Times reached a new low in silliness, ignorance, and alarmism—or would that be new high—with this headline on Sunday: “‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration.” What this silly, ignorant, alarmist headline is referring to is the Trump Administration’s reasonable and increasingly necessary decision to make clear that when Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 refers to “sex,” it meant and still means biological sex. Ever-cunning, slippery-as-eels “progressives” at the NYTimes said this:

The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.

A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. The policy prompted fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.

…

The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

Do you see the cunning rhetorical slipperiness? In the good old days when everyone acknowledged the difference between girls and boys, and women and men, “sex” and “gender” were used interchangeably. But no more. “Progressives” relentlessly pontificate that “sex” and “gender” denote wholly different ontological realities, and yet, in this article, the authors keep slipping between the two definitions.

According to “trans” activists and their “progressive” disciples, “sex” refers to an objective, immutable biological reality determined by genes and revealed in anatomy and reproductive processes—pretty much the same as the Trump Administration is proposing to do. In contrast, in our brave new sexually ambiguous, socially constructed, phantasmagorical world, Leftists preach that “gender” denotes the socially constructed roles, conventions, behaviors, and expectations arbitrarily associated with males and females. “Gender identity” denotes the subjective, internal feelings one has about one’s maleness or femaleness, some combination thereof, or rejection of both.

The NYTimes falsely claimed that the Obama Administration “loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth.”

First, a baby’s sex is not assigned at birth. A baby’s sex—which never changes—is identified at birth.

Second, the Obama Administration did not loosen the legal concept of “gender.” The Obama Administration attempted to circumvent Federal law by redefining the term “sex” by edict, proclaiming that in Title IX the term “sex” includes the subjective, internal, non-material experience referred to as “gender identity.” It is long past time that this brazen usurpation of legislative authority be administratively refuted.

Obama’s presumptuous “gender identity” edicts to multiple government agencies, including the departments of Education, Justice, and Housing and Urban Development; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and General Administration Services, are based on the subjective beliefs of “progressives” that biological sex has no meaning or importance relative to feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy that derive from sexual differentiation.

These edicts are based on the non-factual, quasi-religious belief that in private spaces shared by persons unrelated by blood or marriage—including strangers—subjective feelings about one’s maleness or femaleness should supersede objective, immutable biological sex. No explanation is ever provided, however, as to why exactly subjective feelings should trump objective biological sex in determining private space-usage policies.

And these edicts depend on the incoherent belief that, while it’s reasonable and legitimate for women to oppose performing bodily functions or undressing in the near vicinity of objectively male strangers, it’s not reasonable or legitimate for women to oppose performing bodily functions or undressing in the near vicinity of male strangers who seek to pass as women.

Leftists argue that the disguises of some passers are so convincing that their presence in the private spaces of same-sex persons will be disturbing. They’re right. If, for example, a woman has transformed her appearance through body-mutilating surgery, cross-sex-hormone-doping and cross-dressing, her presence in women’s facilities will be disturbing. But this raises several issues:

1.) It is a tacit acknowledgement by Leftists that biological sex matters. They base their justification of the use of opposite-sex facilities by “trans”-identifying men and women on their appearance as the sex they wish they were. So, if a man has used surgery and chemicals to create the verisimilitude of a female body, he believes his superficial, medically-constructed material self matters. But if women think biological sex as revealed in unaltered bodily materiality matters and, therefore, don’t want persons who are objectively male in their private spaces, they are deemed hateful, exclusionary, bigoted “transphobes.”

2.) At the same time, arguing that elaborate disguises should grant passers access to opposite-sex private spaces reinforces the very gender stereotypes “progressives” claim are arbitrary and socially constructed. While arguing out of one side of their mouths that “gender” is an arbitrary social construct, they argue out of the other side that these arbitrary social constructs (e.g., liking stereotypical female activities and wearing dresses) are definitive signs of essential femaleness that should grant them carte blanche access to women’s private spaces.

3.) Passing raises the question of whether deceit justifies or legitimizes unethical behavior. In other words, if it’s legitimate, reasonable, and justifiable for men and women to oppose changing clothes or performing bodily functions in the near vicinity of opposite-sex strangers, does disguising one’s biological sex through dress, chemicals, and/or surgery make invasion of someone else’s privacy legitimate, reasonable, and justifiable? If so, is voyeurism ethically justifiable so long as no one knows it’s happening? To be clear, I’m not equating voyeurism to sexual passing. Rather, I’m suggesting that if concealing one’s sex justifies otherwise unethical invasion of privacy, does concealing one’s presence justify otherwise unethical peeping?

4.) Finally, the problem of which facilities passers in really convincing disguises should use is a problem of the Left’s making. It is they who are attempting to socially construct a bizarre alternate reality that pretends the human species is not sexually dimorphic and that men’s and women’s non-material essences can be trapped in opposite-sex bodies. It is they who then exploit the government to try to impose this unreality on everyone, falsely claiming that the sexual integration of private spaces is required by commitments to equality, inclusivity, and compassion. (One foolish devotee of the “trans” superstition recently told me that equality demands that “transwomen” be treated exactly like women. She means that men who pretend to be women should be treated exactly like women, which is the inverse of what equality demands. Equality demands that like things be treated alike.)

Back to the title “‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration.” In case the writers haven’t noticed, it was Obama and his accomplices who tried to define “sex” out of existence in Title IX. In making explicit that Title IX says nothing about either “transgender” or “gender identity,” the Trump Administration does not define out of existence persons who choose to identify as “trans.” What it does is make clear that the term “sex” refers to, denotes, and corresponds to objective, immutable biological sex. Only a leftist could believe that phenomena that have objective existence can be “defined out of existence”—you know, like claiming “women can have penises” or that “transwomen are women.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Trump-Administration-Stands-for-Biological-Reality-and-Sexual-Sanity.mp3

55 Members of American Academy of Pediatrics Devise Destructive “Trans” Policy

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Stuff You Should Know About “Trans”-Cultism

Despite a lack of evidence proving the safety and efficacy of chemical and surgical interventions and social “transitioning” for those who experience gender dysphoria, “progressives” plow forward mutilating the healthy bodies and manipulating the psychology of children who feel they are or wish they were the sex they are not.

The science-denying, incoherent “trans” ideology affects all of society. The end game for “trans” activists and others in cultic thrall to this superstition is not access for a few boys and girls or men and women to opposite-sex private spaces and sports. The end game is the eradication of all public recognition of sex differences everywhere for everyone. Think about what that means:

It means children will be raised under the delusion that their anatomy signifies nothing. All that matters is “gender identity.” It means society will tell them that no one—not doctors, parents, or anyone else—knows if they’re male or female.

It means putting at risk the psychological welfare of students, particularly younger students and those already struggling with other issues, including autism; depression; anxiety; body dysmorphia; eating disorders; OCD; and the effects of molestation, family dysfunction, and bullying. Introducing the “trans” ideology, which teaches the disordered nonsense that a boy can be a girl or vice versa, to at-risk children will confuse and disturb them and will provide a distorted lens through which they may misinterpret their experiences.

It means that we must all pretend that humans with congenital penises and fake breasts sashaying through our women’s locker rooms in the altogether are women. (Many who identify as “trans” don’t believe surgery is necessary to pass as the opposite sex, which is why you’ll hear terms like “chestfeeding men” or claims like “women can have penises.”)

It means that at public pools, beaches, and parks, our children will see topless women who pretend to be men but opt to keep their breasts.

It means that men’s roommates in semi-private hospital rooms may be biological women. And it means women who seek sanctuary from abusive boyfriends and husbands in shelters may be forced to share rooms or private facilities with biological men.

It means many of us will lose jobs if we refuse to refer to colleagues by incorrect pronouns, which is to say, if we refuse to lie.

It means that our taxes will continue to subsidize the indoctrination of children with the “trans” ideology through government schools

And it means the sterilization and mutilation of the healthy bodies of children.

Since the “trans” ideology is metastasizing throughout the sinews of American life—including our schools—all stakeholders must understand the “trans” orthodoxy better. In previous articles, I provided questions that anyone who affirms the “trans” ideology should be asked.[1] In this article, I provide information of which many are unaware, that may be useful to anyone opposing co-ed private spaces in schools, and that should make society reevaluate the barbaric path we’re treading:

At birth, doctors identify the sex of babies. They do not assign them a “gender.” A person’s sex can never change. Biological sex is not a disorder, illness, deficiency, shortcoming, or error. Scientists and other medical professionals have recognized that biological sex is a neutral, objective, and immutable fact of human nature. Likewise, puberty is neither a disease nor a disorder.

There is no conclusive, research-based evidence proving that if there is incongruence between one’s objective, immutable, biological sex (and its attendant healthy, normally functioning anatomy and physiology) and one’s subjective, internal sense of being male or female that the problem resides in the body rather than the mind.

The article “Hormone Therapy for the Treatment of Gender Dysphoria” in the May 19, 2014 issue of the highly respected Hayes Directory reports that the use of hormones and surgery to treat gender dysphoria in adults is based on “very low quality of evidence” and that the use of hormones and surgery to treat gender dysphoria in children and adolescents has no evidence base.[2]

There are health risks and complications attendant to the use of puberty-suppressing drugs. Boys whose puberty is suppressed will have micro-penises which present surgical problems if they should one day seek vaginoplasty (i.e., there isn’t enough skin to turn into “vaginas,” so more complicated and risky procedures must be used). The health risks of the off-label use of puberty-blockers for the treatment of gender-dysphoria include the arrest of bone growth, decrease in bone density, the “prevention of sex-steroid-dependent organization and maturation of the adolescent brain, and the inhibition of fertility by preventing the development of gonadal tissue and mature gametes for the duration of treatment.”

“There is an obvious self-fulfilling nature to encouraging a young boy with GD to socially impersonate a girl and then institute pubertal suppression. Given the well-established phenomenon of neuroplasticity, the repeated behavior of impersonating a girl alters the structure and function of the boy’s brain in some way—potentially in a way that will make identity alignment with his biologic sex less likely. This, together with the suppression of puberty that prevents further endogenous masculinization of his brain, causes him to remain a gender non-conforming prepubertal boy disguised as a prepubertal girl.”[3]

Some of the effects of the off-label use of cross-sex hormones are permanent and long-term risks are unknown:

– Sterility and voice changes are permanent for both men and women.

–An interagency statement published by the World Health Organization states that “sterilization should only be provided with the full, free and informed consent of the individual” and that “sterilization refers not just to interventions where the intention is to limit fertility… but also to situations where loss of fertility is a secondary outcome…. Sterilization without full, free and informed consent has been variously described by international, regional and national human rights bodies as an involuntary, coercive and/or forced practice, and as a violation of fundamental human rights, including the right to health, the right to information, the right to privacy.”[4] Since parents or guardians must provide consent for hormonal interventions, and since parents are not being made aware of the experimental nature of the off-label use of hormones for the treatment of gender dysphoria, or of the fact that most children with gender dysphoria outgrow it by late adolescence if otherwise supported through natural puberty, parents and guardians are unable to provide fully informed.

–For biologically healthy men who take estrogen to treat their subjective, internal feelings about their sex, there is an “increased risk of liver disease, increased risk of blood clots (risk of death or permanent damage), increased risk of diabetes and of headaches/migraines, heart disease, increased risk of gallstones, and increased risk of noncancerous tumour of the pituitary gland.”[5] Breast tissue growth in men who take estrogen is permanent.

–For biologically healthy women who take testosterone to treat their subjective, internal feelings about their sex, there is an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and possibly of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, or uterine cancer. Taking testosterone can have a “destabilizing effect” on “bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, and schizophrenia.”[6] “Male”-pattern baldness and body and facial hair growth in women who take testosterone are permanent.

Surgery (e.g., mastectomy, orchiectomy [i.e., castration]) is irreversible.

Men who choose penile inversion vaginoplasty are castrated and their penises inverted to fashion a fake vagina (aka “neo-vagina”). For the rest of their lives, surgeons recommend that they use vaginal dilators once a week. Since the skin of fake vaginas is not vaginal tissue, men must also douche 2-3 times per week for the rest of their lives.

Some men are unable to have inversion vaginoplasty. For example, because 18-year-old boy and reality TV star Jazz Jennings, who was recently castrated, started puberty blockers so young, his penis was the size of a prepubertal boy’s penis, and, therefore, too small to provide enough skin for a fake vagina. In these cases, skin from the colon or small bowel is used:

This technique… is naturally self-lubricating…. Since the secretion is digestive there is a risk of malodor and frequent secretions, and secretions are constant rather than only with arousal. Wearing panty liners or pads may be necessary for the long term. Bacterial overgrowth (diversion colitis) is common and may present with a greenish discharge…. The bowel lining is also not as durable as skin. Use of intestinal tissue also places the vagina at risk of diseases of the bowel including inflammatory bowel disease, arterio-venous malformations (AVM) or neoplasms [i.e., abnormal growths].[7]

The Christian Medical and Dental Association “believes that prescribing hormonal treatments to children or adolescents to disrupt normal sexual development for the purpose of gender reassignment is ethically impermissible, whether requested by the child or the parent.”[8]

The Catholic Medical Association (CMA) “urges health care professionals to adhere to genetic science and sexual complementarity over ideology in the treatment of gender dysphoria (GD) in children. This includes especially avoiding puberty suppression and the use of cross-sex hormones in children with GD. One’s sex is not a social construct, but an unchangeable biological reality.”[9]

Neuroscientist, professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Teenage Brain, Dr. Frances Jensen, explains that,

Teenagers do have frontal lobes, which are the seat of our executive, adult-like functioning like impulse control, judgment and empathy. But the frontal lobes haven’t been connected with fast-acting connections yet…. But there is another part of the brain that is fully active in adolescents, and that’s the limbic system. And that is the seat of risk, reward, impulsivity, sexual behavior and emotion. So they are built to be novelty-seeking at this point in their lives. Their frontal lobe isn’t able to say, “That’s a bad idea, don’t do that.” That’s not happening to the extent it will in adulthood.

The oft-cited suicide rate of 41% for those who identify as “trans” is based on an erroneous understanding of a study by the Williams Institute—an understanding that ignores the acknowledged and serious limitations of the study.[10] There is no evidence that surgery or chemical disruption of normal, natural and healthy development or processes reduces the incidence of suicide.[11] J. Michael Bailey, Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University, and Dr. Raymond Blanchard, former psychologist in the Adult Gender Identity Clinic of Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) from 1980–1995 and the Head of CAMH’s Clinical Sexology Services from 1995–2010, have written the following[12]:

–Children (most commonly, adolescents) who threaten to commit suicide rarely do so, although they are more likely to kill themselves than children who do not threaten suicide.

–Mental health problems, including suicide, are associated with some forms of gender dysphoria. But suicide is rare even among gender dysphoric persons.

–There is no persuasive evidence that gender transition reduces gender dysphoric children’s likelihood of killing themselves.

–The idea that mental health problems–including suicidality–are caused by gender dysphoria rather than the other way around (i.e., mental health and personality issues cause a vulnerability to experience gender dysphoria) is currently popular and politically correct. It is, however, unproven and as likely to be false as true.

There is no phenomenon of women trapped in men’s bodies or vice versa, or of men having women’s brains or vice versa. Science has not proven that the brains of transgender individuals are “wired differently” than others with the same biological sex. In other words, there is no conclusive evidence of a “female brain” being contained in a male body or vice versa.[13] In fact, it is impossible for an opposite-sexed brain to be “trapped” in the wrong body. Every brain cell of a male fetus has a Y chromosome; female fetal brains do not. This makes their brains intrinsically different. Additionally, at 8 weeks gestation, male fetuses have every cell of their body—including every brain cell—bathed by a testosterone surge secreted by their testes. Female fetuses lack testes; none of their cells—including their brain cells—experience this endogenous testosterone surge.

“[C]urrent studies on associations between brain structure and transgender identity are small, methodologically limited, inconclusive, and sometimes Even if they were more methodologically reliable, they would be insufficient to demonstrate that brain structure is a cause, rather than an effect, of the gender-identity behavior. They would likewise lack predictive power, the real challenge for any theory in science.”[14]

Desistance is “the tendency for gender dysphoria to resolve itself as a child gets older and older.”[15] The best research to date suggests that without social or medical “transition” most (60[16]-90%[17]) gender-dysphoric children will come to accept their biological sex after passing naturally through puberty. [18] While “12- 27% of ‘gender variant’ children persist in gender dysphoria; that percentage rises to 40% amongst those who visit gender clinics.” Research shows that persistence rates rise significantly among those who are given puberty-blockers and “gender-affirmative psychotherapy,” thus suggesting that such interventions lead minors “to commit more strongly to sex reassignment than they might have if they had received a different diagnosis or a different course of treatment.”[19]

Detransitioning is the process by which someone who has been identifying as the opposite sex, presenting himself or herself as the opposite sex, taking cross-sex hormones, and possibly had surgery rejects his or her “trans” identity and accepts his or her objective, immutable biological sex. The American College of Pediatricians confirms what “detransitioners” assert: There are many possible post-natal, environmental causes for gender dysphoria: Family and peer relationships, one’s school and neighborhood, the experience of any form of abuse, media exposure, chronic illness, war, and natural disasters are all examples of environmental factors that impact an individual’s emotional, social, and psychological development.[20]

“Mounting evidence over the last decade points to increased rates of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and autism traits among children and adults with gender dysphoria…. It is possible that some of the psychological characteristics common in children with ASD—including cognitive deficits, tendencies toward obsessive preoccupations, or difficulties learning from other people—complicate the formation of gender identity.”[21] A study published in May 2018 “further confirmed a possible association between ASD and the wish to be of the opposite gender by establishing increased endorsement of this wish in adolescents and adults with ASD compared to the general population controls.”[22]

J. Michael Bailey and Dr. Raymond Blanchard explain the phenomenon of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD):

The typical case of ROGD involves an adolescent or young adult female whose social world outside the family glorifies transgender phenomena and exaggerates their prevalence. Furthermore, it likely includes a heavy dose of internet involvement. The adolescent female acquires the conviction that she is transgender. (Not uncommonly, others in her peer group acquire the same conviction.) These peer groups encouraged each other to believe that all unhappiness, anxiety, and life problems are likely due to their being transgender, and that gender transition is the only solution. Subsequently, there may be a rush towards gender transition…. We believe that ROGD is a socially contagious phenomenon in which a young person–typically a natal female–comes to believe that she has a condition that she does not have. ROGD is not about discovering gender dysphoria that was there all along; rather, it is about falsely coming to believe that one’s problems have been due to gender dysphoria previously hidden (from the self and others). Let us be clear: People with ROGD do have a kind of gender dysphoria, but it is gender dysphoria due to persuasion of those especially vulnerable to a false idea.[23]

Brown University Researcher Dr. Lisa Littman conducted a survey of parents whose children developed Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. Littman writes,

In recent years, a number of parents have been reporting in online discussion groups… that their adolescent and young adult (AYA) children, who have had no histories of childhood gender identity issues, experienced a rapid onset of gender dysphoria. Parents have described clusters of gender dysphoria outbreaks occurring in pre-existing friend groups with multiple or even all members of a friend group becoming gender dysphoric and transgender-identified in a pattern that seems statistically unlikely based on previous research. Parents describe a process of immersion in social media, such as “binge-watching” Youtube transition videos and excessive use of Tumblr, immediately preceding their child becoming gender dysphoric. These descriptions… raise the question of whether social influences may be contributing to or even driving these occurrences of gender dysphoria in some populations of adolescents and young adults…. The worsening of mental well-being and parent-child relationships and behaviors that isolate teens from their parents, families, non-transgender friends and mainstream sources of information are particularly concerning. More research is needed to better understand rapid-onset gender dysphoria, its implications, and scope.”[24]

The number of children “being referred for transitioning treatment” in England has increased 4,400% for girls and 1,250% for boys, which has resulted in calls from members of Parliament for an investigation.[25]

Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) shares several features with gender dysphoria. BIID is a condition in which “Sufferers… experience a mismatch between their physically healthy body and the body with which they identify. They identify as disabled. They often desire a specific amputation to achieve the disabled body they want.”[26] As with some cases of gender dysphoria, scientists say there is evidence for neurological involvement as a cause of the experience of BIID,[27] and yet physicians largely oppose elective amputations of healthy anatomical parts:

According to the principle of nonmaleficence physicians must not perform amputations without a medical indication because amputations bear great risks and often have severe consequences besides the disability…. for example, infections [or] thromboses. Even though some physicians perform harmful surgeries as breast enlargement surgeries, this cannot justify surgeries that are even more harmful. Even if amputations would be a possible therapy for BIID, they would be risky experimental therapies that could be justified only if they promised lifesaving or the cure of severe diseases and if an alternative therapy would not be available. At least the first condition is not fulfilled in the case of BIID, and probably the second is not fulfilled either. Above all, an amputation causes an irreversible damage that could not be healed, even if the patient’s body image would be restored spontaneously or through a new therapy…. But since all psychiatrists who have investigated BIID patients found that the amputation desire is either obsessive or based on a monothematic delusion, and since neurological studies support the hypothesis of a brain disorder (which is also supported by the most influential advocates of elective amputations), elective amputations have to be regarded as severe bodily injuries of patients.[28]

The American College of Pediatricians, “a national medical association of licensed physicians and healthcare professionals who specialize in the care of infants, children, and adolescents” and that split from the American Academy of Pediatrics because of its politicization of the practice of medicine, describes puberty-suppression, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries variously referred to as sex-change, sex reassignment, gender reassignment and gender confirmation surgeries as child abuse.”

Lisa Simons, pediatrician at Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, stated in a PBS Frontline documentary that “‘The bottom line is we don’t really know how sex hormones impact any adolescent’s brain development….’ What’s lacking, she said, are specific studies that look at the neurocognitive effects of puberty blockers.” [29]

Kenneth Zucker, one of the world’s leading authorities on gender dysphoria, states that,

Identity is a process. It is complicated. It takes a long period of time… to know who a child really is…. There are different pathways that can lead to gender dysphoria…. It’s an intellectual and clinical mistake to think that there’s one single cause that explains all gender dysphoria…. Just because little kids say something doesn’t necessarily mean that you accept it, or that it’s true, or that it’s in the best interest of the child…. Little kids can present with extreme gender dysphoria, but that doesn’t mean they’re all going to grow up to continue to have gender dysphoria.[30]

Eric Vilain, a geneticist at UCLA who specializes in sexual development and sex differences in the brain, says the studies on twins are mixed and that, on the whole, “there is no evidence of a biological influence on transsexualism yet.”[31]

Sheila Jeffreys, lesbian feminist scholar, warns against the “transgendering” of children: “Those who do not conform to correct gender stereotypes are being sterilized and they’re being sterilized as children.”[32]

Heather Brunskell-Evans, social theorist, philosopher, and Senior Research Fellow at King’s College, London, UK, and Michele Moore, Professor of Inclusive Education and Editor-in-Chief of the world-leading journal Disability & Society, critique the “transgender” ideology:

[O]ur central contention is that transgender children don’t exist. Although we argue that ‘the transgender child’ is a fabrication, we do not disavow that some children and adolescents experience gender dysphoria and that concerned and loving parents will do anything to alleviate their children’s distress. It is because of children’s bodily discomfort that we argue it is important families and support services are informed by appropriate models for understanding gender. Our analysis of transgenderism demonstrates it is a new phenomenon, since dissatisfaction with assigned gender takes different forms in different historical contexts. The ‘transgender child’ is a relatively new historical figure, brought into being by a coalition of pressure groups, political activists and knowledge makers…. Bizarrely, in transgender theory, biology is said to be a social construct but gender is regarded as an inherent property located ‘somewhere’ in the brain or soul or other undefined area of the body. We reverse these propositions with the concept that it is gender, not biology, which is a social construct. From our theoretical perspective, the sexed body is material and biological, and gender is the externally imposed set of norms that prescribe and proscribe desirable behaviours for children. Our objection to transgenderism is that it confines children to traditional views about gender.[33]

Stephanie Davies-Arias, writer, communication skills expert, and pediatric transition critic, writes that “changing your sex to match your ‘gender identity’ reinforces the very stereotypes which [transgender] organisations claim to be challenging… as, in increasing numbers, boys who love princess culture become ‘girls’ and short-haired football-loving girls become ‘boys’. Promoted as a ‘progressive’ social justice movement based on ‘accepting difference’, transgender ideology in fact takes that difference and stamps it out. It says that the sexist stereotypes of ‘gender’ are the true distinction between boys and girls and biological sex is an illusion.”[34]

Increasing numbers of young men and women experience “sex-change regret” and are “detransitioning.” Unfortunately, some effects of “medical transitions” are irreversible. A BBC documentary includes “Luke,” a young biological woman who regrets taking cross-sex hormones and having a double mastectomy at age 20 shares her experience:

The assumption from the outset was that if I said I was transgender, then I must be. Nobody, at any point, questioned my motives. The only cure for this would be hormones and surgery…. I became very self-conscious of my body. I was developing breasts and periods which, for me, felt like there was an alien crawling out of the inside of my body. I became very depressed. I thought the only explanation for my gender dysphoria must be that I was actually a man. I was struggling with self-harm and had attempted suicide on a number of occasions and was very much told by the community that if you don’t transition, you will self-harm and you will kill yourself. I became convinced that my options were transition or die. I didn’t understand that the degree of disconnect from and hatred of my body could be considered a mental health problem…. The darkest moment was when I realized that I had actually looked normal for a girl. That I had actually been slim and pretty. That my body hadn’t been grotesque the way I thought it was. Now, as a result of having transitioned, I will always have a female body that is freakish. I will always have a flat chest and a beard and there’s nothing I can do about that…. Nobody wants to question the received knowledge that transition is the only option because nobody wants to be the one person that puts their head up and says “hang on, I don’t think this is all right”.… If I was talking to a gender-dysphoric girl who hated her body the way I hated mine, I would tell her to get out into the mud, to climb trees, to find ways of inhabiting her body on her terms.[35]

While the American Academy of Pediatrics has formally endorsed chemical and surgical interventions and social “transitioning” for children and teens who wish they were the sex they are not, no one knows exactly how many of the 67,000 academy members agree with this position since only about 55 members created and voted on it. [36]

It is unconscionable for anyone who cares about children and the future of America to remain ignorant of and silent on this issue.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Surprising-Stuff.mp3

Footnotes:

[1] https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/homosexuality/questions-restrooms-locker-rooms-leftists-must-answer/

[2] http://www.hayesinc.com/hayes/htareports/directory/sex-reassignment-surgery-for-the-treatment-of-gender-dysphoria/. Accessed 3.24.16.

[3] http://www.jpands.or g/vol21no2/cretella.pdf

[4] http://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/201405_sterilization_en.pdf

[5] https://apps.carleton.edu/campus/gsc/assets/hormones_MTF.pdf

[6] https://apps.carleton.edu/campus/gsc/assets/hormones_FTM.pdf

[7] http://transhealth.ucsf.edu/trans?page=guidelines-vaginoplasty

[8] https://www.cmda.org/resources/publication/transgender-identification-ethics-statement

[9] http://www.cathmed.org/assets/files/Gender_Dysphoria_Treatment_of_Minors.pdf

[10] http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/AFSP-Williams-Suicide-Report-Final.pdf

[11] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/

[12] https://4thwavenow.com/2017/09/08/suicide-or-transition-the-only-options-for-gender-dysphoric-kids/comment-page-1/

[13] L Mayer, P McHugh, “Part Three: Gender Identity,” The New Atlantis, https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/part-three-gender-identity-sexuality-and-gender

[14] https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/part-three-gender-identity-sexuality-and-gender

[15] https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/whats-missing-from-the-conversation-about-transgender-kids.html

[16] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18981931

[17] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18194003

[18] http://www.sexologytoday.org/2016/01/do-trans-kids-stay-trans-when-they-grow_99.html

[19] https://www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/20170619_TNA52HruzMayerMcHugh.pdf

[20] https://www.acpeds.org/the-college-speaks/position-statements/gender-dysphoria-in-children

[21] https://www.forbes.com/sites/zhanavrangalova/2017/11/15/growing-evidence-for-a-link-between-gender-dysphoria-and-autism-spectrum-disorders/#26953173153e

[22] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-018-1218-3

[23] https://4thwavenow.com/2017/12/07/gender-dysphoria-is-not-one-thing/

[24] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330

[25] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/09/16/minister-orders-inquiry-4000-per-cent-rise-children-wanting/

[26] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/body-integrity-identity-disorder-the-condition-where-sufferers-want-to-be-disabled-a6680306.html

[27] http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2009/03/27/voluntary-amputation-extra-phantom-limbs/

[28]https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15265160802588194

[29] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/when-transgender-kids-transition-medical-risks-are-both-known-and-unknown/

[30] https://vimeo.com/247163584

[31] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/a-boys-life/307059/

[32] https://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/sheila-jeffreys-the-mccarthyism-of-transgender-and-the-sterilization-of-transgender-children/

[33] http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/64273

[34] http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/64273

[35] https://vimeo.com/247163584

[36] https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/homosexuality/55-members-of-american-academy-of-pediatrics-devise-destructive-trans-policy/

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Batavia Middle School’s Presumptuous and Ill-Informed Leadership

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A recipient [of federal funds] may provide separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex, but such facilities provided for students of one sex shall be comparable to such facilities provided for students of the other sex.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Board member Tina Bleakley made this ironic statement:

To come publicly to speak about a child disappoints me.

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

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

What is “gender identity”? If the administration defines it as subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex, or maleness, or femaleness, on what basis do “trans”-identified children determine their “gender identity”?

Why should private spaces correspond to subjective, internal feelings about one’s maleness or femaleness as opposed to objective, immutable biological sex?

Why is it legitimate for girls to oppose sharing restrooms and locker rooms with objectively male peers who accept their sex, but not legitimate for girls to oppose sharing restrooms and locker rooms with objectively male peers who reject their sex? Why should a boy’s subjective feelings about his objective sex affect girls’ feelings or beliefs about undressing or going to the bathroom in front of or near him?

Does objective, immutable biological sex have any intrinsic meaning relative to modesty and privacy? If not, why do we have any sex-segregated restrooms or locker rooms anywhere? Why not make all of them co-ed for everyone?

If this objectively male student should be permitted to use facilities with only girls, why shouldn’t objectively female students be permitted to use facilities with only girls?

Will the administration allow those who identify as gender fluid choose daily which restrooms and locker rooms they will use?

Since, according to Leftists, anatomy is irrelevant to “gender identity” and privacy, should boys who identify as girls be allowed to shower with objectively female peers? If not, why not?

Should other subjective, internal feelings be reflected in policy and practice? For example, should those who identify as amputees (i.e., those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder) be allowed to use wheel chairs and handicapped parking spots at school? Should they be allowed to leave class early to have more time to get from one class to another?

Are the feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when engaged in personal activities—which are the reasons for sex-segregated restrooms, locker rooms (not to mention dressing rooms, shelters, semi-private hospital rooms, dorm rooms, nursing home room assignments)—pathological?

Those who identify as “trans” claim their biological sex as revealed in anatomy is unrelated and irrelevant to their “gender identity” (which is a subjective, internal feeling) and that anatomy doesn’t matter when it comes to restrooms, changing areas, and showers. They further claim they want to use restrooms with only those whose “gender identity” they share. So, why do boys who identify as girls demand to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms? How do they know the males using the boys’ restrooms do not “identify” as girls, and how can they be sure that the females using the girls’ restrooms do “identify” as girls? Is it possible that boys who identify as girls are basing their restroom choices on biological sex as revealed in anatomy? If so, why are they permitted to do so but actual girls are not?

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

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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

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55 Members of American Academy of Pediatrics Devise Destructive “Trans” Policy

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

First some facts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note what the AAP doesn’t recommend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nope.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are some HRC recommendations from its guide for schools:

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

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

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

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

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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

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An Appeal to Attorney General Lisa Madigan

In the wake of the shocking Pennsylvania Grand Jury report which revealed that 301 priests sexually abused more than a thousand children, Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that her office would investigate Catholic dioceses in Illinois in pursuit of “a complete and accurate accounting of all sexually inappropriate behavior involving priests in Illinois.”

We applaud this decision and her desire for truth, transparency, and accountability. Justice must be pursued and children must be protected.

But we want to encourage the attorney general not to stop there. Prior to the Pennsylvania revelation, the Chicago Tribune published a deeply disturbing report exposing similar abuses of our children in Chicago Public Schools. This report revealed that more than 520 cases of juvenile sexual assault took place in Chicago’s public schools over the past ten years. That is an average of one per week.

How many cases were prosecuted? Which cases were covered up and by whom? How many predators are still working in our schools and have access to our students? How many cases were not reported?

If the Pennsylvania scandal is the catalyst for an investigation in Illinois—and we agree that it should be—shouldn’t the Chicago Tribune exposé be the impetus for an investigation of all school districts in Illinois going back further than a decade?

A hotline has been set up to report incidents of child sexual abuse in Illinois: 888-414-7678.

Years of concealing crimes, ignoring victims and protecting abusers isn’t unique to one institution. All crimes against children demand a full accounting. Predators must be exposed, prosecuted and removed from positions of power that provide them access to minors.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact the Attorney General’s office to encourage them to investigate the sexual crimes against our children in public school systems across the state of Illinois.

If you have information that would help stop a predator from preying on children and put him behind bars, please call the hotline: 888-414-7678. The hotline is answered by trained staff during business hours, and messages will be returned if contact information is provided.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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Faith Leaders Confuse Christians

Before the sexual revolution took root in America’s cultural institutions, there existed pervasive agreement—both explicit and tacit—about sexuality, marriage, children’s rights, and religious liberty. Sexual immorality of all forms existed but was appropriately stigmatized. Fornication; consensual adult incest; homosexuality (including pederasty and pedophilia); pornography; bestiality; stripping (i.e., exhibitionism) and its corollary, voyeurism; sadomasochism (now referred to positively as “kink”), and anything else the darkened minds of fallen humans can think of could be found but in the closet, on the fringes, and after dark. Now such forms of immorality are not merely out of the closet, in city and suburban centers, and in broad daylight but in our schools and even houses of worship.

We cannot trust our civic leaders, educators, and storytellers (novelists, essayists, playwrights, journalists etc.) to speak truth. And increasingly, pastors and priests who claim to be Christ-followers are suspect. That’s why it’s critically important that theologically orthodox Christian leaders speak with utter clarity on matters related to sexuality. Unfortunately, too often their voices are ambiguous, and that ambiguity exacerbates both confusion and division. The recent and controversial Revoice Conference (already scheduled for 2019), hosted by the theologically orthodox Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), included several speakers who have used language or expressed ideas that unnecessarily confuse and divide.

All the Revoice speakers and writers mentioned in this article have written valuable, encouraging, wise words from which both Christians who experience unchosen, unwanted homosexual attraction and the church at large can benefit. But it is their roles as cultural leaders in this fraught area that makes the need for clarity critical. In many instances that necessary clarity has been missing.

For example, celibate, theologically orthodox Catholic lesbian Eve Tushnet, who is a central figure in the “spiritual friendship” movement and keynote speaker at the Revoice Conference, was asked what “accepting sexuality” means in the title of her book Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith. Her response was unhelpful at minimum:

It means not separating out your sexuality and your sexual orientation by saying they need to be repressed or destroyed in some way.

Since she is by her own admission sexually oriented toward women, meaning she experiences desires to engage in sinful activity, how does she reconcile her answer with Colossians 3:5 which says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry”?

Another Revoice speaker, Nate Collins, who is a former instructor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a same-sex attracted man who is married to a woman, said this in an interview on the conference published in Christianity Today:

Even the phrase “sexual orientation” can be unhelpful because it puts sexuality at the center of orientation. We are sexual beings; God created us to have sexuality; we will inevitably at some point experience our orientation as sexual. But that doesn’t mean that the orientation itself is a sexual orientation. Now what it is exactly I don’t know—that is something that we Christians have a vested interest in thinking about theologically….

I think that a straight man’s desire, the way he experiences desire for intimate friendship with other men, that is obviously real and is a very valid way of experiencing the God-given need for relationships not to be alone.

It’s important to distinguish, though, between the way that a straight person would experience that desire and the way that a non-straight person would experience that desire. Because when gay people experience a desire for intimate relationships, they do it in the context of their orientation. Which, again, I want to say is not intrinsically sexual.

So we’re trying to understand what is at the center of orientation, which I admit requires more thinking. But at this point, what I personally think [is] that at the center of orientation is the perception and admiration of personal beauty. God created us to recognize beauty in other image bearers. When we notice that beauty and when there’s a pattern for that beauty then I think that raises the level of orientation.

Say what? For a moment I thought this was Professor Irwin Corey. I can’t make heads or tails out of this, except for agreeing that it requires more thinking—a lot more thinking.

Perhaps after he thinks more about this issue, he can explain how a non-straight person like himself can know with certainty that the way a straight person experiences the non-sexual desire for friendship is different from the way a non-straight person experiences a non-sexual desire for friendship. Perhaps the non-sexual desires of “straights” and “non-straights” for friendship are really not so different, and perhaps he is attributing too much to homosexual orientation.

Joel Belz, founder of World magazine, recently wrote that “offering, or even allowing, positions of church leadership to people who embrace and celebrate sexual disorders, all on the promise they will be chaste, is foolhardy [emphasis added].” In response, Wesley Hill, Revoice speaker, author of Washed and Waiting, “spiritual friendship” blogger, and associate professor of Biblical Studies at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, tweeted this:

Every time I read something like this, I wonder how the writer imagines someone like me living my day to day life. I would genuinely love to hear them explain how the vision is other than, ‘Make your peace with the closet.’

It’s absurd to contend that prohibiting men who, while committing to celibacy, also “embrace and celebrate” homosexuality constitutes shoving them into the proverbial closet. One could argue that theologically orthodox churches should not only prohibit such men from leading but also exercise discipline over members who “embrace and celebrate” homosexuality. Again, Hill’s tweet is at best unhelpful.

Hill wrote a more helpful summary of Revoice for First Things, but questions still remain because of statements like this:

Appearance-wise, many of the attendees wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow in Boystown or Brighton. Rainbow bracelets and body piercings abounded (one friend of mine sported rainbow-colored shoelaces to match the rainbow Ichthus pendant on his lapel)…. Might there be some divine design, some strange providence, in my homosexuality? Might my sexual orientation be something God does not want to remove, knowing that its challenge keeps pulling me back towards Him in prayer? Might it even be something through which more empathy and compassion for fellow sufferers are birthed?

Do the accouterments of the “gay pride” movement like rainbow bracelets and shoelaces signify a biblical attitude toward sin or do they signify a troubling unbiblical, worldly attitude? Does Hill mean that God works all things together for good—including our sinful desires—for those who love him and are called according to his purpose, or does Hill mean that God’s divine design could include his intentional creation of desires for acts that he detests and which violate his own design for sex? It is this kind of confusion that plagues much of the writing that emerges from the “spiritual friendship”/“celibate gay Christian” movement.

The importance of language

And then there’s the issue of terminology.

In the face of much criticism of Revoice organizers’ and speakers’ word choices, Greg Johnson, senior pastor of Memorial Presbyterian Church that hosted Revoice, offered a weak justification for their use of terms like “gay,” “gay Christian,” “LGBT+,” “cisgender,” and “sexual minorities,” implausibly citing 2 Timothy 2:14 as a justification for acquiescing to the controversial and confusing terms that Revoice organizers chose. It is noteworthy that with every term Johnson mentioned as eliciting debate among Revoice organizers, they decided to go with the “progressive” choice. One wonders what biblical warrant they found for always choosing language denuded of implications of sin when dealing with serious sin. The issue of language is critical because language is one of the most powerful and effective tools “progressives” use to transmogrify culture into anti-culture.

Johnson said that “Since the Bible says not to quarrel about words and since we see that there are no perfect options, we’ve followed” a “recommendation to respect freedom in terminology.” Is Johnson applying 2 Tim. 2:14 correctly? In 2 Tim. 2: 14, Paul writes to Timothy, “Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.” What is the context? Is Paul saying that words never matter? Paul is writing to Timothy to urge him to handle correctly the Word, which is to say Scripture. Paul instructs Timothy to avoid “irreverent babble” (ESV), “godless chatter” (NIV), or “profane and vain babblings” (KJV). Paul in no way suggests that words don’t matter. Words matter enormously, which is why “progressives” continually invent new words, redefine existing words, and insist that everyone use them in their unholy quest to advance cultural affirmation of sexual deviance. While the left continually invents and redefines language, insisting that everyone use their terms, conservatives—including Christian conservatives—continually capitulate to leftist language as if it’s trivial. If it were trivial, the left wouldn’t be so insistent that everyone use it. If Pastor Johnson didn’t learn about the critical importance of words from God’s Word, didn’t he learn about it from Orwell?

New Testament scholar Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon corrects Johnson’s misapplication of 2 Tim. 2:14:

[T]he interpretation of “not fighting over words” offered by the pastor who hosted the Revoice Conference is a significant misapplication of the text. He was using the passage to justify the appropriation of unorthodox secular terminology (“gay,” “sexual minorities”), terminology commonly used to affirm sexual immorality, in order to silence orthodox complaints about the use of such terms in the church for faithful believers. Paul in context meant by “not fighting over words” the complete avoidance of heretical spins on words found in the OT Scriptures. Paul was arguing against unorthodox interpretations of words, not telling his churches to give a pass to Christians using sexually tainted terminology that carries unorthodox baggage. It is those bringing into the church terms like “gay” and “sexual minorities,” terms that imply affirmation of the homosexual and transgender life, who are “fighting over words” by introducing language that is in tension with orthodox teaching about sexual ethics.

Rob Rienow, pastor at Gospel Fellowship Church in Wheaton, Illinois, offers this clarification of Paul’s instruction to Timothy:

God reveals Himself to us in words. Words mean things. That is why when we study the Bible, we always want to know what the words that God chose to give us mean. Verse 15 gives us a clue into verse 14: God calls his people to “rightly handle the word of truth.” So, instead of “words are not important,” we are told to pay attention to the words, dig deep into them, understand their correct meanings, and teach them to others. Verse 16 further illuminates and clarifies the instruction from verse 14: “avoid irreverent babble,” that is, silly words, irreverent words, careless words because those kinds of words can actually lead people into “more ungodliness.” So rather than communicating that “words don’t matter, don’t worry about them,” Paul doubles down on the importance of using true words and using words that matter.

Another Gospel Fellowship Church pastor, Michael Johnson (unrelated to Greg Johnson), elaborates further:

The kind of “word-battle” that Paul has in mind is a useless quarreling over words that is more about displaying the intelligence of the debater than bringing edification to others. We must avoid that kind of argumentation over words. It does no good. It’s been seen over time that words drive thinking and culture. So, for example, I would never use the made-up pro-noun “ze” or the generic pronoun “they” to refer to an individual that is claiming a false identity like “gender-non-binary.” Doing so cedes too much intellectual ground and gives implicit credibility to a false idea. It is by definition ceding Scriptural truth because it is contrary to God’s Word. This we cannot do. The point is, standing ground in these cases is not a “quarreling about words” that “does no good” and “only ruins the hearers”; on the contrary, it is an example of “rightly handling the word of truth.” To stand and defend this truth is not only right, but it is what edifies and keeps people from falling into ruin. So, we have an obligation to fight for some words because that is what maintains the truth, brings clarity, and builds people up in the faith. If we keep reading, Paul has in mind “foolish, ignorant controversies” that “breed quarrels.” Defining our terms in the great debate of our time—that is, human sexuality—is most definitely not a useless argument or a waste of time. In fact, not only are we to “rightly handle the word of truth” but we must also teach and correct our opponents with gentleness, praying God will grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.

The terms “sexual minorities,” “gay,” and “gay Christian”

Pastor, author, and theology professor Kevin DeYoung points out the problematic nature of one of the terms Revoice organizers chose, “sexual minorities”:

[I]n our culture, “minority” does not simply mean “less than the majority.” Minorities are considered an aggrieved group in our society. Because of the heroism of many in the civil-rights movement, and because most Americans recognize that non-whites have been mistreated in our nation’s past, any new identity that can achieve minority status is automatically afforded moral weight and authority. The term “sexual minority” is prescriptive, not merely descriptive.

Johnson defended the use of “sexual minorities” on the basis of its inclusion of “all those whose experience of sexuality is significantly different from the norm.” Would the Revoice organizers include those whose experience of sexuality includes multiple partners, close relatives, animals, children, pornography, pain, or exhibitionism?

Revoice’s commitment to “sexual minority” inclusion was promoted through one of the breakout sessions titled “Redeeming Queer Culture: An Adventure” that aimed to answer questions about the value of “queer” culture:

For the sexual minority seeking to submit his or her life fully to Christ and to the historic Christian sexual ethic, queer culture presents a bit of a dilemma; rather than combing through and analyzing to find which parts are to be rejected, to be redeemed, or to be received with joy, Christians have often discarded the virtues of queer culture along with the vices, which leaves culturally connected Christian sexual minorities torn between two cultures, two histories, and two communities. So questions that have until now been largely unanswered remain: what does queer culture (and specifically, queer literature and theory) have to offer us who follow Christ? What queer treasure, honor, and glory will be brought into the New Jerusalem at the end of time.

It seems Revoice organizers have it backwards. Whatever good is found in “queer culture” has nothing whatsoever to do with queerness. “Queer treasure,” “queer honor,” and “queer glories” are oxymorons. That is not to say there is no creativity, beauty, or honor to be found in the midst of grievous sin. But if it’s there, it’s there despite sin. And it’s polluted, marred, and scarred by sin. While treasure, honor, and glory may be birthed in the midst of homosexuality, no treasure, nothing honorable, nothing glorious is birthed by homosexuality or any other form of disordered sexuality.

Johnson also defended the use of “gay” claiming that “To most of us Reformed evangelicals, the term ‘same sex attracted’ seems safer [than ‘gay’], but it is terminology not used and not understood by our surrounding culture.” Really? The term “same-sex attracted” is neither used nor understood by our surrounding culture? Even if it were true that it’s not used in our culture, it’s self-explanatory. An average middle-schooler could understand it on first hearing.

Former English professor, writer, and pastor’s wife, Rosaria Butterfield, who, after accepting Christ, left a long-term lesbian relationship, warns about the dangers of adopting the term “gay Christian” and the assumptions embedded in it:

How can any of us fight a sin that we don’t hate? Hating our own sin is a key component to doing battle with it. At the same time, we need to separate ourselves from the sin we hate. This can be a very challenging issue for a Christian who experiences SSA, an issue that becomes exceedingly more challenging if one assumes the social identity of “gay Christian.”

Is there any other besetting sin that we continue to attach to ourselves after we become one with Christ?

Revoice worship leader, Greg Coles, who identifies as a “gay Christian,” writes in his memoir this strange description of his sexual orientation—strange, that is, for a theologically orthodox Christian:

I began to realize that my sexual orientation was an inextricable part of the bigger story God was telling over my life. My interests, my passions, my abilities, my temperament, my calling—there was no way to sever those things completely from the gay desires and mannerisms and attitudes that had developed alongside them….

Is it too dangerous, too unorthodox, to believe that I am uniquely designed to reflect the glory of God? That my orientation, before the fall, was meant to be a gift in appreciating the beauty of my own sex as I celebrated the friendship of the opposite sex?… What if God dreamed it for me, wove it into the fabric of my being as he knit be [sic] together and sang life into me?

Professor of Biblical Studies Denny Burke, wonders how it’s possible for a theologically orthodox Christian to hold such a view as Coles holds:

I do not know how to reconcile this perspective with scripture or with the natural law. Same-sex orientation is not simply a “creational variance”…. Scripture teaches explicitly that homosexual desire and behavior are “against nature”—meaning against God’s original creation design.

In his book Is God anti-gay?, British pastor Sam Allberry, who experiences unwanted, unchosen same-sex attraction, illuminates the theological problems with Christians identifying as “gay”:

When someone says they’re “gay” … they normally mean that as well as being attracted to someone of the same gender, their sexual preference is one of the fundamental ways in which they see themselves. And it’s for this reason that I tend to avoid using the term. It sounds clunky to describe myself as “someone who experiences same sex attraction”. But describing myself like this is a way for me to recognize that the kind of sexual attractions I experience are not fundamental to my identity. They are part of what I feel but are not who I am in a fundamental sense. I am far more than my sexuality…. What Jesus calls me to do is exactly what he calls anyone to do….:

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

Is “shame” bad?

Johnson understandably worries about teenagers who feel “crushed by the shame of a sexual orientation” they have “acknowledged to no one.” The church should be thinking deeply about how to address with grace and truth both sin and the shame associated with sin—a shame that is particularly isolating when it comes to sexual sin.

The Bible teaches that sexual sin—sin against the body—is of a different character and more serious than many other forms of sin. Doesn’t it make sense that we would experience guilt and shame from sexual sin differently than when we, for example, gossip? The intimate nature of sex renders confession or revelation of sexual sin to others extraordinarily difficult, but there are many forms of sin that are difficult to confess. Should this difficulty result in the church seeking to eradicate shame? Are we not supposed to feel shame about sin?

If someone’s besetting sin were compulsive stealing, which might be difficult to share and accompanied by deep shame, should we invent new terms to make them feel less ashamed—terms imbued with positive connotations; terms that suggest that, although stealing per se is wrong, the impulse to steal is attended by other positive qualities, attitudes, or ways of viewing life?

What about zoophilia? I imagine those who struggle with attraction to animals feel even greater shame than those who experience same-sex attraction. Should we use the term zoophile Christians? Should we have workshops to discuss which zoophilic treasures, honor, and glory will be brought into the New Jerusalem?

I think not.

What the church urgently needs is less worldly influence and more biblical influence. We should concern ourselves less about the complicated, confusing contours and nuances of sexual sin as articulated by the world and concern ourselves more with the truths taught in Scripture and expressed by Pastor Allberry:

It is the same for us all…. I am to deny myself, take up my cross and follow him. Every Christian is called to costly sacrifice. Denying yourself does not mean tweaking your behavior here and there. It is saying “No” to your deepest sense of who you are for the sake of Christ. To take up a cross is to declare your life (as you have known it) forfeit. It is laying down your life for the very reason that your life, as it turns out, is not yours at all. It belongs to Jesus. He made it, and through his death, he has bought it.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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Brown University Caves to Cross-Dressers and Their Collaborators

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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The LGBT (Ideological) Seduction of Our Children

One of the accusations that is most offensive to gays and lesbians is that they are child predators who want to seduce our children sexually. I stand with them in finding this accusation to be highly offensive.

To be clear, I have documented elsewhere that the arguments put forth by advocates of pederasty parallel key arguments used by gay activists. And some studies indicate that there is a higher percentage of homosexual pederasty than heterosexual pederasty.

Nonetheless, the vast majority of gays and lesbians are not pederasts. And so, to accuse them of infiltrating our schools in order to prey sexually on our children is both ugly and false. (See, here, however, for potential problems with school-based Gay Straight Alliances.)

The LGBT’s Ideological Goals for Our Children

But what is 100 percent truthful is that while the vast majority of LGBT activists presumably do not have sexual goals for our children, they most certainly have ideological goals. Without a doubt, they want to influence the way our children think.

They want our kids to view same-sex attraction as no better or worse than opposite-sex attraction. (Perhaps some want kids to view same-sex attraction as superior!)

They want children to embrace the possibility of gender fluidity.

They want them to consider whether they might be transgender themselves.

All of this is easily documented, and at this point in history, cannot be reasonably denied. The ideological seduction of our little ones is at hand today. And it has been at hand for some years now.

The Lunchbox

Well over a decade ago I purchased the GLSEN Lunchbox (second edition), containing helps for gay-friendly educators to be used in grades K-12.

The goals, of course, were to teach “tolerance” and to reduce “anti-LGBT harassment” in our schools. But the method was to normalize, if not celebrate, virtually every LGBT talking point.

The Lunchbox included activity cards, some of which listed famous people from history, all of whom were allegedly gay. Other activity cards offered definitions of terms like genderqueer (and remember, the target audience for some of these activities was elementary school children.)

Then there was the exercise called “Getting in Touch with Your Inner Trannie” (as in transgender identity). And I remind you: This goes back over a decade.

When I testified before a local school board, holding up the Lunchbox and its full-length training manual, one of the board members said out loud, “That material is not in that box.” (I guess for some people, it’s better to deny the truth rather than face it.)

What has happened in the years since?

What Has Happened

Here’s the tiniest sampling, not even touching on the many LGBT-themed curricula in our schools.

A July 25 headline on LifeSiteNews announced: “American Library Association endorses ‘drag queen storytime’ for libraries across U.S.” (chew on that one for a while; need I say anything more?)

There is now an endless stream of gay-themed books for little children, including titles like Monsters and Robots, which features “poly amorous parents and a bisexual character who is prominent in the story.” This is part of the LGBTQ Picture Books series. (For a sampling of LGBT children’s books through 2011, see here.)

The same can be said for trans-themed books, such as Who Are You?: The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity. The blurb states, “This brightly illustrated children’s book provides a straightforward introduction to gender for anyone aged 5+… An interactive three-layered wheel included in the book is a simple, yet powerful, tool to clearly demonstrate the difference between our body, how we express ourselves through our clothes and hobbies, and our gender identity. Ideal for use in the classroom or at home, a short page-by-page guide for adults at the back of the book further explains the key concepts and identifies useful discussion points. This is a one-of-a-kind resource for understanding and celebrating the gender diversity that surrounds us.”

As of 2016, “A new study by trend forecasting agency J. Walter Thompson Innovation Group found that only 48 percent of 13-20-year-olds identify as “exclusively heterosexual,” compared to 65 percent of millennials aged 21 to 34.” The indoctrination is working!

LGBT activists have decided not to cloak or hide their agenda in the least. In the words of S. Bear Bergman on the Huffington Post, “I Have Come to Indoctrinate Your Children Into My LGBTQ Agenda (And I’m Not a Bit Sorry).” (This was originally published on March 7, 2015.)

Bergman explains, “All that time I said I wasn’t indoctrinating anyone with my beliefs about gay and lesbian and bi and trans and queer people? That was a lie. All 25 years of my career as an LGBTQ activist, since the very first time as a 16-year-old I went and stood shaking and breathless in front of eleven people to talk about My Story, I have been on a consistent campaign of trying to change people’s minds about us.”

Ideological Indoctrination

Again, Bergman is not talking about sexual recruitment. Absolutely, categorically not. But he is talking about changing people’s minds, beginning with children: “I want them to know that we’re absolutely as worthwhile and worthy of love and respect as anyone, and that if you’re kind to us and behave yourself well there’s a better than even chance you can get an invitation to brunch.”

And what if that means children coming into conflict with their parents or their religion? Bergman doesn’t flinch: “I want kids to know this even if their parents’ or community’s interpretation of their religious tenets is that we’re awful. I would be happy — delighted, overjoyed I tell you — to cause those children to disagree with their families on the subject of LGBTQ people.”

I stand with Bergman in calling for the gracious treatment of all human beings. And I personally counsel parents to encourage their children to befriend other kids who are marginalized. In this effort, we agree.

But with everything within me, I will resist the LGBT indoctrination of our children. I urge you to stand together with me. Better still, I urge you to stand together with your kids.

This article was originally published at The Stream.com

Homosexuality in the Catholic Church

~UPDATED on 8/28/2018 at 10:00 a.m.~

Warning: not for younger readers

As the Catholic Church is rocked by yet another sex scandal involving priests who abuse children and teens, the bizarre claim that these scandals have nothing to do with homosexuality continues to spread, primarily by those most personally invested in white-washing the pederastic deviance intrinsic to homosexuality.

The most recent scandal emerges from six dioceses in Pennsylvania where an investigation brought to light that over the past 75 years, 300 predatory priests sexually abused over 1,000 children and teens, the vast majority of whom were male.

Some of the victims “were made to masturbate their assailants, or were groped by them. Some were raped orally, some vaginally, some anally.” One 17-year-old was anally raped with such force his spine was injured, which led to his addiction to pain meds and death at age 46. (Not to worry, the Church paid for his funeral.) To compound the stomach-churning evil, church leaders concealed the abuse to “protect the abusers and their institution above all.”

This investigation followed a 2016 investigation that revealed 50 predatory priests in the Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania diocese. In 2014, the Chicago Archdiocese released files on 63 predator priests who sexually abused 352 children and teens since 1950. A 2005 investigation of the Philadelphia Archdiocese revealed 60 predatory priests. And in 2002, the Boston Archdiocese revealed 150-200 perverse predatory priests. In all investigations, most of the victims were male.

In 2002, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York was hired by the “full body of Catholic bishops of the United States” to “conduct research, summarize the collected data, and issue a summary report” on clergy abuse in the Catholic Church. The report, titled “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010,” revealed that 81% of victims of Catholic priest abuse were male, and that 78% were pubescent or post-pubescent boys between the ages of 11-17 (51% were between ages 11-14, 27% were between ages 15-17). The remaining 22% were between 1-10.

In the ever-shifting sands of social “science,” pedophilia is defined as sexual interest in prepubescent children. Therefore, adults who sexually molest pubescent children or post-pubescent teens are not deemed pedophiles. Adult males who are sexually interested in pubescent boys are called hebephiles, and adults who are sexually interested in post-pubescent boys are called ephebophiles. They’re still perverse, just less perverse than pedophiles. Formerly these forms of perversion were called pederasty. Priests who sexually abuse pubescent and post-pubescent male children and teens are homosexual. They are pederasts.

It is common to hear homo-activists and their collaborators make the strange claim that priests who are sexually interested in and sexually abuse pre-pubescent male children are most definitely not homosexual pedophiles. They will concede they are pedophiles, just not homosexual pedophiles. How can that be, you may be asking yourself. Here’s how homo-activists rationalize that claim:

First, they assert that the “sexual orientations” are heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual.

Second, they assert that “sexual orientation” refers only to adult-adult attraction (also known as “telieophilia”).

Third, they argue that if a man is attracted to only prepubescent children—let’s say male children—then he has no “sexual orientation.” Abracadabra, adult men who are sexually attracted only to prepubescent male children are not homosexual because homosexual is a sexual orientation, which they don’t have.

Arguably the world’s preeminent scholar on the topic of the Bible and homosexuality, Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, explains this tortured reasoning:

It is a semantic sleight of hand and pure sophistry to define a homosexual person solely as one who has a primary attraction to adult males (denoted in the scientific literature as “homosexual teleiophiles” or “androphiles”) and then to proclaim proudly that we have discovered that homosexual persons, so defined, do not do much molesting of children. If a pedophile is defined as a person who shows “little, if any, erotic interest in adults” and a “homosexual” as a person who shows little, if any, erotic interest in children, then, by definition, no homosexual can be a pedophile and few homosexuals will ever engage in a pedophilic act.

So you see, the priest in the Pennsylvania report who admitted molesting boys but denied the accusations of two girls because girls “don’t have a penis” couldn’t possibly be homosexual so long as the boys are 9 rather than 12.

Not everyone uses this doctrinaire theoretical framework. It’s easy to find “progressive” websites that refer to “heterosexual pedophiles.” And this article originally published by the Mayo Clinic refers to both heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles, providing disturbing information about both, but worse about homosexual pedophiles:

The percentage of homosexual pedophiles ranges from 9% to 40%, which is approximately 4 to 20 times higher than the rate of adult men attracted to other adult men (using a prevalence rate of adult homosexuality of 2%-4%). This finding does not imply that homosexuals are more likely to molest children, just that a larger percentage of pedophiles are homosexual or bisexual in orientation to children…. Heterosexual pedophiles, in self-report studies, have on average abused 5.2 children and committed an average of 34 sexual acts vs homosexual pedophiles who have on average abused 10.7 children and committed an average of 52 acts…. A study… of 377 nonincarcerated, non-incest-related pedophiles… who were surveyed using an anonymous self-report questionnaire, found that heterosexual pedophiles on average reported abusing 19.8 children and committing 23.2 acts, whereas homosexual pedophiles had abused 150.2 children and committed 281.7 acts.

The scope of the problem of homosexuality among priests is revealed not just in child abuse scandals. In his book The Changing Face of the Priesthood, published in 2000, Catholic priest Fr. Donald Cozzens estimated that 50% of priests and seminarians are same-sex attracted. In that same year, Jesuit priest Paul Shaughnessy wrote about the infiltration of the priesthood by homosexuals which had resulted in scores of priests’ deaths from AIDS between the mid-1980’s to 2000:

AIDS has quietly caused the deaths of hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in the United States…. The death rate of priests from AIDS is at least four times that of the general population…. [P]riests routinely gloat about the fact that gay bars in big cities have special “clergy nights,” that gay resorts have set-asides for priests, and that in certain places the diocesan apparatus is controlled entirely by gays. What is significant is that these are not claims made by their opponents, not accusations fired off by right-wing Catholics in a fit of paranoia; rather they are gays’ words about gays themselves.

In 2001, a website for homosexual priests and seminarians called St. Sebastian’s Angels was exposed:

Featured on St. Sebastian’s Angels were names, photos and email addresses of openly homosexual priests, a disturbing selection of pornographic images, and a forum for participants to discuss anything from their open rejection of Church teaching to their perverse activities and fantasies.

In 1996, shortly before he died, former archbishop of Chicago Joseph Cardinal Bernardin—long-rumored to be homosexual and accused of sexually molesting Steven Cook—asked the Windy City Gay Men’s Chorus to sing at his funeral.

In 2007, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia commissioned a homosexual artist to paint a huge “blasphemous homoerotic mural in his cathedral church” that depicts “semi-nude homosexuals, transsexuals [i.e., men with women’s breasts], prostitutes, and drug dealers, jumbled together in erotic interactions.” Paglia was appointed by Pope Francis “as president of the Pontifical Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.” The mural remains even today despite controversy.

In the summer of 2017, Vatican official Monsignor Luigi Capozzi’s “palatial” apartment was raided after complaints from neighbors. Inside the police found a homosexual orgy fueled by drugs and alcohol in progress.

In a stunning written statement, released on August 22, 2018, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò reveals that Pope Francis lifted the canonical sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict on now-disgraced Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for his decades-long sexual abuse of both male children and seminarians. In his statement, Viganò also identifies Washington D.C. Cardinal Donald Wuerl and far-left Chicago Cardinal Blaise Cupich—a Francis appointee—as complicit in the cover up of McCarrick’s egregious sins.

Pope Francis ruffled the feathers of theologically orthodox Catholics again by his appointment of José Tolentino de Mendonça to be Vatican archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church. Concern over this appointment arises in part from Mendonça’s enthusiastic support for the heretical, feminist Benedictine nun Sr. Teresa Forcades who wants the church to change its position on homosexual activity (as well as abortion and female ordination). Not surprisingly, Forcades, who has “become one of the most influential left-wing public intellectuals in Europe,” says, “I don’t believe every sentence in the Bible is the word of God.”

Forcades praised Pope Francis’ efforts to change the attitude of the Church on homosexuality:

I think that Pope Francis attempted to make a step forward in this sense with the Synod on the Family; he did not succeed in doing it, but it is not the same atmosphere now as it was when there was not Pope Francis. For example, Sr. Jeannine Gramick, who worked in the United States for many years for acceptance not only for being homosexual but also for homosexual activity, for physical homosexual love, has said that from the time Pope Francis arrived she no longer faced the pressure she had endured previously to not do this type of apostolate.

This is the woman for whose book, Feminist Theology in History, Mendonça wrote an enthusiastic preface. And Mendonça is the priest Pope Francis wants in a Vatican leadership position.

Some are astonished that the cover-up of sexual abuse committed by priests has continued even after the shocking Boston exposé. They ask, “Didn’t the Catholic Church learn anything from that scandal?” The real question should be, “Didn’t the Catholic Church learn anything from the first homosex scandal to hit the Catholic Church 400 years ago: the Piarist scandal?”

The 2004 book Fallen Order by British historian Karen Liebreich chronicles the sex abuse perpetrated and covered up in the Order of the Clerics Regular for the Pious Schools, also known as the Piarist Order, in 17^th Century Italy. The order was founded in 1597 by Jose de Calasanz and was “dedicated to educating poor children.” Two of the priests in charge of Pious schools were Fr. Stefano Cherubini and Fr. Melchiorre Alacchi, both of whom were pedophiles. When confronted by Calasanz, Cherubini, who came from a Vatican-connected family of attorneys, threatened to sue and besmirch the reputation of the Piarist Order and the Church all the way up to the pope, so Calasanz relented and promoted him. Some years later for reasons related to Vatican politics and unrelated to Cherubini’s pedophilia, the Vatican banned the Piarist Order. Twenty years later, the order rose from the ashes.

There is nothing new under the sun. Saint Peter Damian wrote this in in The Book of Gomorrah in 1051 AD:

[A] certain most abominable and exceedingly disgraceful vice has grown in our region, and unless it is quickly met with the hand of strict chastisement, it is certain that the sword of divine fury is looming to attack to the destruction of many…. The cancer of sodomitic impurity is thus creeping through the clerical order and indeed is raging like a cruel beast within the sheepfold of Christ.

In more prosaic language, Janet E. Smith, philosopher and professor of moral theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, echoed Damian’s sentiment from 850 years ago:

Many people think the sexual scandal in the Church is that bishops knew about McCarrick and did nothing about it…. The deeper problem is the presence of homosexual networks in the Church — likely in dioceses all over the world and certainly in the Curia…. Eradicating the homosexual networks from the Church would do a lot to purging the Church of immoral priests.

Pervasive cultural acceptance and affirmation of homosexuality puts boys at serious risk. In every society throughout history that has accepted homosexuality—from Celtic Ireland to ancient Greece and Rome to ancient and medieval Japan—the dominant form it has assumed has been pederastic. Adult men had sexual relationships with pubescent and post-pubescent boys. This is what we will see in America unless we can recover moral virtue and sexual sanity.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Homosexuality-in-the-Catholic-Church-2.mp3

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SJW Feeding Frenzy: Lesbian Actress Not Lesbian Enough to Play Batwoman

Written by Taylor Lewis

Holy intersectional infighting, Batman!

Fans of the dime-a-dozen televised superhero dramas may be in for some unfortunate news. The actress tapped to play Batwoman in the latest installment of The CW’s seriate “Arrowverse” has been determined not to be gay enough for the role. That is, the actress is gay, but she doesn’t prefer women enough – or enough to silence her critics, at least.

DC Comics re-established the character of Batwoman as a Jewish lesbian back in 2006, just before it became fashionable to recreate classic heroes as some mix of sexual minority X and racial minority Y. To stay true to form, Australian actress Ruby Rose, an out lesbian, was cast to play the nocturnal crime-fighter. Little did Rose know her Sapphic tastes wouldn’t cut the intersectional mustard.

Social media outrage over Rose’s casting pushed the blindsided actress into leaving Twitter. The mob’s point of contention: Rose has a history of identifying as “gender-fluid,” not strictly lesbian. What’s the difference? Beats me; keeping up with the sexual dialectic of the left is like knowing the differences among regional Chinese dialects.

Rose’s final Twitter messages provide a clue as to the nature of the debate. She reportedly wrote before kicking the platform: “Where on earth did ‘Ruby is not a lesbian therefore she can’t be batwoman’ come from – has to be the funniest most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. I came out at 12? And have for the past 5 years had to deal with ‘she’s too gay’ how do y’all flip it like that? I didn’t change.”

She didn’t change anything, indeed. The pace at which the social-justice left has altered the terms of proper debate is dizzying. Mere toleration of deviant lifestyles is not sufficient; now a new vocabulary must be employed with a surgeon’s precision.

Rose doesn’t meet the strict definition of a lesbian. She’s also not Jewish. Thus, she’s disbarred from playing a Jewish lesbian who dresses up like a humanoid bat to beat evildoers to a bruised and bloody pulp.

This raises all types of questions of what is theatrically permissible to the social justice warrior. Must straight men always play straight men? Must Asian women always play Asian women? Must gay black men with erotic asphyxiation fetishes always be played by gay black men with erotic asphyxiation fetishes?

And why limit ourselves to just race and sex, or even human performance? Must Superman be played by a real Kryptonian? Must Spock be played by a real Vulcan? Must Juliet always be played by an Italian virgin who, halfway through Scene III, is deflowered? Must Nick Bottom always be played by a half-donkey under Puck’s mischievous spell?

Surely, anything but the strictest adherence to the author’s original conception won’t do – except, of course, when it does. The rumor that black actor Idris Elba could be playing the next James Bond was revived last week. Ian Fleming, Bond’s creator, based his secret spy character off officers he knew in the Naval Intelligence Division. It’s unlikely he pictured 007 as anything other than a martini-enjoying, woman-seducing white Scottish cove.

And yet, many of the same leftists who denounce the casting of Rose as Batwoman are cheering Bond’s sudden change in skin tone. Liberal publications are encouraging the switch, singing hosannas to diversity. “Every Argument Against Idris Elba Playing James Bond Is [BS],” squealed an angry mole at Esquire.

Back in 2014, Rush Limbaugh had the temerity to use the left’s racial casting logic against Elba, citing Fleming’s vision of the world-saving secret agent. He was panned as a racist and bigot – not uncommon territory for the king of talk radio.

Two things can’t be true at the same time. Ruby Rose can’t be unfit to don Batwoman’s leotard while Idris Elba can be right at home in James Bond’s patented tuxedo.

The matter is made worse by the stakes, which are extremely low. Batwoman is a television show about a vigilante on a basic cable station. We aren’t talking Macbeth at the Globe Theater. To give over so much time and energy to perfect a depiction of Batman’s female alternative is an exercise in listlessness. Basically: who really cares?

Does the left’s intersectional world have room for the concept of acting? Clearly not. What a painfully trite existence the race-and-sex-obsessed progressive must have. It’s bad enough to have to look over your shoulder and check your vocabulary after every breath. Not even to be comfortable with the simplest of forms of escapism because they don’t comport exactly with reality is a bore.

“I love acting. It is so much more real than life,” said Lord Henry. That sentiment is being taken quite literally by unimaginative leftists who care everything for sexual and racial politics and nothing for drama, or its more comprehensive title: life.

This article originally posted from Townhall.com.

Does Church Abuse Discredit Christianity?

In August 2018, the results of a grand jury investigation were published regarding sex-abuse allegations within the Roman Catholic dioceses of Pennsylvania.

While it is shocking and disturbing to read, we need to be impacted by the full force of how heinous the crimes against these children were. The report reveals:

We subpoenaed, and reviewed, half a million pages of internal diocesan documents. They contained credible allegations against over three hundred predator priests. Over one thousand child victims were identifiable, from the church’s own records. We believe that the real number – of children whose records were lost, or who were afraid ever to come forward – is in the thousands. Most of the victims were boys; but there were girls too. Some were teens; many were pre-pubescent. Some were manipulated with alcohol or pornography. Some were made to masturbate their assailants, or were groped by them. Some were raped orally, some vaginally, some anally. But all of them were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institution above all.

When Church Leaders Abuse

It is unconscionable that men put in positions of leadership–especially those who claim to represent God–could so cruelly abuse those placed in their care. But it is not only clergy who have abused children and covered up the abuse. According to a new report, Chicago public schools and Child Protective Services failed to adequately protect school children from sexual abuse. Abuse happens in every sector and corner of society. Predators often seek occupations where they will have unsupervised access to children. Upon being discovered molesting children, one Catholic priest reportedly sought new employment with Walt Disney World where he was reportedly hired and worked for the next eighteen years.

There is a deeper level of violation when the abuser is someone in a position of authority, especially when that person is trusted to care and protect children, such as a police officers, doctors, teachers, coaches, scout leaders, school staff, therapists, and clergy. Children are taught to trust and respect these kinds of authority figures and so are more vulnerable to grooming.

When someone who claims to be working for God abuses children or teens, the damage can be irreparable and often includes anger at God, Christians and the church.

A Christian Response to Church Abuse

As a Protestant, I grieve for all those who have been victimized by abuse. We should hold all perpetrators accountable for their crimes. Those who abuse others should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and institutions that helped cover up crimes should also face prosecution.

It is understandable that those who have been abused by church leaders want nothing more to do with the Church, or Christianity. Just as we don’t impute blame to all doctors, coaches, or teachers for the evil actions of some, we ought not judge all priests guilty for the grievous sins of the abusive priests. We should judge the any ideology, philosophy or religion against the life and teaching of its founder.

Those who know anything about the teachings of Jesus know that He condemned the actions of those who abuse children in the strongest possible terms.

And (Jesus) said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!” (Matthew 18:3-7, NIV)

Those who abuse children are not following the teaching or example of Jesus. Those who truly follow the teachings of Jesus stand with the abused in seeking both justice and healing. Even though we fight for justice, in this life it isn’t always served. One day, however, there will be a Day of Judgment when all the wrongs are ultimately punished.

Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil. Although a sinner does evil a hundred times and may lengthen his life, still I know that it will be well for those who fear God, who fear Him openly. But it will not be well for the evil man and he will not lengthen his days like a shadow, because he does not fear God. (Ecclesiastes 8:11-13, NIV)

Lessons Learned

One of the things we are learning from these investigations, as well as the #MeToo and #MeChurch movements, is just how pervasive sexual abuse is in society. Unfortunately, there are no safe spaces. Here are some things we should learn that might help to reduce this kind of abuse moving forward:

Listen to the victims. Several of these victims told their parents and were not believed because the parents couldn’t conceive that a “man of God” would do such a thing.

Make sure your church screens any members who work with children. Our local church runs an extensive background check on any members who work with children. They also make sure the adult volunteers work in pairs or teams, so they are never alone with minor children. If your church doesn’t practice this kind of precaution, insist they must, and if need be find another church.

Be very cautious when leaving small children to be supervised by non-family members.

Teach your children to exercise their voice and defend themselves. Educate your children on the dangers of sexual abuse and teach them how to speak up, say no, fight back and report any unwanted physical abuse.

The institution is never more important than the individual. Many of these large organizations covered up these crimes for fear that it would either tarnish their reputation, or that they would face legal and/or financial repercussions. Prideful face-saving is a sin. If you know something, say something.

As Christians, we stand with all victims of abuse in seeking complete justice on their behalf and praying for healing.

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Co-Ed Restrooms in Government Schools Led by Fools

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

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

They’re ignorant of the possible causes of sexual confusion and bodily alienation, which can include family dysfunction, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment.

They’re ignorant of the phenomenon called “rapid-onset gender dysphoria.” Fortunately for them, a study by Dr. Lisa Littman, physician and associate professor of the Practice of Behavioral Sciences at Brown University, was just published that examines this troubling phenomenon:

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

…

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

They’re ignorant of the dramatic and troubling increase in the number of teens who identify as “trans.”

They’re ignorant of the relationship between gender dysphoria and autism.

They’re ignorant of the low rates of suicide among gender-dysphoric children and that there “is no persuasive evidence that gender transition reduces gender dysphoric children’s likelihood of killing themselves.”

They’re ignorant of the high rates of desistance in gender-dysphoric children who don’t socially and chemically transition. Desistance is the abatement of gender dysphoria and opposite-sex identification.

They’re ignorant of the phenomenon of “detransitioning” (also called “trans” regret), which is when people stop pretending to be the sex they are not. The fundamental feature of “detransitioning” is ceasing to take risky cross-sex hormones.

They’re ignorant of the conditioning that they facilitate when they allow co-ed restrooms and locker rooms. “Trans” activists and their “progressive” collaborators believe that society “conditions” children into believing that biological sex matters. They maintain the peculiar belief that stereotypes precede and shape male and female differences rather than the other way around. “Trans” activists and their water-carrying school leaders ignore that through their actions, they are engaging in egregious social conditioning. Through pronoun policing; mandatory co-ed private spaces; litigation; falsified birth certificates and driver’s licenses; public shaming and epithet-hurling; and cultural indoctrination on a massive scale through control of government schools, academia, the press, the arts, and professional medical and mental health communities, public recognition of sex differences in all contexts is being eradicated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So many necessary questions completely ignored.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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

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Male Attorney Who Pretends to Be a Woman Goes After Jack Phillips

What the heck is wrong with Denver attorney “Autumn” Charlie Scardina? Oh yeah, he’s delusional. He thinks he is or wants to be a woman. And he definitely masquerades as one. That’s not an excuse for his reprehensible act of going after Masterpiece Cakeshop baker Jack Phillips, but it may help explain it.

In June 2017, just after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take Phillips’ case regarding his refusal to bake a cake for a same-sex faux-marriage and in full knowledge that Phillips would refuse his request, Scardina called the bakery to try to order a cake with a blue exterior and a pink interior for the celebration of his futile quest to become a woman—something he erroneously calls a “transition.”

As Scardina knew he would, Phillips refused, so Scardina filed a complaint with the loathsome Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which has “issued a finding” in which it declares that “there is sufficient evidence to support” Scardina’s “claim of discrimination.”

And we’re off to the races. “Autumn” may find running in heels challenging.

Phillips did not “discriminate” against Scardina based on Scardina’s desire to be a woman or his choice to masquerade as one. Phillips refused to use his skills and labor to create a product he has never created and that would convey a message that violates his religious convictions. If Scardina, still adorned in all his inglorious fakery, were to request a cake to celebrate, for example, his parents’ anniversary, Phillips would create it and sell it to him. Why is the distinction between refusing to sell a type of product or refusing to create an offensive message or refusing to serve a type of event and refusing to serve persons so difficult for cultural regressives to understand?

A word about “transitioning.” Men and women don’t and can’t. Castrations on anatomically and biologically healthy men don’t turn them into women. They turn them into eunuchs. Inverting penises to turn into fake vaginas doesn’t turn men into women. Tracheal shaves, feminizing facial surgeries, cross-sex hormone-doping, and evening gowns don’t turn men into women. Sure, with multiple surgeries, lipstick, flowing hair, and elaborate costuming, men can create disguises more likely to deceive people, but they cannot transition from man to woman.

This effort to destroy the small business of a Christian baker who seeks nothing other than to live his life as an authentic Christ-follower is revolutionary. Many dark forces impel and sustain this science-denying madness. There is the sexual revolution that ushered in the notions that our bodies are only instruments for our pleasure; that bodies have no intrinsic teleology (and certainly not related to procreative potential); and that there are no absolute, transcendent, objective moral truths. Second-wave feminists taught that there are no substantive differences between men and women (well, except when they argued there are, and women are superior). Then came the “LGBTQ” revolution that taught us the lie that men and women are interchangeable when it comes to sexual partners. The old heresy of Gnosticism reared its ugly head. Gnosticism teaches that the human person is dualistic rather than an integrated, inseparable whole composed of body and soul. Add to this toxic stew the cowardice of Christians who should know, care about, and speak truth but now stand largely silent while the bodies of men, women, and children are being mutilated in Frankensteinian and futile experiments, and voilà, a revolution of historic proportions is upon us.

At the most fundamental level, this revolution constitutes rebellion against God and his created order. It’s yet another manifestation of man’s pursuit of disordered desires, including the desire to be like God, which are the desires that get humans into mess after mess. Some messes, however, are worse than others. This is among the worst.

And cultural regressives will brook no resistance. They demand that every man, woman, and child genuflect to all cultural manifestations of their madness. In our schools, in our leisure activities, in our language, in our restrooms and locker rooms, and one day in our churches, we will be made to pretend that men can become women—or else. Live and let live is definitely not their motto.

Remember the concerted effort to force Jack Phillips to bake multiple cakes with unholy, deceitful messages next time some cultural regressive scoffs at the suggestion that Christians are being persecuted. Remember this next time some cultural regressive says the “lgbtqqap” ideology affects only the persons who embrace it. Remember this next time an opportunity presents itself for you to speak truth and, instead, you feel like God is “leading” you to remain silent.

Isn’t it remarkable how often we Christians feel “led by God” onto the path of least resistance—you know, the same path everyone else is on—the wide, crowded path lit by thin strands of those tiny, bedazzling lights that illumine little?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Male-Attorney-Who-Pretends-to-Be-a-Woman-Goes-After-Jack-Phillips.mp3

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Does Gender Really Matter?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They should surrender those feelings to Jesus.

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

They need the healing hand of Jesus Christ.

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

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