Tag Archives: Transgender

Good Things Are Happening In Virginia

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Elections have consequences. Virginia is one of the most recent examples of that fact.

On Saturday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

Virginia took a sharp turn on transgender student policies with new guidelines released on Sept. 16.

According to the new guidelines, public schools cannot affirm a student’s gender without parents’ written requests. In addition, bathroom and locker room use is to be based on students’ sex, defined as the biological sex at birth. Student sports participation should be sex-based as well unless federal laws require otherwise.

The new policies are is a complete reversal of the previous guidelines, which define transgender as a student’s “self-identifying term.” Those rules, which took effect in March 2021 under former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, ask schools to consider not disclosing a student’s gender identity to the parents “if a student is not ready or able to safely share” it with their family.

The new policies have common ground with the previous rules with regard to ensuring a safe learning environment without bullying, discrimination, or harassment for students. It lists the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution as primary evidence.

The new guidelines will enter a 30-day public comment period around Sept. 26 and take effect after the state superintendent approves the final version.

The Democrat response was predictable:

Virginia Del. Marcus Simon (D-Fairfax), who introduced the state House bill that became a 2020 law and the basis of the 2021 rules, said in a tweet on Sept. 16: “These new policies are cruel and not at all evidence-based. … If enacted, these policies will harm Virginia children. Stop bullying kids to score political points.”

Was it harmful to Virginia children when young girls were sexually assaulted in the restrooms at their schools?

The article concludes:

Clint Thomas, a father to Loudoun County schoolchildren, echoed Fight for Schools’ sentiment. He has two daughters, both studying in Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS). Caroline, the elder daughter, is a high school senior and was on the school’s soccer team.

He’s also a plaintiff in a lawsuit against LCPS administrators and school board members, filed by America First Legal (AFL), a nonprofit conservative legal group, on his and 10 other parents’ behalf. At the end of June, the defendants were sued for “promoting secret gender transitions” and “forcing children to change in locker rooms with members of the opposite sex,” according to AFL.

“Virginia is returning to a focus on parents’ rights in education with its 2022 revision to model policies,” Thomas told The Epoch Times. “It feels so good as a father of children in LCPS to know our state Department of Education is returning to sanity when it comes to the basic rights of girls and women in our schools and athletic competitions.”

It’s unclear whether school districts will face budgetary consequences if they don’t follow the requirements. Porter didn’t respond to a question by The Epoch Times about the potential ramifications of noncompliance.

When ordinary citizens get involved, good things happen.

How To End The Tyranny Of The Woke In Our Schools

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Since the U.S. Department of Education was created, academic scores in America have gone down. Somehow our children and grandchildren are not learning reading, writing, and arithmetic any more. It’s more important to have them use the right pronoun than for them to know what a pronoun is. On Sunday, The Western Journal posted an article that might give us a clue to solving this problem. The article tells the story of a woke Illinois middle school teacher talking in a video about lying to parents about their children.

The article reports:

In her self-congratulatory video, the smug leftist went on and on about how she purposefully excludes parents from being informed when students claim to be “transgender.”

Constantly grinning from ear to ear, the teacher told her social media audience, “I respect their name and their pronouns, and I use them in class, but because their parents don’t know — I even say this to the students — I say, ‘I’m gonna have to use your legal name and pronouns when addressing your parents, okay?’ And this usually, again, strengthens the bond, the trust bond between me and the kid.”

Before we go on, note that last bit about “strengthening the bond” between her and the kids. This is evidence that she is purposefully driving a wedge between parents and kids and attempting to eliminate parental influence in education.

The article includes a possible solution to teachers that are doing this in the classroom:

At the end of her video, though, this woke teacher did say something that just might give sane people some hope.

The teacher glumly noted that one of her leaders said, “Hey, there might be a law that comes down that says eventually you could get sued for doing that.”

And on a note that might make the parents of her students cheer with delight, the teacher concluded saying that if such a law is ever passed, “Well, that will be the day that I exit teaching.”

The sooner the better, I’d say.

Still, this is the perfect path toward eliminating this garbage. Sue them. Sue them. And sue them again until this dangerous behavior by woke teachers ends, and teachers like this one begin to “exit teaching.”

Once precedents are set that affirm teachers have no right to eliminate parents from education, the better it will be for the nation’s children who will finally be able to get back to learning instead of being subjected to left-wing indoctrination.

This teacher did reveal the rot infesting our public schools. But she also helped us see a way toward surgically removing it.

Parents need to reclaim their rights as parents.

Is Anyone Okay With This?

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On Friday, The Daily Wire posted an article about an 80-year-old woman who is no longer allowed at her local YMCA.

The article reports:

Julie Jaman, 80, had been swimming at the Mountain View pool, a Port Townsend facility, for 35 years, but on July 26, the Y’s aquatics manager, Rowen DeLuna, allegedly informed her that some children needed the lane she was swimming in.

Jaman said she headed to the women’s showers, where she soaped up before hearing a man’s voice, then turned to see a biological male named Clementine Adams, allegedly an employee at the pool, “looking at the little girls as they were taking off their suits,” the Port Townsend Free Press reported.

The Daily Wire reached out to the Mountain View pool for comment.

“There were gaps in the curtain and there I was, naked, with soap and water on me, and this guy, right there very close to me,” Jaman said. “I asked, ‘Do you have a penis?’ He said, ‘That’s none of your business.’ That’s when I told him, ‘Get out of here, right now.’”

Jaman said she turned to DeLuna, who was outside the shower stall, and said, “Get him out of here,” but DeLuna responded, “You’re discriminating and you can’t use the pool anymore and I’m calling the police.”

Jaman claimed that when she got dressed and tried to leave the building, a YMCA staff member told her she could not leave, echoed by DeLuna, prompting Jaman to respond, “Bull****! I’m going to the police right now. I want help and I need it immediately.”

Jaman said Wendy Bart, the CEO of the Olympic Peninsula YMCA, spoke to her later that day, and told her that she was banned from the pool, and said a staff member told her that Jaman said to Adams, “You’re going to stick your f***ing penis in those little girls.” Jaman, the mother of two adult daughters, said she reacted, “I am an 80 year-old woman and I do not talk like that.”

The article concludes:

She (Julie Jaman) concluded, “The YMCA, the city, the police and sheriffs, the parents, the professionals who assist victims of voyeurism, peeping Toms, pedophilia and assault need to come together figure too out how to make the new policies work for all pool patrons, not just one group. How to keep children, who are less able to discriminate, safe. It is ironic that women who discriminate when a situation threatens their safety or their children — a message from our ancestors — are now accused of discrimination as if they have made someone else a victim.”

I know that there is some expense involved, but separate facilities need to be made available for the transgender population. Most YMCA’s do have family dressing rooms or individual dressing rooms that could be made available. Recently a transgender woman prisoner impregnated two female prisoners in a New Jersey prison (article here). I realize that the majority of transgender people do not pose a threat, but some do. Are you willing to put little girls in danger just to be woke?

What Are We Teaching Our Children?

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On Sunday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about an event held Friday in a Texas gay bar. The event was called Drag the Kids to Pride. Follow the link at your own risk. You have been warned. The article includes two short videos of events at the bar. The activities involved are in no way suitable for the young children in attendance.

The article concludes:

One cannot imagine how parents can expose their young children to such nonsense. In general, children should be pulled out of the inept and failing public schools, which have now added perverse indoctrination to their other sins. But when parents go out of their way to inflict perversity on their kids, one can only despair.

I have no problem with teaching older children to be respectful of people who have an alternative lifestyle (yes, homosexuality is an alternative lifestyle) or to be respectful of their peers who struggle with gender dysphoria. However, these are lifestyles that are not mainstream and should not be encouraged to become mainstream. Before the growth of social media, gender dysphoria was very rare and generally young children outgrew it without any treatment. Unfortunately, social media has created an image of transgender as ‘cool’ and many teenagers having trouble adjusting to puberty are being caught up in the social pressure. This is a problem that will not in any way be helped by taking young children to a Drag the Kids to Pride event.

 

Have You Read “Johnny The Walrus”?

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On Thursday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about a book by Matt Walsh titled, “Johnny the Walrus.”

The article reports:

Matt Walsh has written a book for children called Johnny the Walrus. It satirizes the current transgender craze, which has resulted in an epidemic of irreversible child abuse:

Johnny is a little boy with a big imagination. One day he pretends to be a big scary dinosaur, the next day he’s a knight in shining armor or a playful puppy. But when the internet people find out Johnny likes to make-believe, he’s forced to make a decision between the little boy he is and the things he pretends to be — and he’s not allowed to change his mind.

To the horror of the libs who work at Amazon, Walsh’s book is selling like hotcakes on that platform. Someone leaked a zoom call on which Amazon employees wring their hands over what to do about Johnny the Walrus. I should note that the statements about the book made by the anonymous caller are entirely false. In typical liberal fashion, she just made them up. The people on the call would know they were false if they took the trouble to read Johnny the Walrus, a kids’ board book, which probably would have taken two minutes or less. But of course they didn’t bother. Ideology is everything.

The article includes screenshots of Amazon therapy session for trauma from Matt Walsh’s books. Evidently the thought of anyone writing an allegorical story about the damage that is being done to our children is upsetting to those who support doing the damage. Please follow the link above to read the entire article and view the screenshots.The book is not currently available on Amazon.

The Price For Telling The Truth

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On Sunday, The Daily Wire posted an article about Kathleen Cataford, 77, a school nurse in Connecticut who was suspended after she revealed on Facebook that an 11-year-old student at her school was on puberty blockers and that other students identified as non-binary without their parents being informed.

The article reports:

Kathleen Cataford, 77, was suspended from Hartford Public Schools after she posted the comments on Facebook, the Daily Mail reported. Cataford’s comments were labeled “transphobic” after she posted to a local mother’s group when someone asked for local school recommendations, saying parents should “Investigate the school system curriculum…CT is a very socially liberal, gender confused state.”

“As a public school nurse, I have an 11yo female student on puberty blockers and a dozen identifying as non-binary, all but two keeping this as a secret from their parents with the help of teachers, SSW [social workers] and school administration,” Cataford continued, according to the Mail. “Teachers and SSW are spending 37.5 hours a week influencing our children, not necessarily teaching our children what YOU think is being taught.”

Although I question the use of Facebook to reveal this, it may have been her only option. I seriously doubt her local newspaper would have touched it. I do think it was a good idea to share it in a local mothers’ group where people would have the opportunity to act on this knowledge. I would be furious if my child’s school kept information about my child’s choice of gender from me. Gender dysphoria used to be considered a mental illness that was to be watched and treated if necessary. Many children go through a period of this and then grow out of it. They don’t need to be encouraged to stay there.

The article notes:

Hartford School District officials were made aware of the post after the mother of the 11-year-old reportedly on puberty blockers saw it and reported it, the Mail reported. The family of the student, who have not been identified in media reports, told WSFB that “As a family we are very happy with how thoroughly and quickly the school and the district has taken action to both ensure the nurse is fully investigated and ensure the safety and privacy of our child. They could not have done a better job.”

Hartford Public Schools superintendent Dr. Leslie Torres-Rodriguez released a statement regarding Cataford’s remarks, without naming her.

The nurse did not reveal the identity of the child–all she did was to alert parents as to what was going on in their children’s school.

The article concludes:

“Hartford Public Schools strives to provide an inclusive environment where all students feel seen, valued, respected, and heard,” Torres-Rodriguez said in the statement. “We uphold all of our staff to a high standard, entrusting them to be caretakers and leaders in the community. We as a school district are responsible for the health, well-being, social and emotional development, and safety of ALL of the children entrusted to our care. It is our responsibility to support our students’ growth, personal experiences, and social-emotional development.”

“We take this matter, and any incident that impacts our students’ well-being, very seriously. Ensuring our schools are a safe place for students, staff and visitors is our highest priority. Therefore, we took immediate action to remove this individual from our schools while we investigate,” Torres-Rodriguez added. “While at times the most hateful rhetoric is the loudest it certainly doesn’t reflect the care, commitment, and acceptance that the vast majority of our teachers and staff practice every day.”

It is scary that a school would promote something that is a mental illness. They are not creating a safe environment. They are creating an environment where children too young to make life-altering decisions are deciding things that may leave them physically unable to mature fully physically or to have children.

Celebrating Child Abuse

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On Friday, President Biden gave a speech recognizing the “International Transgender Day of Visibility.” In that speech he claimed that would protect transgender people from numerous “dangerous attacks.” Just for the record, I looked up how many transgender people were murdered in 2021, as of November, the number was 45, the largest number ever (article here). Then I looked up how many people were murdered in Chicago in 2021, that number was 797 (article here). I don’t want to see anyone murdered, but it seems to me that we have a bigger problem than violence against transgenders–we have a problem with violence in general.

On Friday, CBN News posted an article about President Biden’s speech.

The article at CBN pointed out some obvious facts:

“Transgender Americans continue to face discrimination, harassment, and barriers to opportunity,” Biden said in a proclamation. “In the past year, hundreds of anti-transgender bills in States were proposed across America, most of them targeting transgender kids. The onslaught has continued this year. These bills are wrong.”

The president is referring to bills passed in multiple states that defend parental rights, protect the rights of female athletes, and protect children from irreversible “sex-change” surgeries and puberty-blockers.

Oklahoma and Arizona’s governors signed laws on Wednesday to prevent transgender athletes from dominating girls’ sports, joining more than a dozen other states with similar laws.

Preventing biological males from competing in women’s sports is not discrimination–it is common sense. It is giving women in sports a chance to compete on an even playing field.

The article at CBN News also notes:

The Christian Employers Alliance filed suit in federal court last fall, challenging two Biden administration mandates that force religious nonprofit and for-profit employers to pay for or perform gender transition surgeries, procedures, counseling, and treatments in violation of their religious beliefs

“Many religious employers – including the Christian Employers Alliance and all of its members – hold sincere beliefs that gender transition surgeries and procedures are morally wrong and contradict their beliefs that God purposefully created humans as either a biological male or female and that a person’s biological sex is immutable,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Matt Bowman. 

The speech also voiced support for transgender children. It is unclear whether the White House will take measures to allow transgender surgery on children without their parents’ consent. I suspect that will be proposed at some point in the not-so-distant future.

This speech was a shiny object to distract us from the multiple failures of the Biden administration. As inflation eats away at our income, as we deplete our strategic energy reserves, as we get involved in an overseas military adventure we cannot afford, and as we watch our economy flounder, the celebration of the transgender movement will energize the left wing of the Democrat party and disgust most Americans who believe in basic science.

What Are We Doing To Our Children?

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On Friday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about a twelve-year-old girl in Florida who tried to commit suicide twice. Suicide among teenagers is a problem that has been exacerbated by the coronavirus lockdowns, but the problems that drove this child to try to take her life had nothing to do with the coronavirus or the lockdowns.

The article reports:

The parents of a 12-year-old Florida girl who tried to hang herself twice at her school after ‘months of secret meetings about her gender identity’ are slamming the district staff who allegedly went behind their backs and ‘created a double life’ for their daughter.

Wendell Perez, and his wife Maria Perez, allege the staff at at Paterson Elementary School – where their daughter was enrolled – violated their parental rights by failing to inform them of the alleged gender identity crisis and developing a plan to help her address it without their consent. 

‘We’re talking about the staff from school this information and developing a plan of several sessions with my daughter, for months, talking about issues that are related and that the parents need to be involved,’ Wendell Perez told DailyMail.com on Thursday. ‘They basically created a double life for my daughter.’

…The complaint alleges that school counselor Destiney Washington held secret weekly meetings with Wendell Perez’s daughter about her alleged ‘gender identity crisis’ but neglected to alert her parents. It also claims school leaders encouraged other students and staff to refer to the young girl as a boy and even gave her a new name. 

It remains unclear why the 12-year-old was seeing the counselor or how the gender identity meetings come of fruition. 

The article concludes:

There is currently active legislation in the state of Florida, addressing concerns similar to that of the Perez family.

House Bill 1557, also known as the Parental Rights in Education bill, would require school boards to notify parents about specific information regarding a child’s emotional, physical and mental well-being. It would also limit classroom conversation on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Critics, calling it the Don’t Say Gay bill, claim it also encourages parents to sue schools or teachers that engage in discussions about these topics with students. 

‘We call it the ‘don’t say gay’ bill because it will essentially erase conversations in our classrooms about LGBTQ students, families, and history,’ State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith told the TV station.

‘Many LGBTQ people don’t have supportive homes. They don’t have supportive parents. Oftentimes their teachers and their school environment is the only form of support they have and we cannot take that away.’

Boyles is reportedly a proponent of the bill, which is currently in the House Judiciary Committee.

There is a trend in some of our schools now to try to usurp the rights of parents. Parents have the right to raise their children–to know what is happening in sensitive areas such as gender confusion. The teachers and administrators involved in this need to be charged with child abuse and never allowed to work with children again.

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This Is All Very Confusing

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On Sunday, Hot Air reported that Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer on the University of Pennsylvania swim team, recently lost the 100-meter freestyle race to another transgender swimmer. Okay, fair is fair. That seems logical. However the story gets a little weird after that.

The article quotes an Outkick article:

Penn transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who had been crushing her competition since joining the women’s swim team after three years swimming as a biological male, met her match Saturday in the 100-meter freestyle during a tri-meet with Yale and Dartmouth.

Thomas won the 200-meter and 500-meter races at Penn’s final home meet of the season, but she finished sixth in the 100-meter where Yale’s Iszac Henig, a transgender swimmer who is in the process of transitioning from female to male, crushed Thomas. Henig finished the 100 in 49.57 while Thomas touched the wall in 52.84.

“I wasn’t prepared for that. Everything is messed up. I can’t wrap my head around this. The NCAA needs to do something about this. They need to put science into the decision and discussion,” a Penn swim parent told The Daily Mail.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

Not all of the irony has been removed from the story, however. What this really means is that trans swimmer Thomas was beaten by an actual woman, so how well would Thomas do against the guys? This is a subject we touched on when the story first emerged last month. Thomas may be setting records for the University of Pennsylvania and for these specific meets, but all of the times posted thus far are still slower than the current NCAA women’s division records for those events. And they are laughably far behind the men’s division records. And now, even with the distinct biological advantage that Thomas enjoys, the swimmer has been defeated in multiple events by an actual female.

That doesn’t remove all of the injustice from the situation, of course. There are still plenty of other legitimate female college athletes who are being bumped down the charts. As the linked article indicates, one parent of a female Penn swimmer was once again calling for the NCAA to “put science into the decision and discussion.” We already saw one collegiate swimming official end her career in protest over what’s been going on. Sadly, the NCAA has clearly drunk deeply from the new chalice of wokeness and they aren’t likely to voluntarily embark on a return to sanity any time soon.

This makes my head hurt.

 

 

What I Never Thought I Would See

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On Monday The Federalist posted a list of thirteen things that have happened that they would not have believed five years ago.

Here is the list. Please follow the link to the article to read the details:

1. Men As Women

2. Blocking Puberty

3. Drafting Women

5. Massive Illegal Immigration

6. Widespread Censorship

7. Parents Labeled Terrorists

8. President’s Mental Abilities Doubted

9. Asking Athletes for Advice

10. Record Debt and Inflation

11. Covid Restrictions Continue and Some Increase

12. Major Scientific Advances Not Celebrated

13. Losing Our Lead

Please follow the link above to read the details. We are obviously not in a good place.

Sad, But Not Surprising

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The transgender movement is a direct threat to women’s sports. A transgender woman can compete and win in women’s sports. A woman who transitions to a man will generally not do well in men’s sports. This is illustrated in a article posted yesterday at PJ Media.

The article reports:

Will Thomas was a moderately successful swimmer on the University of Pennsylvania’s men’s swim team for three years. But then he took a year off, reemerged as transgender, and started dominating the women’s swim team.

“One of my big concerns for trans people is feeling alone,” he told Penn Today. “Even if you don’t pay attention to the news … [about] states proposing and passing vicious anti-trans legislation, it can feel very lonely and overwhelming.”

“The process of coming out as being trans and continuing to swim was a lot of uncertainty and unknown around an area that’s usually really solid. Realizing I was trans threw that into question. Was I going to keep swimming? What did that look like?”

He added, “Being trans has not affected my ability to do this sport and being able to continue is very rewarding.”

It may not have affected his ability to do his sport, but as a transgender he is competing against women who generally do not have the upper body strength that men do. He is competing in an unequal playing field where he has an unfair advantage. How many women will lose college scholarships in swimming to a transgender women?

A New Level Of Insanity

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On Thursday, the NC Family Policy Council website reported the following:

Lambda Legal, a national LGBTQ activist organization, is suing the State of North Carolina over what it characterizes as a “discriminatory policy” relating to birth certificates. Consistent with biology, history, and longstanding policy, current state law requires birth certificates in North Carolina to identify a child as either “male” or “female.” In 1975, the state modified the law to allow an individual to change the sex designation on his or her birth certificate if they file a written request with the State Registrar and provide a notarized statement from a licensed physician that they have undergone sex reassignment surgery.

In its complaint, Lambda Legal asks the federal district court to throw out the 1975 accommodation as unconstitutional, and simply allow transgender identifying persons to change the sex designations on their birth certificates upon request.

…In its complaint, Lambda Legal asks the federal district court to throw out the 1975 accommodation as unconstitutional, and simply allow transgender identifying persons to change the sex designations on their birth certificates upon request.

The UCLA Williams Institute School of Law reports:

In 2011, Gary J. Gates utilized two state-level population-based surveys that collected data from 2003 in California and from 2007 and 2009 in Massachusetts to estimate that 0.3% of the U.S. adult population, roughly 700,000 adults, identified as transgender.2 Since then, more state-level data sources have emerged that allow us to utilize an estimation procedure that would not have been possible with the limited data available in 2011. Compared to the data used in Gates’ study, these new data sources provide more recent data (2014), larger sample sizes, and more detailed information about respondents. This allows for the development of more recent, detailed, and statistically robust estimates of the percentage and number of adults in the United States who identify as transgender.

This report utilizes data from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) to estimate the percentage and number of adults who identify as transgender nationally and in all 50 states.3 We find that 0.6% of U.S. adults identify as transgender. This figure is double the estimate that utilized data from roughly a decade ago and implies that an estimated 1.4 million adults in the U.S. identify as transgender.4 State-level estimates of adults who identify as transgender range from 0.3% in North Dakota to 0.8% in Hawaii.5 In addition, due to current state-level policy debates that specifically target and affect transgender students, we provide estimates of the number of adults who identify as transgender by age. The youngest age group, 18 to 24 year olds, is more likely than older age groups to identify as transgender.

Transgender is being pushed on many of our children in school almost from kindergarten. Social media has a lot to do with its increase among teenagers and young adults. There are very few social media posts by people who have regretted transgender surgery or hormone treatments. Generally they are not posted. The social media posts seem to imply that changing your sex will solve all of your teenage problems. Obviously,  many of the teenagers who attempt this solution promptly find out that it is not the answer to their problems. Unfortunately many of the steps taken by the time a teenager realizes their mistake are irreversible. I don’t think it is unreasonable to require at least a letter of request to change the gender on your birth certificate.

Common Sense In Alabama

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported that the Alabama state Senate voted Tuesday to make it a felony for medical professionals to treat minors with hormone therapy or sex change surgery.

The article reports:

The bill, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Shay Shelnutt and dubbed the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, passed through the chamber by a margin of 23-4, according to CBS News.

The bill would result in criminal felony charges for any medical professional who treats transgender minors under the age of 19 with “gender-affirming care” and would come with the punishment of up to 10 years in prison or a $15,000 fine.

…The bill also requires school staff in the state to notify parents that “a minor’s perception that his or her gender is inconsistent with his or her sex.”

If signed into law, the bill would be the first of its kind in the United States to be enacted.

The article includes the following information about objections to the bill:

Liberal groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, AIDS Alabama, and the Alabama American Civil Liberties Union, have voiced opposition to the bill, arguing that it puts transgender children at risk.

“Lawmakers are insisting that they know what’s best for transgender young people and ignoring the recommendations of medical experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and more,” Allison Scott, a director at the Campaign for Southern Equality, said about the legislation. “It’s effectively endangering many possible lifelines for a transgender child: Under this bill, they can’t go to their doctor for help, and they can’t seek counsel or comfort from their teachers or school staff.”

The children need to talk to their parents. That should be their first resort. Also, you can’t get your ears pierced without parental consent if you are under 18, why should you be encouraged to make such a life-changing decision without their knowledge or consent? If a child still wants to make that decision at 19, then he is considered an adult. However, I would like to point out that we don’t let children smoke or drink until they are 21. Why would we allow them to change their sex before they can smoke or drink? The logic escapes me.

The Censors At Amazon Are Censoring Any Books They Deem Offensive

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There is a whole lot of offensive material out in our society that no one is censoring, so why has Amazon taken it upon themselves to censor anything that they find offensive? First of all, who defines offensive? Well, that seems to be the problem.

Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article about Amazon’s censorship. Amazon has some interesting ideas about what needs to be censored.

The article reports:

For example, a popular documentary on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was banned from their streaming service this past week. Before that move, the company deplatformed conservative Ryan Anderson’s book critical of gender theory, “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement.”

When Just the News reached out to Amazon over the ban on Anderson’s book, the outlet said the company directed them to a page outlining their “Content Guidelines for Books.” Under a section labeled “Offensive Content,” Amazon states that they “don’t sell certain content including content that we determine is hate speech, promotes the abuse or sexual exploitation of children, contains pornography, glorifies rape or pedophilia, advocates terrorism, or other material we deem inappropriate or offensive.”

“A review of those policies suggests that sometime in the last few months Amazon made a major change to the ways in which it moderates book content on its servers, imposing a much stricter standard on books than it had previously done,” the report said. It appears the company recently added so-called “hate speech” to their guidelines on book platforming and is amping up their censorship of the “offensive.”

The article notes an observation by Daily Wire podcast host and conservative author Matt Walsh that if Amazon bans conservative books (which is the direction they are going), publishers won’t publish them due to the lack of marketing outlets. This will abolish half of the political debate in America.

The article notes:

“When a company controls over 83% of the market for books, it begins the process of deleting ideas from a society,” the author argued. “A bookseller can sell whatever it wants. If ‘Marxist Books’ wants to only sell books that conform to its ideology, OK; that has integrity.”

“But this is the ‘world’s largest bookseller.’ Amazon can basically make books disappear for *all readers* — and does so on a blatantly dishonest basis. Under guise of removing ‘inappropriate’ content, they will really be removing ideas they disfavor,” she added.

Amazon has not banned books that speak favorably about transgender teenagers. This is not about objectionable material–it is about promoting a particular point of view–politically and socially.

Common Sense From A Legislator?

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Breitbart reported yesterday that Tulsi Gabbard introduced the “Protect Women’s Sports Act” in Congress on Thursday.

The article reports:

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) maintained the distinction between the sexes while addressing critics of her Protect Women’s Sports Act in a Twitter video published on Sunday.

Gabbard introduced the above-mentioned legislation with Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) on Thursday. The bill proposes the restriction of federal funds from schools allowing boys and men to compete against girls and women in sports.

Gabbard identified broad physical advantages held by men relative to women as a rationale to segregate the sexes in the context of sports to preserve “a level playing field.”

There are two major aspects of this issue that need to be discussed. The first is the idea of high school boys in high school girls’ locker rooms. I suspect that fathers who remember what it was like to be a teenage boy would not support this idea. The second aspect is equally important. Young women who are outstanding high school athletes are being denied scholarships opportunities because they are losing in competition against biological young men.

Boys competing against boys and girls competing against girls used to be a non-issue, but the cultural warriors who want to undermine our basic societal norms have chosen to make it an issue. The issue of transgender has been pushed on teenagers through social media and added to the confusion that teenagers feel as they are attempting to find their identity. The real victims of this push to undermine what used to be understood are the teenagers who are often pushed into irreversible decisions because of peer pressure and pressure from social media. Parents need to stand up to the cultural warriors and protect their children.

This Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone

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The Epoch Times posted an article today about a sexual assault case in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. The alleged assault took place in a gender-neutral bathroom in a high school. I sincerely question if the people who came up with the idea of gender-neutral bathrooms were ever teenagers. Unfortunately we don’t live in a world that can safely support the idea of gender-neutral bathrooms. I’m not sure that world ever existed, but it does not exist now.

The article reports:

According to News 9 WOAW, 18-year-old Austin Sauer was arrested on Thursday on charges of child enticement, fourth-degree sexual assault, and exposing genitals to a child, the sex of whom has not been reported.

The Wisconsin state law defines fourth-degree sexual assault as “sexual contact with a person without the consent of that person.”

An officer from the Oneida County Sheriff’s Department told the local ABC affiliate that the incident took place in a gender-neutral bathroom at Rhinelander High School. The school has promptly closed that bathroom.

In a statement released to WOAW, Rhinelander School District Superintendent Kelli Jacobi said that “both students went into the bathroom voluntarily.”

“This was not a random incident, as both students went into the bathroom voluntarily,” she said. “The male student will no longer be able to be on school grounds, and the gender-neutral bathroom is no longer available to students.”

The article concludes:

Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s decision in a privacy lawsuit against a public school district in Dallas, Oregon. A panel of three judges ruled in favor of the school district, saying that it did not violate federal law or constitutional rights with a “student safety plan” that allows transgender students to use bathroom, locker, and shower facilities that “match their self-identified gender.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court last May refused to hear an appeal in a case from Pennsylvania, in which lower federal courts upheld a school district’s policy of permitting transgender students to use restrooms or locker rooms matching their gender identity. Four students, who felt uncomfortable with the policy, sued the school district on the basis that it violated their privacy rights and federal laws under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

It seems to me that common sense needs to be part of this discussion. The majority of our high school students are not transgender. Those students are entitled to privacy. There is no reason for a student with male genitals to be in a high school girls’ locker room. I don’t know exactly what provisions would have to be made, but I wouldn’t want my granddaughters to have to deal with boys in their locker room. If they still have their male body parts, they are boys and do not belong in the girls’ locker room. If they no longer belong in the boys’ locker room, then other facilities need to be made available.

Addressing A Politically-Created Problem

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Breitbart reported the following yesterday:

The New Hampshire House Education Committee will hold a public hearing on Tuesday on HB 1251, legislation to protect female athletic programs from men, or transgender women, who want to compete in girls’ and women’s sporting events.

The bill — sponsored by New Hampshire Republicans Mark Pearson, Judy Aron, Regina Birdsell, Linda Camarota, Linda Gould, Kathleen Hoelzel, Alicia Lekas, Jeanine Notter, Katherine Prudhomme-O’Brien, Kim Rice, and Ruth Ward — states it is about “Discrimination Protection in Public Schools.”

The article reports the reaction to the bill:

Organizations for and against the bill are mobilizing the public. Save Women’s Sports and Cornerstone are hoping for the legislation to become law.

Cornerstone wrote in a notice about the public hearing:

Female athletes deserve a level playing field. They should not have to compete against biological males for a spot on the podium, even if those males claim a female gender identity. Biological males are already starting to dominate women’s competitive sports.

The Citizens Count website is reaching out to people who support transgender sports.

If the bill becomes law it would be effective 60 days after its passage.

Athletic scholarships are one ticket to college for athletic high school girls. In recent years many of these girls have lost scholarship opportunities because of losing to high school boys transitioning or claiming to identify as girls. Anyone who understands basic biology understands that this is simply unfair. I don’t have an answer to a transgender high school student who wants to complete athletically. Do we need a transgender athletic program? I don’t know. What I do know is that letting boys compete in girls’ sports is simply unfair to girls.

Insanity Made Legal

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An article at New Jersey News 12 updated on December 23 reported that New Jersey birth certificates will now include a third, non-binary label come February 1.

The article reports:

Gov. Phil Murphy signed the Babs Siperstein Bill into law last July.

The new legislation gives parents the option of choosing a gender-neutral or non-binary identity on their child’s birth certificate. It also allows adults to change the gender marker on their birth and death certificates, without proof of reassignment surgery.

“Just because your sex assigned at birth is one thing, it does not necessarily mean that it is something that’s going to be consistent with your gender identity throughout your life,” says Ashley Chiappano with the group Garden State Equality.

I would like to remind Ms. Chiappano that the sex assigned at birth is not randomly assigned–it is based on visible biological, scientific information.

The article concludes:

Chiappano says that there is a difference between sex and gender.

“Sex is more like a label. When we’re talking about sex, this is assignment by a doctor,” she says. “Gender identity goes even further to say that it’s how you feel on the inside and how you express yourself. It’s how you express yourself through your clothing, your behavior, your personal appearance.”

The new law is named after Edison resident Babs Siperstein, the first elected transgender member of the Democratic National Committee in 2012.

New Jersey joins Oregon, California and Washington, which have all approved similar legislation. New York City also just changed birth certificates to be gender neutral.

I totally reject the idea that sex is assigned by a doctor. It is designated on the basis of visual evidence. It is becoming obvious that in several states the inmates have taken over the asylum.

Harming Women In The Name Of Equality

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The law of unintended consequences seems to spend a lot of time in Washington. One of the best recent examples is the “Equality Act” promoted by the Democrats in the House of Representatives. If the Democrats can maintain their majority in the House of Representative and win a majority in the Senate in 2016, they will pass the Equality Act. So what will the Equality Act do? It will allow men transitioning to women to compete in women’s sports in high school. High school women are losing athletic scholarships because they are losing to transgender women in sports events (article here).

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about the Democrat Party’s plans for America’s future.

The article notes:

Democrats have made girls’ sports a 2020 campaign issue, but establishment media outlets are keeping their viewers and readers in the dark.

Every Democratic frontrunner has pledged their support of the Equality Act, which would make “gender identity” a protected characteristic under federal anti-discrimination law. Among other things, the bill would force public schools to expand female athletic teams to include biological males who identify as transgender girls.

Every Democratic frontrunner for president has pledged their support for the bill, which passed the House in May with unanimous Democratic support. But when establishment media outlets have covered the Equality Act in relation to the 2020 election, the girls’ sports issue has gone missing.

An Oct. 10 CNN article noted that passing the Equality Act is a “top priority” for the 2020 campaigns of California Sen. Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, but made no mention of the bill’s impact on female sports. CNN’s LGBT town hall the same day included zero questions about transgender athletes in girls’ sports.

The article concludes:

Polling from Morning Consult shows that majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents agree that male athletes who identify as transgender have a competitive advantage in girls’ sports, a view supported by scientific research on the subject.

Biologically male athletes have racked up victories in female sports.

Two biologically male runners in Connecticut have dominated girls’ high school track in the liberal state, which allows self-identified transgender athletes to compete as the opposite sex. At the NCAA level, a male runner who identifies as transgender won an NCAA women’s track championship in May after previously competing on the university’s men’s team.

Men competing as women harms women’s athletics. It defies science and common sense.

Are Children Becoming Collateral Damage In The Culture War?

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The Daily Signal today posted an article by Sydney Wright, a business sales representative in the private sector and a student at Georgia Northwestern Technical College. Sydney Wright spent a year as a transgender man and shares her experience in the article.

In the article Sydney explains the path she traveled:

From my earliest years, I was always different from the other girls. I wore boy clothes, and I played with boy toys. I was a classic tomboy.

As I got older, I became romantically interested in other girls. In fact, with the exception of one guy I dated in high school, I exclusively dated girls.

At the time, you wouldn’t have been able to tell I was gay just from looking at me. I had long, blond hair, wore makeup, and carried myself rather femininely. But in my head, I knew I was gay—though I was more of a self-loathing gay.

The truth is, I didn’t like gays, and didn’t want to be associated with them. Yet there I was, dating only other girls.

Her journey begins in earnest with the viewing of successful transgender stories on Instagram. All the stories she saw painted a positive picture of transition and life after the transition. She expressed the feeling that being a transgender female would result in less negative feedback from society than being gay. She looked for books that would discuss both sides of the transgender issue, but found only books that supported the transgender movement and the medical procedures.

The article continues:

The first step was to find a therapist who would write me a letter to start me on male hormones.

I soon found a therapist who said she would help me, and I told her I wanted to start the hormones on my 19th birthday, which was only five weeks off. She required only a one-hour appointment each week.

That’s hardly enough time to get to know someone. Yet those five hours got me an official letter that unlocked the doors for me to get hormone therapy and become a “man.” It also helped me change my “sex” on my driver’s license from female to male.

I now see a huge problem with how easy this was. If the therapist had gone slower and been more careful, she would have seen that I wasn’t actually trans.

But by this time, I’d seen the promotional videos. I was convinced that my gender is what was “off,” and the therapist guided me along and made me feel like a sex change is what I needed.

By this point, my friends were also encouraging me to transition. “You’re a hot girl,” they said. “You’ll be a hot guy, too!” Others were too afraid to say anything against it, because after all, it was 2017. I never got pushback from anyone.

The article notes:

Not once did she tap the brakes to keep me from gender transition.

The article goes on to detail some of the medical problems a teenager may encounter with transition. Finally Miss Wright was encouraged to stop the transition by her grandfather. His wisdom probably saved her life. She then details the withdrawal process which also involved some serious medical problems.

The article concludes:

It’s insane to me that our society is letting this to happen to young people. At age 18, I wasn’t even legal to buy alcohol, but I was old enough to go to a therapist and get hormones to change my gender.

This is happening to vulnerable kids much younger than I was, and the adults are AWOL.

When you walk into these clinics, you won’t really see older people around. It’s boys and girls playing dress-up, brought there by clueless parents, waiting for the appointment that could likely ruin their lives.

I hope I’m not the only one who sees a major problem with this. Our culture has set up a fast-track to gender transition that will only result in scarred bodies and ruined lives—and the medical community is complicit. I met with these doctors in person and gave them my own cash. I can tell you they did not care.

At age 18, I wasn’t even legal to buy alcohol, but I was old enough to go to a therapist and get hormones to change my gender.

This is a public health crisis that our media and politicians are completely ignoring. More young people are being deceived every day, being told that the solution to their insecurity and identity problems is to get a sex change.

That’s just about the worst path you can put a young person on.

Until we do something, until the medical community puts up serious guardrails and begins to do its due diligence—and until politicians grow a spine and step in—expect to see more young people scarred for life.

If anything, I hope my story can serve as a warning bell and save some other young teenager the misery and grief I’ve been through.

Her story is chilling and should be a wake-up call to parents who for whatever reason are putting their children on the transgender train. The current transgender movement is a dangerous fad that ‘cool’ parents are taking part in. It is actually child abuse.

Common Sense Is Not Always Appreciated

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Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about some recent comments by Dr. Ben Carson.

The article shows us how a smear campaign works. The article reports:

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Ben Carson issued an agency-wide email Friday attacking a “blatant mischaracterization” of his comments about transgenderism during his visit to California this week, which reportedly offended bureaucrats in San Francisco.

The Washington Post broke the story on Thursday, citing “three people present” at a HUD meeting:

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson expressed concern about “big, hairy men” trying to infiltrate women’s homeless shelters during an internal meeting, according to three people present who interpreted the remarks as an attack on transgender women.

While visiting HUD’s San Francisco office this week, Carson also lamented that society no longer seemed to know the difference between men and women, two of the agency staffers said.

Carson’s remarks visibly shocked and upset many of the roughly 50 HUD staffers who attended Tuesday’s meeting, and prompted at least one woman to walk out in protest, the staffers said.

A HUD official, who had not been present at the meeting, defended Carson, saying he never used derogatory language against transgendered people. The official added that “Carson was referring to men who pretend to be women to gain access to battered women’s shelters — and not singling out transgender women as “big, hairy men.”

The article concludes:

In May, Carson announced a new HUD rule that would allow local homeless shelters to decide for themselves if they wanted to use biological sex, not gender identity, as a basis for deciding how to provide housing. The policy under the Obama administration had been a one-size-fits-all rule forcing all shelters to recognize gender identity.

Carson has decided that the safety of homeless women must come before transgender concerns about identity — and before the political sentiments of agency bureaucrats based in a state that has failed to tackle growing homelessness.

The issue here is the safety of women seeking shelter from abuse. What is to stop an abuser from saying he is transsexual to gain access to a shelter and then terrorizing the women in it? Who wants to be responsible for the first death in a women’s shelter caused by a man who gained access by claiming to be a transsexual when he was not?

The policy here is common sense. It is in place to protect women. Are we willing to sacrifice the safety of abused women in order to placate the transgender movement?

Maybe There Is A Solution Not Yet Tried

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Breitbart posted an article yesterday about an aspect of the transgender population that has not yet been fully considered.

The article reports:

A new study that examined students who claim to have gender identity issues found that, compared with 45 percent of students who are comfortable with their biological sex, 78 percent of gender-disturbed students met the criteria for at least one mental health problem.

Researchers affiliated with the Boston University School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, and University of Michigan School of Public Health, conducted the expansive study, published at the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The study, which included more than 1,200 college students with gender identity issues across 71 U.S. college campuses, found that, across commonly used mental health measures, 78 percent of the gender-disturbed students met the criteria for one or more of the outcomes of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-injury, and suicidality.

The article concludes:

In 2018, Dr. Lisa Littman at Brown University set out to learn more about why the number of adolescent girls identifying as transgender at Britain’s Gender Identity Development Service had increased from 41 percent in 2009 to 69 percent in 2017.

The researcher said she had observed teens without a history of gender dysphoria – a clinical term describing psychological discomfort caused by a sense one’s gender is incompatible with one’s biological sex – were “coming out” as transgender “after a period of immersing themselves in niche websites after similar announcements from friends.”

In her study of 256 parents, which was condemned by LGBT activists, Littman found 87 percent of the young people were reported to have “come out” as transgender after increased time spent on social media and the Internet and after “cluster outbreaks” of gender dysphoria among their groups of friends. Most of the teens who ultimately identified as transgender also showed increased popularity with peer groups afterward, according to their parents’ reports.

Additionally, Littman found nearly two-thirds of the young people whose parents participated in the survey had already been diagnosed with at least one psychiatric developmental disorder prior to the onset of the gender dysphoria. For example, nearly half of the young people had already attempted to harm themselves or had experienced a trauma, suggesting the mental health issues preceded the reported gender identity disturbance.

Recently, the academic response to a child who expresses a desire to change their sex has been to aid them in the process, sometimes without parent knowledge or consent. It would make more sense to search for underlying issues and deal with those issues before encouraging a child to walk down such a life-changing path. I recently read an article about a young boy, about nine or ten, who told his parents he wanted to be a girl. The parents sought counseling for the child, rather than simply go along with his wishes. The counseling revealed that because the child noticed that his younger sister who was handicapped got more attention from his parents than he did, he thought that if he were a girl, he would get more attention. His going through the transgender process would not have helped his problem at all. After counseling, the family dynamic was altered, and the boy went happily along the way as a little boy.

Not every person who claims to be transgender is actually transgender. Some have simply walked down that path in a desperate attempt to deal with other underlying issues. We do these people a disservice when we don’t look for and attempt to solve those underlying issues.

Usurping Parental Rights

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Yahoo News posted a USA Today article about a 14-year-old school child who decided that she was a boy. The story is heartbreaking because the parents tried to provide the help the child needed, and the school undermined them every step of the way.

The article reports:

In April 2016, my then 14-year-old daughter became convinced that she was my son. In my attempt to help her, her public school undermined me every step of the way.

Throughout my daughter’s childhood, there were no signs that she wanted to be a boy. She loved stuffed animals, Pocahontas and wearing colorful bathing suits. I can’t recall a single interest that seemed unusually masculine, or any evidence that she was uncomfortable as a girl.

The only difficulty she had was forming and maintaining friendships. We later learned why: She was on the autism spectrum. She was very functional and did well in school, helped by her Individualized Education Program (IEP), a common practice for public school students who need special education.

At her high school, my daughter was approached by a girl who had recently come out at school as transgender. Shortly after meeting her, my daughter declared that she, too, was a boy trapped in a girl’s body and picked out a new masculine name.

The school began treating the girl as a boy and addressing her with masculine pronouns. The parents were unaware of this. When they found out about it, they requested that those in the school call her by her legal name at all times. Their request was ignored–the school continued to address her by a masculine name and masculine pronouns.

The article continues:

We met with the school district’s assistant superintendent, who told us the hands of school personnel are tied and that they had to follow the law. But there was no law, only the Obama administration’s “Dear Colleagues” letter of May 2016 that said schools need to officially affirm transgender students. Just three months later, in August 2016, a federal judge in Texas blocked the guidelines from being enforced. And in February 2017, the Trump administration rescinded the Obama-era guidelines, leaving it to the states to set their own policies.

I also learned that the ACLU has sent threatening letters to schools stating that it is against the law to disclose a student’s gender identity, even to their parents. But this letter appears to misunderstand federal law. The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act requires that schools allow parents to “inspect and review” their child’s education records as long as the child is under 18.

The article then reveals the peer pressure in the world of psychology:

We had our daughter evaluated by a psychologist approved by the school district. He told us that it was very clear that our daughter’s sudden transgender identity was driven by her underlying mental health conditions, but would only share his thoughts off the record because he feared the potential backlash he would receive. In the report he submitted to us and the school, he did not include these concerns that he would only share in person.

Please follow the link to the article to read the rest of the story. I need someone to explain to me how this sort of behavior by schools is in any way helpful to our children.

If You Are A Parent, This Is Frightening

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Life Site News posted an article on Wednesday about what I would consider a serious violation of parental rights by the government.

The article reports:

The Minnesota mother whose son was maneuvered through a “sex change” by county officials has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review her case. She is charging the government with usurping her parental rights when its agents provided her son with transgender services and narcotic drugs against her wishes.

The Thomas More Society petitioned the High Court Wednesday on behalf of Anmarie Calgaro, arguing that Calgaro’s due process rights were “trampled on” when St. Louis County and its referred health providers “ended her parental control over her minor son without a court order of emancipation.”

“It’s a parent’s worst nightmare,” Thomas More Society special counsel Erick Kaardal said. “Anmarie Calgaro’s child, while a minor, was steered through a life-changing, permanent body altering process, becoming a pawn in someone else’s sociopolitical agenda and being influenced by those who have no legal or moral right to usurp the role of a parent.”

Calgaro sued state agencies and health providers in federal court in 2016 for terminating her parental rights without due process after her minor son was given elective medical services for a so-called “sex change” without her consent or a legal order of emancipation.

Her suit said the state’s entities decided on their own that the then-17-year-old boy was emancipated.

The defendants handled Calgaro’s son as an emancipated minor even though there had been no court action to that effect, the Thomas More statement says. Neither the school district, the county, nor any of the medical agencies named in the lawsuit gave Calgaro any notice or hearing before ending her parental rights over her minor child.

A district judge dismissed Calgaro’s lawsuit in May 2017, admitting that the boy was not legally emancipated by a court order but ruling that Calgaro’s parental rights “remained intact.” The Thomas More Society says the judge decreed that the de facto emancipation of Calgaro’s minor son by the county, school, and medical care providers did not constitute an infringement of constitutionally protected parental rights.

The case was appealed in July 2017 and the district court ruling upheld by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in March of this year.

St. Louis County decided without any basis that Calgaro’s son was emancipated and could receive government benefits, even though Calgaro was a “fit parent” who objected to their actions, the legal non-profit’s statement on the Supreme Court filing said.

The article concludes:

“And the St. Louis County School District in Minnesota has a custom and practice of barring a parent from involvement in the child’s education for more than two years after a child is deemed by the school principal, not by a court order, to be emancipated,” he said. “This is an unacceptable situation for any parent and a serious violation of parental and due process rights.”

Minnesota’s language regarding emancipation is vague, and state law presents no procedural due process rights for “fit parents,” according to Kaardal, even though it does so for those deemed unfit.

“Why wouldn’t we make this same effort for fit parents?” he asked.

Kaardal said he was concerned in particular about the conflict in Minnesota’s legal statutes.

“The U.S. Court of Appeals ignored the major disconnect in the District Court decision where the mother’s parental rights are admitted but not honored, and the ridiculous claims that the agencies which have violated Calgaro’s rights did nothing wrong,” he stated. “The United States Supreme Court now has the opportunity to untangle this incompatible and untenable scenario; so, nationwide fit parents can keep parenting without governmental interference.”

“Under federal law, the right to parent is considered an unenumerated right, protected from governmental interference by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments,” said Kaardal. “The “liberty” of the Due Process Clauses safeguards those substantive rights “so rooted in the traditions and conscience as to be ranked as fundamental.”

The U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes in October.

 

Reaching For Fairness

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Yesterday The Daily Wire reported the following:

On Monday, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorneys representing teen track star Selina Soule and two other minor female track athletes submitted a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights seeking an investigation into sex discrimination. The complaint specifically challenges the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) policy allowing biological males who identify as female to compete in girls’ athletics, ADF announced in a press release sent to The Daily Wire on Monday.

Per the CIAC policy, Soule was forced to compete against female-identifying biological males in a high-stakes track competition where two transgender sprinters beat the field, taking first and second place by significant margins; Soule landed in 8th place, missing an opportunity to compete in front of college coaches by two places.

“I am very happy for these athletes and I fully support them for being true to themselves and having the courage to do what they believe in,” Soule told host Fox News host Laura Ingraham in February. “But, in athletics, it’s an entirely different situation. It’s scientifically proven that males are built to be physically stronger than females. It’s unfair to put someone who is biologically a male, who has not undergone anything in terms of hormone therapy, against cis-gender girls.”

“Throughout the 2018-19 track season, males consistently deprived the female athletes who are part of the complaint of dozens of medals, opportunities to compete at a higher level, and the public recognition critical to college recruiting and scholarship opportunities,” an ADF news release said. “The complaint notes that CIAC’s policy and its results directly violated the requirements of Title IX, a federal regulation designed to protect equal athletic opportunities for women and girls.”

I will admit that this is a new issue to me. Transgender was not common when my children were in school. It does seem to me that adolescent girls and adolescent boys are different physically. Generally boys have more muscle mass and more upper body strength. That makes competition between the sexes uneven. If a male transitioning to female is allowed to compete against women, he has a physical advantage–he will generally be taller with more muscle mass. That seems unfair to me. The only logical solution is to set up athletic events specifically for transgender students. Otherwise the athletes are not competing on a level playing field.