Tag Archive for: queers

The Boy Who Knew Too Much for His School

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Exposing trans madness in education doesn’t require advanced degrees, political influence, charisma, or even 18 years of life, as one plucky middle-schooler demonstrated. At the April 13 School Committee Meeting for Middleboro, Mass. Public Schools, 7th grader Liam Morrison, a student at Nichols Middle School, stepped up to the microphone for two minutes of public comment — and then reached up to turn it down towards his mouth. He then narrated for the school committee what might be the silliest reason any student has ever been sent home from school: wearing a shirt conveying factually accurate information.

“I never thought the shirt I wore to school on March 21 would lead me to speak with you today,” began the pint-sized culture warrior. He described how he was removed from his Tuesday gym class “to sit down with two adults for what turned out to be a very uncomfortable talk. I was told that people were complaining about the words on my shirt, that my shirt was making some students feel unsafe.”

“What did my shirt say? Five simple words: ‘There are only two genders,’ Morrison emphasized. “Nothing harmful. Nothing threatening. Just a statement I believe to be a fact.” And not only a fact, but a bedrock principle to many lessons Morrison would likely have encountered in both biology class and grammar class.

“Yes, words on a shirt made people feel ‘unsafe,’” repeated Morrison. If people did complain, they lacked the courage to tell Morrison to his face. In this instance, the accused was not accorded the right to face his accusers, making their very existence unverifiable. Morrison recalled, “Not one person, student, or staff, told me that they were bothered by what I was wearing. Actually, just the opposite. Several kids told me that they supported my actions and that they wanted one, too.”

“I was told that I would need to remove my shirt before I could return to class,” Morrison continued. “When I nicely told them that I didn’t want to do that, they called my father. Thankfully, my dad supported my decisions [and] came to pick me up.” In other words, because Morrison’s shirt proclaimed a fact of biology and language that he learned (or should have learned) in school, school personnel sent him home — which would hinder his ability to learn — to quarantine his knowledge from other students.

School personnel tried to justify their decision to Morrison, who said, “Their arguments were weak, in my opinion.” The Nichols Middle School dress code does not prohibit students from wearing clothing that displays a message — which is sometimes the case in a controversy of this nature — and school personnel did not object to Morrison’s shirt on that basis. Instead, they claimed that the shirt was disruptive and targeted a protected class.

The dress code does provide:

  • “Clothing that … inhibits learning is not allowed.”
  • “Clothing must not state, imply, or depict hate speech or imagery that target groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, or any other classification.”

“I was told that this shirt was a disruption to learning,” said Morrison. But “no one got up and stormed out of class. No one burst into tears. I’m sure I would have noticed if they had. I experience disruptions to my learning every day. Kids acting out in class are a disruption, yet nothing is done. Why do the rules apply to one yet not another?” A healthy measure of common sense lies underneath the crew cut.

“I have been told that my shirt was ‘targeting a protected class,’” explained Morrison. But he had questions. “Who is this protected class? Are their feelings more important than my rights? I don’t complain when I see pride flags and diversity posters hung throughout the school. Do you know why? Because others have a right to their beliefs just as I do.” Here Morrison argues for the basic principle of free speech, that merely holding and stating a political opinion does not count as hate speech against anyone who disagrees.

It’s not the dress code itself that Morrison spoke out against, but the illegitimate, arbitrary, and unequal way school personnel enforced it against him for his disfavored political views.

Per the dress code policy, Morrison was asked to change. “If students wear something inappropriate to school, they will be asked to call their parent/guardian to request that more appropriate attire be brought to school.” Since he was unwilling, and his father supported his decision, he was sent home. Yet Morrison could face “disciplinary action” if he wears the shirt to school again.

Even while they were enforcing the dress code policy against Morrison, the school officials seemed reluctant to admit what they were doing. “They told me that I wasn’t in trouble, but it sure felt like I was,” said Morrison. “I feel like these adults were telling me that it wasn’t okay for me to have an opposing view.”

But Morrison responded, “I know that I have a right to wear the shirt with those five words. Even at 12 years old, I have my own political opinions, and I have a right to express those opinions, even at school. This right is called the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

In Lee v. Weisman (1992), the Supreme Court prohibited prayer at high school graduations because “adolescents are often susceptible to pressure from their peers towards conformity.” They reasoned, “What to most believers may seem nothing more than a reasonable request that the nonbeliever respect their religious practices, in a school context may appear to the nonbeliever or dissenter to be an attempt to employ the machinery of the State to enforce a religious orthodoxy.” Now, the logic of the opinion is working in reverse, as “the machinery of the State” enforces the anti-religious orthodoxy of transgender ideology on adolescents who are just as susceptible to outside pressure as they were 30 years ago (although Morrison stands out as a remarkable contradiction of this generalization).

Alas, this is the state of public education in America today. Pride flags and other ostentatious celebrations of sexual deviance go unchallenged. But if a single 12-year-old wears a shirt stating the biological and grammatical truth, “there are only two genders,” two adults will pull him out of class to berate him for “targeting a protected class.” Content to let classroom disruption slide most of the time, if any young person has the temerity to wear a truth-telling shirt to class, the school will disrupt his education to call him disruptive.

What other shirt messages might, for simply telling the truth, fall afoul of this ridiculous interpretation of the dress code? Here’s a few likely candidates: “2+2=4 is math, not white supremacy,” “Life begins at conception,” “Latinx is bad Spanish,” or “Jesus is the only way.”

“I learned a lot from this experience,” concluded Morrison. “I’ve learned that a lot of other students share my view. I’ve learned that adults don’t always do the right thing or make the right decisions. … Next time, it might not only be me. There might be more students that decide to speak out.” Education experts have determined to train students as activists, calculating that they can harness their convictions into a left-wing political agenda, but with just a few brave freethinkers like Morrison, teaching students to stand up for truth and right may just backfire.

Just about any young person would find it intimidating to stand up and speak before nine adults in a formal setting — not least one beginning to experience the awkward and uncomfortable physical changes of puberty. But Morrison was not deterred; after all, it’s his future education and free expression that he’s fighting for. His generation (and every other one) could use a few more courageous men willing to stand up for what’s right.

“I didn’t go to school that day to hurt feelings or cause trouble,” Morrison told the school committee. “My hope in being here tonight is to bring the school committee’s attention to this issue. I hope that you will speak up for the rest of us, so we can express ourselves without being pulled out of class.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The Marketing Geniuses At Budweiser Forgot One Cardinal Rule

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‘This Bud may not be for you.’

Anheuser-Busch InBev is the largest beer maker in the world, producing six of the top 10 beer brands by volume, and enjoying sales of well over $1 billion a year.

Now, in a marketing debacle that will be studied and written about by MBA students for decades, Bud Light has cratered the company’s reputation.

Bud Light had been pure gold in the advertising industry since the 1980s, long before the Spuds McKenzie, the female bull terrier party animal mascot of the 1980s, and the hilarious “Real Men of Genius” ad campaign of the late 1990s became woven into popular culture. Bud Light brand building has been right up there with the NFL, arguably the most successful marketing organization on the planet.

But that was not good enough for Alissa Gordon Heinerscheid, the newly named vice president of Bud Light. The image of the company was just too “fratty,” she explained in a recent podcast, during which she insulted the customers that have sustained the brand for decades.

The beer’s new mascot would become a man all dolled up like a preteen girl: Dylan Mulvaney.

Heinerscheid believes she is on the cutting edge because the beer label had been in decline. On the “Make Yourself at Home” podcast she explained how she is on a mission to evolve the brand:

“So I have this super clear mandate. We need to evolve and elevate this incredibly iconic brand. And my, what I brought to that, was a belief in ‘OK, what does evolve and elevate mean?’ It means inclusivity. It means shifting the tone. It means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter and different and appeals to women and to men,” Heinerscheid said.

“And representation is … at the heart of evolution. You’ve gotta see people who will reflect you in the work. And we had this hangover. I mean Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor,” she explained.

And that, beer lovers, is how transgender activist Mulvaney came to be the new face of Bud Light. Mulvaney, a TikTok star and transgender personality who has done incredibly well in the famous-for-being-famous space, has brought his version of come-hither trans sexuality into the brand best known for a low-calorie, low-carb buzz, with notes of hops and malt.

The real marketing men and women of genius over at Budweiser forgot one thing: Don’t hate your customer.

When it launched Heinerscheid as its new VP during the Super Bowl, she explained to Forbes magazine that the 2023 Super Bowl ad, featuring people dancing as they are on a phone call hold, was the company’s new shift to showing real people, especially women.

“This campaign is meant to feel different, to be lighter and brighter, with a confidence and magnetism, and it’s really critical to depict real people and real places,” she told Forbes. “What I need to do to help this brand to evolve … this is my passion point.”

Heinerscheid told Forbes that Bud Light has been “everything to everyone, and as a result, we’ve not been (mindful) about where it shows up.”

Then she spoke to the importance of women. Her top strategic priority was to make sure that women were represented: “Female representation is a personal passion point of mine.”

By April 1, Heinerscheid decided that real people were not the market and female representation was not the priority.

Instead, a wholly manufactured TikTok personality, famous for skipping around a little girl’s bedroom like a pre-pubescent girl, is the real person that represents the brand.

Pro-tip: You’ll never be able to replace all the customers you lose at once with your new target market.

It appears Bud Light is targeting pre-teens, and Dylan Mulvaney does play-act the role of an underage girl. But that is a targeting blunder for another column.

If you’re one of the most successful brands in the history of marketing, and if you’re hating on your existing customer while you search for a better customer, maybe this Bud blunder is on you.

Real Men of Genius and Spuds McKenzie, the campaigns that built the brand, spoke to America with humor and storytelling.

Perhaps it is not just the customer that Bud Light has decided to hate. Perhaps the corporate geniuses, looking for that ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) preferential scoring for investors, have simply decided to hate Americans because they are not woke enough or trans enough for the “evolving” brand.

Good luck with that strategy, geniuses. As for Americans, this Bud may not be for you.

AUTHOR

SUZANNE DOWNING

Suzanne Downing is publisher of Must Read Alaska.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Advocates Say WPATH Could ‘Come Crashing Down’ As Judge Demands Treasure Trove Of Internal Documents

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The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) is facing a potential bloodbath, advocates say, after an Alabama judge subpoenaed a treasure trove of documents from the organization as part of an ongoing lawsuit over the state’s laws on transgender treatments.

WPATH is a leading advocate of child sex changes, recently pushing to remove any minimum age requirement to undergo sex change surgeries or cross-sex hormone therapy. Amy Tishelman, the author of the “Child” chapter in the 8th edition of WPATH’s guidelines, said she changed the guidelines so doctors wouldn’t “be sued because they weren’t following exactly what we said.”

U.S. hospitals such as Johns Hopkins, Stanford and Brigham and Women’s use WPATH’s guidelines to guide their own practice of treating transgender-identifying children.

A federal judge in Alabama requested WPATH supply documents pertaining to its guidelines for child sex changes in March. Plaintiffs suing the state of Alabama over its restrictions of child sex changes repeatedly referred to WPATH’s guidelines in their argumentation.

During a similar lawsuit in Florida, a district court in March ordered WPATH, the Endocrine Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to comply with a subpoena of all documents related to their guidance for transgender-identified kids. An amicus brief filed April 7 on behalf of the attorneys general (AGs) for 17 states highlighted the stark contrast between transgender guidance — especially for minors — in Europe with that of the medical establishment in the U.S. The brief also claimed the medical organizations in question are activist in nature.

“I think there’s a good chance that the whole thing will come crashing down when the data are out there,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, board chair of the medical group Do No Harm, told The Daily Caller, “and that they really know that there’s no good scientific basis for this out there and they’re just going ahead and implementing an ideology rather than rigorously defined medical treatment.”

“The bottom line is the truth is now coming out, the writing’s on the wall,” January LittleJohn, a parental advocate, told The Daily Caller. “And the truth is coming out at that all of the times where they were relying on this garbage evidence, this very low quality evidence, they were doing these interventions on children with nothing to back it up. And then you have the American Academy of Pediatrics, the AMA, The Endocrine Society all blindly following these guidelines. And now they’re being held accountable.”

WPATH set standards of care for those with a “eunuch” gender identity in 2022, recommending castration as a treatment option. Recommended treatments options included hormone suppression, orchiectomy (removal of the testicles) to stop production of testosterone, orchiectomy with or without penectomy to alter the body to match their self-image and orchiectomy followed by hormone replacement with testosterone or estrogen. In creating these guidelines, WPATH used information from the Eunuch Archive in setting these standards of care, which the medical organization itself described as “filled with fantasy,” containing stories of child castration, pedophilia and sexual torture.

WPATH has also been accused of censoring viewpoints from doctors who believe that children are being rushed into sex changes. In Alabama, the judge asked for information related to how the WPATH treated differing medical opinions on child sex changes.

Dr. Stephen B. Levine, a psychologist known for his work on human sexuality and chair of WPATH’s standards of care committee from 1997-98, filed expert opinion in the ongoing lawsuit between WPATH and Florida in April.

“WPATH claims to speak for the medical profession; however, it does not welcome skepticism and therefore, deviates from the philosophical core of medical science,” he said. “There are pediatricians, psychiatrists, endocrinologists, and surgeons who object strongly, on professional grounds, to transitioning children and providing affirmation in a transgender identity as the first treatment option.”

“So the question is, are they allowing people that are rigorous investigators to do this?” Goldfarb told The Daily Caller. “Or are they simply taking people who have set up gender clinics, and they said, yeah, you’re an expert because you’re on our side. And that’s what needs to be clarified.”

AUTHOR

SARAH WEAVER

Social issues reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Joe Biden, Uncle Screwtape, and ‘Our Nation’s Soul’

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In an age when presidential candidates of both parties ignore the will of the majority to cater to an infinitesimal minority, it is noteworthy when a politician takes an uncompromisingly biblical stand on public issues. It is more remarkable when that leader represents a secular nation, cites the Bible on a national platform, and has a delightful British accent. Yet a member of the U.K.’s Parliament made a statement that should serve as a model for any American leader.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Conservative Member of Parliament, literally quoted chapter-and-verse on the GB News show “State of the Nation” last Thursday. “Ladies and gentlemen. I can exclusively reveal that I in fact do not identify with a gender, because I take my line from Genesis 1:27: ‘So God created man in His own image. In the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.’ And it’s for not me to overrule the work of God,” he said. In 58 words, he exposed extreme gender ideology as nonsensical and idolatrous.

Rees-Mogg, whose aristocratic manner created a boomlet of support to elect him prime minister, possesses other traits now uncommon among British authorities. The father of six upholds a consistent pro-life position, describes abortion as a “cult of death,” and affirms marriage as the unique union of one man and woman based on his deeply held Christian faith. One prominent American priest called him “a practically perfect Catholic politician.”

The U.K. MP’s faithfulness contrasts markedly with America’s second Catholic president, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. The president’s handlers invariably label him a “devout” Roman Catholic. Yet last Thursday Biden issued the first of his two statements (and a fact sheet) celebrating the “Transgender Day of Visibility,” in which the president asserted: “Transgender Americans shape our [n]ation’s soul.” On the same day a politician in profoundly secular England proclaimed God’s creation of the material world, the president of the world’s most powerful Christian-majority nation credited transgender activists with forming the immaterial soul.

Biden has shown perplexing attention to the “soul of the nation.” He regularly sows confusion by subtly implying that God intended people to struggle with gender dysphoria. His humanistic hermeneutics, not coincidentally, echo the theology of transgender activists.

Last Wednesday night, a man who identifies as a woman asserted that God is a female and created transgenderism. In the next seat was the media’s most celebrated “evangelical” leader, who called Christian conservatism “anti-Christ.”

“I go to church every Sunday. My faith is very important to me. But God made me in her image. God made me transgender,” Charles Clymer, who now goes by the name Charlotte Clymer, told MSNBC’s “The ReidOut.” Moments later, hostess Joy Reid said she picked Clymer — the former press spokesman of an LGBT pressure group and ex-communications director at Catholics for Choice — as one of “the two specific people I wanted to talk to” about the shooting at a Nashville Christian school.

Of course, the Bible states that Jesus Christ is God and that “all things were made by Him” (John 1:1-3). Jesus, Who is certainly not female, referred to the First Person of the Trinity as “Father” more than 100 times. Furthermore, the Bible tells us, “God is not the author of confusion” (I Corinthians 14:33).

As Clymer proclaimed gender confusion a fruit of the goddess’ Spirit, Reid’s other chosen guest, Sojourners founder Jim Wallis, stared silently into the camera. When Reid gave Wallis the last word, he declined to correct his colleague for misgendering the Almighty but accused conservatives of “worshiping a false god.” Earlier in the segment, he charged anyone who opposes gun control with worshiping the Oriental idol Moloch, mentioned in the Book of Leviticus (which he cited without mentioning what that book says about the LGBTQ issue in the very next verse). After Clymer’s descent into heresy, Wallis — who sycophantically offered to “link our pulpits to the bully pulpit” during the Obama-Biden administration — rained fire and brimstone on his political enemies. Second Amendment advocacy “is anti-Gospel, anti-Christ. And so this is a false worship we’re confronting here. We have got to confront it theologically,” Wallis said. “They are worshiping a false god.”

Capitalizing on flagging faith, biblical illiteracy, and dwindling church attendance to preach some “other Gospel” is as old as Christianity itself (Galatians 1:8). Wallis and Clymer followed a devilish strategy laid out by C.S. Lewis in “The Screwtape Letters”: “[I]f men become Christians at all … let them at least be Christians with a difference,” Lewis wrote. “Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian coloring.”

The ultimate aim, the senior demon Screwtape tells nephew Screwtape, is to “direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.”

Presumably, this includes fretting about “transphobic” Christian speech and believers’ gun ownership at the moment a transgender mass murderer slaughtered a half-dozen believers inside a Christian school, three of them under the age of 10. Or getting worked into a foam about U.S. coastal lands going underwater as U.S. carbon emissions have fallen 31% since 2000.

Yet history teaches some theologians will always volunteer to assist in this game of biblical Three-card Monte. Witness the fact that the University of Helsinki announced it plans to present an honorary doctorate of theology to 20-year-old climate critic Greta Thunberg on June 9. This author has never seen Thunberg launch into lengthy discussions of Jesus, the Bible, or other weighty matters of religious faith and morals. The only thing Greta Thunberg and certain Christian theologians have in common is that both have inaccurately predicted the end of the world. Yet the faculty defended their award on biblical grounds. Thunberg’s “concern for the future of the Earth … has everything to do with academic theology which is no less interested in the Earth as it is in Heaven,” Martti Nissinen, one of the university’s theology professors, told the Daily Caller.

If their faith cares as much about Earth as Heaven, perhaps that’s because the Earth is where so much of their theology originates (James 3:15). The antidote to heresy is orthodoxy; the cure for counterfeit theology is quoting true Scripture; and the solution to America’s harmful transgender policies comes by electing leaders who can discern the difference between the two.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Nashville School Shooter Identified As ‘Transgender Artist’

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The Nashville school shooter who killed three children and three adults before being fatally shot by police has been identified as a 28-year-old female who identifies as transgender and uses “he/him” pronouns.

Authorities confirmed that 28-year-old Audrey Hale is the deceased suspect in the shooting that occurred at a Christian elementary school, at which Hale was previously a student.

“She does identify as transgender,” Nashville Police confirmed.

A LinkedIn page that appears to belong to Hale indicates that identifies as a “he/him” and received an award in 2015 from the Nossi College of Art for achieving “greatness in the classroom.”

A page from Nossi College of Art and Design previously listed Hale as a student on the spring 2016 dean’s list, but the website seemingly has been updated to remove her name. The Daily Caller reached out to Nossi College of Art and Design and asked why Hale has suddenly been wiped from the website.

Megan Marie Barnes, a student who attended Nossi with Hale, told the Caller that Hale was “incredible talented” and now uses the name Aiden. A now-defunct Instagram account that appears to belong to Hale included that name in the handle, as did an account on the art marketplace website RedBubble.

The Instagram page, which was linked to Hale’s website, includes two dark images, with one showing three individuals with heavy face painting against a black background.

Hale’s website included a short bio in which Hale said “there is a child-like part about me that loves to go run to the playground.”

AUTHOR

BRIANNA LYMAN

News and commentary writer. Follow Brianna on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

J.K. Rowling: ‘There is something dangerous’ about transgender movement ‘and it must be challenged’

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Despite vicious woke attacks against acclaimed Harry Potter author J.K Rowling, she refuses to back down from her warranted criticism of the trans movement, which has gone out of control.

It shouldn’t be a movement to begin with. Some obvious examples of how the trans movement has become so “dangerous,” as Rowling says: the rape of women by men identifying as women; the trans takeover of female sports; the potential physical harm to females in prisons and to youngsters in schools; the sexualization of small children during what should be innocent reading and learning time, not drag shows; vulgar exhibitionism at pools in full view of young girls; and increasing incidents of outright weirdness that threaten women to an extent never previously thought possible, such as the male who identifies as a woman with a birthing fetish, who has now been arrested for fraud and sex assaults.

No limits is what makes this movement scary and so dangerous, as the rights and safety of others are trampled. Too many weak politicians have surrendered to special interest groups.

J.K. Rowling: ‘There’s Something Dangerous’ About the Transgender Movement

by Paul Bois, Breitbart, March 17, 2023:

Author J.K. Rowling continued to prove she will not back down in her criticism of transgender radicalism in a recent podcast episode in which she called the movement “dangerous.”

Speaking on the Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling podcast, the acclaimed Harry Potter author said she tried listening to transgender activists to better understand their views but ultimately concluded that something “dangerous” lurked within.

“I can only say that I’ve thought about it deeply and hard and long. And I’ve listened, I promise, to the other side,” Rowling said. “And I believe, absolutely, that there is something dangerous about this movement, and it must be challenged.”

The British author addressed the trolls who say she somehow “betrayed” the values espoused in her books.

“I’m constantly told that I have betrayed my own books, but my position is that I’m absolutely upholding the positions that I took in ‘Potter,’” Rowling said. “My position is that this activist movement in the form that it’s currently taking, echoes the very thing that I was warning against in ‘Harry Potter.’”

“I am fighting what I see as a powerful, insidious misogynistic movement that I think has gained huge purchase in very influential areas of society. I do not see this particular movement as either benign or powerless,” she continued.

In the summer of 2020, J.K. Rowling said that transgender ideology could lead to the erasure of womanhood as we know it by denying the basic biological functions that differentiate women from men.

“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth,” she tweeted….

Read more.

AUTHOR

CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Pope Francis Declares ‘Gender Ideology’ As ‘Dangerous’ To Civilization

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Pope Francis said in an interview published Friday that “gender ideology” is among the “most dangerous ideological colonizations” today, according to a recent interview with La Nacion, an Argentinian media outlet.

The pope has made waves recently with some of his comments on LGBTQ issues, most recently saying that homosexuality, while a sin, should not be criminalized. Francis said that “gender ideology” has created one of the most “dangerous” ideologies in recent history because of the way it blurs the lines between men and women, according to a translation of his remarks to La Nacion by the Catholic News Agency.

Francis explained that “all humanity is the tension of differences” and worried about how “gender ideology” had virtually eliminated those differences between men and women.

“Why is it dangerous?” Francis said. “Because it blurs differences and the value of men and women. The question of gender is diluting the differences and making the world the same, all dull, all alike, and that is contrary to the human vocation.”

The pope said that the idea of allowing people to identify as male, female or nonbinary reminded him of a 1907 book titled “Lord Of The World” by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson. Francis explained the book showed a future where “differences are disappearing” and all things become “uniform.”

Francis also dispelled rumors that he had been asked to write a document on the topic of gender, noting that he “always distinguish[es] between what pastoral care is for people who have a different sexual orientation and what gender ideology is,” according to La Nacion. The pope called people who believe that radical gender ideology is “the path of progress” rather “naive.”

Francis has been criticized in the past due to remarks he has made about transgenderism and acceptance of same-sex marriage, according to the Catholic News Agency. In 2020, the pope said that he would be in favor of a “civil union law” for same-sex couples, and in January 2022 encouraged parents to not “condemn” their children over sexual orientation.

Most recently, he criticized the Church for becoming caught up in political debates, warning that the “Gospel is not an ideology.”

“[T]he Gospel is a proclamation that touches your heart and makes you change your heart, but if you take refuge in an idea, in an ideology, whether right or left or centre, you are making the Gospel a political party, an ideology, a club of people,” the pope said.

The Vatican did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

KATE ANDERSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Ireland: Catholic Schools group denounces plans to teach children transgenderism

Catholic University Holds ‘Reproductive Justice’ Series Pushing Pro-Abortion, Transgender Ideology

‘We Were Wrong’: Pioneer In Child Gender Dysphoria Treatment Says Trans Medical Industry Is Harming Kids

Parents Fight Elite High School’s Lottery System Used To Increase Diversity

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘Misogyny’: 47 Biological Males Allowed in Women’s Prisons in California

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On Wednesday, The Post Millennial reported that 47 biological males who identify as transgender have been allowed entry into women’s prisons in California since the state’s Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act (SB-132) went into effect in 2021. Experts are decrying the policy, pointing to the dangers posed to women’s safety and privacy.

Citing data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) website, the story notes that “as of Feb. 26, 2023, 349 people housed in male institutions have requested to be housed in a female institution. 47 were approved for transfer, 21 were denied, and 35 changed their minds. The remaining requests are being reviewed.”

Amanda Stulman, director of the U.S. chapter of the advocacy organization Keep Prisons Single Sex, pointed to the unique dangers that female inmates face as a result of California’s SB-132.

“Keep Prisons Single Sex remains horrified that the transfer of criminal men into women’s prison in California has continued,” she told The Washington Stand. “The impact of a law such as SB-132 should have been obvious when it was under consideration. Now that the law has been in place for over two years, California is able to see its impact: As of 2022, over 33% of the men seeking to transfer under this law under the guise of ‘gender identity’ are registered sex offenders. Over a quarter have been convicted of a sex offense. These are substantially higher percentages than the general prison population.”

Stulman went on to highlight additional reports coming out of the California prison system since the law’s implementation.

“There have been allegations of pregnancies and sexual assaults, of the introduction of condoms and other birth control and information about options in the event of pregnancy,” she said. “Men who have been moved under this law include murderers and sexual offenders. California needs to admit this law was a mistake and walk it back.”

Instances of trans-identifying men assaulting women in female prisons have occurred as recently as last April, when a biological male who identified as female was sentenced to seven years in prison after he was convicted of raping a female inmate in the women’s section of the jail on Rikers Island in New York.

The problem does not appear to be contained to the United States. The Times in the U.K. recently reported that seven sexual assaults have occurred in women’s prisons by transgender-identifying convicts, and that trans-identifying males are “five times more likely to carry out sex attacks on inmates at women’s jails than other prisoners are,” according to official figures.

Male criminals convicted of sexual crimes are also being permitted into women’s prisons in Canada. On Wednesday, The Post Millennial reported that a male convicted sex offender who raped a 13-year-old girl and who was “classified as a dangerous offender” has been transferred to a women’s prison in Ontario after identifying as trans. This latest instance is just one of multiple examples of biological males convicted of sexual crimes being allowed into women’s prisons in Canada since 2017.

Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, the director of the Center for Family Studies at Family Research Council, was candid in her assessment of California’s controversial prison policy.

“The word that comes to mind is ‘misogyny,’” she told The Washington Stand. “That’s actually what this is about: the hatred of women instead of the protection of women in prison. Some people could write off this population just because they’ve committed crimes and [say] they’re not deserving of protection — I totally disagree with that. But I think this is just another example of a disregard for women and a preference for the desires of men. Whether people are aware of that at a conscious level or not, that’s what is manifesting.”

Bauwens, who formerly worked as a clinician providing trauma-focused treatment and has studied the effects of trauma, pointed out how the policy will be particularly detrimental to women prisoners.

“This is an old study, but it still speaks to who is in a women’s prison,” she noted. “‘One key finding from this research is that incarcerated women are more likely to report extensive histories of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse—between 77 and 90%.’ … And the prevalence rates of childhood abuse [are] much higher among incarcerated women in comparison to the general population. This study was specifically looking at the California prison population.”

“[Women prisoners] are more susceptible to committing crimes based on abuse histories,” Bauwens continued. “When someone’s experienced childhood abuse, they’re more likely to act out in delinquent behaviors or abuse substances. … There have been recommendations from different public health researchers that have suggested that for female prisoners, trauma therapy should be a part of their time in prison because of this knowledge.”

She went on question the vetting process by which male inmates are allowed into female prisons.

“So you have all that going on in the background, and then you’re going to [add male convicted criminals]? We don’t know of the criteria for a transfer. What kind of background checks are they looking at? What’s the reason that they’re in prison in the first place, and is that considered? Have they had a violent or sexual offense? Does that sideline them from transfer? I don’t think so, based on previous reporting.”

“It speaks to the level of misogyny going on in this thought process,” Bauwens concluded. “There really is no thought about protecting women from further harm. Women should do their time for their crime, but not be victimized in the process.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

High School’s Policy Tells Girls To Leave Their Locker Room If Uncomfortable With Trans Students

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An Arizona high school has a policy allowing transgender students to change in their preferred locker rooms and telling female students to use alternative facilities if they are uncomfortable, according to emails obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Students and parents at Catalina Foothills High School (CFHS) in Tucson, Arizona, found out about the new policy after Bart Pemberton, a parent of a female student from CFHS, spoke with radio host Garrett Lewis about an “unwritten policy” that another parent had told him about. The policy not only allows transgender students in the bathroom or locker room of their choice but also tells students who are uncomfortable with the policy to request an accommodation to use different changing facilities, according to emails obtained by the DCNF.

Pemberton told the DCNF that when he heard about the policy he set up a meeting with the school’s principal Jody Brase for Feb. 21.

“According to [Brase] it is an unwritten and unadvertised policy for the past 10 years,” Pemberton said. “It’s basically whatever they (the school administration) want it to be since it isn’t ‘official.’ Her rationale was that this is a small number of kids, the other kids know who they are, the kids almost always don’t fully undress, most of the kids won’t use the locker rooms, etc.”

Eileen Jackson, president of the Catalina Foothills School District (CFS) governing board, told Pemberton in an email obtained by the DCNF that the district’s Nondiscrimination/Equal Opportunity policy covers such matters and “guide[s] our administrators in their daily decisions that arise in the operation of our schools.”

“Similarly, any student who is uncomfortable sharing multiple-occupancy facilities with others has the ability to request an accommodation,” Jackson said. “Our district administrators respond to their needs and find alternatives for those students. In this way, we treat all students in the same manner. Further, our administrators do not require any student to be singled out or isolated based on any of the protected statuses identified in our policy.”

Pemberton told Jackson that her statement directly contradicted what Brase had told him and asked that the school board talk about the policies at the district’s March 28 meeting.

Pemberton told Brase his concerns were based on what had happened at other schools like in Loudoun County, Virginia, when a male student, claiming to be transgender, allegedly sexually assaulted two girls in two different school bathrooms. Brase allegedly told Pemberton that she was “aware” of what had happened in Virginia but was “confident it wouldn’t happen here.”

Genon Thomas, a female student at Catalina, told the DCNF that the school had failed to inform her that she would have to share the bathroom or locker room with biologically male students, calling the policy the “dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I found out through my family members sending the news to me since they found out,” Thomas said. “I shouldn’t have to share a bathroom or locker room with people who were not born the same gender as me. I just would not feel comfortable.”

Chandler Thomas, Genon’s older brother, and his cousin Dylan Thomas told the DCNF that they concerned about safety and potential discrimination against female students.

“By enforcing the policy to allow non-biological females to use the women’s bathroom, they directly force two options on biological females: 1) Use the same bathroom uncomfortably around these individuals or 2) choose to use another bathroom to feel comfortable,” Chandler Thomas, an alum of CFHS, said. “Simply put, this is discrimination caused by hate for discrimination, very reminiscent of the force driving Marxist ideology. This policy discriminates against biological females as well as any information opposing the ideology that manifested this policy.”

Dylan Thomas said he wanted “a definitive answer” about how the school will keep its students “safe, protected and comfortable.” Thomas also objected to his siblings and other students being subjected to “this delusion” and wondered how the school could claim it was preventing discrimination when it would force girls to leave their own locker room.

A spokesperson from CFSD district told the DCNF that no students are “singled out or isolated based on any of the protected statuses identified in our policy.”

“The CFSD Governing Board’s policy, unanimously adopted in 2015, states that our district is committed to nondiscrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ethnicity, religion, creed, age or disability,” the spokesperson said.

The district did acknowledge that any students who are “uncomfortable sharing multiple-occupancy facilities (e.g., restrooms, locker rooms)” can “request an accommodation,” noting that administrators “find alternatives for those students.”

Jennifer Pershing, a mother of four with one student at CFHS, told the DCNF the school is embracing a “dangerous social contagion” and “discriminating against the truth.” Perishing said she has “compassion for children suffering from gender dysphoria” but argued that it was not going to help anyone to “pretend it is normal.”

Pershing said some parents have tried to ignore what is going on because it feels like a losing battle, but she said that the “transgender ideology is a lie” and will “ultimately fail.”

Dylan Thomas noted that parents he has spoken to are looking for ways to take their kids out of high school either by transferring or homeschooling.

“Parents, teachers, and siblings that I have talked to couldn’t believe it, no one thought this delusional reality would come this far and seep into our own backyard,” Thomas said.

CFHS and Brase did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

KATE ANDERSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Do You Think The Girls … Would Feel Comfortable’: Trans Student Confronts Gov. Youngkin On Bathroom Policy

RELATED VIDEO: Governor DeSantis speaks at ‘Exposing the Book Ban Hoax’ presser in Tampa, Florida

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Here Are The Sexually Explicit Books Florida Is Working To Remove From Public Schools

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  • Florida public school districts have removed over 100 books for containing content that is pornographic, violent or not age-appropriate, the Daily Caller News Foundation learned.
  • The books included “This Book is Gay,” “Gender Queer,” “Let’s Talk About It” and “It’s Perfectly Normal,” all of which include graphic references to sex.
  • Florida law requires librarians and media specialists to undergo training before selecting material that is age-appropriate, and it has a law prohibiting the distribution of pornographic material to minors.

Florida schools have removed more than 100 books that contain pornographic material during the 2022-2023 academic year in order to comply with state law, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

A survey of local school districts found that 153 of 175 books were removed the the district for including pornographic, violent or age-inappropriate content, according to a document obtained by the DCNF. The removed books included “This Book is Gay,” “Gender Queer,” “Let’s Talk About It” and “It’s Perfectly Normal,” all of which contain sexually explicit depictions according to snippets shared by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.

“This Book Is Gay” is described as an informational book about growing up in the LGBTQ+ community and includes a section about the “ins and outs of gay sex,” according to Sourcebooks. Taryn Feske, DeSantis’ communication director, shared a page from the book that defines sex terminology including “rimming,” “scat,” “scissor sisters” and “strap-on.”

Feske also shared pages from “Gender Queer,” an autobiography from author Maia Kobabe who uses e/em/eir pronouns, that depict two characters attempting oral sex by using a strap-on. The book also depicts the characters sexting, masturbating and tasting themselves.

“Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears,” the book description reads.

“Let’s Talk About It” includes an image of two people engaging in anal sex and a diagram of an anus, according to pages of the book shared to Twitter.

“When it comes to reproducing, the penis and the vagina can fit together to form the ultimate baby-making machine. Let’s take a peek right now and see how —” the book reads.

It also explains that “your genitals exist to let you feel pleasure with yourself or others (no matter which genitals they may have)” and promotes hookup culture.

“Sexual intimacy is a powerful way to feel good and bond with another person, whether it’s for a night or a lifetime,” the book reportedly reads.

“It’s Perfectly Normal,” advertised for children ages 10 and older, includes sections on masturbation, heterosexual and gay sex and all gender restrooms.

Only 23 districts out of 56 reported to remove books from the schools and a majority of books were removed from the schools’ media center and not classrooms. The number of books removed for having inappropriate content may be higher because 13% of reports did not include a specific reason for removal.

DeSantis signed legislation in March 2022 that requires school districts to be “transparent” about the material being taught in public schools. House Bill 1467 required those involved in selecting school library books to undergo training prepared by the state Department of Education beginning in January 2023 before selecting age-appropriate materials.

Florida law also prohibits distributing pornographic materials to minors under section 847.012, which reads that a person cannot distribute on school property “any picture, photograph, drawing, sculpture, motion picture film, videocassette, or similar visual representation or image of a person or portion of the human body which depicts nudity or sexual conduct” to minors.

Videos circulating on social media appeared to show empty book shelves at a Duval County public school, according to First Coast News. DeSantis challenged this video on Tuesday and said it was a “fake narrative.”

“That was not true,” DeSantis reportedly said, according to First Coast News. “This is trying to create some narrative as if that they hadn’t even put the books out yet to begin with. So there’s no need for all of that stuff. What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to act like somehow, you know, we don’t want books.”

Eighty-four percent of books removed from Duval County schools contained pornographic, violent or inappropriate content, according to data provided to the DCNF.

Tracy Pierce, Duval County Public Schools chief of marketing and public relations, confirmed to the DCNF the video was fake.

“Yes, this video is an outstanding example of deceptive and false narrative,” Pierce said. “The videographer took great care only to show a portion of the media center where books were removed. At that time, an extensive array of non-fiction books, biographies and reference materials remained in stock and accessible. In fact, well over half of the books in the library were still available to students.”

AUTHOR

ALEXA SCHWERHA

Contributor.

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‘Gender Queer’ and ‘The V-Word’: Republican AG Releases Report On ‘Sexually Explicit’ Children’s Books In Libraries

Is The University Of California System Becoming A Safe Space For Antisemitism?

School District Enlists ‘Black Lives Matter Task Force’ To Help Teach 7th Graders How They’re Implicitly Biased

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

TENNESSEE: Bill advances to ban drag shows, other adult entertainment on public property

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A society is in a moral crisis when it becomes necessary for a bill to be sponsored to safeguard kids in public places. Although the bill is aimed at “go-go dancers, exotic dancers, and strippers on public property,” it is hardly a secret that the trans agenda has come to include grooming children in vulgar performances that are inappropriate for children.

Republican Rep. Chris Todd, who sponsored the bill, called it a “common-sense” “child safety” bill. Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson introduced the bill. People have lost sight of what responsible censorship is even means. It is glaring how the far Left uses charges of censorship to shut down speech that does not suit its agenda and that they claim to consider “offensive,” but they have no problem with the overt, public corruption of children. The sexualizing and grooming of young children is relentlessly becoming normalized. That’s why laws of this kind are needed.

Tennessee bill aims to ban drag shows, other adult entertainment on public property

by Lawrence Richard, Fox News, February 1, 2023:

The state of Tennessee could bar drag shows and other adult entertainment performances, pending a bill that is advancing through the state’s legislature.

A bill banning go-go dancers, exotic dancers, and strippers on public property and for those under the age of 18 was approved by the Tennessee House Criminal Justice Subcommittee on Tuesday, according to FOX 17 Nashville. It will now advance to the House Criminal Justice Committee.

“This is a common-sense child safety bill,” said Rep. Chris Todd, a Republican who sponsored HB. 9, per the report.

The bill intends to prohibit “adult cabaret entertainment” that is “harmful to minors,” including “male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest, or similar entertainers.”

“There’s confusion in the law of what performances are covered. This clarifies what is crossing the line that is harmful to minors,” Todd added.

While the bill effectively bans drag shows, it does not specifically use the term.

Republicans in the state have contended that drag shows can result in the “sexualization” or “grooming” of children.

Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, a Republican, introduced the legislation near the end of 2022 with his own bill that limits gender-care surgeries for those under 18.

“We are not going to expose our children to this type of inappropriate, sexually explicit performances,” Sen. Johnson told the station in November 2022, after drag performances where kids were present were becoming more popular……

Read more.

AUTHOR

HRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Texas Republicans Ask All School Districts To Immediately Leave Texas Association Of School Boards

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Several members of the Texas legislature sent a letter to every school district in the state asking them to immediately leave the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB).

Texas state Representatives, led by GOP Rep. Brian Harrison, are asking school districts to leave the TASB, claiming recent decisions the association made regarding school board protests and transgender students prove to Texas parents that the TASB “work[s] against their values and potentially place[s] their children in harm’s way,” according to the letter shared exclusively with the Daily Caller.

The nine signatories — GOP Reps. Brian Harrison, Briscoe Cain, Richard Hayes, Terri Leo-Wilson, Matt Schaefer, Nate Schatzline, Bryan Slaton, Mark Dorazio and Tony Tinderholt — said that although they “appreciate” that TASB left the National School Boards Association in May 2022, the amount of time the decision took to make was troubling.

January Letter to School Board Presidents Re TASB Vf-2 by Mary Rooke on Scribd

“We were shocked last year that it took the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) almost an entire year to leave the National School Boards Association (NSBA) after it sent an indefensible letter equating parental involvement at school board meetings to ‘heinous actions’ which ‘could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism’ and called on federal law enforcement to potentially target parents,” the letter stated.

The Texas lawmakers also took issue with TASB’s “radically pro-transgender” guidance released in January, which they claim undermines parental rights and violates Texas law.

“This dangerous legal advisory appears to encourage school districts to refrain from reporting child abuse and to obscure information regarding children exhibiting gender dysphoria from their parents,” the letter stated. “In the guidance, TASB also may be encouraging schools to violate Texas’s recent law, the ‘Save Girls’ Sports Act,’ and allow biological males to participate in girls’ sports. We feel duty bound to make sure all elected officials charged with overseeing the education of Texas student[s] are aware of this.”

Harrison told the Daily Caller that Texas parents shouldn’t be responsible for funding “woke ideology” with their tax dollars.

“It’s bad enough that harmful woke ideology is being pushed on Texas students over the objection of their parents, but worse that local elected officials are forcing those same parents to fund it with their tax dollars,” Harrison told the Caller. “That must end. I appreciate my colleagues joining me in fighting to stop the continued weaponization of our constituents’ tax dollars against them.”

Texas school districts are not required to be part of TASB or any school board organization. The representatives have directed their offices to help provide school districts with alternatives for the services TASB currently handles.

AUTHOR

MARY ROOKE

Commentary and analysis reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Texas Representatives Demand Review Of ‘Radically Pro-Transgender’ State School Board Guidance

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘What Is A Woman?’: A Provocative Look at the Transgender Debate

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These days, dead white males do not count for much. But we still have the legacy of an exceptional man who went around Athens asking people to provide basic definitions. In so doing, he proved to many that they were not as knowledgeable as they thought themselves to be. This man’s questions annoyed many, and for that, he was called “the gadfly”. Ultimately, some Athenians could not handle his intellectual curiosity, and sentenced him to death.

American conservative commentator Matt Walsh has often been labelled a “troll”. What is the difference between a troll and a gadfly? It is hard to tell. Very much as Socrates, Walsh simply asks questions. Admittedly, Walsh may be more exasperating than the father of Western philosophy in this endeavour, but he gets the job done. And that job is getting closer to truth.

What is a Woman?, Walsh’s latest documentary has been produced by the Daily Wire, a bumptious but highly professional conservative media company. It is structured as a series of Socratic dialogues about the transgender debate. He interviews many gender studies “experts” who spout the usual ideological points regarding gender dysphoria (sex is a social construction, children should not be refused hormone replacement therapy, etc.), and asks them “What is a woman?” Predictably, none of them provide a clear answer.

The most challenging interlocutors for Socrates were the Sophists — teachers who taught how to persuade people with rhetoric but did not care about the truth. How can you establish a meaningful dialogue with someone who does not even accept that there is a difference between truth and falsehood? American academia is awash with transgender Sophists, as Walsh discovers. One stands out for his absurdity. Professor Patrick Grzanka says: “I am uncomfortable with that language ‘getting to the truth’… It sounds deeply transphobic to me… You keep invoking the word ‘truth’, which is condescending and rude.”

This is not the only outrageous thing coming from the mouth of a college-educated person in the film. Paediatrician Michelle Forcier tells Walsh that puberty blockers are “completely reversible and don’t have permanent effects, and are wonderful, because we put that pause on puberty.” Many paediatricians have pushed back against this claim. For example, the American College of Pediatricians states that “puberty blockers may cause permanent physical harm.” Bioethicists frequently invoke the “precautionary principle”, yet strangely, puberty blockers get a free pass. Even medical ethics is falling under the influence of woke ideology.

Critics are ignoring this uncomfortable documentary

Not all moments in the film are as sad. Walsh travels to Kenya to meet members of the Masai tribe and asks some men: “What if someone is non-binary?” The Masai interlocutor’s confused and perplexed reaction is hilarious. Now, some social justice warrior might denounce this as an evil racist film that makes fun of African people. But that would be missing the point. The ones being mocked are the (mostly white) North American liberals who project onto the rest of the world their social constructionist ideas.

Walsh lays the blame for the transgender craze at the feet of Dr Alfred Kinsey, who allegedly had a mission to erode Judeo-Christian values. I do not see the need for Walsh to go down this path. Kinsey may have claimed many questionable things, but I do give him credit for having lifted the veil on many sexual practices whose existence the 1950s establishment refused to acknowledge. And I see no need to bring a religious angle to this topic. Saying that women have vaginas and men have penises is not about Judaism or Christianity. It is about common sense, regardless of whether you are a Jew, Christian, Buddhist, or atheist.

He also goes overboard exhibiting people who self-identify as animals, presumably to mock the extent to which self-identification can be taken. In the film, one Naia Okami identifies as a transgender woman and “wolforian”, walks on all four, and howls. Of course, psychiatry has always documented cases of lycanthropy. But to bring such exceptional cases to the transgender debate is more akin to P.T. Barnum’s 19th century so-called “freak shows” than serious engagement with issues of identity.

Nevertheless, Carl Trueman, a scholar interviewed by Walsh, does have a point in arguing that at the root of the transgender craze is a desperate need to belong. Adolescents are searching for an identity, and in our fragmented communities, it is hard to find one. Describing yourself as a “man trapped inside a woman’s body” may do the part, and with peer pressure, others follow suit. Hollywood takes note and being transgender becomes the new cool.

This “social contagion” theory is anathema to woke activists. But it should be noted that not long ago, leftists embraced the concept. When in the 1980s some religious conservatives talked about Satanic ritual abuse in books and TV shows, suddenly multiple personality disorder rates exploded. Why do they refuse to even consider that some similar process may now be at play with gender dysphoria?

But of course, social contagion cannot be the sole factor in gender dysphoria. Yes, many kids may become transgender due to media influence, but surely there must be some cases in which social factors do not play a role. The scientific data does suggest a degree of biological origin in some cases. Walsh does not address this.

Walsh’s film is at times excessively one-sided. There is no interviewee genuinely expressing the frustrations of feeling trapped in the wrong body. Likewise, there are no testimonies of adolescents transitioning and doing just fine. Surely there are many such cases, and even though Walsh is entitled to make his point, he could at least give the devil his due.

Be that as it may, Walsh speaks for many people who are simply too afraid to let their views be known. Walsh deserves praise for that courage. And he is very effective in the bottom line of any film: entertaining the audience. Like Socrates, he is forcing us to challenge many of the assumptions of woke culture by asking “dumb questions”.

AUTHOR

Gabriel Andrade

Gabriel Andrade is a university professor originally from Venezuela. He writes about politics, philosophy, history, religion and psychology. More by Gabriel Andrade.

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Transgender Agenda Losing Support: Poll

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Although left-wing activists often say they represent “the right side of history,” a well-regarded poll finds that support for a key item of the LGBTQ agenda has collapsed faster than virtually any other issue: Significantly fewer Americans support allowing men to use women’s restrooms in 2022 than in 2016.

“Americans are 17 percentage points more likely to favor” laws requiring the two sexes to use separate restrooms “today than they were in 2016, when the question was first asked,” according to the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). “In fact, 2022 saw the sharpest uptick of strong support for requiring transgender people to use bathrooms based on their” sex.

“Typically, opinion does not move so quickly on such issues,” PRRI notes.

Americans of all political views became less supportive of this plank of the LGBTQ agenda over the last six years, with registered independents switching their views completely. “In 2016, most independents opposed” laws respecting female privacy, “but by 2022 a small majority favored these laws,” the polling firm states in an article published on December 15.

Surprisingly, the number of Democrats backing restroom privacy laws has grown by four points in 2022 (31%) over the level in 2016 (27%), according to PRRI’s 2022 American Values Survey.

Support for laws respecting privacy in intimate settings spans all racial and ethnic backgrounds, religions, and nearly all generations. A majority of multiracial (53%), Hispanic (52%), and white Americans (51%), as well as half of black Americans (50%), told PRRI they support legally established zones of privacy where people disrobe. Only college-educated white people, registered Democrats, people not affiliated with any religion, and those under the age of 30 tend to favor sexually mixed restrooms, the poll finds.

One likely reason for the seismic change is increasing public awareness of physical and sexual assaults inflicted by men against women inside restrooms. Last week, details emerged that a male who identifies as female physically attacked two teenage girls in a female restroom inside the Edmond Memorial High School in Edmond, Oklahoma. The nation’s restrooms have been the sight of numerous assaults and acts of voyeurism stretching all the way back to 1999. Recent incidents include:

  • “Two Loudoun County Public School (LCPS) officials have been indicted in Virginia on charges related to attempts to cover up two sexual assaults in a girls’ bathroom and in an empty classroom perpetrated against female students by a male student” who identified as “gender fluid,” The Washington Stand reported last week;
  • In March, an 18-year-old male exposed his genitals to a child inside a gender-neutral restroom in Wisconsin’s Rhinelander High School;
  • A five-year-old girl said a male student who identified as “gender fluid” sexually molested her inside the restroom of Oakhurst Elementary School in Decatur, Georgia, on November 16, 2017. The school district violated Title IX by failing to adequately investigate the incident, according to a 2020 ruling from the Office of Civil Rights in the Trump administration’s Education Department; and
  • Police arrested a man for indecent exposure inside a women’s restroom in Charlotte, North Carolina, in July 2016.

Similar outrages have occurred in intimate facilities other than restrooms:

  • The Daily Mail reported this month that prison authorities transferred convicted child rapist Brett David Sonia, who now identifies as Brooke Lyn Sonia, to Washington Correctional Center for Women, reportedly leaving women “petrified” they will be victimized next;
  • In July 2016, police arrested a man for recording a young girl changing her clothes inside a Target changing room. Sean Patrick Smith, who identified as woman named “Shauna Patricia Smith,” reportedly told police that he exploited Target’s celebrated, transgender-friendly policies to record several young women undressing. Smith entered a guilty plea to one count of video voyeurism in October 2016; and
  • Officials accused voyeurs of recording similar, surreptitious videos in Target’s multi-sex changing rooms in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Texas in 2016 alone.

The real difference on the issue comes down to ideology, not age, PRRI states. The Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, and Generation X oppose opening restrooms to transgender people. Americans aged 30-49 are evenly split, while those 18-29 support transgender restroom use. But the report notes that Millennials and Gen Z who belong to the Republican Party side with older Republicans in backing restroom privacy legislation.

“Generational divisions, then, are largely attributable to differences in the generations to identify with the Democratic or Republican Party,” says the survey. “If younger cohorts start identifying more with the Republican Party,” support for restroom privacy will increase.

“It is not guaranteed that demographic change means a destiny of victory for LGBTQ equality,” concludes PRRI.

Values play a strong role in how citizens view transgender restrooms. A majority of “members of all religious groups support requiring transgender individuals to use bathrooms that correspond to their sex,” notes PRRI, “including three in four white evangelical Protestants (75%), 64% of other Christians, 58% of white mainline Protestants, 57% of Black Protestants (57%), 53% of white Catholics, 51% of Hispanic Catholics, and 50% of non-Christian religious Americans.” Yet only 34% of the Nones support gender privacy.

Americans who believe there are only two sexes are also three times more likely to support separate restroom and changing spaces than those who believe in gender fluidity (69% vs. 23%).

What’s more, the poll’s results fall to the left of many other surveys; for instance, a 2016 WPA Opinion poll found two-thirds of all Americans oppose transgender restrooms. PRRI’s declining numbers indicate public support has eroded even more than the report lets on. The title of the report announcing these results, “Challenges In Moving Toward A More Inclusive Democracy,” reflects PRRI’s pique.

PRRI also complains that “Americans who most trust far-right news outlets” are “notably more likely to support” restroom privacy (84%), even more than those whose first news choice is Fox News (78%). Americans who “most trust mainstream outlets are much less likely to support” female restroom rights (44%).

Time magazine ran an article in 2016 titled, “Transgender Bathroom: Advocates Say ‘Predator’ is Myth.” A year later, CNN asserted that “there is no evidence” that policies giving males access to female’s intimate spaces “lead to attacks in public facilities.”

Nearly two out of three people who stopped or curbed their viewing of CNN (61%) agreed that “one of the reasons I find myself watching CNN less often is because of its liberal/left-wing bias,” according to a new poll from the Media Research Center.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

After the ‘Respect for Marriage Act’, will the U.S. follow Spain down the ‘disrespect for marriage’ rabbit hole?

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Spain is on the way to recognising 16 types of families, none of them the traditional nuclear family.

The Respect for Marriage Act has sailed through the US Senate, amidst great jubilation. Twelve Republicans, including former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, voted with Democrats to pass the legislation by a vote of 61-36. Now it goes to the lame-duck House of Representatives, where it is certain to pass.

This will be one of President Joe Biden’s signature achievements. The Act will basically codify Obergefell v Hodges, the US Supreme Court decision which legalised same sex marriage. If SCOTUS happens to overturn Obergefell, as many people fear, same sex marriage will still be safe.

The President tweeted that: “our nation is on the brink of reaffirming a fundamental truth: love is love.”

New York Senator Chuck Schumer, whose daughter is a married lesbian, tweeted: “the Senate has sent a message to Americans everywhere: No matter who you are or who you love, you deserve dignity and equal treatment under the law.”

Heart-warming sentiments, these. What lies ahead for same-sex marriage now that the US Congress is about to codify “love is love”?

The Senators who voted against the Respect for Marriage Act warn that it will be used to strip religious institutions of their tax-exempt status. Texas Senator Ted Cruz commented that “Not only does the so-called Respect for Marriage Act open the door for a weaponized IRS to target religious non-profits, but it will start a race to the bottom, forcing the most extreme marriage laws from any state onto every other state.”

In a speech to the Senate Utah Senator Mike Lee reminded his colleagues that the possibility of a conflict with religious freedom was also predicted in the oral arguments before SCOTUS:

Justice Alito asked whether, should states be required to recognize same-sex marriages, religious universities could lose their tax-exempt status. His response, the response from [then] Solicitor General Verrilli was chilling. He said, quote, “It’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It’s going to be an issue.” …

But if you want to look even further ahead, consider Spain, which legalised same-sex marriage in 2005, ten years before Obergefell v Hodges. After almost two decades of experience, it is moving on to bigger and better things. The government there is a left-wing coalition and the Minister of Social Rights and 2030 Agenda, Ione Belarra, belongs to Podemos, a party at the extreme left of the left-wing.

Next week she will present a draft of a new law on families to the Spanish Parliament. This lists 16 kinds of families, according to an exclusive in the ABC newspaper.

The bill’s explanatory memorandum states: “The family no longer exists, only families, in the plural, exist”. Based on rulings by Spain’s Constitutional Court, it declares that “the concept of family is not limited to those of matrimonial origin”.

Accordingly, the Minister says that Spain must give full legal recognition to this array of families and to protect and support them with government services.

Here is the list:

  • Two-parent families
  • Single mother or single father families
  • Young families
  • LGBTI families
  • Families in need of support
  • Multiple families
  • Blended families
  • Immigrant families
  • Transnational families
  • Intercultural families
  • Families living abroad
  • Families returned from aboard
  • Vulnerable families
  • Married couples
  • Defacto couples
  • Single-person families

The linguistic and legal creativity is astonishing. What’s notable about the list is that none of the 16 categories corresponds to the traditional definition of family: a married woman and a man and, if they exist, their children.

In Minister Belarra’s narrative, two-parent families (familia biparental) include married couples and defacto couples and could even squeeze in gay and lesbian couples. Married couples (personas unidas en matrimonio) include heterosexual and homosexual couples. She has even created new words to describe gay and lesbian couples (familia LGTBI homomarental y homoparental).

Clearly Belarra’s aim is to create a blizzard of labels in which the nuclear family disappears from view. It will no longer have a privileged place in Spanish law or a special claim on government services.

Furthermore, Spanish schoolchildren will be catechised in the new order of things. According to the draft bill, “family diversity is a principle of the educational system”. The list of family types must be included in textbooks and in the syllabus for trainee teachers.

What if parents object?

They can’t.

The bill specifically states that “parents or responsible adults may not limit or impede the access of children and adolescents to information and their participation in activities to raise awareness and disseminate family diversity that take place within the educational framework, in order to avoid restricting their rights to education and the free development of their personality”.

Spain is a country where politicians like Ione Belarra are unafraid of defending and imposing loopy laws. Once in power, opposition energizes them and fills them with righteous conviction. Whether or not her proposals succeed completely, it is clear that the nuclear family in Spain is in the sights of a very large LGBTQI cannon.

In the near term, the Spanish experience will not easily transfer to the United States, which has a federal system of government and a larger and more intellectually diverse population.

However, it’s a clear warning of what lies ahead. If American courts and legislatures can redefine marriage to include gay and lesbian couples, why can’t they include polyamory or polygamy?

Or still worse, redefine marriage to include so many relationships that it means nothing at all?

AUTHOR

Michael Cook

Michael Cook is the editor of MercatorNet. He lives in Sydney, Australia. More by Michael Cook.

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EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.