Tag Archive for: transgender ideology

U.N. Election Interference, Abortion Facilities Freak Out, and More: The 4 Stories You Missed This Week

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As the nation reacts to the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and looks forward to how the incoming Trump-Vance administration will shape up, numerous other important stories have slipped under the media’s radar.

On the eve of the 2024 election, the United Nations issued a report suggesting anything the U.N. deems “anti-LGBT rhetoric” — from political candidates and religious believers — be considered “hate speech” and to present LGBT-identifying people “as role models.” A Democratic campaign in the nation’s most significant swing state has sued to count the votes of unregistered voters. And late-term abortion facilities are worried that the 2024 election means they will soon have to close their doors.

1. Foreign Election Interference? U.N. Slams Politicians For ‘Hate Speech’ and ‘Gender Persecution’ on Eve of Election, Threatens Religious Liberty

The Biden administration praised a United Nations report dedicated to portraying the mainstream view of transgenderism as “hate speech” and encouraging social media platforms to silence politicians, and Christian believers, who espouse traditional Christian views of gender. It also asked for election observers dedicated to LGBTQ issues to patrol polling places.

“The human rights related to the electoral participation of LGBT persons may be violated in myriad ways,” including “bias-motivated … hate speech,” says the report.

“Intolerant rhetoric, based on animosity, fear-mongering and hate speech, may be directed at different targets … LGBT persons may be targeted specifically in campaign rhetoric, or hostility may be expressed in more general xenophobic terms,” says the report. “Discrimination and hostility are exacerbated when an LGBT individual is additionally targeted on the basis of other characteristics, such as race or religious beliefs, or as a migrant.”

President-elect Donald Trump leaned hard into advertisements showing that Kamala Harris supported taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for inmates and illegal immigrants. As a presidential hopeful in 2019, then-Senator Harris boasted that she changed the law to offer taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries to prison inmates when she was California attorney general. Former President Bill Clinton reportedly warned the Harris-Walz campaign of their vulnerability on the issue, and the Democratic polling firm Blueprint found no issue so motivated swing state voters as the notion that “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class.” Other candidates picked up the theme, and “Republicans spent $143 million on the transgender campaign to cast Democrats as out-of-touch” in the 2024 election, reported “60 Minutes.”

The U.N. objects when voters democratically make their voices heard on extremist transgender proposals via ballot initiatives. “Referendums, often with provocative or misleading questions, are one mechanism used to radicalize political discourse, or to distract voters from other pressing issues,” it says.

The U.N. seeks to portray all discussion of extreme transgenderism as beyond discussion. It describes even the use of “the term ‘gender ideology’ as ‘part of an anti-rights discourse by political and religious leaders seeking to limit the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender-diverse persons.’” The term “‘gender ideology’ has emerged as a dominant catch-all phrase that falsely implies a sinister attempt to undermine the social order by tampering with gender norms. It is used to oppose reproductive rights and the rights of LGBT people,” claims the report.

The U.N. calls on governments and social media companies to crack down on religious objections to radical LGBTQIA+ ideology. “In one submission, it was noted how anti-LGBT rhetoric was sometimes positioned as religious speech protected by freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief. Profiling LGBT issues in campaigns, in order to generate a negative response and enhance political prospects, is often planned and purposeful.”

Among its 19 recommendations, the report calls on governments to:

  • “Promote the development and refinement of social media company policies on anti-discrimination”
  • “highlight the participation of LGBT persons in politics and to increase their perception as role models”
  • “educate the public on gender and sexual diversity and the human rights of LGBT persons”
  • Engage in “the proactive, prompt and efficient investigation and prosecution of hate crimes”
  • “Repeal laws against consensual same-sex conduct and review disenfranchisement based on criminal convictions”
  • “Adopt laws to guarantee legal recognition of gender identity on the basis of self-declaration”
  • “Develop guidelines and procedures for election day that promote the participation of LGBT persons, especially trans and non-binary persons”
  • “Support the capacity-building of civil society organizations focused on LGBT rights in election observation and advocacy”
  • “Support the capacity-building of international election observers on LGBT rights issues”
  • See “LGBT persons as a key component of international electoral assistance”

These proposals would at least smear all faith-based objections to extreme LGBTQ ideology as a form of hate speech. At worst, they would suppress the traditional, biblical doctrines of sexuality and gender held by nearly all the world’s Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Christians.

The report — titled “Electoral participation and protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity” and written by U.N. Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Graeme Reed — came out on July 15. Yet C-FAM noted that the United Nations insisted on addressing the issue on Monday, November 4, the day before the U.S. presidential election. How did the U.S. administration greet it?

“Your report is very timely, as it comes during the so-called global ‘year of elections’ including in my own country tomorrow,” said Dylan Lang, a U.S. delegate to the U.N. General Assembly. “Sadly, the United States is not immune from homophobia and transphobia in election campaigns.” He also noted the administration’s record of appointing “[p]eople like Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the first out Senate-confirmed Cabinet Secretary; Karine Jean-Pierre, the first openly queer White House Press Secretary; and Admiral Rachel Levine and Shawn Skelly, the highest-ranking openly transgender government officials in United States history.”

The timing seems anything but coincidental. Does this constitute foreign election interference?

2. Bob Casey’s Election Denial Would Count Ineligible Voters?

Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who has devolved from a “pro-life Democrat” to just another pro-abortion liberal, lost his reelection campaign to Republican Dave McCormick this year. While the election’s razor-thin margin triggers an automatic recount under Pennsylvania law, it is unlikely to change the state of the race. In some cases, McCormick has actually gained votes. But not winning a majority of legal votes seems to be no reason for Casey to relinquish his vice-grip on power.

As of this writing, Casey — who regularly chided President Trump to accept the outcome of an election in advance — has not only refused to concede; he’s waging a legal battle to count the “votes” of unregistered voters. Several election boards in the state have voted to count mail-in ballots that have no date, in violation of state law and a recent state Supreme Court ruling. That’s not enough for the Casey campaign, which is fighting a court battle against the Republican National Committee to count the “votes” of unregistered voters, unsigned ballots, and those who do not live in the county in which they voted.

The Casey for Senate campaign sent a letter to one board declaring that it “challenges the rejection of provisional ballots based solely on the Board’s staff’s failure to find voters’ names on registered-voter lists.” This is apparently what the Left means when it claims it seeks to defend “Our Democracy.”

“Casey and the Democrats are sore losers. And they’re disrespecting our democracy,” says a 30-second ad crafted by the Fair Election Fund. “Tell Bob Casey it’s time to concede.”

3. University Turns on Democratic Rep, Then Flip-Flops

As online videos of blue-haired TikTok users show, Democrats are not handling the results of the 2024 election well. But some on the Left have at least the good sense not to let their convictions get in the way of receiving vast tranches of taxpayer dollars.

Tufts University threatened to cut all ties with the office of Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) after he dared to question whether the Democratic Party had gone too far in embracing extreme transgender ideology during the 2024 election.

After the results came in, Moulton — who briefly ran as a presidential hopeful in the 2020 Democratic primaries — committed what a U.N. observer might deem “hate speech”: He affirmed biological differences between men and women. “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that,” said Moulton.

Tufts University decided not to wait for guidance from the U.N. It cut ties with Moulton’s office within 24 hours. “David Art, a Tufts professor who chairs the political science department, then called Moulton’s office Friday and threatened to block student internships” for students to work in Moulton’s office for credit, “according to internal Slack messages Moulton’s office shared with NBC News,” the outlet noted.

But backlash came swiftly, with calls to tax university endowments or take other legal measures against liberal universities. “We have reached out to Congressman Moulton’s office to clarify that we have not — and will not — limit internship opportunities with his office,” announced the university in a social media post on Tuesday.

“Imagine if one of these Tuft students actually wants to intern in a Republican office!” said Moulton.

4. Abortion Facilities Freak Out, Fear Going Out of Business

Among the constituencies that views itself as hardest hit by the 2024 presidential election is the abortion industry, especially those who carry out late-term abortions. But a fascinating, pre-election article in a liberal news outlet shows independent abortion facilities face their greatest economic squeeze, not from the incoming Trump administration, but from competitors in the abortion industry.

Shortly before the election, The New Republic carried an abortion industry fundraising letter posing as a news story warning that, even if Kamala Harris won the presidency, some abortionists who carry out third-trimester abortions may have to close their doors. Try to suppress your tears as you read:

“There are thought to be seven all-trimester clinics in the entire country. DuPont Clinic, an all-trimester provider in Washington, D.C., said it has lost more than $500,000 since July 1 after national groups put strict caps on patient funding. Karishma Oza, DuPont’s director of care coordination, said if that rate of loss continues and they don’t get support to close the funding gap, the clinic will have to close by the end of the year.

“‘Even though technically the clinic is a for-profit, we were never profitable,’ Oza said of the clinic, which opened in 2017. ‘But now with these cuts, we are going from pay period to pay period.’”

The story reveals what’s actually at play: a long-running turf war inside the abortion industry. Planned Parenthood has long sought to expand its abortion franchise locations, often in the same neighborhoods as non-affiliated abortion facilities.

“These clinics’ financial devastation is an upstream consequence of the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood capping patient funding at 30 percent of their bill instead of 50 percent,” notes the story. The story hopes to keep these abortionists in business at your expense. One of the late-term abortionists — Dr. Diane Horvath of Partners in Abortion Care in College Park, Maryland — “expressed optimism that Maryland lawmakers could increase the amount Medicaid health insurance reimburses providers for abortion.”

The Trump administration should move swiftly to defund all abortionists, including Planned Parenthood. To use the abortion industry’s logic: Taxpayers have no responsibility to carry abortionists before the point of financial viability.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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.

Harris Supported Taxpayer-Funded Trans Surgeries in 2019, Called ‘Transition Treatment … a Medical Necessity’

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The Kamala Harris campaign kept her policies (and person) away from the mainstream media for so long that the media went snooping through the past. On Monday, CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski first reported Harris’s support for taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries on federal prisoners and detained illegal immigrants, revealed in a candidate questionnaire she filled out for the ACLU during her abortive 2019 presidential campaign.

On the questionnaire, Harris marked the “yes” box in answer the following question: “As President will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If yes, how will you do so?”

The questionnaire also allowed candidates to explain their answer in 500 words or less. In the space provided, Harris wrote, “It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition. That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates.”

She continued, “I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained. Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”

“This questionnaire is really an interesting snapshot-in-time of that 2019 Democratic primary,” said Kaczynski. “Kamala Harris was trying to get to the left of [Independent Vermont Senator] Bernie Sanders. She was trying to get to the left of [Massachusetts Democratic Senator] Elizabeth Warren, and you really see that in a lot of these answers.” In a now-archived ranking, GovTrack.us rated Harris as the senator with the most liberal voting record in 2019.

Some snapshots can be consistent across time, as this one appears to be. Harris’s 2024 campaign finally published a page on policy issues on the eve of the one-and-only presidential debate (to quote Edna Mode, “Coincidence? I think not”). In a section on “fundamental freedoms … at stake in this election,” the Harris campaign touted their candidate’s record of LGBT advocacy as far back as 2004.

In particular, the Harris campaign said their candidate would “fight to pass the Equality Act to enshrine anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQI+ Americans in health care, housing, education, and more into law.” This extends the continuity because, as a senator in 2019, Harris was an original cosponsor of the Equality Act. While the campaign website elaborates no further, this far-reaching legislation would “virtually do away with sex-segregated spaces” by allowing “biological men into women’s private spaces,” Family Research Council director of Federal Affairs for Family and Religious Liberty Mary Beth Waddell warned in 2019.

This means that, under the Equality Act, male prisoners who identify as women would have a statutory right to be housed in a women’s prison, wrote Abigail Shrier. This is already law in Harris’s native California, where at least 47 biological males, including violent criminals and sexual offenders, were housed in women’s prisons, as of March 2023. Harris’s pledge to provide gender transition procedures to trans-identifying prisoners at taxpayers’ expense not only implies such a permissive housing policy, in which inmates get to self-define their gender, but it takes it one step further by placing the state’s endorsement behind their gender transition.

While Harris’s policy-light campaign has not explicitly reaffirmed her 2019 endorsement of taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for trans-identifying prisoners, its brief comments are consistent with that position. Fellow Senate progressive Sanders said Sunday that Harris was not “abandoning her ideals” but merely “trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”

Even if Harris wanted to change her mind, the transgender lobby would not let her. This summer, left-wing activists poured out their wrath against the Biden-Harris White House over a statement softly opposing gender transition surgeries for minors. The administration quickly folded to the pressure and backpedaled from that position to appease the transgender lobby. If Harris became president, nothing in her record suggests that she would respond differently to pressure from the transgender lobby.

In her 2019 questionnaire, Harris also promised to provide taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries to detained illegal immigrants. However, at the rate the Biden-Harris administration is releasing detained immigrants into the U.S., this seems like a moot point. It would be rendered even further irrelevant if Harris fulfilled another pledge from her 2019 questionnaire, namely to “end … immigrant detention facilities.”

Also in 2019, Harris also pledged to codify abortion-on-demand, “eliminate the Hyde amendment,” “legalize marijuana,” end cash bail, defund ICE, provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and oppose legislation to impede or prohibit anti-Israel protests.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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.

Michelle Obama Endorses Porn in Schools and Transing Kids on DNC Day 2

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Former First Lady Michelle Obama celebrated “children” identifying as transgender, vilified concerned parents’ efforts to remove pornographic books from children’s sections of school libraries, and embraced life-destroying fertility methods during the most celebrated speech of the Democratic National Convention to date Tuesday night. Her husband, former president Barack Obama, promised a Harris-Walz administration would sign a bill extending abortion to all 50 states. Kamala Harris made a virtual appearance to accept the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

Here are the most notable events of the second day of the Democratic National Convention.

Michelle Obama Supports Transing Kids, Porn in Schools, Abortion, Bible Verses

Democratic delegates gave the warmest welcome of the evening to former First Lady Michelle Obama, who supported transgenderism for children and derided parental efforts to safeguard underage children from exposure to pornography — often LGBTQ porn — in graphic novels aimed at pre-teens and adolescents as “banning our books.”

“Demonizing our children for being who they are and loving who they love, look, that doesn’t make anybody’s life better,” she declared, using euphemisms to endorse child transgender confusion. The vast majority of Americans believe children should not be subjected to the experimental products of the predatory transgender industry — including potentially-sterilizing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone injections, and life-altering surgeries.

“Shutting down the Department of Education, banning our books — none of that will prepare our kids for the future,” Michelle declared as an audience of Democratic VIPs roared in approval. Nationwide, parents have objected that minors should be able to check out books like “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe — which features “detailed illustrations of a man having sex with a boy,” as well as “fellatio, sex toys, masturbation, and violent nudity” — and “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison, which “describes a fourth-grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male” and remembering the experience fondly.

Parents have asked public school administrators to return these books to an age-restricted part of the library, where minors cannot be exposed to them without parental permission. Yet in recent years liberals have so objected to protecting children’s innocence that beleaguered parents have felt forced to defend themselves.

“I’m not looking to ban books or burn books,” one such parent, Bruce Friedman, told “Washington Watch” host Tony Perkins. “It’s not Kristallnacht.”

On Tuesday, Michelle Obama also made one of her first public statements that she conceived one or more of her children through in vitro fertilization. “Cutting our health care, taking away our freedom to control our bodies, the freedom to become a mother through IVF, like I did — those things are not going to improve the health outcomes of our wives, mothers and daughters,” said the former first lady.

She was one of several Democratic speakers who attacked a non-existent “ban” on IVF. “If they win, Republicans won’t stop at banning abortion. They’ll come for IVF next,” averred Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) earlier in the evening. “They’ll prosecute doctors. They’ll shame and spy on women. If you think that’s far-fetched, just look up what happened in Alabama this year.” In reality, the Alabama Supreme Court did not ban IVF. Its 8-1 ruling allowed grieving parents to file a civil lawsuit against an IVF clinic where unauthorized personnel killed the frozen embryos of wanted children the parents had stored in the facility under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

Most children conceived by IVF are abandoned or destroyed in time. Statistics show “93% of the embryos created through IVF never result in a live birth,” noted Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council.

Michelle Obama’s abortion-affirming comments came moments after she praised late mother, Marian Shields Robinson, who taught her “that all children, all people have value,” as well as to “do unto others” as you would have them do unto you and to “love thy neighbor.” The Obamas and others also supported sexual liberation. “We believe the government should help you prosper, not police who you’re sleeping with,” declared Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.

As the crowd hooted its approval, conservative critics bristled at her remarks. “Michelle Obama is a gifted orator. But she’s fanning the flames of race and class conflict, and hurling some really unfair accusations,” assessed Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah). “She’s railing on those who ‘go small’ and ‘hit low,’ but that’s exactly what she’s doing. She’s doing everything she purports to oppose.” Brigitte Gabriel, a former host of Pat Robertson’s “World News,” called Michelle Obama “[t]he most divisive and hateful First Lady in U.S. history.”

Barack Obama: Harris Will Sign a National Abortion Expansion Bill

Michelle Obama concluded her speech by introducing her husband, former President Barack Obama, who promised that, if elected, Kamala Harris will sign a bill expanding abortion-on-demand to all 50 states.

Barack Obama said Kamala Harris, whom Michelle Obama called “my girl,” is “running for president with real plans” beginning on day one. She will “sign a law to guarantee every woman’s right to make her own health care decisions,” the Democratic Party’s preferred euphemism for abortion. Harris has not endorsed any protection for unborn children at any moment until birth. Barack Obama called this a sign of “freedom.”

“We believe that true freedom gives each of us the right to make decisions about our own life — how we worship, what our family looks like, how many kids we have, who we marry,” he thundered. “And we believe that freedom requires us to recognize that other people have the freedom to make choices that are different than ours.” Obama later opined that former President Donald Trump “doesn’t seem to care if more women lose their reproductive freedoms since it won’t affect his life.”

Abortion, under the term “reproductive rights,” recurred throughout day two of the DNC. “Do we want a Republican Senate that assaults reproductive freedoms?” asked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Schumer attempted to deflect allegations that the Democratic Party has a problem with Jewish voters, pointing to a tiny blue patch pinned to his blue suit. “Donald Trump, this is a guy who peddles anti-Semitic stereotypes,” insisted Schumer about Trump, whose daughter, Ivanka, converted to Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner and giving their three children a Jewish upbringing.

Obama, who retains an oversized impact on the administration’s policy, apparently filled in part of the Harris-Walz foreign policy agenda. “We shouldn’t be the world’s policemen,” said Obama, who sent U.S. troops to fight in Libya without congressional authorization, an operation that resulted in Muammar Qaddafi being replaced by terrorists affiliated with ISIS. The issues tab of Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential election website remains empty.

Shortly before slamming politicians who “scold and shame and out yell the other side,” Obama made a hand gesture apparently intending to minimize the size of President Donald Trump’s genitalia.

DNC Abortion Toll Reportedly Climbs to 25: ‘Satan Is Pleased’

These events transpired as the death toll at Planned Parenthood’s mobile unit outside the Democratic National Convention reportedly climbed to 25. Multiple sources on the ground said Planned Parenthood officials told them the number of free abortions they carried out had risen by 15 on Tuesday.

“CONFIRMED: 25 babies have been killed by Planned Parenthood at the DNC,” reported Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America at 7:38 p.m. EST Tuesday evening.

Riley Gaines mourned the loss of the first day, posting, “10 child sacrifices on day 1 of DNC. Satan is pleased.” Author David Limbaugh posted the words of Romans 1:18-25, which begins by declaring, “the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness.”

“Planned Parenthood is at the DNC, handing out chemical abortions that kill a baby by starving the developing child of nutrients. Share the Abortion Pill Reversal hotline 877-558-0333 and help save a life!” implored Lila Rose, founder of Live Action.

Harris Appears to Accept Presidential Nomination, Skips Husband’s Speech

Even though Democratic delegates formally nominated Kamala Harris for president with a virtual vote last month, the second evening of the DNC featured delegates going through a roll call vote, complete with a DJ soundtrack.

One of the New Jersey delegates — a man dressed in drag who announced he uses “pronouns she/her/hers” as he took the mic — stated, “I’m proud to stand with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, because they stand with the LGBTQ community!” California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), thought to be a leading rival to Harris had the Democrats held an open primary instead of allowing President Joe Biden to coronate Harris last month, declared California “the great state of Nancy Pelosi.” He went on to insist that “Kamala Harris has always done the right thing,” including advancing “LGBTQ rights, the rights of women and girls” before casting his state’s votes for Harris.

Harris, who made a brief in-person appearance at the first day of the DNC, made a virtual appearance from Milwaukee on day two to accept the redundant nomination.

Harris did not show up at all for the speech of her husband, Doug Emhoff, skipping his fawning, family-focused address. Emhoff praised his blended family and acknowledged his divorce, although he did not mention the baby he conceived with his children’s nanny, who apparently either aborted Emhoff’s child or placed the child in adoption. Kamala Harris “connected me more deeply with my faith, even though it’s different from hers,” said Emhoff, who is Jewish.

Former President Bill Clinton and presumptive vice presidential candidate Tim Walz are scheduled to speak Wednesday.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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.

ROOKE: Kamala Kowtows To Far Left In First Major Campaign Decision

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Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her pick for Vice President, exposing her fidelity to the far-left wing of the Democratic party.

While Harris spent the July flip-flopping on important issues to make her look less like a left-wing puppet and more like a “leader for all Americans,” her choice for running mate negates any of that work.

Walz is the poster child for what not to do when governing for all Americans. During the 2020 George Floyd riots, Walz directed his anger not toward the rioters but to local law enforcement and ordinary Americans who had nothing to do with it. His leadership helped set the stage for national race riots that claimed American lives, destroyed American communities, and resulted in billions of dollars of damage. He added fuel to the fire of racial tension that consumed national conversations.

WATCH: VP candidate Tim Walz replaced the Minnesota state flag with one that resembles the Somali flag

While excusing the actions of thousands of Black Lives Matter rioters, he ramped up draconian COVID policies like instituting snitch lines where neighbors could participate in turning each other in for breaking his mandatory stay-at-home orders.

His justice system ensured that while rioters went free, Walz’s executive orders were to be followed or else. Judge Joseph Bueltel sentenced 57-year-old bar and bistro owner Lisa Hanson to 90 days in jail and a $1000 fine for keeping her business open during the lockdowns. The judge said he used Hanson’s sentence as a message to people who violate executive orders.

Just two days before Hanson’s conviction, the state dismissed the criminal case against Mike Forcia, the man responsible for orchestrating the mob that tore down the statue of Christopher Columbus that used to sit outside the state Capitol. He got off after completing some community service requirements.

Walz apparently knew the statue was at risk of a mob attack, but law enforcement was not instructed to do anything to protect it. They sat back as the mob destroyed American heritage so that the governor could appease the far-left rioters.

Covid executive orders are the only examples of Walz’s radical policies. In March 2023, he signed Executive Order 23-03, safeguarding child sex change surgeries and other treatments considered “gender-affirming healthcare.”

“Gender-affirming care” is a euphemism proponents use to describe the use of irreversible hormone suppression and hormone treatments that can lead to chemical castration, as well as surgeries like mastectomy, phalloplasty, and vaginoplasty. Walz made his state a sanctuary for this barbarism without the people’s approval, just the stroke of a pen. 

On this same path, at the end of the 2023 state legislative session, he signed 72 radical bills into law, including no-limit abortions into the state constitution and deleting specific language that would prevent pedophiles from seeking anti-discrimination protections. Walz also signed a bill that required school districts to stock male bathrooms with period products. He raised taxes, ushered in red-flag gun laws, and gave illegal immigrants driver’s licenses.

These policies aren’t even left of center; they are as far-left as one can possibly get. There is no mistaking what Harris wants for her party and America. It’s not to bring everyone together or govern the country in a way that uplifts all Americans. She wants to usher in a new America where policing is demonized and criminals run free, where healthcare is classified as murder and mutilation, and illegal immigration is the law of the land.

Harris could have chosen a more moderate (at least on the outside) candidate like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, but she didn’t because the far left wing of her party felt like he was a risky choice. Her message is loud and clear. If she gets into office, the radical left-wing will control every aspect of her policy-making and cackle at the sounds of your displeasure. American values will be discarded. Together, they’ll create a new America that erases the American Dream with Socialism and Communism.

AUTHOR

Mary Rooke

Commentary and analysis writer.

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‘Profoundly Wrong’: Italian PM Stops G7 from Promoting Abortion, LGBT Agenda

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A conservative leader prevented the world’s largest economies from using their clout to promote abortion, and perhaps also the LGBTQIA+ agenda, saying it is “profoundly wrong” to promote anti-family ideologies for political reasons.

At last week’s Group of Seven (G7) summit, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni successfully overcame pressure from President Joe Biden to include a promise for the nations to promote abortion-on-demand as part of “sexual and reproductive health.”

“I believe it is profoundly wrong, in difficult times like these, to campaign using a precious forum like the G7,” objected Meloni on Thursday evening.

Last year’s statement from the G7 summit — held in Hiroshima, Japan — stated: “We reaffirm our full commitment to achieving comprehensive SRHR [Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights] for all, including by addressing access to safe and legal abortion and post abortion care.” Thanks to Meloni’s objections, this year’s statement includes no reference to abortion whatever, although it does “reiterate our commitments in the Hiroshima Leaders’ Communiqué to universal access to adequate, affordable, and quality health services for women, including comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.”

The deletion came over the U.S. president’s objections. “When told of Ms. Meloni’s position, American officials say, President Biden pushed back, wanting an explicit reference to reproductive rights and at least a reaffirmation of support for abortion rights from last year’s communiqué,” reported The New York Times.

Since the G7 adopts statements by the consensus of all leaders, Meloni’s stand kept abortion out of this year’s document.

Experts say the controversy reveals Western secular leaders’ myopic focus on promoting social issues. “The very fact of tension over whether abortion was to be included in the G7 statement gives you a sense of the priorities of those Western nations pushing for it to be included,” Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “The G7 is supposed to be looking out for the good of the international order, not jamming social policy through international agreements to be imposed on unwilling nations with quasi-religious fervor. It’s a sign of the times that the West is now known for this, to our increasing shame.”

Bloomberg News also reported that Meloni removed a reference to “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” from the final statement desired by the U.S.

Although no international treaty protects either concept, global bureaucrats have made a concerted effort to include abortion and transgender ideology as part of “sexual and reproductive health.”

Meloni’s office downplayed both controversies. “I sincerely believe that the controversy [around abortion] was totally contrived, and, in fact, it is a controversy that did not exist in the summit, that did not exist in our discussions, precisely because there was nothing to argue about,” said Meloni.

Words and concepts from previous statements “usually … taken for granted are not repeated,” said Meloni.

Her office also denied the “news published by Bloomberg, according to which any reference to the rights of LGBT people could be removed from the final G7 communiqué,” calling it “devoid of any foundation.”

Yet the issue bled into the public as French President Emmanuel Macron complained openly of the abortion removal. “France has a vision of equality between women and men, but it’s not a vision shared by all the political spectrum,” he told the media.

This is the second year LGBT issues became a flashpoint at the G7 Summit. Last year, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke out at the meeting and told the media he was “concerned about some of the positioning that Italy is taking in terms of LGBT” ideology. Italy requires birth certificates to record a child’s biological parents. Meloni called his comments a “bit rash.”

Macron and Meloni also clashed over his premature announcement of a $50 billion “loan” to Ukraine.

The G7 statement also calls for “an immediate ceasefire in Gaza” that “leads to a two-State solution,” helping nations “achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” and asks leaders to “seize the opportunities” that “migration” presents.

Meloni has earned a global reputation as a pro-family leader. The prime minister promised not to repeal Law 194, the 1978 statute that legalized abortion in Italy, but also vowed to give women “the right to not have an abortion.” In April, Italian parliament passed an amendment Meloni’s party attached to a critical relief bill that allows trained pro-life advocates “with a qualified experience supporting motherhood” to counsel abortion-minded women inside Italian abortion facilities.

“I believe that to make a free choice, you need to have all the necessary information,” said Meloni, Italy’s first female prime minister.

Meloni has made good on her 2022 campaign pledge to “give the right to make a different decision to women who think abortion is the only solution.”

Meloni also aims to boost Italy’s sagging birthrate to at least 500,000 babies a year. (Italy current has less than 400,000 live births annually, and its birthrate of 1.25 ranks among the lowest in the world.) She established a Ministry for Family and Birth to help Italians “rediscover the beauty of parenting.” She also passed legislation banning pornography from cell phones that belong to minors.

Meloni has denounced surrogacy, known widely as utero in affitto (“womb for rent”), as an “inhuman” act and introduced legislation to bar Italians from contracting surrogates overseas. “No one can convince me that it is an act of freedom to rent one’s womb,” she has said.

She rejects gender ideology, as well. “Being a man or a woman is rooted in who we are, and can’t be changed,” Meloni told an interviewer last March.

Meloni is riding high in Italy as her party, the Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia), gained six additional seats in the elections for European Parliament earlier this month and largely displaced Matteo Salvini’s Lega as the dominant party on the Italian Right.

Meloni’s most widely-viewed moment of the summit came when she guided President Joe Biden back after he wandered off from the group of world leaders.

Members of the G7 include the United States, Canada, the U.K., Germany, Italy, France, and Japan.

The Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues did not respond to The Washington Stand’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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.

Virginia School District Removes Sexually Explicit Books to Keep Focus on Literacy

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A public school superintendent in Virginia is making it clear that his school district will be focusing on improving the literacy of its students while also protecting them from being exposed to sexually explicit material while in school.

As parents and observers began noticing a rise in gender ideology, critical race theory, and pornographic material present in curriculums and school library books in recent years, many worried that the focus on ideologies was eating up valuable class time that could be spent on developing basic competencies in reading, writing, and math. News came in 2022 and in June of this year that math and reading scores had plummeted to the lowest levels in decades.

Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) rode a wave of energy surrounding the burgeoning parental rights movement to a surprise gubernatorial victory in 2021, and his administration has made education policy a focal point. In 2022, Youngkin signed into law the Virginia Literacy Act, which focused on improving the reading skills of Virginia’s students by providing special training to teachers, sharing instruction results with parents, and partnering with parents to create individualized plans for students who are showing a deficiency in reading.

“There’s a lot of talk in public education right now about implementing Virginia’s Literacy Act, about wanting to improve standards of learning and standardized test scores,” said Mark Taylor, superintendent of Spotsylvania County Public Schools in Fredericksburg, Va., during Monday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” “And we’re doing that in Spotsylvania County. But also among those priorities is a debate, really, about parental rights and parental involvement in public education. In Spotsylvania, we are following the directives of Governor Glenn Youngkin, and we are working hard to maximize parental engagement and parental involvement.”

Taylor also noted that he is continuing efforts his school district started in March to remove sexually explicit material from the shelves of school libraries.

“We provide an avenue for parents to opt in or opt out of the availability of sexually explicit materials for their children, and we’re actively reviewing challenges of instructional materials, including library books,” he explained. “I’ve recently removed 23 more books now, for a total of 37 books removed from our public school libraries. Now, we have 390,000 volumes, so there are plenty of books to be read.”

Taylor went on to point out the extreme nature of some of the sexually explicit material that he removed. “[It’s] essentially pornography and doesn’t need to be a part of [school libraries]. In fact, some of it is shocking scenes of violent rape or descriptions of forced bestiality, sex with animals.”

In response to accusations of “book banning” from legacy media and left-wing critics, Taylor emphasized that any books that have been removed from school library shelves are widely available elsewhere.

“The books that I’ve removed, to the best of my knowledge, are all still available in the public libraries, so this is in no way a ban. The books are available in the community, they’re available online, they’re available from a variety of sources. We’re simply trying to, number one, follow the governor’s directives in implementing policy for our school division. And number two, to create what I hope will be a safe space for children to learn the basics of English and literacy and mathematics and other subjects that are essential to their preparation for a positive and beautiful future that we want them to have.”

In April 2022, Youngkin signed into law a measure that requires Virginia schools to notify parents if their child is assigned books or other materials that contain sexually explicit content.

Taylor also shared his thoughts as to why some public school administrations have appeared to show hostility to the concerns of parents.

“I think that what has been enculturated over many years is the notion that the professional educators are specialists in the field with exemplary competencies, and they are best positioned to help the students forward,” he observed. “Professional educators are certainly highly trained and very talented people, but at the end of the day, I think it’s also true that no one knows the child like the parent knows the child. And for public education to be successful, there really needs to be an effective collaboration, a solid partnership, close connection between parents and public school educators working together to prepare students for their very best future. … Let’s work together instead of pulling in opposite directions.”

Taylor concluded by urging for prayer and a strong turnout in the upcoming election.

“Pray for the upcoming election,” he entreated. “Virginia is a purple state next week. Local seats are up, including seats on our Board of Supervisors that appropriates money to the school division and seats on our school board. And this purple state is going to become more blue, or it’s going to become more red. These issues will continue to be debated, and our success or failure depends in part on support from the community and from the voters.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor 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.

‘Democrats Agree’: Activists Are Teaming Up To Fight Sex Change Surgeries For Minors In This Blue State

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  • Activists in California from both political parties are banding together to put measures on the state ballot that would ban child sex change surgeries and ensure fairness in women’s spaces, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • Protect Kids California filed three statewide ballot initiatives Monday, and the group leaders believe they have bipartisan support on the issues. 
  • “The media and the California legislators make it seem that it’s a Democrat versus Republican issue, but it’s not. I would say the majority of Democrats agree with us on this,” Sophia Lorey, a female rights activist who spoke at the announcement of the initiatives, told the DCNF.

California activists from both political parties are teaming up to put measures on the state ballot that would ban child sex change surgeries and ensure fairness in women’s spaces, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Protect Kids California, a group formed by Jonathan Zachreson, a Republican, and Erin Friday, a Democrat, filed three statewide ballot initiatives on Monday to ban child sex changes and puberty blockers, keep men out of women’s sports and require school officials to inform parents if a child wants to transition his or her gender. The pair has support from both sides of the political aisle in their effort to push the initiatives through, they told the DCNF.

“The media and the California legislators make it seem that it’s a Democrat versus Republican issue, but it’s not. I would say the majority of Democrats agree with us on this,” Sophia Lorey, a female rights activist who spoke at the announcement of the initiatives, told the DCNF.

The Protect Children From Reproductive Harm Act would ban child sex change surgeries and puberty blockers in the state, according to the ballot initiative. The School Transparency And Partnership Act would require that school officials inform parents if a student decides they want to be referred to as a gender different than his or her biological sex, and the Protect Girls’ Sports And Spaces Act would establish sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms while banning males from competing in female sports.

The initiatives would require 550,000 signatures to make it on the ballot, which would then be voted on to determine if the initiatives would be enacted as law in California, according to the state’s ballot initiative guide.

Friday’s motivation for helping file the initiatives stems from her own personal experiences with gender ideology, as her daughter was socially transitioned at school without her knowledge, she told the DCNF.

“All of these groups, including what I would say are far-left groups, the same sex attracted groups, Gays Against Groomers, the lesbian groups, the feminist groups, we are all holding hands on this issue,” Friday told the DCNF. “The Democrats should be reading the tea leaves.”

A May Gallup poll revealed that Americans’ support for transgender athletes competing as the gender they identify with has fallen in the past two years. Approximately 34% of participants said they’d support a transgender athlete playing on a team that matches their gender identity in 2021 compared to 26% in 2023.

Support among Democrats for transgender athletes playing on teams that match their gender identity decreased from 55% to 47%, according to the poll.

Lorey told the DCNF that “there is not really any tension that arises” when she is working with Democrat activists in the state to counter gender ideology policies, such as allowing men in women’s sports or child sex changes.

“It’s okay that we don’t agree on things,” Lorey said. “We need to find ways to work together on the things we agree with.”

“I have friends who have been hardcore lifelong Democrats, and they are fighting right alongside me on this,” Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD), told the DCNF.

The CVUSD recently passed a parental notification policy in July that would require teachers to inform parents if their child asked to identify as a different gender at school. Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the district in August, arguing the rule is unconstitutional.

Parents in the district are begging the school board “not to back down,” Shaw said.

“The real question comes down to are you okay with removing healthy body parts of a child, and if your answer is no, then you’re a part of this coalition,” Friday told the DCNF.

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

AUTHOR

BRANDON POULTER

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘It’s Biology’: Activists Unveil Statewide Ballot Initiative To Ban Child Sex Changes

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.

Today is ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’ after a very visible week for trans activists

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President Joe Biden has issued an official proclamation establishing March 31 as a holiday to be known as “Transgender Day of Visibility”. His declaration comes at the end of a conspicuously visible week for transgender activists.

It all began last Saturday, when women’s rights advocate Kellie-Jay Keen, also known as Posie Parker, was forced to cut her visit to New Zealand short after her rally in Auckland was overrun by aggressive transgender protesters.

One of the activists, who doused Keen and her security detail in a litre of tomato juice, has since flown to Australia and is now en route to the United States in an apparent attempt to evade New Zealand authorities.

Eliana Rubashkyn justified the assault by claiming the tomato juice represented “the blood of the people [Keen] is trying to kill,” and accused Keen of “advocating for our genocide”.

“I did assault her and I will do it again,” Rubashkyn said in a later statement. “And if I need to be 10 years in prison I’m happy to be 10 years in prison.”

Then on Monday, a 28-year-old woman who had recently began identifying as a man perpetrated the latest US mass shooting, gunning down three staff and three young children at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.

One of the victims, Hallie Scruggs, aged nine, was the daughter of Rev. Chad Scruggs, who pastors the school’s adjoining church, Covenant Presbyterian.

Asked if the killer’s transgender identity was behind her motive for the attack, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said, “there is some theory to that”. He likewise confirmed that the shooter’s choice of the Christian school — since revealed to be her alma mater — was “targeted”.

Drake also told reporters of a manifesto left behind by the killer that included “a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place”. According to the New York Post, the manifesto will be released once the investigation is complete.

The Biden administration is yet to express condolences to the community targeted in the attack — namely, Christians. But they have voiced sympathy for the transgender community, with Biden’s Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, this week stating, “Our hearts go out to the trans community, as they are under attack right now.”

In the days since the mass shooting, progressive activists have stormed two state capitols, in Kentucky and Tennessee respectively.

Nearly two dozen transgender activists were arrested in Frankfort, Kentucky, and cited with criminal trespassing after they attempted to halt the signing of a bill banning sex-change surgery for minors in the Bluegrass state.

The Kentucky “transurrection”, as it has been dubbed, even had its own horn-bedecked shaman — apparently now a fashion accessory for US capitol stormings.

In Tennessee, hundreds of progressive protesters gathered outside the statehouse in Nashville to call for greater gun control, with crowds later swarming the building and heckling lawmakers from the gallery. At one point, a crowd of protesters clashed with police who were clearing a way for house members to exit.

Early social media posts claimed the protest was staged by transgender activists but this assertion has been challenged by fact-checkers. The event was apparently organised by AWAKE Tennessee, a DEI-compliant “grassroots nonprofit organization with a mission to advocate for the advancement of women and kids in Tennessee”.

A “Trans Day of Vengeance” had also been scheduled for this Saturday at the US Supreme Court, organised by the Trans Radical Activist Network. Following strong criticism for its associations with violent activism (apparent or otherwise), the event has now been cancelled.

In making his “Transgender Day of Visibility” announcement, President Biden declared that “transgender Americans shape our nation’s soul”.

This week, at least, Biden’s words ring true, though sadly not for the reasons he intended.

AUTHOR

Kurt Mahlburg

Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate… More by Kurt Mahlburg.

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EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet 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.

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.

Mike Rowe Calls Out Adults Over Child Sex Changes: Kids Aren’t Saying ‘Remove My Genitals’

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TV host Mike Rowe spoke out during an episode of his podcast released Tuesday, criticizing parents who push transgender medicine on their children.

Rowe made the comments while interviewing The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh about his documentary “What Is A Woman.” As the two discussed the documentary on Rowe’s podcast “The Way I Heard It,” the topic turned to children, consent and the movement supporting irreversible gender reassignment surgeries, puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors.

“You’re talking about sterilizing kids way before they could ever hope to have kids of their own in adulthood,” Walsh told Rowe, describing the impact of taking puberty-blocking drugs like Lupron, which is typically prescribed to sex offenders to chemically castrate them.

Rowe went on to ask Walsh where the push for transgender surgeries and medications for kids is really coming from, and there are stricter age requirements for drivers licenses and alcohol. “Is it Big Pharma, is it money, is it academia, is it our healthcare system? It feels like an alliance of sorts,” Rowe commented.

Walsh claimed that a combination of peer pressure, counter-culture and the normal discomfort of adolescence contribute toward the increase in the number of trans-identifying youth, but that younger children are often led into it by adults who exploit their innocence.

Rowe agreed, saying that young children are not saying “give me some Lupron, cut off my genitals” unprompted.

The full episode is available on Rowe’s website.

AUTHOR

KAY SMYTHE

News and commentary writer.

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

Self-Determined Gender Opens Up A Can Of Worms

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An Ecuadorian man has changed his gender to gain custody of his children.

“Self-determined gender is a cornerstone of a person’s identity. The resulting obligation of States is to provide access to gender recognition in a manner consistent with the rights to freedom from discrimination, equal protection of the law, privacy, identity and freedom of expression.”

So says the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in a sterling affirmation of gender fluidity as a human right.

However, the possibilities arising from liberation from cisgender normativity have still not been fully realised in the United States and other Anglophone countries. People have been changing their gender on passports, ID cards, and birth certificates to validate their authentic gendered self. It’s part of a patchwork of solutions to gender dysphoria. Boring.

In Latin America people have been far more creative in exercising these new-found freedoms.

In 2021 a new party, Fuerza por Mexico (FxM) was having trouble meeting gender parity requirement for electoral lists. Fortunately, 18 of its candidates in the state of Tlaxcala, to the west of Mexico City, were courageous enough to embrace their true gender identity. Appearances notwithstanding, they always had been women.

Some people churlishly alleged that this was just a self-serving charade. However, the Tlaxcala electoral commission declared that it was wrong to doubt the reality of the candidates’ gender self-identification. How could you? Only the candidates know whether they are male or female or whatever. Biology has nothing to do with it.

And now an Ecuadorian dad caught up in a messy divorce case has declared that he is really a woman, and therefore a mother of his two daughters. The possibility of changing gender came as godsend to him, because a judge had declared that she could only grant custody to the children’s mother.

As El Universo reports, just after Christmas René Salinas Ramos legally changed his gender in the registry office of the city of Cuenca. René, a journalist, is confident of her true sex, but was willing to sacrifice the sex she was assigned at birth to subvert a legal system which gives women more rights in custody cases. “This is a proof of my love for my children,” says Ms Salinas.

Ecuador appears to be far more progressive than the United States. Since 2015, its citizens have been able to change their gender, provided that they are of legal age and that two witness can testify to the autonomy of their decision. Unfortunately they can only do this once and it has to last for at least two years, unlike the even more progressive state of Victoria, in Australia, where genders can be changed every 12 months.

Hopefully this will bring to an end a very sticky situation. He, or rather she, has not seen one of her daughters for a year and a half. The other, she alleges, is being physically mistreated. She would like custody of the girls.

However, the court has declared that until the case is resolved, the children must remain with “su mamá”, their mother.

No sooner said than done. René is now a mother of her daughters.

“Now that I am a woman, I can be a mother and I am on an equal footing to fight for my daughters’ parental rights,” Salinas told La Voz de Tomebomba.

“I haven’t seen my daughters for more than five months. I can be a mother too, I know how to cook, give love, do the ironing and other motherly things,” explained Salinas.

With respect, it does appear that René Salinas is trying to game Ecuador’s law on gender recognition. It’s impossible to know the real story behind this custody dispute. However, René’s tactic is more honourable than the one used by male criminals masquerading as women who live in women’s prisons to have more lenient conditions and access to sex.

Or mediocre athletes who break women’s sporting records.

Once reality is abandoned as the basis for law, there’s no telling how gender fantasies will be exploited to gain power, adulation, or sex.

AUTHOR

Michael Cook

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

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet 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.

Montgomery County Schools Saw 582% Increase In Reported Gender Nonconforming Students Over Two Years, Data Shows

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Maryland’s largest public school district saw a 582% increase the number of students identifying as gender nonconforming in just two years, according to internal data posted to an educator’s Twitter page.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) gathered this data from forms school counselors fill out when students approach them to talk about gender identity issues. Because the numbers rely on self-reporting, the near-sevenfold increase from 2019 to 2022 could indicate a massive increase in the number of gender-diverse students, an environment that encourages those students to be more open with counselors or both.

The data — which is not publicly available to parents or taxpayers — was posted to Twitter on Oct. 6 when educator Elicia Eberhart-Bliss shared an image of a slide show presented at a meeting of the district’s “Pride ALLiance.”

During the 2019-2020 school year, a total of 35 students reported gender nonconformity to a counselor, including four elementary students, 19 middle school students and 12 high schoolers. During the 2021-2022 school year the total number of students reporting gender nonconformity spiked to 239, including 18 elementary students, 129 middle schoolers and 92 high schoolers.

The data state that 423 students filled out the form with a counselor, and 45% of those students are considered “non-binary.” The data were collected across 84 schools, including 20 elementary schools.

Christopher Cram, the spokesman for MCPS, told the Daily Caller that a “full accounting” of LGBTQ+ students is “impossible,” as the data can only be compiled on students who fill out forms with the district.

“A full accounting of students who may identify as LGBTQ+ or gender nonconforming is impossible to know,” Cram said. “This information is covered by privacy rules and is only collected if a student offers that information to a counselor. Therefore a percentage ‘of’ or ‘rise’ cannot be determined to be considered accurate in any way.”

According to MCPS guidelines for dealing with students who identify as gender nonconforming, kids have a “right” to keep their in-school gender identities private. The form used to collect data on which students identify as gender nonconforming states that parents can be involved only “if the student states that [the parents] are aware of and supportive of the student’s gender identity.”

Bethany Mandel, a conservative activist and parent in the Montgomery County area, told the Caller that the data show an “explosion” of gender-confused children.

“This isn’t data that the outside world has seen before; it was accidentally shared and is incredibly illuminating,” Mandel said. “There is a clear explosion of gender-confused children year-over-year, and it’s clear the majority of those are legitimately children, middle school and below. This isn’t just a Montgomery County problem, it’s nationwide; we were just able to get a glimpse of the data here.”

Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist and journalist, argued in an August Substack post that the definition of “transgender” was edited in recent years to be synonymous with people who are gender nonconforming, leading to a spike in transgender-identifying people.

If a girl gravitates toward trucks and cars as a child, she is considered “gender nonconforming” and “transgender,” even if she shows no signs of gender dysphoria, according to Wright’s analysis. This expanded definition is used by prestigious medical institutions and activism hubs including the American Medical Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Planned Parenthood.

“It is urgent that we all fully understand that the definition of transgenderism used by our most highly regarded scientific, medical, and human rights institutions now literally encompasses common gender nonconformity, and this is the main reason so many children are now claiming to be transgender,” Wright wrote.

AUTHOR

CHRISSY CLARK

Education reporter.

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

U.S. Air Force Academy holds seminar promoting ‘transgender visibility and awareness in our Air Force’

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Every second spent on this kind of thing is a second taken away from training cadets to fight and win wars. But get with it, man! The idea that the military should be devoted to winning wars is so 1945! This is 2022! We have other priorities now, and the Chinese, Russians, jihadis, North Koreans et al are laughing uproariously.

Air Force Academy Holds ‘Transgender Visibility’ Seminar

by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, September 26, 2022:

The United States Air Force Academy on Thursday held a seminar promoting “transgender visibility and awareness in our Air Force.”

The “discussion” session focused “on awareness for transgender communities in the military,” according to a copy of an invitation for the event obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Events of this nature are part of a wholesale push by the U.S. military to foster a more culturally inclusive environment. Critics say this type of training is part of a woke cultural agenda that is being mainstreamed by the Democratic Party’s far-left flank. The Army, for instance, mandates gender identity training and instructs its officers on the best time to offer subordinates gender-transition surgery….

The first 40 cadets to attend the seminar received a free lunch….

Read more.

There ain’t no such thing, my friends.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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