Government sanctioned child abuse

Wisconsin parents fight the transgender lobby, while California is going in the other direction.

Fourteen Wisconsin parents represented by Alliance Defending Freedom and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, public interest legal firms, have filed a lawsuit in an attempt to stop a policy they say “instructs teachers to assist and encourage children in adopting transgender identities without notifying—and possibly while deceiving—parents.” The suit specifically targets schools in Madison after the district adopted a policy which includes the following provisions:

• Children of any age can transition to a different gender identity at school, by changing their name and pronouns, without parental notice or consent.
• District employees are prohibited from notifying parents, without the child’s consent, that their child has or wants to change gender identity at school, or that their child may be dealing with gender dysphoria.
• District employees are even instructed to deceive parents by using the child’s legal name and pronouns with family, while using the different name and pronouns adopted by the child in the school setting.

Hardly radical, the lawsuit very simply calls for school officials to be transparent and honest when dealing with parents, and “to meet standards of informed consent.”

Unfortunately, California seems to be going in the other direction. The Epoch Times reports that in January, the California Teachers Association changed an existing policy in an internal document, to “explicitly include transgender and non-binary youth among the students who can leave class without parental permission to receive birth control, abortions, and other such services.” While the updated policy does not include a provision for “hormone therapy,” the rationale discussed by CTA’s civil rights committee in making the policy change “indicates that’s the final goal.”

Granted, while CTA is not a law-making body, the powerful union all too often gets its way in Sacramento; as one of the biggest political spenders in the state, the powerful lobby holds great sway of over many legislators.

In fact, CTA’s proposal is not a big stretch from where we are now. State law provides that “instruction or materials that discuss gender, sexual orientation, or family life and do not discuss human reproductive organs and their functions” are not subject to parental notice and opt-out laws, according to The California Safe School Coalition. Additionally, since 1997, the state even permits girls to be excused from school to get an abortion without any parental notification whatsoever.

It is important to note that few doctors buy into the transgender lobby’s radical agenda. Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians, asserts, “Sex is determined at conception by our DNA and is stamped into every cell of our bodies. Human sexuality is binary. You either have a normal Y chromosome and develop into a male, or you don’t, and you will develop into a female. There are at least 6,500 genetic differences between men and women. Hormones and surgery cannot change this.”

Additionally, Brown University physician and researcher Lisa Littman released a study in 2018, the result of which suggests that “rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” in young people may be driven in part by “social and peer contagion.” She claims that nearly 70 percent of the teenagers were involved with a peer group in which at least one friend had identified as transgender. In some groups, the majority had done so. Nearly 65 percent of teens had spent an increased amount of time online and on social media, and “parents reported that pro-transgender YouTube videos and blogs might have been influential.” Needless to say, Dr. Littman has been painted as a bigot by the true believers.

Ironically, at the same time the radical transgender agenda is being foisted on parents and kids in California, a group of students was successful in a lawsuit that contended that their “low literacy levels violated California’s constitutional mandate to provide all children with equal access to an education.” Only half of all students performed at grade level in reading on the most recent state-administered test. Also, just 30 percent of California eighth-graders scored proficient in reading on the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Under the $53 million settlement with the state, most of the funding will be awarded to 75 public schools with the poorest third-grade reading scores in California over the last two years. So, while literacy is a problem for many students in California, I’ll bet the same kids are very well-versed in LGBTQQIAA dogma.

When I taught, it was drilled into us on a yearly basis that teachers and other school personnel must – MUST report any sign of suspected abuse of a child. No one ever discussed, however, what to do when the abuse is being perpetrated by the education establishment.

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Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.