. . .So earlier this year, Hicks signed up for the pilot Rethink Masculinity class, a partnership between the Washington, D.C., Rape Crisis Center, Collective Action for Safe Spaces, and ReThink, an organization that works to prevent sexual assault.
The program bills itself as a class where men “learn how social constructs of masculinity harm them and the people around them, and work to construct healthier masculinities.” Or, as Hicks puts it, “It was eight weeks of guys discussing how they can address their actions with better self-awareness and less toxicity.”
“We spoke of emotional labor, consent, violence, communication, empathy, and vulnerability,” he adds, noting that the last subject, in particular, was a struggle for him: “[I was] trained and conditioned to be tough growing up.”
The Rethink program is the latest in a growing number of courses targeted toward people who identify as men, including the Men’s Project at the University of Wisconsin, Masculinity 101 at Brown, and the Duke Men’s Project at Duke. The goal, proponents say, is to help men examine their own biases and behaviors in order to cut down on misogyny and gender-based violence. (Read more from “Men Taking Classes to Unlearn ‘Toxic Masculinity'” HERE)
Who’s for pumping confused kids full of hormones to suppress the onset of their puberty? It’s a common “therapy” given to boys who think they are girls and vice versa.
According to the must-read new paper “Growing Pains: Problems with Puberty Suppression in Treating Gender Dysphoria” by Paul W. Hruz, Lawrence S. Mayer, and Paul R. McHugh in The New Atlantis, puberty suppression “advocates argue that it represents a prudent and ‘fully reversible’ way to give young people with gender dysphoria and their families time to sort out the difficult issues surrounding gender identity.”
Gender dysphoria is the learned name for the mental malady of men thinking they’re women and vice versa.
The Problems With Suppressing Puberty
The problem, as Hruz and the others outline, it is that drugging kids up is a “radical and experimental” procedure “based more on subjective judgments and speculation than on rigorous empirical studies.” The so-called treatment is “being applied in an uncontrolled and unsystematic manner” and is endangering kids.
Worse is that “the claim that puberty-blocking treatments are ‘fully reversible’ is not supported by scientific evidence, and possible side effects include abnormal bone and muscle development, neurological problems, and infertility.”
And worst, “These treatments may make it more likely that patients whose cross-gender identification would not have persisted past childhood will continue to identify as the opposite sex into adulthood.”
Given the faddish and hip nature of transgenderism, where experimentation is increasing, this is no small worry.
As the authors rightly point out, “Children are not fully capable of understanding what it means to be a man or a woman. Most children with gender identity problems eventually come to accept the gender associated with their sex and stop identifying as the opposite sex.” Drugging confused kids or guiding them with “gender-affirming” words transforms what is often a temporary infatuation into a lifelong affliction.
What LGBT Advocates Say
Now some medical groups, such as the Endocrine Society and World Professional Association for Transgender Health, advocate giving kids who are confused about their biology chemicals to slow the onset of puberty. They do this because, they claim, “gender dysphoria ‘rarely desists after the onset of pubertal development’” and because, they claim, “suppression causes no irreversible or harmful changes in physical development and puberty resumes readily if hormonal suppression is stopped.”
Slowing puberty “gives adolescents more time to explore their gender nonconformity” and — and this a big and — the treatment “may facilitate transition [to living as the opposite sex] by preventing the development of sex characteristics that are difficult or impossible to reverse if adolescents continue on to pursue sex reassignment” (brackets original).
In other words, if a boy imagines he is a girl, stopping his testes (and so on) from developing makes it easier for him to pretend he is a girl. That he will ever become a girl (or woman) is, of course, impossible. Stopping a girl who thinks she’s a boy from developing her breasts makes it easier for her to pretend to be a boy, but that she will ever become a boy (or man) is also impossible.
This new “treatment” is also advocated by the “LGBT advocacy group” the Human Rights Campaign, who have partnered with the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians. They have put out a guide which says “to prevent the consequences of going through a puberty that doesn’t match a transgender child’s identity, healthcare providers may use fully reversible medications that put puberty on hold.”
When “Treatment” Can Actually Cause the Malady
But, say Hruz and the others,
Whether puberty suppression is safe and effective when used for gender dysphoria remains unclear and unsupported by rigorous scientific evidence. … In the case of gender dysphoria, however, we simply do not know what causes a child to identify as the opposite sex, so medical interventions, like puberty suppression, cannot directly address it.
According to the industry standard Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, anywhere from 70% to 97.8% of boys and 50% to 88% of girls snap out of their gender dysphoria. So there seems little justification for chemical intervention.
Even worse, as Hruz et al. say, “The interventions could, in some cases, be harmful, if they lead children whose gender dysphoria may have resolved in adolescence to instead persist in a dysphoric condition.”
In other words, the treatment can cause the very malady it’s said to be curing.
Hormonal Treatments are Not the Answer
The claim that suppressing puberty in patients with gender dysphoria is “fully reversible” is also thin on evidence. “Given how little we understand about gender identity and how it is formed and consolidated, we should be cautious about interfering with the normal process of sexual maturation.”
And there “have been no controlled clinical trials comparing the outcomes of puberty suppression to the outcomes of alternative therapeutic approaches.” Plus, there is evidence from trials in animals that puberty suppression causes direct harm in neurological development.
We frequently hear from neuroscientists that the adolescent brain is too immature to make reliably rational decisions, but we are supposed to expect emotionally troubled adolescents to make decisions about their gender identities and about serious medical treatments at the age of 12 or younger. And we are supposed to expect parents and physicians to evaluate the risks and benefits of puberty suppression, despite the state of ignorance in the scientific community about the nature of gender identity.
It is obvious some kind of treatment is necessary for children suffering from gender dysphoria. “But as scientists struggle to better understand what gender dysphoria is and what causes it,” the authors argue, “it would not seem prudent to embrace hormonal treatments and sex reassignment as the foremost therapeutic tools for treating this condition.” (For more from the author of “Suppressing Puberty to ‘Treat’ Gender Dysphoria. Really?” please click HERE)
A north London private school has drawn up plans to introduce gender-neutral uniforms in response to a growing number of pupils questioning their gender identity.
Highgate school currently has an option for girls to wear a grey pleated skirt, but the school is consulting on a mix-and-match uniform policy which will not specify a different requirement for boys and girls.
Girls can currently wear grey trousers or skirts as well as the dark blue jackets and ties which make up the rest of the uniform. Boys may not wear a skirt and also have to wait until they are 16 to wear earrings.
Adam Pettitt, headmaster at the school, told the Sunday Times: “This generation is really questioning [if we are] being binary in the way we look at things.”
He said some former pupils had complained about the changes. “They write in and say if you left children to their own devices they would grow up differently and you are promoting the wrong ideas,” he said. (Read more from “School Plans to Require Skirts for Boys Due to Skyrocketing Numbers of Transgender Students” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/31b48fea26659f62a29e917b882631fc.jpg800800Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-05-19 01:22:562017-05-21 02:09:19School Plans to Require Skirts for Boys Due to Skyrocketing Numbers of Transgender Students
Harvard University is using tuition dollars to tell students that “there are more than two sexes” and that “gender is fluid and changing.” The school is also telling students gender can change daily —sometimes depending on what people choose to wear. If you disagree with those statements, you are promoting “systemic violence.”
The office of BGLTQ Student Life has released a guide promoting delusions instructing students to “fight transphobia” and “get the facts about gender diversity,” Peter Van Voorhis reports for Campus Reform.
The guide, which was distributed to students on campus, declares that “there are more than two sexes” and that “gender is fluid and changing,” adding that someone’s gender identity “can be affirmed and/or expressed in many ways,” and can even “change from day to day.”
Yes, that’s right. As Voorhis reports, “the flyer tells students that ‘for many people—cis and trans—gender expression, identity, and self-understanding can change from day to day,’ noting that gender can be expressed through one’s ‘speech, mannerisms, clothing,’ and more.”
Gender identity can fluctuate daily now?
How are you supposed to write a law that protects against gender or sex discrimination if a person’s “gender identity” can change daily? James Madison might’ve said something important about “mutable” or constantly changing government and “incoherent” laws once.
Pointing out the land of confusion into which the LGBT-rights movement is forcing us to descend could get students into trouble, however.
As the flyer reads, “Transphobic misinformation is a form of systemic violence.” What your kids are being taught, at Harvard University and likely elsewhere, is that traditional understandings of the roles of men and women the distinctions between male and female are “violence.”
If you follow this line of thinking then when, for example, Jesus says in Matthew 19, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” — that’s violence.
Or, in Harvard’s terms, “Fixed binaries and biological essentialism, manifest in gendered language, misgendering someone, and the policing of trans bodies, threaten the lives of trans people.”
Some students are not happy their tuition dollars are being used to deny biological reality to make other students more comfortable with their mental delusions.
Campus Reform reports that several outraged students were upset school funds were used for this campaign, but declined to comment on for fear of “potential repercussions from the school.” One wonders if Harvard’s administration has paused to consider whether they are providing a safe space for students who think that men are men and women are women.
This is the sad state of affairs at colleges and universities. Traditional values are called violent. Mob violence to silence free speech is called justice. The same places that claim to create safe spaces for the liberal students are too dangerous for alternative points of view.
When will enough be enough? (For more from the author of “Harvard: Gender Changes Daily. Disagreement Is Violence” please click HERE)
It seems like my simple statement that “Caitlyn Jenner is a man wearing a dress” caught fire online on many sites and in different formats, expressing what millions of other Americans think and feel but are often reluctant to express lest they be branded hateful and intolerant. In the interest of fleshing that statement out and giving voice to the feelings of many others, let me state more of the obvious.
Immovable Truths
I do recognize that some people have biological or chromosomal abnormalities, often grouped together under the category of intersex but representing well under 2 percent (or even under 1 percent) of the population. But these very real exceptions only prove the rule, and in normal cases, which represent 98-99 percent of the population and therefore define cultural norms, the following truths remained fixed and immovable:
A biological male does not have female genitalia.
A biological male does not have female chromosomes.
A biological male does not get a monthly period.
A biological male cannot conceive or bear a child.
A biological female does not have male genitalia.
A biological female does not have male chromosomes.
A biological female does get a monthly period.
A biological female cannot impregnate another woman.
It also remains true that chromosomes do not lie (meaning, XY = male and XX = female, and abnormalities are just that — abnormalities) and that biology is not bigotry (this line is not original with me, but I’m not sure who said it first).
And so, a biological and chromosomal male who believes he is a woman is no more a woman than he is a dog, a fire hydrant, or a Martian. Conversely, a biological and chromosomal female who believes she is a man is no more a man than she is a zebra, a telephone, or a Neptunian.
It is true, of course, that the brain is part of the body, but it is also true that not everything the brain perceives to be reality is reality, which is why we say that someone has a psychological disorder when they deny the reality of the world that surrounds them — and no sane person calls that diagnosis hateful. Yet when we argue that many who identify as transgender do have a psychological disorder, we are told that we are driven by hate. On what basis?
Mixed Signals
Interestingly, when it comes to gender distinctions, radical feminists, LGBT activists, and other opponents of “heterosexism” send some very mixed signals. On the one hand, they tell us that the so-called gender binary (meaning, dividing the world into the distinct categories of male and female) is bigoted and antiquated. Then, on the other hand, they use stereotypical gender categories to argue for transgender identity.
For example, these activists want toy stores to become gender neutral, not just in their bathroom facilities but in the main shopping areas as well, no longer distinguishing between boys’ toys and girls’ toys. (Target made its toy aisles gender neutral in 2015.) Yet these same activists will tell you that little Sally is really a boy because she prefers playing with boys’ toys.
So, which is it? Is there such a thing as boys’ toys and girls’ toys or not? And, generally speaking, are there differences between male behavior and female behavior, between male tendencies and female tendencies, between male interests and female interests, between male perspectives and female perspectives?
More basically, is there a reason that Target has still not made its entire store gender neutral — in other words, is there a reason that Target still has distinct sections for men’s clothes and women’s clothes? This, of course, makes perfect sense, unless we think that the day is soon coming when men are as likely as women to wear a bra and panties. (If some really extreme activists had their way, I imagine that day would come sooner rather than later.)
What’s interesting, though, is that those of us who celebrate gender distinctions do so in non-rigid ways, recognizing that some boys may have certain interests and responses that are more feminine, while some girls may have certain interests and responses that are more masculine. Yet this does not mean that those boys are actually girls or that those girls are actually boys. Obviously not. To conclude that they were would be to confuse minor category exceptions with larger category rules.
A Bizarre Period in History
I truly believe that one day (may it come sooner than later!), we will look back with astonishment at this bizarre period of history, one in which perception was mistaken for reality, one in which one of our most lauded male athletes received a courage award for acquiring female breasts, one in which children too young to be left home alone — let alone drive a car, drink, or vote — were allowed to make long-term, body-altering decisions about their future, one in which whole states were punished and boycotted for refusing to allow teenage boys to play on girls’ sports teams and share locker rooms and shower stalls with them.
The positive takeaway from today’s social madness is that we have become more aware of those who struggle with deep gender identity issues, from early childhood to old age. May we better understand their struggles, may we become a more compassionate society, and may we work together to help them find true wholeness inside and out. And may the cultural madness cease.
We’ve had more than enough of gender-fluid teens and gender-blender adults and 50 ways (and more) to define your gender and college professors being required to address students as ze and xer and fae and thon.
It’s time we get back to reality. (For more from the author of “Chromosomes Don’t Lie, and Biology Is Reality, Not Bigotry” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/4896801034_d70830f1b5_b.jpg7651024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-02-28 18:41:552017-02-28 18:41:55Chromosomes Don’t Lie, and Biology Is Reality, Not Bigotry
After more than three decades in business, the makers of the American Girl doll have released an American Boy doll. Logan Everett wears plaid, plays the drums and — you read that right — is a boy doll. There may be many nuanced reasons for this new doll — after all, girls might want to play with boy dolls a la Ken and Barbie. Or, heck, since American Girls, the dolls, and books are so popular, why shouldn’t boys join in on the fun? But given the timing of this announcement and our culture’s obsession with eradicating traditional gender roles, this is another progressive ploy, a “Holy, gender-stereotypes-are-so-2005,” sidekick sentiment, like Robin is to Batman.
Eradicating gender is sometimes okay
Given the explosion of gender-neutral clothing lines and the call for gender-neutral toys, I’m actually surprised American Girl headed in this direction. In 2015, Target removed their gender-specific labels from children’s toys and bedding. It’s hard to keep track of when gender matters and when it doesn’t. (I also hope Logan doesn’t get confused and end up wanting to be a girl? In 2020 Logan might be “Laura!”) Of course, girls will want to play with the boy — he’s a novelty after all — and I’m sure some boys will too. Especially young ones. This mom said her little boy wanted an American Boy doll so much, last year she made him one herself by hacking off an American Girl doll’s hair and the like.
Very young children aren’t always as gung-ho for or against gender-specific toys as one might think. For example, my five year-old girl has put a play dress on my three year-old boy for giggles and he’s clueless. If you must know, I gently explain dresses are for girls and we remove it, throw a do-rag on his head, and hand him a sword. (I know! I’m so antiquated!)
But does this mean boys should be as drawn to “girl” toys as “boy” toys? Does it even matter?
Boys will be boys
I think it does matter. Here’s why: Whether intentionally or not, American Girl is forcing political correctness and a discussion of gender stereotypes onto an age and gender that doesn’t want it. When boys are young, especially boys who don’t struggle with dysphoria at all — which is a very real issue — they seem generally and naturally drawn to what adults would call “boy” toys.
As a mother of two boys and two girls we have plenty of boy, girl, and gender-neutral toys.
Still, when you throw it all into the playroom and let the heathens at it, one of my girls gravitates towards really girly things like dolls; the other plays with both (but mostly her older brother).
The two boys, however, embrace their masculinity like Peter Pan embraced Neverland. Since they could talk they have gravitated towards boy toys, have made boy sounds for everything, and have chewed things into the shapes of boy toys. Once at a science museum, my son and his friends were playing in the “colonial” frontier area which had a cabin, fake firewood, and fake food. Ten minutes later they were playing Army and were shooting each other with fake bananas. Bananas.
This is actually okay. For a mother of boys, “boys will be boys” isn’t just a slogan we utter when they get toothpaste all over the counter or create a fort in the backyard out of branches and duct tape. It is — at least for me — a way to celebrate masculinity. Boys generally will be boys and why shouldn’t they be? Why shouldn’t we as a society, instead of commanding they give up their innate boy traits and be just like girls who want to play with dolls, celebrate this instead of criticizing? The joy of a boy lay in his grubby hands and loud nature and ferocious, curious spirit. From those things we see traits that carry into manhood: Men who love to fix, build, problem-solve, create, command, lead, and protect. What would we be as a society without these?
Do boys grow up to be violent criminals more than girls? Yes. Is it because they turn bananas into guns at the science museum? I doubt it. Should I encourage them to play with dolls more? I could certainly try, but when I showed my nine year-old son the picture of Logan he scrunched up his freckled face and said, “Why would they do that?”
As a mom, I’ve actually found all my children play best with toys that are basically gender-neutral and can be played with repeatedly in a myriad of ways: Think Legos versus a Nerf gun. On the other hand, Legos, blocks, Moon Sand, Play-Doh, Lincoln Logs, board games and Dominoes have all been well-loved.
Research even supports this concept. These professors found, through various studies and watching children play with very gender-specific toys, gender-neutral toys, and anything in between that range, “[S]trongly gender-typed toys appear to be less supportive of optimal development than neutral or moderately gender-typed toys.” This 2015 op-ed in the New York Times made a whole case for gender-neutral toys saying gender-specific toys can actually “negatively impact a child’s development.”
Get your facts straight
So if that’s the case, why the sudden push for an American Boy doll for girls and boys alike? Sure, more money, more variety — it’ll make some people very happy. But it looks like progressive marketers and liberal media needs to have a pow-wow to really figure out: Does gender matter? If not does it only matter when it’s traditional — girls are doing girl stuff and boys are doing boy stuff — then there’s a monumental effort to criticize and flip it around to be more progressive?
It’s bogus for the commercial industry at-large to succumb to reversing stereotypes especially on a segment of society — young boys — who are completely comfortable being male and whom we should encourage thusly: Make bananas into guns, not boys into dolls. It plays into male psyche to provide and protect as it plays into the female psyche (in general) to nurture and comfort. Of course girls can be soldiers and guys can cook in the kitchen, but this isn’t really about that is it? Deep down, everybody knows many people fall very naturally into gender-specific roles and are just fine with it, celebrating when it’s convenient, decrying it when it’s a matter of political correctness. That needs to stop. (For more from the author of “My Son’s Response to American Girl’s New Doll Tells Me Everything I Need to Know” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/American_Girl_Star_logo.svg_.png768768Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-02-19 23:46:122017-02-25 22:05:22My Son’s Response to American Girl’s New Doll Tells Me Everything I Need to Know
A psychology professor at the University of Toronto who is protesting a law that would force him to use certain pronouns for transgender and other gender nonconforming individuals says the school is trying to “silence” him.
“The university, yesterday, basically told me to silence myself,” Jordan Peterson told The Daily Signal. “That’s the second warning letter.”
Peterson has been a vocal opponent of a measure before Canada’s Parliament known as C-16, which would amend the nation’s human rights and criminal codes to make it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity and gender expression.
If passed, failure to refer to a person by the preferred pronoun or refusing to hire someone based on gender identity could qualify as discrimination and be punishable by law.
In a phone interview with The Daily Signal, Peterson said he has no problem with addressing people “as whatever gender they appear to be presenting themselves as.”
Peterson, a clinical psychologist, is a tenured professor.
“If Caitlyn Jenner wants to be called ‘she,’ I don’t give a damn,” he said. “If someone’s going through a fair bit of work to manifest themselves as a female or manifest themselves as a male, I’m not going to make an issue of it.”
What Peterson takes issue with, however, is the Canadian government potentially forcing him to speak in a manner that reflects a particular ideology, such as using the genderless pronouns “zie” or “hir.”
“The law should be very careful when it mandates what people have to say,” Peterson said, adding:
That’s the fundamental issue here. The mistake of this legislation is, it’s an attempt to force people to utter certain words that are not of their choosing. There’s a big difference between being required to not say something, and being required to say something. It’s a different category of law. One is closing your mouth. The other one is putting a hand inside you and forcing you to be a puppet.
As part of his opposition to C-16, which currently is in committee, Peterson got involved in free speech rallies, published a video series online, and wrote articles explaining his stance.
Some students and other members of the University of Toronto community took immediate offense to Peterson’s remarks, telling school leaders they found his comments “unacceptable, emotionally disturbing, and painful.”
Some fear for their safety because of his perspective, two university officials said in a letter to Peterson. David Cameron, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science, and Sioban Nelson, vice-provost for faculty and academic life, wrote:
Some members of the university community report that the statements and the invective that has followed in the ensuing commentary and debates on social media have caused them to fear for their safety on the university campus.
The university first warned Peterson to stop making “discriminatory” remarks in an Oct. 3 letter from Susanne Ferber, chairwoman of the Department of Psychology, who wrote:
Concerns have been raised by members of the University of Toronto community regarding statements you have made publicly regarding transgendered persons in a recent YouTube presentation. I wish to remind you that in your activities as a University of Toronto faculty member you are expected to comply with applicable human rights law.
The Daily Signal sought comment from the University of Toronto, but did not receive a response by deadline.
The letter signed by Cameron and Nelson, dated Oct. 18, informs Peterson:
The impact of your behavior runs the risk of undermining your ability to conduct essential components of your job as a faculty member and we urge you to consider your obligations as a faculty member to act in a manner that is consistent with the law and with university policy.
Peterson’s tenure status provides “some protection” from being fired, he said, “but the limits of that can always be tested.”
The university officials object to what they call Peterson’s “discriminatory intentions”—that, as a matter of principle, he has said he’d refuse to comply with rules or laws dictating pronoun usage.
“You should also be aware that many members of the university community are concerned and distressed about the declarations of your discriminatory intentions,” Cameron and Nelson write.
The letter also cites the Ontario Human Rights Code, which already bans discrimination based on gender identity and expression. The university is located in Toronto, the capital of Ontario.
“Depending on the context, if personal pronouns are being used, the refusal by a teacher or colleague to use the personal pronoun that is an expression of the person’s gender identity can constitute discrimination,” they add.
Peterson said he doesn’t intend to stop speaking out on the issue, and warned that political correctness is spiraling out of control, particularly in the U.S.
“This has also happened in New York City, where you can be fined $250,000 for misgendering someone,” he said.
Under the New York City policy, landlords, employers, and businesses face civil penalties up to $125,000 per violation and up to $250,000 “for violations that are the result of willful, wanton, or malicious conduct.”
Peterson said he was discouraged by the thought of losing his job, and possibly losing his license to practice psychology. He said the situation has been hard for his family to bear.
On principle, however, Peterson told The Daily Signal he refuses to be silenced, and knows that as a result, he stands a real chance of losing his job and livelihood:
I think the university will send me a third warning letter, because I think they’re getting the documentation in order, and then I think there’s a reasonable probability that they’ll take action against me. And I think there’s a nontrivial possibility that I’ll be held up in front of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. I’m obviously prognosticating with regards to something I can’t predict, but the university did yesterday tell me to silence myself, and I didn’t expect them to do that.
(For more from the author of “University Threatens to ‘Silence’ Professor Protesting Genderless Pronouns” please click HERE)
A draft form of gender identity regulations released by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination says churches that hold “secular” events “open to the public” must conform to gender identity pronouns and not challenge gender identity with respect to housing, employment and restrooms.
Released earlier this month and set for implementation on October 1, the updated version of the state’s “Gender Identity Guidance” declares that “places of public accommodation may not discriminate against, or restrict a person from services because of that person’s gender identity.”
A footnote declares “all charges” of discrimination “are reviewed on a case-by-case basis,” though the regulation language says, “Even a church could be seen as a place of public accommodation if it holds a secular event, such as a spaghetti supper, that is open to the general public.”
Additionally, the “Guidance” states, “Moreover, it is a violation of the law for any individual to aid or incite another in making a distinction, discriminating against or restricting an individual from a place of public accommodation on the basis of gender identity.”
Legislators passed the law mandating the changes on July 7, according to the LGBT group MassEquality, and it was signed by the state’s Republican Governor the next day.
MassEquality Executive Director Deborah Shields, JD, MPH, said in a statement that “the guidelines are clear, fair, and protect the safety of all people in Massachusetts. Finally, transgender people have safe and secure access to all public accommodations in the state.”
A footnote explains, “Violation of the law shall be punished by a fine of not more than twenty-five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both…. In addition, the violator shall be liable to the aggrieved person for damages.”
Groups that qualify as being under the purview of the “Guidance” must take people at their word about gender identity, according to the state. “The statutory definition of gender identity does not require the individual to have gender affirming surgery or intend to undergo surgery, nor does it require evidence of past medical care or treatment.”
But the line between a religious event and a “secular” isn’t always clear cut. “Churches hold events ‘open to the general public’ all the time — it’s often how they seek new converts,” wrote Eugene Volokh at The Washington Post. “And even church ‘secular events,’ which I take it means events that don’t involve overt worship, are generally viewed by the church as part of its ministry, and certainly as a means of the church modeling what it believes to be religiously sound behavior.”
Volokh continued:
Indeed, a church might be liable even for statements by its congregants (and not just its volunteers, who are acting as agents) that are critical of transgender people. Tolerating such remarks is generally seen as allowing a “hostile environment,” and therefore “harassment.” Indeed, the statement I linked to specifically encourages people to “prohibit derogatory comments or jokes about transgender persons from employees, clients, vendors and any others, and promptly investigate and discipline persons who engage in discriminatory conduct” (emphasis added). But that’s not just encouragement; it simply reflects hostile work environment harassment law, which has long required employers to restrict derogatory speech by clients, to prevent “hostile environments.” See 29 C.F.R. § 1604.11. The same logic applies for places of public accommodation, which Massachusetts says can include churches.
PJ Media’s Tyler O’Neil commented, “Ideally, the First Amendment should uphold the religious freedom of churches, Christian schools, and other faith-based organizations even in Massachusetts,” and noted that the Supreme Court probably would get “the last word on this restrictive legislation.”
But for now? “Christian ministries need to get ready for the onslaught of lawsuits leveled against them, and it might also be acceptable for them to leave, if they believe they can effectively do their ministry elsewhere,” O’Neill said. “It could be argued, however, that Massachusetts needs them now, more than ever.” (For more from the author of “This New Reg Will Punish Churches That Use ‘Discriminatory’ Gender Practices” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Starbuck_Community_Church-4.jpg8001200Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-09-11 22:23:082016-09-11 22:23:08This New Reg Will Punish Churches That Use ‘Discriminatory’ Gender Practices
