On Feb. 16, a rape survivor, a lesbian, a radical feminist, and a conservative activist gathered at The Heritage Foundation in support of a common cause.
As members of the Hands Across the Aisle Coalition, these unlikely allies have banded together to combat the increasingly anti-woman positions adopted by the transgender movement.
The event, which focused on the impact of laws and policies that privilege “gender identity” over biological sex, was hosted by Ryan T. Anderson, the Heritage Foundation’s William E. Simon senior research fellow.
Leading off the panel was Kaeley Triller Haver, whose past as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse drives her current work fighting to protect the safety and privacy of women and girls. She first encountered the push to allow men in women’s restrooms while on staff at her local YMCA.
As part of her job duties, she conducted regular sex offender screenings, and the results were disturbing, as she recounted:
Every single time that I would run one of these screenings, I would find somebody who’d infiltrated the system, because that’s what predators do—they prey, and they seek opportunity. And I recognized that this new policy that they were asking us to embrace and adopt was basically the equivalent of rolling out a welcome mat for any man who decided that he wanted to come in and access our spaces.
Haver recognized the transgender activists’ strategy of accusing those who oppose their agenda of being close-minded and unloving. Her abuser had used similar tactics to persuade her to compromise her personal boundaries, she said.
Emily Zinos, a mother of seven, was unable to attend the event, but her comments were read in her absence. Zinos faced this issue in one of her children’s schools. As part of the Ask Me First campaign, she advocates safety and privacy for all students.
She wrote:
What worries me most is that schools across the country are quashing debate, abandoning academic pursuits, and reducing themselves to pawns in a political movement whose claims are highly questionable, unscientific, and have been shown to harm children. Public schools have a duty to serve all children, but schools cannot serve children and a totalitarian ideology all at once.
Miriam Ben-Shalom, a longtime gay rights activist and the first lesbian U.S. service member to be reinstated after being discharged from the military under “don’t ask, don’t tell,” spoke next. She asked conservatives to differentiate between the gay and lesbian community and transgender activists, whose agenda is more about infringing women’s rights and safety than protecting those of transgender citizens.
She said:
It’s not about bathrooms. It is about bathrooms, locker rooms, women’s shelters, women’s jails, and women’s spaces, and the real issue here is male violence. That’s what it is, and that’s what we’re talking about here. If trans women were really women, they would understand that the issue is male violence and they would sit down with us and civilly work together to find an acceptable solution to this problem.
The question of public restrooms, locker rooms, and showers sparked an intense political battle last year across the nation, but particularly in North Carolina. (For more from the author of “Feminists and Conservatives Link Arms to Confront Transgender Ideology” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Respect_and_Equality_for_All_Trans_People_4764133272_2-2.jpg22432990Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-03-05 23:55:252017-03-05 23:55:25Feminists and Conservatives Link Arms to Confront Transgender Ideology
Texas is taking measures to protect its citizens from laws that hinder “common sense and public safety” when it comes to transgender persons being allowed to use both men’s and women’s restrooms.
“This is a public safety issue,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, said during a conference call with reporters Friday.
Legislation filed by Texas state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, seeks to ensure that men and women use separate bathrooms.
Kolkhorst said the bill, titled the Texas Privacy Act, will clarify who will be allowed to enter both men’s and women’s restrooms.
“I don’t view this bill as a transgender bill,” Kolkhorst said in the conference call. “It truly is about public safety … It is not against the law for a man to enter a woman’s restroom dressed looking like a man. There is nothing on the books here in Texas.”
The gender on a person’s birth certificate would determine which bathroom Texans could use.
“In Texas, there is a way to change your birth certificate and it is going before a district judge and presenting the date of either hormone therapy or the surgery and then the judge makes the decision that [the gender on] the birth certificate shall be changed,” Kolkhorst said.
Patrick said the bill is necessary because it is “common practice” that men and women use separate bathrooms.
“The people of Texas elected us to stand up for common decency, common sense, and public safety,” Patrick said in a statement. “This legislation codifies what has been common practice in Texas and everywhere else forever—that men and women should use separate, designated bathrooms.”
Patrick says the legislation has received bipartisan support and is viewed favorably by men and women, African-Americans, and Hispanics.
While ensuring that bathrooms remain separate for men and women, the bill also specifies that “no public school can institute a bathroom policy that allows boys to go in girls restrooms, showers, and locker rooms and girls to go in boys restrooms, showers, and locker rooms,” according to Patrick’s statement.
According to Patrick’s office, the hearing for the Texas Privacy Act is the first legislative hearing for privacy protection legislation following President Donald Trump’s revocation of President Barack Obama’s bathroom directive issued by the Justice and Education departments in May.
Obama’s directive allowed students identifying as transgender to be able to use the restroom that corresponded with their gender identity and mandated schools conform to the rule.
Trump rescinded the directive in late February, and a statement from the White House on bathroom usage specified that policy for those who identify as transgender should be decided by the states.
Opponents of the Texas bill say they are concerned that Kolkhorst’s legislation is too similar to the bathroom bill passed by North Carolina last March.
During a conference call with reporters, Patrick said that he does not believe the Texas Privacy Act will have adverse economic effects.
Critics of North Carolina’s bill claim the state lost out on economic opportunities because of the bill, CNN reports.
According to CNN, businesses chose not to expand because of the bill and the NBA moved its All-Star Game from Charlotte, North Carolina, to a location outside the state.
However, former North Carolina Commerce Secretary John Skvarla said North Carolina’s economy was not adversely affected, according to The Charlotte Observer.
“It hasn’t moved the needle one iota,” Skvarla said in October.
Patrick argued the Texas bill was different than the North Carolina bill.
“I think there has been significant misrepresentation in what happened in North Carolina,” Patrick said. “Our bill is not the North Carolina bill … Our bill is very narrow and it deals with public safety, keeping sexual predators pretending to be transgender people [from entering] adult bathrooms.”
Ryan T. Anderson, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal that this bill is appropriate because it seeks to protect the dignity of all people.
“While we must be sensitive to the dignity, privacy, and safety concerns of people who identify as transgender, that is not a reason to ignore the dignity, privacy, and safety concerns of everyone else,” Anderson said in an email to The Daily Signal.
The Texas Privacy Act hearing is scheduled for March 7 in the Texas Senate. (For more from the author of “Texas Legislature to Consider Bill to Ensure ‘Public Safety’ in Bathrooms” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/17351749722_62a31cfd2b_b-2.jpg7691024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-03-03 23:41:042017-03-03 23:41:04Texas Legislature to Consider Bill to Ensure ‘Public Safety’ in Bathrooms
Within the next few weeks, the Supreme Court (which now decides every political issue and redefines immutable laws of nature) will be ruling on whether transgenderism is considered an inalienable right. However, it appears that the office of the “Clerk of the Supreme Court” — the “deep state” bureaucracy of the judiciary — has already decided that transgenderism is the law of the land.
The inimitable Ed Whelan of National Review has drawn attention to a recent letter sent by the Supreme Court’s Office of the Clerk to two groups, who filed amicus briefs on behalf of sexual sanity, demanding they refer to a transgender girl as a “he.”
In Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, the family of Gavin Grimm, a girl who is unfortunately suffering from a mental disorder, is demanding that the local school allow her to use the male bathroom.
The fourth and sixth circuits have already redefined human sexuality through the 14th Amendment (adopted in 1868) and Title IX (adopted in 1972)! The school district appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, and the high court recently requested more briefs from both sides.
As is the case with all high-profile issues, groups on both sides filed amicus briefs in support for one of the litigants. When Liberty University and Professor John Eastman filed briefs, the Office of the Clerk sent back the following message:
It has come to the attention of this office that the cover of your amicus brief in this case identifies the respondent as “G.G., by her next friend and mother, Deirdre Grimm.” In fact, the caption for the case in this Court, as in the lower courts, identifies the respondent as “G.G., by his Next Friend and Mother, Deirdre Grimm.” (Emphasis added.) Under Rule 34, your cover is to reflect the caption of the case. Please ensure careful compliance with this requirement in this and other cases in the future. [emphasis added]
The current Office of the Clerk, which handles the flow of cases, proceedings, filings, and recordings (not to be confused with individual law clerks of Supreme Court justices) is run by Scott S. Harris. This particular letter was signed by one of the assistant clerks, Denise McNerney.
As Whelan notes, this move was likely triggered by the public complaint from a radical leftist writer at Slate Magazine. But why would the clerk’s office feel pressure from a random left-wing writer to enforce such a bizarre misinterpretation of a filing rule when such a move would signal the court’s bias on the underlying merits? It would be absurd enough for the court to get involved in such a decision to begin with, but it is especially illogical to take the transgender side of things as the default position before the case is even decided.
Later on, after Whelan made further inquiries, the clerk’s office admitted that there is no such rule forcing amici to use the case title listed in the court’s docket, just this clerk’s own personal view that “parties generally should use” the docketed case title.
Clearly, the prudent thing to do is to allow both sides to use either pronoun, but certainly not to make one (the anti-scientific term, by the way) the default position.
However, McNerney rushed to enforce her random guidance just in this case for obvious political reasons. In this case, McNerney violated her oath of office to “faithfully and impartially discharge” her duties (28 U.S. Code §951).
The court system is so far left, it has already decided to redefine the most immutable laws of nature. And this comes on the heels of another district judge’s decision (this time, in Pennsylvania) to codify transgenderism into the 14th Amendment.
Yup, there is no right to freedom of conscience, private property, or the Second Amendment, but somehow an amendment written in 1868 was intended to give someone the right to use a bathroom meant for the opposite sex.
As James F. Wilson — chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who oversaw the drafting of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment — noted at the time, the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses were “establishing no new right, declaring no new principle,” but rather codified in order to reiterate and “to protect and enforce those which belong to every citizen.”
No new principle indeed! Had Wilson only known his amendment would lead to lawfare with the power to alter an X chromosome. (No doubt, this principle of transgenderism comes from the same legal right to immigrate.)
This case further exposes another uncomfortable reality for conservatives regarding the courts: Last year, I listed 12 reasons why the federal judiciary is irremediably broken. Grimm reveals a 13th. The “deep state” of the judiciary, much like the deep state of the executive branch, is full of leftist lawyers no matter who sits on the court. And this is true up and down the lower courts. But unlike the executive branch, the judiciary is wrongly regarded as wielding the power of the supreme law of the land.
Chief Justice Roberts should rebuke McNerney and other staff who seek to tip the balance to one side of a litigation. Moreover, Congress needs to reassert its authority over some of these practices. Remember, unlike with the executive branch where the president has full authority over personnel, the judicial branch staff is completely subject to statutory regulations placed by Congress. Contrary to popular thought, the judiciary is not wholly independent from Congress (and certainly not “supreme”).
Unless Justice Kennedy miraculous discovers his inner intellectual honesty, we know how this case will end. Grimm will be the transgender version of Obergefell in which the most immutable law of nature is redefined.
Republicans were appallingly silent after Obergefell, and nothing indicates they will respond more vociferously to Grimm. I have already laid out a plan for the other two branches to fight back against the redefining of sexuality here and here. The question is, “Will Congress continue to remain silent as unelected judges (and even unelected clerks) redefine marriage, sexuality, and the sovereignty of a nation?” (For more from the author of “PC Grammar Goon: This Supreme Court Clerk DEMANDED Petitioners Refer to a Girl as ‘He'” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/8604815836_71ec0d624a_b-1.jpg5741024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-03-03 00:09:232017-03-03 00:13:30PC Grammar Goon: This Supreme Court Clerk DEMANDED Petitioners Refer to a Girl as ‘He’
The defendants in Grimm v. Gloucester have asked the Supreme Court to push the oral argument date back by at least a month, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. The Court was scheduled to hear oral arguments on March 28.
Gavin Grimm, a high school student in Gloucester County, Virginia is suing for the right to use the boys’ restroom. Grimm is a biological female who identifies as a male.
Defendants Want Trump to Weight In
The Gloucester County School Board asked the Court to halt consideration of the case so that the new presidential administration has an opportunity to offer input, according to the AP.
Barack Obama was president when Grimm’s complaint was first filed in 2015. In 2016, Obama issued a Dear Colleague letter to public schools around the nation making the same assertion as Grimm: that refusing to allow transgender students to use the restroom opposite their biological sex is the same as sex discrimination per Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
President Donald Trump rescinded Obama’s policy in another Dear Colleague letter last week. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said the issue was best left to states and local school districts.
Conservatives Want Gorsuch Confirmed Before Grimm Decided
As The Daily Signal reported last month, many conservatives hope that Neil Gorsuch, a demonstrably right-leaning judge of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, is confirmed in time to hear Grimm. If the Court agrees to the school board’s request, he very well could be — his confirmation hearing is set to begin March 20.
As the AP reported, the Supreme Court could hear Grimm’s case in March as planned or postpone it by one month or several. It could also send the case back to a lower court.
Other cases on the issue of transgender bathroom policies are pending in Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas, according to the AP. (For more from the author of “School District Asks Supreme Court to Postpone Transgender Case Grimm v. Gloucester” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/16896264074_7fd248536b_b.jpg7151024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-03-01 16:59:532017-03-01 16:59:53School District Asks Supreme Court to Postpone Transgender Case Grimm v. Gloucester
I do not write these words lightly, and there is not an ounce of mockery or, God forbid, hatred in my heart when I say that Caitlyn Jenner is a man wearing a dress. I am simply speaking the plain and obvious truth, as politically incorrect as that truth might be right now. But with transgender issues dominating the news these days, and in light of Tucker Carlson’s epic takedown of Democratic leader Zac Petkanas on national TV last week (specifically, discussing gender-related questions), it appears that now is as good a time as ever to state some things clearly.
So then, to avoid all ambiguity: No, you do not get to choose your gender; no, gender is not determined by the level of your personal enlightenment (as Petkanas alleged); no, your gender does not change simply because you announce that it has changed; and no, it is not good science to allow people to change their sexual identity on their birth certificates. In fact, there is nothing scientific about that at all.
This being said, I do not minimize for a moment the very real struggle of precious little children who struggle deeply with their gender identity, nor do I deny that many children (and adults) report that their lives are more stable and fulfilled when they identify as the opposite of their biological sex.
I do not minimize the traumas through which Bruce Jenner (or others like him) has lived, nor do I claim to be able to relate to those traumas personally.
And I do not make a spiritual judgment about someone who struggles with their gender identity, as if this struggle somehow made them into the vilest of sinners. Why should that be the case?
Again, my goal is not to belittle or disparage, and as loudly and clearly as I can, I proclaim God’s love for all of you who identify as transgender, reminding each one that Jesus died for you just as He died for me and that God has a good and godly purpose for each of your lives.
You are not defective any more than I am defective, and every human being on the planet is broken in some way and in need of a Great Physician.
Caring Enough to Speak the Truth
But because I care enough about the transgender community to speak out, even though I’ll be branded a transphobe and bigot, I’m going to state things with clarity and conviction here, reminding us that the emperor has no clothes (as Carlson rightly did on Fox last week). And I’m going to encourage parents and policy makers, counselors and pastors, educators and activists, along with all those who care about their trans-identified friends and family that: 1) there is no settled science confirming transgender identity; 2) we still know very little about many operations of the brain, including those related to what is now called gender dysphoria (previously known as gender identity disorder, or GID); 3) studies continue to indicate that the vast majority of children who identify as transgender do not do so after puberty (even if many ultimately identify as gay); 4) there must be a better way than our current approach to treating gender dysphoria; 5) it is unfair to impose the struggles of less than 1 percent of the population on the rest of the population, especially on impressionable kids; and 6) gender distinctions should be celebrated and appreciated, rather than branded patriarchal or heterosexist or the like.
And while I’m at it, let me say this to CNN’s Chris Cuomo: Sir, it is not intolerant for a father not to want his daughter to see a boy’s penis at school. That’s called being a good dad.
I address these issues (and more) on this new video commentary, including some telling clips with Jenner and with Carlson and Pektanas, along with some shocking statements from Cuomo and from California public universities.
Please take a few minutes to watch and share the video (it’s less than 8 minutes), and then do three things: 1) pray for a fresh and real love for those who struggle with their gender identity; 2) reach out to those who identify as transgender and ask them sincerely to tell you their story; and 3) help them find wholeness in the Lord.
And remember: Caitlyn Jenner is no more a woman than Rachel Dolezal is black.
Those are the facts, and nothing more.
WATCH:
(For more from the author of “I’m Sorry, but Caitlyn Jenner Is a Man Wearing a Dress” please click HERE)
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Mack Beggs, a girl who identifies as a male (what much of the media refer to as “transgender boy”), won the Texas’ 6A girls state wrestling championship Saturday, after coming under much controversy for taking testosterone injections.
Beggs took the championship with a handy 57-0, though two of those opponents forfeited.
Under Texas’ athletics rules, governed by the University Interscholastic League (UIL), students must compete according to the gender listed on their birth certificate. As a result, Beggs, who began taking testosterone in 2015, must compete with the women, even though the 17 year old wrestler has expressed the desire to compete against boys.
Despite Beggs stated desire to compete against boys, UIL deputy director Jamey Harrison noted that none of the athletes in this championship had requested to change divisions. (Read more from “Girl Who Identifies as Male and Takes Testosterone Wins Girls Wrestling Championship” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/381511192_0775fdee03_b.jpg7681024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-02-27 22:54:592017-02-27 22:54:59Girl Who Identifies as Male and Takes Testosterone Wins Girls Wrestling Championship
As a woman and a mother, I am thrilled that the Trump administration has rescinded President Barack Obama’s unlawful transgender school policy regarding the use of showers, locker rooms, dorms, and bathrooms in public schools and universities.
President Donald Trump has returned the policymaking power back to parents and state and local officials.
Like many Americans, I was shocked by the Obama administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter threatening our nation’s schools with loss of federal funds unless they adopt radical gender identity policies. The Obama letter twisted Title IX—a law banning sex discrimination in education—and opened the door to a myriad of real dangers to women and girls, the very people Title IX was meant to help.
Wanting to protect my school-aged children, and also having been a victim of sexual assault, I initiated the “United We Stand” campaign last summer to generate calls to the White House respectfully requesting that Obama reverse course.
A decade ago, I worked in the correspondence office at the White House and learned firsthand that administrations take citizen communication very seriously.
Presidents need to hear from the people when they’ve done something wrong, but also when they’ve done something right. So last week, I called the White House comment line to relay my gratitude.
Trump’s decisiveness on this issue shows that he cares more about people than political correctness—that all our children deserve a safe and respectful learning environment, not just a very small minority, and that privacy and free speech are rights that American parents hold dear.
It also shows respect for the right of self-governance. An issue like bathroom policy is best determined at the local level, by the people closest to it—not by bureaucrats in Washington. The new guidance from the administration is both good policy and good governance.
But the fight is far from over, as there is no guarantee that local school boards will adopt sensible solutions unless they hear from concerned parents and students instead of just a vocal minority backed by well-funded outside activist groups.
In my local school district of Fairfax County, Virginia, parents are speaking out every other week asking our school board to reverse its transgender policy. We aren’t asking to “discriminate” against gender confused children, but to accommodate them with individual private facilities so that no one’s privacy is put at risk. We are merely asking for commonsense solutions for all students, not just a few.
Have you ever attended your local school board meeting? You will find they are democracy in action, but only if people make the effort to attend and voice their concerns.
Sadly, Trump is receiving a lot of flack for merely righting his predecessor’s wrong. While “just 28 percent of all Americans believe the federal government should be responsible for setting bathroom policies in elementary and secondary schools,” according to a recent poll, a vocal minority has dominated print and airwaves, and very likely the White House comment lines, giving the impression that the people are against Trump’s wise move.
The silent majority must no longer be silent. With Trump, we now have a president who is focused on remedying the lawlessness of the prior administration.
This mom has conveyed her support and gratitude. I hope others will follow. (For more from the author of “Trump Has Reversed the Transgender Bathroom Mandate. Here’s How Moms Like Me Pushed the Fight.” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/15553723907_ef1c985ae6_b-1.jpg1024768Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-02-27 22:03:022017-02-27 22:03:02Trump Has Reversed the Transgender Bathroom Mandate. Here’s How Moms Like Me Pushed the Fight.
On February 22, the Trump administration released a statement rescinding previous Obama administration guidance dealing with students who identify as transgender.
Contrary to almost all the news reporting on this story, the real question addressed by the new administration’s guidance is not (at least not directly), “Which restrooms or locker rooms should students who identify as transgender use?”
Instead, it is something much simpler — “Who gets to decide?”
The answer that President Trump’s administration has now given is also simple: “Not us. Not the federal government.”
Getting Title IX Right
The two Obama administration documents that have now been rescinded — a 2016 “Dear Colleague” letter to every school district in the country, and a lesser-known “opinion letter” issued January 2015 — asserted a specific interpretation of a specific federal law.
“Title IX” is common shorthand for “Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972” — a federal law which prohibited discrimination on the basis of “sex” in any school that receives federal funds (as all do).
The Obama administration argued that discrimination based on “sex” includes discrimination based on “gender identity;” and that failing to treat students in accord with their self-perceived “gender identity” (rather than their biological sex) in all school activities (including restroom and locker room assignments) constitutes such “discrimination.”
This position is legally untenable. Title IX was enacted by Congress, and signed into law by President Nixon, in 1972. It strains credulity to suggest that the legislative intent of Congress — 45 years ago — was to authorize biological males to use female facilities, and vice versa. The logical conclusion is that “sex” in Title IX is a reference only to one’s biological sex at birth.
If Congress wanted to expand the reach of Title IX to encompass “gender identity” as well as “sex,” Congress could amend the law to do so. Until now, they have chosen not to. No president simply has the authority under our Constitution to effect such an expansion unilaterally. President Trump’s decision to withdraw the Obama guidance should be welcomed by anyone who believes in limited government or in the rule of law — regardless of how they feel about transgender issues.
Legal Issues With “Gender Identity” Protection
Making “gender identity” a protected category under non-discrimination laws or policies would raise concerns beyond the question of bathrooms and locker rooms. Will staff be punished for inadvertently referring to a transgender student by the wrong, non-preferred, pronoun? Will fellow students have their freedom of speech or religion infringed upon, by being punished for expressing the view that God created human beings male and female, or that biological sex is a more valid indicator of maleness or femaleness than subjective “gender identity?”
The issue of sex-separated facilities or programs is an important one. Even future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, defending the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to prohibit sex discrimination under the law, wrote in the Washington Post in 1975 that “the equality principle” is compatible with having facilities separated on the basis of sex, declaring, “Separate places to disrobe, sleep, perform personal bodily functions are permitted, in some situations required, by regard for individual privacy.”
Common sense, however, tells us that the reason we have separate facilities for men and women, boys and girls in the first place is not because their gender identities are different, but because their anatomy is different.
Privacy Needs
Court precedents on physical privacy have established that it is a right which includes the right not to expose one’s nude or semi-nude body to someone of the opposite biological sex, and similarly not to be exposed involuntarily to the nude or semi-nude body of someone of the opposite biological sex. The Obama guidelines would have cast this privacy right to the winds, in favor of an unrestricted preference for gender identity over biological sex.
Many observers express concern about the needs of students who identify as transgender — as they should. But what about the concerns of Kaeley Triller Haver — a rape survivor who showered in her underwear because of the trauma she had endured? What about the female student in Illinois who now wears her gym clothes to school under her regular clothes — and then puts the regular clothes back on over the gym clothes, without showering — in order to avoid exposing herself to a biological male who was given permission to use the girls’ locker room?
Providing single-user, gender-neutral restrooms or changing facilities is a reasonable accommodation that could protect everyone’s concern for privacy and safety — yet it has been rejected as discriminatory by transgender activists and the Obama administration.
The Trump administration policy will open the door for such accommodations to ensure that the legitimate needs and concerns of all students are met. This is far preferable to a “one-size-fits-all,” top-down solution imposed by the federal government. (For more from the author of “Trump Returns Authority Over School Transgender Policies to States and Localities” please click HERE)
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The Obama administration’s edict on transgender bathrooms in public schools is no more. On Wednesday, President Trump revoked the rules granting transgender individuals access to the sex-segregated facilities of their choice.
“The Department of Justice has a duty to enforce the law,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement about withdrawing the guidance. “Congress, state legislatures, and local governments are in a position to adopt appropriate policies or laws addressing this issue.”
Sessions cited the legal ambiguity and confusion of Obama’s directive for the repeal.
“The prior guidance documents did not contain sufficient legal analysis or explain how the interpretation was consistent with the language of Title IX. The Department of Education and the Department of Justice therefore have withdrawn the guidance,” Sessions said.
“SHOCK!” “HORROR!” “FASCISM!” … countless will cry, as media outlets spin the story as an inhumane assault on transgender “rights.”
The Trump administration is rescinding guidance on rights of transgender students to use bathrooms based on the gender they identify with.
But the headline hysteria begs the question of what sort of “rights” we’re talking about here. What right does any human have, on a metaphysical level, to force an institution to accommodate their bathroom preferences, at the expense of everyone else?
What right, for that matter, does anyone have to force an institution to abandon its beliefs in basic human biology?
Even in the philosophically impoverished vision that disputed rights aren’t rights until the Supreme Court finds the stilted grounds on which to manufacture them (e.g. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s infamous “right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life”), the court has, to date, issued no such fiat.
Ergo, no such “right” exists, even on dubious grounds.
If anything is truly concerning about this development is that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — who has, of course, been vilified as the most extreme arch-conservative by anti-Trumpers — reportedly disagreed with repealing the rules, and that the president’s siding with Attorney General Sessions was what tipped the scales in the decision.
If anything is truly concerning about this development, it is the news that Education Secretary does not bode well. This latest outrage is founded on the same lie that fuels some of the most prominent thinking behind school choice — that government-run schools, rather than parents, are the sole, rightful educators of children.
Even without the regulations masquerading as guidance, there is nothing prohibiting parents from pressuring their local school boards to ensure access to transgender bathrooms or transgender-based sexual education. Sessions’ directive simply removes the federal government from the issue altogether (as it should be).
The only purpose of such a rule from the federal Department of Education would be to force the parents of local public schools to accept the anti-scientific arguments that would normalize transgenderism at the institutions that teach their children [read: child abuse] in Manhattan, Dallas, and Salt Lake City, all the same. In short, some parents will not teach what their leftist counterparts want, and must subsequently be forced to comply.
This may come as a shock to many, but a child’s education is the duty of his or her parents — not the state — which acts simply as a subcontractor in the issue.
What children learn – either through curriculum or example – is best decided by those who brought them into this world. Our political institutions and/or governments should merely reflect those decisions.
The fact that parents disagree on this bathroom issue only serves to stress the point that these questions are best addressed at the local level, rather than by technocratic central planners in a faceless bureaucracy. (For more from the author of “Another Obamanation Undone: Trump and Sessions Take the Federal Government out of Your Kids’ Bathroom” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/1275px-5495_Chugath_Street_Winona_Hall_-_bathroom_-_Chemawa_Indian_School_-_Salem_Oregon.jpg10241275Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-02-24 21:10:142017-02-24 21:10:14Another Obamanation Undone: Trump and Sessions Take the Federal Government out of Your Kids’ Bathroom
The Trump administration acted Wednesday night to fix the Obama administration’s unlawful “gender identity” school policy and return authority to parents and teachers in the states.
Civil rights officers in the Department of Justice and the Department of Education issued a joint letter saying the administration was rescinding the policy, which had required schools to allow transgender students to use the restrooms, locker rooms and similar facilities of their choice—or face loss of federal funds.
In the letter, they said the Obama mandate did not show “due regard for the primary role of the states and local school districts” in making education policy.
The Trump administration is doing the right thing in correcting Obama’s unlawful overreach, which imposed a one-sided solution on all 50 states. Parents and teachers in local schools now can work to find win-win solutions that protect the dignity, privacy, and safety of all students.
For years, the Obama administration unilaterally had redefined bans on “sex” discrimination to include “gender identity.”
The problem came to a head May 13, when Obama’s Justice and Education departments sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to our nation’s schools, informing them that “both federal agencies treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for purposes of enforcing Title IX,” a 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded schools.
With this decree, the Obama administration directed all schools to allow “students to participate in sex-segregated activities and access sex-segregated facilities consistent with their gender identity.”
Schools were told they had to allow students access to bathrooms, locker rooms, dorm rooms, and hotel rooms for overnight field trips based entirely on the self-declared gender identities of their students.
On Aug. 21, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled the Obama administration’s attempt to redefine sex was unlawful, and blocked the decree from going into effect.
O’Connor held that it “cannot be disputed that the plain meaning of the term sex as used … following passage of Title IX meant the biological and anatomical differences between male and female,” and he placed a nationwide injunction on the administration’s guidance to schools.
The Justice Department, under Attorney General Loretta Lynch, appealed this ruling Oct. 20.
But on Feb. 10, with Jeff Sessions as the nation’s new attorney general, the Justice Department withdrew that motion for a stay and cancelled the scheduled oral arguments.
The Trump administration rescinded the Obama guidance saying officials would interpret the word “sex” in Title IX to mean “gender identity.” Instead, the administration will allow parents and teachers to work together in local schools to find nuanced solutions that address the needs of everyone.
Wednesday night’s moves signaled a change in position that could have a significant impact on the Justice Department’s controversial Title IX lawsuit against North Carolina’s Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act (known as HB2), which the Trump administration inherited.
The actions also could affect a Title IX gender identity case, currently set for oral argument at the Supreme Court next month, that depends in large part on the Department of Education’s position.
Dignity, Privacy, and Safety Concerns
Last week at The Heritage Foundation, a panel of women explained the many policy problems with “gender identity” laws.
As one of them said, “when gender identity wins, women always lose.”
The panelists—a rape survivor, a lesbian, a feminist activist, a stay-at-home mom, and a conservative—explained how people who identify as transgender should be free to live as they want, but that the law shouldn’t therefore eliminate women-only spaces or redefine what it is to be a woman.
While we must be sensitive to the dignity, privacy, and safety concerns of people who identify as transgender, that is not a reason to ignore the dignity, privacy, and safety concerns of everyone else.
Unfortunately, the Obama-era policies were entirely one-sided. They favored the concerns of people who identify as transgender while entirely discounting the concerns of others.
Safe Spaces for Women, a group that “provides survivors of sexual assault with care, support, understanding, and advice,” recently submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court explaining how gender identity policies can negatively impact sexual assault survivors:
Safe Spaces for Women has a strong interest in ensuring that the voices of women who have suffered sexual abuse are heeded when policies are made that may directly affect their physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. This includes policies that require educational institutions covered by Title IX to admit to female showers, locker rooms, and restrooms biological males who identify as female. While Safe Spaces for Women bears no animus toward the transgendered community, it is deeply concerned that … survivors of sexual assault are likely to suffer psychological trauma as a result of encountering biological males—even those with entirely innocent intentions—in the traditional safe spaces of women’s showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms.
The brief goes on to note that the guidance from the Obama administration was issued “without giving those affected a voice in the process. … improperly circumvent[ing] the notice and comment process when that process was needed most.”
Likewise, Kenneth V. Lanning, a 40-year veteran law enforcement officer who specialized in sex crimes for the FBI at Quantico for 20 years, explains the problem with “gender identity-based access policies” for sex-specific intimate facilities.
Lanning says “the problem with potential sex offenses is not crimes by transgendered persons,” but rather “offenses by males who are not really transgendered but who would exploit the entirely subjective provisions” of such policies “to facilitate their sexual behavior or offenses.” Lanning explains that:
Allowing a man, based only on his claim to be [a] transgendered woman, to have unlimited access to women’s rest rooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, showers, etc. will make it easier for the type of sex offense behavior previously described to happen to more women and children. Such access would create an additional risk for potential victims in a previously protected setting and a new defense for a wide variety of sexual victimization.
Indeed, as The Daily Signal previously noted, such sexual victimization already is occurring by men who have disguised themselves as women.
What to Do Now
Wednesday night’s actions by the Justice and Education departments will lead to good policy outcomes, which is why it should not be limited to Title IX.
The Trump administration should extend this decision to every area where federal agencies have imposed new “gender identity” rules on the American people without basis in law, without congressional authorization, without considering legitimate countervailing concerns, and without the support of the American people.
Congress should make such administrative actions permanent by reintroducing and passing H.R. 5812, the Civil Rights Uniformity Act, which clarifies that the term “sex” does not mean “gender identity” for the purpose of interpreting civil rights statutes. This would have the benefit of undoing the past and current abuses of Title IX, as well as preventing future abuses of other civil rights law.
Passing the Civil Rights Uniformity Act would ensure that unelected bureaucrats and judges would not get to unilaterally reshape policy affecting women and girls. It would allow schools to continue providing separate bathroom and locker room facilities and sports teams based on biological sex, not gender identity.
It also would address other unilateral Obama-era “gender identity” reinterpretations in health care, emergency shelters, housing, and employment. At the same time, such legislation would properly leave states and private entities entirely free to provide nuanced, sensitive, and reasonable accommodations of people who identify as transgender.
Up until last year’s prime-time interview of the celebrity then known as Bruce Jenner, few Americans ever had had a conversation about transgender issues. It’s a conversation we need to have.
But the Obama administration tried to shut down these discussions before they’ve even begun. The Obama administration attempted to force a one-size-fits-all policy on the entire nation rather than allow parents and teachers and local schools the time, space, and flexibility to find solutions that work best for everyone.
The Trump administration has taken the first steps to correct this.
While the Obama administration attempted to rewrite law to impose a federal “gender identity” policy on the entire nation, the Trump administration is respecting federalism, local decision-making, and parental authority in education.
For most Americans, concerns related to transgender students are a new reality. Rather than follow the Obama administration’s rush to impose a top-down solution on the entire country, the Trump administration is allowing the American people to have these conversations, consider all the relevant concerns, and make policies that will best serve all Americans.
Good for them. (For more from the author of “Trump Right to Fix Obama’s Unlawful Transgender School Policy” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/5440603914_97c06d6eaa_b-1-1.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2017-02-22 20:08:152017-02-22 20:08:15Trump Right to Fix Obama’s Unlawful Transgender School Policy
