In an official White House statement, President Obama denounced the “harmful practice of conversion therapy,” a therapeutic method designed to help people overcome unwanted same-sex attraction.
“My administration is striving to better understand the needs of LGBT adults and to provide affordable, welcoming, and supportive housing to aging LGBT Americans,” the president writes in his Presidential Proclamation for LGBT Pride Month, a declaration that has become an annual tradition. “It is also why we oppose subjecting minors to the harmful practice of conversion therapy, and why we are continuing to promote equality and foster safe and supportive learning environments for all students.”
The latter is an apparent reference to his controversial federal guidance that all public schools and universities must allow members of one sex to use the restrooms, showers, and overnight accommodations (including dorm rooms) of the opposite biological sex or lose federal funding.
However, the president took the opportunity of his last pride month proclamation to reiterate his support for a federal ban on reparative therapy for minors, a position he shares with Hillary Clinton.
Their real agenda may have nothing to do with concern over the safety of LGBT youth, an expert tells LifeSiteNews. (Read more from “Obama Touts Transgender Restrooms, Blasts ‘Harmful Practice of Conversion Therapy'” HERE)
On May 13, the Obama administration sent a letter to public schools on the topic of transgender students and where they use the restroom. But the directive, issued as “significant guidance,” didn’t just apply to the bathrooms. It also entered the space of locker rooms, showers, dorms, overnight hotels, and other places you might not expect. Watch the video to see The Daily Signal break down where exactly the Obama administration’s bathroom directive applies, and where it doesn’t.
(For more from the author of “What Obama’s Bathroom Directive Really Does” please click HERE)
Lawmakers in Oklahoma have introduced a measure that would urge Congress to impeach Barack Obama over his controversial federal transgender guidance for public schools and universities.
State Senator Anthony Sykes and State Rep. John Bennett introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 43, which says that the threat to withhold federal funding if schools do not open their restrooms, lockers, and showers to members of the opposite biological sex “exceeds the authority of the federal government.”
The non-binding resolution asks the state’s delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives “to file articles of impeachment against the President of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States, the Secretary of Education and any other federal official liable to impeachment who has exceeded his or her constitutional authority” by participating in the guidance.
“The Constitution of the United States does not grant the executive branch of the federal government any authority whatsoever over the public education system, nor over the use of restrooms or other facilities thereof,” according to the motion, which currently has the support of 15 state legislators.
The non-binding resolution also asks the Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt “to defend, by any means necessary, the interests of this state against the overreach” of the Obama administration. (Read more from “Impeach Obama Over Transgender Rules, Oklahoma Legislators Urge” HERE)
By Peter Baklinski. A woman has been fired from a Macy’s department store for denying a man dressed as a woman access to the women’s fitting room.
“I had to either comply with Macy’s or comply with God,” said Natalie Johnson, 27, a former employee at the retail giant’s location in Rivercenter Mall, San Antonio.
According to Johnson, on November 30th she witnessed a young cross-dressing man wearing make-up and girl’s clothing exit the women’s fitting room. She told the man “politely” that the women’s fitting room was for women only, making it clear that he was not to make use of the room again.
The customer, along with five companions, argued in response that Macy’s is friendly to the LGBT community.
Johnson retorted that Macy’s doesn’t discriminate against religious beliefs, adding that it would go against her religious beliefs to act on a lie that a man was a woman. (Read more from “Macy’s Fires Woman for Refusing ‘Transgender’ Man Access to Women’s Fitting Room” HERE)
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Target Store Suing a Hero Who Saved a Young Girl
By DennisMichaelLynch. Michael Turner was shopping in Target back in 2013 when a crazed man named Leon Walls ran into the store and stabbed a 16-year-old girl, Allison Meadows. Turner responded like a true hero by grabbing a baseball bat and chasing Walls out of the store. He then proceeded to help Allison as she was bleeding. To this day, Allison thanks Turner for saving her life whenever she gets the chance.
Strangely, and sadly, Target is now suing Turner.
Target is going after the hero for “chasing Walls to the front of the store where he could have endangered more people.” However, no persons were hurt. The lawsuit against Turner comes after Meadows and her family sued Target for inadequate security measures in keeping the store safe. The decision for Target to unjustly sue Turner over a ludicrous allegation has angered the Meadows family. (Read more from “Target Store Suing a Hero Who Saved a Young Girl” HERE)
Maybe parallel universes really do exist. Maybe, as my husband and I hiked through the deep, dark forest a few years ago, we somehow crossed through a portal, a stargate into another dimension—a universe that, superficially at least, looks quite similar to the one I’d known most of my life.
I almost hope that’s true. I’d like to believe it, because in the world I now inhabit—which outwardly resembles the one I remember—everything seems to have been turned inside out and become utterly bewildering.
Yes, I find myself wanting to believe that weird matrix explanation and to resist the more likely truth that the world I grew up in could have changed so completely.
I’d like to believe that somewhere back there the world I accidently exited still exists—that world where gender was a fixed biological fact, determined at conception.
But no, this is not the Twilight Zone; it is not an inexplicable parallel universe.
This is 21st century America, and, according to an ABC news article on guidelines recently handed down by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education:
There is no obligation for a student to present a specific medical diagnosis or identification documents that reflect his or her gender identity, and equal access must be given to transgender students even in instances when it makes others uncomfortable, according to the directive.
Yes, we really do live in a nation in which our government tells us girls and boys should be able to share restrooms and locker rooms. We really do live in a culture that values transgender rights over basic morality and children’s safety.
But the very hard reality in this topsy-turvy world is that transgender people are hundreds of times more likely to attempt suicide than the general U.S. population.
And what does our enlightened culture do about this very sad statistic?
Well, we make it easier for people to transition to this sad and depressing lifestyle. Helping them struggle down the hard road of facing reality is just too judgmental; it’s better to let them move into a make-believe life in which they face a 4-in-10 chance of attempting suicide.
My father gave in to his make-believe transgender impulses and became Becky. He’d spent most of his life dreaming of making that transition. When he finally left his family and got what he’d long desired, he still wasn’t fulfilled.
He considered suicide, but, thankfully, resisted. But later, pumped full of unnatural hormones and chemicals and adorned in women’s clothing, he died a sad, confused, forgetful, and regretful old man.
I missed Harold, the one who, during his periods of resisting his impulses, treated me as a father should treat his daughter.
I miss him dancing with my little feet placed on top of his, his big hands reaching down to clasp my little five-year-old hands. I miss those days of his sexual sobriety when we worked together at his father’s seed company and went to lunch together. I miss all those times when he accepted the reality that he was Harold, a man—a husband, father, and grandfather.
I don’t miss Becky, or those transition times when my father gave in to his transgender impulses. I don’t miss him telling me, when I was just nine years old, of his desire to become a woman and then requiring me to keep that confession a secret. I don’t miss the fanciful alternate world he transported into, leaving my mother emotionally distraught and financially destitute.
My father was the one who had entered another dimension, a make-believe dimension. And rather than returning to the real world, he wanted the real world to accommodate his make-believe world.
That’s what this small but vocal minority and their enablers want from the rest of the real world.
I’d like to believe that world in which truth is objective, and children’s modesty and safety is more important than being politically correct still exists and somehow I might find the portal to return to it. Back to that world where adults looked out for children’s best interests, even if doing so meant saying no and then dealing with rather than succumbing to the resultant temper tantrum.
I’d like to think that, in that parallel universe I inadvertently ambled out of, women and children’s safety is still more important than appeasing a tiny-but-very-vocal minority.
But it appears I’m no longer in that universe. I’m in one where choices—no matter how illogical—trump obvious facts.
I find myself in a world in which stating a very plain and evident biological fact is now considered a form of hate speech.
I’m now in a world that tells me I must not only tolerate but also celebrate behaviors that in just a relative eye’s blink before were condemned as detrimental to society. (For more from the author of “My Dad Was Transgender. Why I Still Think Gender Can’t Be Changed.” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/hqdefault-8.jpg360480Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-28 23:37:282016-05-28 23:51:05My Dad Was Transgender. Why I Still Think Gender Can’t Be Changed.
The most offensive part of [the White House’s new transgender agenda] is that, under the Obama administration’s federal guidance:
School districts must allow biological males and females to spend the night together in the same hotel room on field trips;
Colleges must let men who say they are transgender be roommates with one or more women; and
School officials cannot even tell those young women or their parents in advance that their new roommate is a man, without risking a federal lawsuit.
The plain wording of the Obama administration’s diktat is clear enough, yet it has not been reported, even by conservative news outlets. (Read more from “The Most Dangerous, and Underreported, Part of Obama’s Transgender Edict” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/US_Restroom.jpg12001600Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-28 23:34:172016-05-28 23:53:44The Most Dangerous, and Underreported, Part of Obama’s Transgender Edict
On Wednesday night, 43 Republican members of Congress joined the Democrats to vote for President Barack Obama’s transgender agenda.
Whereas last week Congress voted to reject this proposal—known as the Maloney amendment—last night they voted to ratify Obama’s 2014 executive order barring federal contractors from what it describes as “discrimination” on the basis of “sexual orientation and gender identity” in their private employment policies.
And, of course, “discrimination” on the basis of “gender identity” can be something as simple as having a bathroom policy based on biological sex, not gender identity, as we learned last week from Obama’s transgender directives. And “discrimination” on the basis of “sexual orientation” can be something as reasonable as an adoption agency preferring married moms and dads for orphans, than other arrangements.
Indeed, in the past few weeks we’ve seen additional examples of what counts as “discrimination” on the basis of “gender identity.”
The New York City Commission on Human Rights issued official legal guidance saying employers can be fined up to $250,000 for not addressing employees by the pronoun of their choice—including pronouns such as “ze” and “hir.” As UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh explains, this would require “employers and businesses to prevent [the use of “wrong” pronouns] by co-workers and patrons and not just by themselves or their own employees.”
A public school district in Oregon paid a teacher $60,000 because colleagues declined to use the pronoun “they” to describe the teacher. The teacher, Leo Soell, does “not identify as male or female but rather transmasculine and genderqueer, or androgynous.” As Volokh explains: “Soell wants people to call Soell ‘they,’ and submitted a complaint to the school district objecting (in part) that other schoolteachers engaged in ‘harassment’ by, among other things, ‘refusing to call me by my correct name and gender to me or among themselves’ (emphasis added).”
The 4th Circuit Court has said a Virginia school district must allow bathroom access based on “gender identity” not biology. The school district created a policy that says bathroom and locker room access is primarily based on biology, while also creating accommodations for transgender students: only biological girls can use the girls’ room, only biological boys can use the boys’ room, and any student can use one of the three single-occupancy bathrooms, which the school created specifically to accommodate transgender students. But the court said this commonsense policy was itself “discrimination” on the basis of “gender identity.”
Congress should not be ratifying Obama’s radical transgender agenda and imposing these outcomes on private employers just because they contract with the government.
All Americans should be free to contract with the government without penalty because of their reasonable beliefs about contentious issues. The federal government should not use government contracting to reshape civil society about controversial issues that have nothing to do with the federal contract at stake.
Obama’s executive order and the Maloney amendment treat conscientious judgments about behavior as if they were invidious acts of discrimination akin to racism or sexism.
But sexual orientation and gender identity are not like race. Indeed, sexual orientation and gender identity are unclear, ambiguous terms. They can refer to voluntary behaviors as well as thoughts and inclinations, and it is reasonable for employers to make distinctions based on actions.
By contrast, “race” and “sex” clearly refer to traits, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, these traits (unlike voluntary behaviors) do not affect fitness for any job.
Congress tried to minimize the damage of the Maloney amendment with two provisions last night. One provision, introduced by Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., amended the Maloney amendment to say that it couldn’t violate the U.S. Constitution. Another provision, the Byrne Amendment, attempted to attach existing religious liberty protections to the bill. Neither adequately protects against the damage of Maloney.
Liberal activist judges will do all they can to ensure that sexual orientation and gender identity policies will trump religious liberty protections.
This is why Congress should not be elevating sexual orientation and gender identity as a protected class garnering special legal privileges.
Here is a list of the 43 Republicans who voted for the amendment:
Justin Amash, Mich.
Susan Brooks, Ind.
Mike Coffman, Colo.
Ryan Costello, Pa.
Carlos Curbelo, Fla.
Rodney Davis, Ill.
Jeff Denham, Calif.
Charlie Dent, Pa.
Mario Diaz-Balart, Fla.
Bob Dold, Ill.
Daniel Donovan, N.Y.
Tom Emmer, Minn.
Michael Fitzpatrick, Pa.
Rodney Frelinghuysen, N.J.
Chris Gibson, N.Y.
Joe Heck, Nev.
Will Hurd, Texas
Darrell Issa, Calif.
David Jolly, Fla.
John Katko, N.Y.
Adam Kinzinger, Ill.
Leonard Lance, N.J.
Frank LoBiondo, N.J.
Tom MacArthur, N.J.
Martha McSally, Ariz.
Pat Meehan, Pa.
Luke Messer, Ind.
Erik Paulsen, Minn.
Bruce Poliquin, Maine
Tom Reed, N.Y.
David Reichert, Wash.
Jim Renacci, Ohio
Tom Rooney, Fla.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Fla.
John Shimkus, Ill.
Elise Stefanik, N.Y.
Fred Upton, Mich.
David Valadao, Calif.
Greg Walden, Ore.
Mimi Walters, Calif.
David Young, Iowa
Todd Young, Ind.
Lee Zeldin, N.Y.
(For more from the author of “43 Republicans Join Democrats to Support Obama’s Transgender Agenda” please click HERE)
A recent trip to a doctor’s office in Houston, Texas, presented a heterosexual female with a conundrum. She asked where the bathroom was, and the receptionist told her down the hall. There were two bathrooms on either side of the hall, with the same signs and interior. Her choice was to use an “All Gender Restroom” along with heterosexual, homosexual, transgender, intersex, bisexual, and lesbian users, transpecies, or none at all.
She entered when the bathroom was empty, but she exited her stall to run right into a man using the urinal. A non-transgender man.
Both of their right to privacy was violated. Both of their choices were eliminated.
What about her choice to protect her body? What about his?
She could have easily taken a picture of his penis. Just recently someone was caught running out of a Target after harassing a woman. There are over 24 recent examples of the transgender bathroom policy harming women and children.
And women and children are not alone. What about protecting little boys?
What’s to stop a predator from exposing himself or abusing a child or teenager in a stall?
What about this woman’s right to choose to express her own gender as a heterosexual female?
In essence, this ludicrous bathroom policy prevents all heterosexual men and women and children from exercising their right to privacy, which is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
The 99.99 percent of heterosexuals who do not want to intermix with the opposite sex while they are sitting on the toilet are discriminated against– and not because of any transgender nonsense. Transgender people, which is a misnomer that actually hurts people suffering from gender dysphoria, represent less than half of one percent of the population in America. Less than half than one percent.
The 99.99 percent of men who would prefer for strangers to not see them using a urinal, or the parents who would like their minor children to not be exposed to a man’s private parts, are completely disregarded and discriminated against.
A woman’s right to privacy on the toilet is no longer allowed.
A man’s right to privacy at a urinal is no longer allowed.
Children, who can easily be abducted, kidnapped, or trafficked, are often targeted while alone– in bathrooms, in stores, in areas where there are no video cameras.
If bathrooms can be open to anyone at any time, then so also should there be security guards and cameras in every bathroom to prevent and hopefully minimize a crime being committed.
And, if everyone can express themselves however they want, does this mean that everyone is now disabled and can apply for disability benefits? Are all genders now handicapped? The signs seems to indicate that. But it also welcomes pedophiles who advocate that their expression is normal. And it also welcomes niblings and transpas.
Same with a man wearing a wig.
Or a woman who identifies as a cat.
Perhaps the next time she uses a bathroom in Houston she should bring her cat with her. And a camera. Or even a gun.
At least in Houston, open and concealed carry is legal.
As is insanity at every level. (For more from the author of “Houston’s ‘All Gender Bathrooms’ Discriminate Against Everyone” please click HERE)
In the midst of outcries from the transgender community that women don’t face threats in public bathrooms, police in England are looking for a man who allegedly took photos of a 13-year-old girl while she used the bathroom at a McDonalds in Berkshire.
According to police reports, while using the bathroom in an individual stall, the girl heard a click over her head, looked up and saw someone hovering over the cubicle wall. Police say the girl was very upset by the incident, and her family is concerned about what’s going to happen to the photographs and where they might be published.
Police have released photos of the suspect in hopes that someone will be able to identify him. They have asked anyone who recognizes the man to contact them immediately.
This incident has occurred at the same time that transgender activists in America are saying there are no threats to women should transgendered women (i.e., men) be allowed in their bathrooms. The LGBT lobby has been releasing ads in North Carolina that voice opposition to the state’s law requiring people to use public restrooms that match their biological sex. HB2, as the law is known, was designed to help protect the privacy and security of women.
North Carolina has been boycotted by companies and celebrities, who have called the privacy and security law discriminatory against transgender people. Most recently, Elton John wrote an article for The Hill, admonishing N.C. Governor Pat McCrory for being insensitive to transgender people.
Forcing transgender people to use the bathroom of a gender with which they don’t identify isn’t just inconvenient or impractical. For many, especially young students still grappling with their transition, it can be traumatic, and at worse, un safe. The failure of McCrory and other lawmakers to see this is a failure of compassion, a failure to recognize the difficult and frequently unwelcoming world transgender people must navigate every day, stigmatized by the fear and ignorance of others.
John says McCrory and others who oppose letting people use the bathroom according to their perceived, not actual, gender “need a lesson in compassion.” If only they could get to know transgender people on a personal level, they would understand, John says.
Those who support privacy and security laws “need to recognize the existence of trans people,” John writes, “and they need to acknowledge that all people have a fundamental desire — and a fundamental right — to be treated fairly.”
Here’s the thing. Does the 13-year-old girl in England have a fundamental right to privacy? Do all the girls in America who don’t want to shower with boys and men or have them in their bathrooms desire the fundamental right to privacy and security as well? Or do only the desires of mentally ill people, who suffer from a dissonance between their mental state and their physical reality, take precedence over 99.7 percent of the population who aren’t confused about their genitalia?
John and others say laws that require people to use public bathrooms that match their biological sex are somehow unfair. How? Everyone has a bathroom to use that correlates with their biology — the parts that are relevant when using a bathroom. There is no such thing as a third sex. Despite this fact, HB2 takes the compassionate step to accommodate those who are confused about their gender, allowing public agencies to create a third bathroom or shower for this tiny minority.
Clearly, the ones who are compassionate in this scenario are those who are supporting laws like HB2 — laws that won’t make it easier for perverts like the one in England to have free rein in women’s restrooms. Yes, this kind of thing obviously happens even with bathrooms being separated by sex, but what will happen if we throw open the doors to these perverts who make up a larger percentage of the population than transgender people?
Media outlets like the Charlotte Observer have tried to make the case that there have been no statistics of sexual predators benefiting from transgender bathroom policies, but this is nonsensical because the practice hasn’t been in effect for very long. It also flies in the face of common sense that there are predators out there — predators like the one in England — who do prey on women and young girls. Why do we want to put them at greater risk?
The law in Charlotte that forced the North Carolina General Assembly to step in and enact HB2 forced all organizations — public and private — to open their bathrooms to men. A man doesn’t have to dress like a woman or even have surgery to make him externally a woman; all he has to do is “identify as a woman” to use the showers, locker rooms, and restrooms reserved for women.
HB2 says that if someone has had an actual sex change and it’s recorded on their birth certificate, then they can use the bathroom that matches that sex. The original Charlotte law just threw open the bathrooms to everyone, whether they’ve actually had a change or not.
In addition, HB2 does not impose its will on private entities, allowing them to decide for themselves what they want to do with their own bathrooms. Those who oppose the North Carolina law want to dictate to private citizens what they can and cannot do with their bathrooms, threatening lawsuits if they don’t comply.
Elton John and other celebrities are presenting themselves as the truly “compassionate” ones, but this is hardly the case. Compassion extends to private entities that have the right to exercise freedom of choice — a choice people like John want to take away. Compassion also extends to women and girls who don’t want their privacy violated or boundaries removed so predators can take advantage of transgender policies.
I would also like to point out that when it comes to transgender people themselves, the compassionate approach is to refuse to accommodate their body dysphoria and delusions. The help they really need is psychological, not legal or political.
If you want to show transgender people compassion, stand by their side as they work through the difficult journey of treating hormone and neuro-chemical dysfunctions as well as psychological disorders that lead to a crisis of identity. Don’t put other people at risk, infringe on their freedoms, or violate the privacy of young girls and women just to advance a political agenda that really does nothing to help gender-confused people in the long run. That’s the opposite of compassion. That’s cruel. (For more from the author of “Ask This 13-Year-Old Girl If Transgender Bathrooms Pose a Threat” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/14985289434_c3c94c88f4_o.jpg34565184Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-24 01:52:302016-05-24 01:52:30Ask This 13-Year-Old Girl If Transgender Bathrooms Pose a Threat
The Republican mobilization against the White House’s transgender bathroom directive has started. A bill introduced by Rep. Luke Messer, R-Ind., would block the Obama administration’s guidance pushing public schools to allow students to use the restrooms of their choice.
The bill, Messer told The Daily Signal, would return control of the issue to the state and municipal level while also prohibiting the administration from cutting off taxpayer funds to public schools that disregard the directive.
The Obama administration, Messer said, is “bullying local schools.”
Although Messer is a junior member of Indiana’s GOP delegation to the House, he is the fifth-ranking Republican in House leadership as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee. His bill, introduced Wednesday, represents the highest profile and only legislative rebuke of the administration on the transgender policy issue to date.
“I think parents across America are looking for a congressional response,” Messer said, “and so far our response hasn’t been strong enough.”
Earlier in the week, 73 House Republicans, including Messer, wrote an open letter to the administration demanding answers.
The guidelines, announced May 13 by the departments of Justice and Education, instruct local public schools to extend Title IX protections, which prohibit sex-based discrimination, to transgender students.
And though the directive doesn’t carry the force of law, it contains an implicit threat: Comply or lose federal funding.
That’s “the modus operandi of this administration,” Messer, 47, said, adding that the directive “will change the equation for schools across the country.”
As a standalone piece of legislation, Messer’s bill faces an uphill battle out of the House, and another obstacle in a veto by President Barack Obama.
But, the Indiana Republican told The Daily Signal, he plans to attach the bill to a piece of must-pass legislation such as an appropriations package.
In a Wednesday interview with Buzzfeed, Obama described his directive as “part of our obligation as a society to make sure everybody is treated fairly and our kids are all loved and protected.”
Messer, first elected in 2012, criticized that premise as unfounded, arguing that Obama was overstepping his own bounds.
“I think it’s ironic that the president says he brought forward this regulation to combat bullying,” Messer said, “when the truth is that this action is the administration bullying local schools.” (For more from the author of “House Policy Leader Seeks to Block Obama’s School Bathroom Directive” please click HERE)
