Anyone who thinks Republicans and Democrats are essentially the same ought to consider what just happened in Virginia. Reversing the policies of his radical leftist Democratic predecessor, Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin has restored some sex-oriented normalcy in the Old Dominion state:
No longer must schoolgirls worry about boys claiming to be female displaying their private parts in the lasses’ restrooms or locker rooms (as happened with University of Pennsylvania swimmer Will Thomas). Nor will teachers and students be forced to use “others’” pronouns (e.g., ze, zir, zem), which makes sense since people don’t have pronouns — languages do.
The Daily Mail summarizes the story:
- The Virginia School board reversed woke policies in a new model that requires Trans students to use restrooms matching their birth certificate
- Gov. Glenn Youngkin enacted new policies after his Democrat predecessor allowed students to choose which restrooms to use based on gender identity
- Teachers are also not required to enforce gender pronouns in the classroom…
- The new policies “reflect the Department’s confidence in parents to prudently exercise their fundamental right under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Virginia Constitution to direct the upbringing, education, and control of their children,” the guidelines state
For the uninitiated (innocent?), know that the now-overturned policies, instituted by ex-governor Ralph Northam, were so extreme that all a student needed to do was claim he was the opposite sex and he’d be thus treated. In other words, a boy could look like a boy, dress like a boy, be built like Mike Tyson — and not even be taking puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones — and his school would’ve had to give him access to females’ private spaces and sports teams based on his claim of girlhood alone.
Note as well that this is the MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka “transgender”) agenda norm, embraced in liberal areas the Western-world over. In Britain not long ago, for example, it was reported that a 14-year-old autistic boy had the riot act read to him by the police because he innocently told a girl — who dressed, wore her hair, and looked like a girl — “No, you’re a girl.”
Northam’s policies also constituted an attack on parental rights. Reporting on this in January of last year, LifeSite wrote of the 2021 rules:
Staff and children are encouraged to actively hide information from the student’s parents. “Regardless of the circumstances, the school should support the student’s need for privacy and not disclose a student’s gender identity to other students or parents,” the policy states.
Further than this, schools are to assist students when they “may not want their parents to know about their transgender status,” and thus there are “no regulations requiring school staff to notify a parent or guardian of a student’s request to affirm their gender identity, and school staff should work with students to help them share the information with their family when they are ready to do so.”
In fact, a student’s “transgender status” is treated as “particularly sensitive information,” which parents are deemed to have less of a right to know than officials in the school: “[S]chool staff should treat a student’s transgender status as being particularly sensitive information that should not be shared even internally among school personnel except to those with a legitimate educational interest or need to know.”
If the family does not approve of a student identifying as a different gender, a climate of opposition is swiftly established, wherein schools have to “determine whether to respect the student’s request” or to respect the parents’ wishes. The staff are further ordered to “support the safety and welfare of transgender students when their families are not affirming,” consequently alienating the families from the children.
The rejection of the parental and family rights in the matter is taken further, as school staff are instructed to “report” any “concerns to Child Protective Services.”…
But this is now history (unless and until another radical leftist Democrat is elected). The Virginia Department of Education “‘hereby withdraws the 2021 Model Policies, which shall have no further force and effect, and hereby provides these 2022 Model Policies, which are effective immediately,’ the new policy reads,” the Mail also tells us. Moreover and as mentioned earlier, Youngkin’s policy recognizes parents’ right to “direct the upbringing, education, and control of their children.”
This is no small matter. A child’s “decision” to masquerade as the opposite sex is a choice likely more staggering than drug use (and it often leads to drug use; e.g., taking puberty blockers). What’s more, if a youth truly has “gender dysphoria” — the strong and persistent sense he’s “stuck” in the body of the “wrong” sex — it’s a serious psychological (spiritual?) problem that parents must be apprised of so that they can, hopefully, provide proper guidance. For schools to enable such mental illness is reprehensible.
This is especially true since it can perhaps exacerbate the problem and in the future lead to the bodily mutilation euphemistically known as “gender reassignment surgery.” In turn, this can lead to MUSS-mutilation regret — a common phenomenon — and increase the chances of suicide.
As former “transsexual” Alan Finch put it in 2004, “You fundamentally can’t change sex…. Transsexualism was invented by psychiatrists.” What’s more, “Lies have short legs,” the saying goes, and, at the end of the day, living a lie always ends badly.
Thus are “educators” who enable the MUSS lie mind-molesting child abusers — who belong nowhere near kids.
