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Gay Activist Groups Promote Gender Confusion 3/19/2004 Middle schools, high schools and colleges bow to increasing demands.
The aggressive efforts of the ACLU and Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to “normalize” homosexuality at middle schools and high schools across the country produce college students who are confused about their gender identity.
On January 6, 2004, the ACLU achieved a $1.1 million settlement in a lawsuit against the Morgan Hill, California, school district for allegedly failing to protect six homosexual students from harassment in 1998. The ACLU’s victory also requires all employees of the public school system, including custodians, school safety officers and bus drivers, to enroll in a pro-homosexual sensitivity training program.
According to a report on the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality’s (NARTH’s) Web site, the district will require high school and middle school students to take “anti-gay harassment” classes beginning in the 2004-2005 school year. NARTH reports that “Student handbooks and school policy manuals will be revised to state that ‘harassment and discrimination based on actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity is expressly prohibited under district policies and state law.’”
This ACLU victory is not an isolated incident. A February 3 press release on the ACLU’s Web site reports a similar victory in Boyd County, Kentucky, where a high school refused to allow the establishment of a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) Club due to protests in the community. In addition to allowing the GSA Club to meet at the high school, the settlement requires the entire school district to conduct “anti-harassment training” for school staff and high school and middle school students. Furthermore, GLSEN has established more than 1,000 GSA clubs on junior high and high school campuses across the United States.
“Harassment must be dealt with in schools, but the imposition of a pro-homosexual training program will bring with it a whole host of new problems and will ultimately endanger the very children this program is designed to protect,” said Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, president of NARTH.
NARTH cites a study by The Royal College of Psychiatrists, published in December 2003 in the British Journal of Psychiatry, that indicates significant risks of the homosexual lifestyle. The study says, “Gay men and lesbians reported more psychological distress than heterosexual men and women, despite similar levels of social support and quality of physical health. They were also more likely to have used recreational drugs, and lesbians were more likely than heterosexual women to drink excessively.”
Nicolosi responded, “In short, the imposition of pro-homosexual programs upon public schools by the ACLU, GLSEN, and other gay-activist organizations may ultimately endanger the mental, physical, and spiritual well-being of children—not help them. Teenagers need to be informed of the very real risks, and be made aware of their options.”
An article recently published in The New York Times, “On Campus, Rethinking Biology 101” (March 7), also provides reason for concern about the effects of normalizing alternative forms of sexuality. It produces teenagers who believe that their biological gender has nothing to do with who they are.
The article spotlighted transgender college students at Brown University and Wesleyan, Sarah Lawrence and Smith Colleges. These prestigious institutions are going out of their way to accommodate the “special needs” of students who do not feel comfortable identifying as either male or female.
Many of these late teen or 20-something students, who prefer to call themselves “gender queer,” have adopted a “gender-neutral” appearance. As a result, they fear harassment or disruption if, for example, a biological woman walks into the women’s restroom and she is mistaken as a male. Private bathrooms and showers are at the top of these students’ petition for campus reform.
The paperwork students fill out to apply for housing or to be seen by a doctor at the campus health clinic is up for revision at Wesleyan. “Gender queer” students find it offensive (or perhaps confusing?) to mark either “male” or “female” in the gender checkbox. Wesleyan is changing this section of the application to an essay that instructs, “Describe your gender identity history.” Gender-neutral housing is also available at Wesleyan. In spite of her biological gender, a “gender queer” female may room with a biological male.
Another target for gender reform at the universities are sports teams. One “gender queer” student at Wesleyan succeeded in convincing the administration to drop “women’s” from the women’s rugby team because, “We don’t want people yelling, ‘Go, girls!’” from the sidelines.
Confused? So are the “gender queers.”
“A phrase like ‘gender-queer’ would be denounced as hateful and bigoted if a heterosexual coined it," said Jan LaRue, CWA's chief counsel. “But these students are the only ones who are confused. Courts should be more interested in protecting kids from a form of child abuse masquerading as a ‘civil right’ than upholding political correctness in the name of tolerance. The mental health community should be denouncing the ACLU and GLSEN for facilitating this travesty.”
This blatant expression of identity angst should silence the political correctness of the 21st century. In spite of alleged well-intended motives, “educational” programs such as those promoted by the ACLU and GLSEN are sending the next generation into a downward spiral of confusion that can only lead to harm.
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