Will IL school board kowtow to hate group?

The East Aurora, IL school board unanimously adopted a policy recently affecting transgender students.

The new policy specifically states that transgendered and gender nonconforming students have the right use the restroom that corresponds to their gender-related identity that is consistently asserted at school. The student has the right to be addressed by the name they want to be called, too.

The new policy does not require a court-ordered name change or gender change and does not require a change to official records.

In most cases, transgendered students should have access to the locker room that corresponds to their gender-related identity, according to the policy.

In no case shall a transgender student be required to use a locker room that conflicts with the student’s gender-related identity.

Student participation in gendered team sports will still be governed by state policy on an individual basis.

Good on them, right?

Not so fast.

The Illinois Family Institute, which has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBT hate group, was outraged.

Their response:

Apparently, all that’s needed for school personnel to be compelled to participate in a fiction is for a student to pretend “consistently” at school that he or she is the opposite sex.

The school board is now imposing non-objective, “progressive” moral, philosophical, and political beliefs-not facts-about gender confusion on the entire school. This feckless school board has made a decision to accommodate, not the needs of gender-confused teens, but their disordered desires and the desires of gender/sexuality anarchists who exploit public education for their perverse ends.

I wonder how many of these board members have thought or read deeply on the issue of gender confusion or Gender Identity Disorder. And I wonder how many of them have read deeply the writing of not just “progressive” scholars but conservative scholars as well.

—IFI

IFI is not hip to the fact that the DSM-V no longer refers to gender dysphoria as a disorder…or in at least doesn’t care…nor do they give a hoot that the treatment remains the same:  affirmation.  “Gender confusion” is not a diagnosis, nor is it appropriate for use in anything other than bigotry.

The school board has responded by announcing that they would meet today in order to potentially rescind the policy.

The board never at any time came up with this (policy) on their own.  It’s something we (board members) would not have questioned in light of the attorney and the administrators bringing it forward.

–School Board President Annette Johnson

IFI tags itself as an “independent non-profit ministry dedicated to upholding and re-affirming marriage, family, life and liberty in Illinois.”  

Well, unless you are LGBT, that is.  In such a case, you can go to Hell, for all they care.

This is a biased, radical, and offensive school board decision that all Illinois taxpayers – especially Aurora community members with or without children in school – should vigorously and tenaciously oppose.

Now the board is concerned about controversy and some board members want to pass the buck to the Illinois State Board of Education.

We usually follow (the Illinois Sate Board of Education) and their recommendations.  All of us thought, ‘Oh jeez, this is another bullying policy we should comply with.’… Administrators are constantly bringing policy forward.

–Johnson

Later information indicates that the East Aurora school board will definitely be rescinding the policy.

I’m against a school change in the policy, yes.  Whether you are transgender, straight, gay, whatever, you should have the same rights as everyone else.

–Alice Smith, parent

One parent told us in Spanish that everyone has a right to be treated equally and she believes the school should have a transgender policy.

It’s these policies that provide an opportunity for every student to be themselves and go to school in a safe, secure environment.

–Brian Richardson, Center on Halstead