A school policy that blatantly ignores parents’ constitutional rights to direct the education and upbringing of their children is being challenged in a Wisconsin court by two sets of parents.
One of those sets of parents has a 12-year-old daughter who, in December 2020, started questioning her gender at school, part of the Kettle Moraine School District in Wales, Wisconsin. Because she was suffering from anxiety and depression at the time, her parents – referred to for privacy reasons as “B__ and T__ F__” in the redacted Complaint provided to the public by their attorneys – removed her from school temporarily in order for her to visit a mental health center.
But the mental health center only “affirmed” that what the daughter was experiencing was real and that the sooner she “transitioned” to a boy, the better she would be. When the daughter informed her parents and the school that she was indeed a transgender boy and wanted to be called by a male name and pronouns, the parents instructed the school not to comply.
The school refused, citing a school district policy that required school staff to use the preferred name and pronouns the daughter wanted.
The parents immediately removed their daughter from the school and cut ties with the mental health center that her daughter visited for treatment. It turned out to be a blessing.
“The [parents’] concerns were soon validated,” a letter to the school from the parents’ attorneys stated.
“After leaving the center and withdrawing from school, their daughter’s demeanor began to change. A few weeks later, she expressed to her mother that ‘affirmative care really messed me up.’ She explained that the therapists at the center did not question or help her process her feelings, but told her that, now that she knew she was really a boy, the sooner she transitioned the better because it’s easier when you’re young.
“They also told her she was right to be angry at her mother for not immediately allowing her to ‘be who she was.’ She now realizes this was wrong and actually fueled anger towards her mother. She has reverted to identifying by her birth name and female pronouns and enrolled in a different school district.”
The parents are suing the school district to force a change in the school’s policy. They are joined by another set of parents who are concerned that should their child ever experience feelings of gender dysphoria, the school’s policy would undermine their constitutional rights to deal with the issue free of the school’s interference.
The parents are represented by attorneys with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty as well as the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
“Parents’ rights to direct the upbringing, education, and mental health treatment of their children is one of the most basic constitutional rights every parent holds dear,” ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson, director of the ADF Center for Parental Rights, said in a press release. Yet we are seeing more and more school districts across the country not only ignoring parents’ concerns, but actively working against them.
“The parents in this case know and love their daughter and are doing their best to get her the expert care she needs in her battle with anxiety and depression. We are asking the court to respect the serious concerns of these parents by ensuring Kettle Moraine School District swiftly changes its policy that is undermining parents and harming children.”
Besides the constitutional issues involved, the parents’ attorneys cited studies of children experiencing gender dysphoria which revealed that the vast majority of them – 80-90% – ultimately “desist,” finding comfort with their biological sex; unless they transition.
One of the foundational pillars of Focus on the Family’s mission concerns parenting:
“We believe children are a heritage from God and a blessing from His hand. Parents are therefore accountable to Him for raising, shaping and preparing them for a life of service to His Kingdom and to humanity.
“‘Has not the Lord made them [a husband and wife] one? In flesh and spirit they are His. And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring.’ Malachi 2:15.”
HD Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
Brooke Henderson, a teacher in Missouri who has sued her school district, recently spoke out against what she sees as a purposeful effort to drive a wedge between children and their parents, by “teaching kids to not trust their parents.”
“If you look at one of the oppression matrixes, it says that adults are the oppressor,” the teacher explained. “I cannot think of anything worse than telling your [student] to not trust her parents and that their parent is oppressive to them.”
In recent months we have seen a major clash between parental rights and public school systems. The argument is often made that teachers are “co-parents,” who always have the best interest of the children at heart, even when parents do not. However, this degrading of parental importance and authority has been widely used by schools to promote secular, immoral, damaging, and even racist worldview onto children, unbeknownst to or despite parents.
RECOMMENDED — Ken Ham: Who ‘Owns’ Children?
Apart from the major moral implications, the promotion of gender ideology in schools comes despite those in the medical industry warning of the dangers gender transitioning poses to children.
The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine stated in August that “the risks of ‘gender-affirmative’ hormones and surgeries include not only the immediate adverse effects of these interventions, but also the lasting negative effects on bone, cardiovascular health, and fertility, as well as unknown effects of life-long cross-sex hormonal supplementation.”
SEGM researchers have come out saying that the United States must depoliticize this issue and “wake up,” insisting that “children are being harmed.”
Many of us have seen the Transgender agenda close up and personal in our society, with an increasing number of children through, media and school systems, being indoctrinated to choose to go down a road of confusion and abuse.
Terry James in his article “When Confusion Reigns” wrote that the basic science of gender has shifted to become a question of feelings rather than truth.
“In much of the world right now, confusion reigns. I mean deep, basic levels of confusion. Perhaps the most obvious would be the millions who are confused about their sexual identity. The science of gender no longer holds,” Terry James underscores. “It’s not a question of XX or XY chromosomes, or any of the other obvious scientific differences between male and female. It’s all about feelings, and those feelings have been purposely confused by educators, entertainers, advertisers, and others.”
Franklin Graham, in an interview, stated that children which want to become “transgender” cannot comprehend the path they’re starting down.
“What’s happening, we see, is just wicked. To take a child and try to convince them that they can change and be a girl, they can change and be a boy, and we can give you drugs, and you can have surgery and all of these things… a child can’t comprehend that, and once you start down this path you can’t reverse it. It’s just a wicked thing, and we just need to pray that the church will stand.”
Ken Ham, in his article, “Feelings Do Not Determine Truth: ‘Modern Science’ Says There Are Six Sexes?” explained that what those struggling with gender confusion need is the truth which is confirmed by science and God’s Word.
“There are two: male and female. The ‘gender identities’ so popular today are not biological sexes—they are determined by the feelings of the person claiming the gender identity,” Ken Ham explained. “But feelings do not determine truth. Instead of relying on our feelings, we must turn to the Word of God for absolute truth and, by the power of God’s spirit and the gospel, line our feelings up with God’s Word and truth. And besides, because we are sinners (Romans 3:23) and our hearts are ‘deceitful above all things and desperately wicked’ (Jeremiah 17:9), we can’t trust our feelings!”
“Such individuals need compassion and kindness—and they need the truth that comes from God’s Word and is confirmed by observational science,” Ham urged. “There are only two genders/sexes in humans: male and female (Genesis 1:27). That’s how God has made us, and trying to change one’s gender is ultimately a sinful rejection of God’s design. Those who struggle with gender dysphoria need Gospel truth. They need to know that their identity need not be rooted in themselves and their feelings but rather in Christ, his death, and resurrection for them, and his design for them and their body.”
“Those who struggle with gender dysphoria don’t need chemicals, body mutilating surgery, cross-dressing clothes, new pronouns, and a new name—they need the Gospel message that changes hearts and lives for eternity and gives them a new identity rooted in Christ,” he concluded.
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