Note: This is Part Two of a two-part series highlighting the “Trans America” panel at the third annual National Conservativism Conference. You can read Part One here.
Kelsey Bolar, senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Forum and executive producer of the new documentary series, “Identity Crisis” was the third expert to take the stage. The new series tells the stories of four mothers whose daughters fell victim to gender ideology.
Bolar said that the first video in the series “involves a mother named Janette Cooper, who is from Chicago. Janette lost custody of her 12-year-old daughter for insisting that her daughter is a girl. She previously had custody seven nights, six days a week. But after a regular custodial visit to her father’s house, Janette’s daughter decided she was trans and she felt unsafe around her mom, who insisted that her daughter was a girl (emphasis added).
“In the last three years, Janette has seen her daughter for a total of eight and a half hours. She lives 10 minutes down the street … She’s only allowed to communicate with her daughter by postal mail. As Janette told me, ‘People who are in prison have more communication with their children than I do.’”
Bolar then recounted the story of Jennifer from Seattle, Washington, whose 10-year-old daughter’s “transitioning” was aided by schoolteachers and administrators without Jennifer’s knowledge or consent.
“Jennifer found out that for two and a half months, her daughter was meeting with a school therapist once a week who was treating her as a boy and using male pronouns and a made-up male name.
“In February 2020, that therapist emailed Jennifer to schedule a meeting where the therapist would assist her daughter to officially come out to her and her husband as a boy. They needed to do this because the teachers wanted to help her daughter attain parental permission to allow her daughter to stay overnight in a boy’s cabin for an upcoming school field trip.
“Had Jennifer’s daughter been 13, Jennifer wouldn’t have even had the right to know about this arrangement because she lives in Washington where children as young as 13 years old can access their own medical and mental health services without parental knowledge or consent.
“Parents in these cases are then billed by insurance companies with no explanation of benefits, meaning they’re stuck with the tab and have no ability to know what services or treatments their daughter receives.”
And those are just a couple of the stories that Bolar shared. There’s thousands more just like them.
“All of these stories have a common theme. A very deep sense of betrayal,” Bolar said. “These parents, most of them lifelong Democrats, feel betrayed by politicians they spent a lifetime supporting. Politicians who’ve chosen to affirm a toxic ideology that exploits vulnerable children.
“These parents are sickened and betrayed by public schools, educators and administrators who are changing their children’s names and pronouns in secret and behind their backs. They’re sickened and betrayed by a legal system that was designed to protect children but is using gender ideology as a weapon to sever the most fundamental bond in life, the bond between a mother and her child.”
“As a movement, conservatives were too late. We’ve already failed thousands of vulnerable young girls. Grade school children have already started cross-sex hormones and high school girls have sterilized themselves … How did we get here? Again, as a movement, we were too late. And I’d argue that even today we’re not doing enough” (emphasis added).
Last up was Terry Schilling, President of American Principles Project (APP).
Schilling discussed the political angle of gender ideology, how Christians and conservatives can push back in the political arena to motivate their politicians to enact law to protect children from gender ideology.
“I think politics is where we win or lose this fight,” Schilling said. “Politics is not downstream from culture … politics instead is part of the culture … It was politics, or laws, that made transgenderism such an enormous deal in this country, and through politics is how we’ll change this.”
Schilling noted that the first step of waging a political battle is to take a sober look at reality.
“Almost all of American’s elite institutions are against us,” Schilling said. “Our strongest ground is in fact with the American people, also known as voters. The vast majority of which oppose the tenets of transgenderism and their goals in public policy.”
Schilling said that polling APP has done shows that the American people are against boys competing against girls in sports, as well as against “treating” minors with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and “sex-change” surgeries.
He added that currently 159 federal candidates for office have signed APP’s Big Family Pledge, by which candidates pledge to protect girls sports and end “gender transition” procedures, among other items.
“We have seen 19 states pass laws to protect girls sports and five states currently that have passed laws to protect children from transgender medical procedures,” Schilling noted.
Schilling noted that there are four issues that motivate voters on this topic, including:
- Protecting girls and women’s sports.
- Ending child mutilation procedures.
- Protecting children from indoctrination in schools.
- Ending grooming children on sexual matters in schools.
Schilling said that APP will be spending $10 million in this year’s upcoming midterm elections to defeat candidates who support gender ideology.
He added, “It’s not enough for politicians to know that an issue is causing damage or harm to America. They have to also know that they won’t lose their election for taking a stand.”
It’s increasingly important for parents to be intensely involved in their children’s education. Parents must be aware of what their children are learning in school.
If you’re worried about what your child is being taught in school, check out the following new resource from Focus on the Family: Back to School for Parents: A busy parent’s guide to what’s happening in your children’s classrooms and practical steps you can take to protect them.
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