transgender

Girls Shouldn’t Apologize for Protesting Boys in Girls Sports

If you’re losing track (no pun intended) of the stories of boys and men pretending to be girls and women and stealing awards and qualifying spots in various girls sports, you wouldn’t be alone.

This past weekend at the California high school track and field championship, two boys stole gold medals in the high jump and the triple jump.

Against a backdrop of a banner that proclaimed, “No Boys in Girls Sports!”, 16-year-old male athlete AB Hernandez shared the first-place podium with Jillene Wetteland and Lelani Laruelle.

Faced with a growing backlash and the threat of losing federal funds for allowing boys to infiltrate girls athletics, California approved an incoherent and illogical policy of allowing boys and girls to share top honors.

Sound familiar, King Solomon?

Sophia Lorey, who serves as outreach director with the California Family Policy Council, attended Saturday’s events and was thrown out of the stadium for handing out bracelets and flyers that advocated for the preservation of women’s sports. Organizers weren’t able to show what policy she was allegedly violating.

A former athlete, Lorey offered to toss the materials in exchange for staying at the meet to support the girls. That gesture was denied, and she received a police escort out of a back exit of the stadium and was forced to walk a mile to her car.

In Oregon, Alexa Anderson and Reese Exchard protested the inclusion of a male athlete in the girls’ high jump by stepping off the winners’ platform.

Alexa, who finished third, felt compelled to explain their actions.

“We didn’t refuse to stand on the podium out of hate,” she said. ‘We did it because someone has to say this isn’t right. In order to protect the integrity and fairness of girls sports we must stand up for what is right.”

In Tacoma, Washington, a male student cheated to win the Girls 400-meter dash at the Washington State Track and Field Championships. Lauren Matthew was the real champion.

Spectators understandably booed the male runner and cheered the girls.

In Minnesota last week, Champlin Park High School’s girls’ softball team defeated Rogers High School twice, all behind the pitching of a boy who is pretending to be a girl.

Minnesota, like California and several other states, is ignoring President Trump’s executive order that bans boys from competing in girls sports and vice versa. Rogers High School is the defending state champion.

The male pitcher threw fourteen shutout innings to lead Champlin High to its first state tournament next week.

Males infiltrating girls sports is a farce. It’s also an outrage. No girl should have to apologize or defend gestures of protest. They shouldn’t feel obliged to assure critics their actions aren’t hateful.

In reality, officials who step back and allow the fraud, theft and corruption of girls sports are guilty of dereliction of their duty. They’re surrendering to the mobs, caving to the bullies, and enabling either deception, deceit or mental illness and sexual confusion.

Image from Riley Gaines.

Colorado Law Mandates Health Insurance Coverage for ‘Transgender’ Mutilations

A new Colorado law mandates health benefit insurance coverage for damaging, mutilating “transgender” medical interventions, such as opposite-sex hormones and surgeries for those who identify as the opposite sex – or a different “gender” entirely.

HB 1309 is euphemistically named “Protect Access to Gender-Affirming Health Care,” but real health care doesn’t involve sterilizing, disfiguring and harming patients.

The measure is an attack on common sense and religious freedom, requiring employers who oppose transgenderism for ethical or religious reasons to provide insurance coverage for expensive, injurious medical procedures.

The act mandates coverage for hormone therapy; removal of healthy breast tissue in women or “breast augmentation” in men; genital surgeries; and a variety of cosmetic surgeries such as rhinoplasties, “cheek, chin or nose implants” and “facial bone remodeling.”

Of course, none of these interventions can turn someone into the opposite sex – or some other made-up “gender.”

We have great concern for those struggling with gender dysphoria. But real kindness means helping children and adults embrace and celebrate their innate maleness or femaleness – not affirming mental illness or someone’s misguided desire to “transition.”

And, we especially want to protect children from these destructive practices.

Daily Citizen writer Glenn Stanton testified against the measure when it was being considered by the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee, saying:

HB 1309 is a horrible bill, the financial facilitator for children becoming gender medicine patients for life.

Make no mistake. This bill is not about compassion toward gender variant children. Not at all. It is an ideological bill fueled by toxic and false compassion and is deeply misguided.

Stanton explained to Colorado legislators that countries across the globe are turning away from these procedures for children because there is no evidence-based science for them and “the collected body of research does not support their use.”

HB 1309 also removes testosterone from The Colorado Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, a data-sharing system that allows “prescribers and dispensers to make more informed decisions when considering prescribing or dispensing a controlled substance to a patient.”

Health care workers won’t necessarily know which of their patients – including adolescent and teen girls and young adult women – are taking this powerful hormone which can have many negative side effects.

Girls and women are especially damaged by testosterone. Their bodies are not designed or equipped to handle high levels of this hormone as it causes permanent, harmful changes to their bodies.

In a post on X, Dr. Travis Morrell, founder of Colorado Principled Physicians and a senior fellow at Do No Harm, listed the monetary cost “to pay for every single” medical intervention listed in HB 1309 “for anyone who says they’re ‘trans’ – at any age.”

Here is just a sample of some of the medical interventions and the typical cost, as listed by Dr. Morrell, for each transgender-identified individual (procedures listed in all caps as in the bill):

  • HORMONE THERAPY: a few hundred to couple thousand dollars a year [for life].
  • FACIAL BONE REMODELING: $10,000-50,000 PLUS 50-100% for anesthesia/facility.
  • CHEEK, CHIN, OR NOSE IMPLANTS: Cheek $12,622, can be $4000- $30,000, PLUS 50-100% for anesthesia/facility.
  • BREAST OR CHEST AUGMENTATION, REDUCTION, OR CONSTRUCTION: $4,516 (average) for augmentation PLUS 50-100% for anesthesia/facility.
  • GENITAL AND NONGENITAL SURGICAL PROCEDURES: can be $4000 to $60,000 or more, multiple stages, surgeries, plus complications.

HB 1309 received much less public attention than another Colorado bill, HB 1312, an extreme transgender act that threatens free speech, religious freedom, children’s health and parental rights, but it was introduced and fast-tracked through the legislature in the same way.

The legislation – and previous acts passed by the Colorado General Assembly – demonstrate that legislators are determined to force every group in the state to comply with the pernicious transgender agenda, including children, parents, educators, employers, Christian camps and now, health insurers.

The bill passed both chambers of the Colorado General Assembly along party lines, 23-12 in the Senate and 39-24 in the Senate. Governor Jared Polis signed HB 1309 at a press conference on Friday, May 23.

Related Articles and Resources

‘Art Club’ Documentary — One Family’s Escape from Gender Ideology, and the Bigger Trend Sweeping the Nation

Back to School with LGBT Social Studies

Christian Summer Camp Sues Colorado Over ‘Transgender’ Rule

Citizens Speak Truth to Power at Colorado Sex Education Hearing

Colorado Bill Would Force Schools to Teach Homosexuality and Transgenderism

Colorado Governor Signs Extreme Act: ‘Legal Protections for Transgender Individuals’

Education Department Warns Colorado: Children ‘Do Not Belong to Government’

Exclusive Interview: Colorado Parents Expose ‘Gender Cult’ at Public School in New Documentary

Focus on the Family Testifies Against Nightmare Bill, Colorado’s Radical ‘Trans’ Legislation Advances

Focus on the Family: Transgender Resources

Parents’ Rights Groups Sue Colorado Over Radical Trans Law

Teaching Deception? School District Adopts Gender Policy, Keeps Parents in the Dark

Transgenderism Trumping Parents’ Rights

APA Symposium Promotes Perverse Sex to Bring ‘Healing From Past Trauma’

(Caution: This article includes some disturbing content from the American Psychological Association’s 2025 Conference.)

A symposium at the American Psychological Association’s 2025 Convention promotes the idea that involvement in perverse sexual practices can bring “healing from past trauma” and “increase flourishing.”

This year’s convention is titled “Perspective Powers Possibilities.” The workshop is presented under the auspices of APA Division 44, the “Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity,” one of the association’s 56 Divisions.

The symposium is titled “The Kink and Flourishing Study: Impact of Kink Involvement in People’s Personal Growth and Healing,” and the papers presented are based on this idea:

“Past research and anecdotal reports indicate people experience healing from past trauma via kink engagement, and that some kink-involved people intentionally use kink scenes to address past trauma. Many people engage in kink for the purpose of flourishing, growth and well being.”

The researchers, all advocates of “kink” (aberrant sexual behaviors), explain that the traumas supposedly being healed include “sexual assault and other unwanted sexual experiences.”  

The abstracts don’t explain how harmful practices like being physically and emotionally abused – or inflicting this on others – are supposed to heal traumatic experiences.

Nor do they explain how promiscuity, another form of kink the division oxymoronically label “ethical/consensual non-monogamy,” is anything but destructive.

More abuse simply compounds previous abuse.

The Kink and Flourishing Study was produced by The Alternative Sexualities Health Research Alliance (TASHRA) a group that describes itself as “shaping the future of erotic well being.” The group conducts research, trains medical and mental healthcare providers and promotes “consensual and sexually diverse relevant health and social policies.”

TASHRA introduces the study by stating, “Recent research has debunked the notion that kink is inherently pathological, revealing its potential as a catalyst for trauma healing and improved mental well-being. “

The group considers “kinky folk” a “sexual minority,” akin to those who identify as homosexual or transgender, with the concomitant belief that the condition is lifelong, has an early onset, is unlikely to change, and may have a biological component. They believe the group is unjustly stigmatized by society.

Division 44 lists several other twisted subgroups on its website, such as its Taskforce on BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism); a Task Force on Sexism and Cissexism (supposed prejudice stemming from the belief that being male or female is normal and good); and a Committee on “Consensual Non-Monogamy.”

The Daily Citizen covered that last committee in 2019, but Division 44 has descended even further into the abyss since then. The Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity is hosting other problematic symposiums and presentations, including:

  • Roadmaps to Bi+ Joy: Advocacy, Activism, and Community Self Care.
  • Exploring health and identity development in a sexual minority community: reflections on kink/BDSM.
  • Working with Asexual Clients as Individuals and Couples: Biases, Blindspots [sic], and Best Practices.
  • Mental Health Implications of Body Mass Index Requirements for Gender Affirming Surgery.

There are many helpful psychologists and mental health practitioners who oppose the practice of deviant fetishes, especially Christian counselors and therapists who bring real healing to people. The APA debases its profession by highlighting debauched ideology.

Such presentations and task forces, with their perverse ideology, explain why many Christian mental health workers have fled the APA to join organizations and networks that bring truth and healing, such as the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, the American Association of Christian Counselors, the Sexual Integrity Leadership Summit and Focus on the Family’s Christian Counselors Network.

Still, the APA remains “the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with 172,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students as its members.”

In this case, the inmates really are running the asylum. Sexual sin brings no healing to anyone.

Scripture has a great deal to say about God’s design for marriage and the devastating consequences of sexual sin. The APA’s collusion with darkness is reminiscent of the Apostle Paul’s description in Romans 1 of mankind’s descent into evil.

This downward spiral into sin occurs when a group of people do not acknowledge God, refuse to honor Him and give Him thanks, and reject the truth. In Romans 3, Paul reminds us that this leads to death – something we all deserve as the consequence of our sins.

But thanks be to God, Paul continues on to explain that any of us, including those promoting this evil, “can be justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 3:24-25, ESV). 

Even as we condemn the immorality of the APA as an organization, let us pray that God will have mercy and redeem many of its members from sin. There is forgiveness, redemption, and real healing through Christ.  

Related Articles and Resources

Focus on the Family Broadcast: Finding God’s Healing for Sexual Brokenness, Part 1 and Part 2

Focus on the Family: Counseling Consultation and Referrals

Focus on the Family Resources: Healing From Sexual Abuse

Focus on the Family: Resources for Overcoming Sexual Brokenness

Has the American Psychological Association Lost Its Mind About Healthy Sexuality?

Seeking God’s Wisdom in a World Full of Fools

Supreme Court Protects Maine Rep’s Right to Vote, Defend Girls Sports

Maine’s House of Representatives must temporarily allow Representative Laurel Libby to vote again, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a preliminary injunction issued Tuesday.

The 7-2 decision comes almost three months after a slim majority of Maine representatives barred Libby from voting or speaking on legislation — unless she publicly apologized for criticizing boys’ participation in girls’ sports.

“This is a victory not just for my constituents, but for the Constitution itself,” Libby wrote of the ruling on X, continuing:

The Supreme Court has affirmed what should NEVER have been in question — that no state legislature has the power to silence an elected official simply for speaking truthfully about issues that matter.

The Supreme Court’s brief ruling contains no information from the majority. Justice Sotomayor wrote she would not grant Libby an injunction, but did not explain why. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored a five-page dissent criticizing the court for offering emergency relief in cases that aren’t true emergencies.

Libby filed an emergency petition with SCOTUS on April 28 after a whirlwind legal battle that began with a simple Facebook post:

Less than ten days after the post went live, Libby’s colleagues voted to censure her for violating Maine’s Legislative Code of Ethics “in an effort to advance her political agenda.”

The resolution, which passed 75-70 in a party line vote, claimed the mother of five had endangered the male athlete’s safety by “[naming him] and [using] photos of [him] in a post without [his] consent.” This despite the fact the boy competed publicly. His podium photo was featured in media and on social media accounts across the nation.

The resolution suspended Libby’s right to vote and speak on legislation unless she publicly apologized for her conduct.

The punishment illegally deprived the representative’s more than 9,000 constituents of representation. The Editorial Board at The Wall Street Journal pointedly noted:

Under the Maine constitution, expelling a member requires a two-thirds majority, but state lawmakers have used the censure as a backdoor to silence Ms. Libby by a simple majority vote.

The House put a steep price on Libby’s participation — if she wanted to vote again, she would have to publicly betray the women and girls she was defending.

“[The mandated apology] would be an apology for speaking up on behalf of Maine women and girls,” she told IWF. “And the message I’ve heard loudly and clearly since all of this has occurred is that these girls have felt very betrayed, and alone and unsure.”

She continued:

The authorities in [these girls’] lives are not standing up for them. So to apologize would be a betrayal.

Not to mention she would reportedly have to run her mea culpa past Maine Speaker Ryan Fecteau, who supported her censure.

“At a certain point, I just had enough and told him the meeting was over, and he would go down as the speaker who silenced a woman for speaking up for girls,” Libby remembered for IWF.

Libby’s plight received sympathetic media attention, even among national, legacy outlets like the Journal and The Boston Globe, which wrote:

The Maine House resolution to censure Libby stated that she violated the Legislature’s code of ethics. But those rules are not a model of clarity…
Such broad language can too easily be used to justify punishing a lawmaker in the minority party for saying almost anything that the majority party dislikes, even if that speech is protected by the First Amendment.

Though Libby experienced favor in the press, two federal courts initially denied her a preliminary injunction restoring her right to vote.

On April 18, the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island called the censure “an internal Maine House affair,” ruling Libby’s situation was “not of such extraordinary character” as to warrant federal action.

Libby’s subsequent appeal failed on April 25 in the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Daily Citizen applauds Representative Libby for hanging tough and defending her right to speak biological truth and advocate for women and girls.

We are similarly grateful to the Supreme Court for upholding legislators’ right to free speech, without which representatives like Libby cannot confront injustices like boys participation in girls sports.

Additional Articles and Resources

Attorney General Pam Bondi Sues Maine for Title IX Violations

Maine Schools Violated Title IX, Must Apologize, Feds Say

Department of Education Launches Multiple investigations Into Title IX Violations

Parents’ Rights Groups Sue Colorado Over Radical Trans Law

On Monday, May 19, four parents’ rights organizations sued the state of Colorado over its recently enacted radical transgender legislation.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit claim the new law, HB25-1312, violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution because it compels state-sponsored speech and is unconstitutionally vague.

Background

The measure received nationwide attention in the last month due to its brazen language threatening free speech, religious freedom and parental rights.

Focus on the Family joined widespread objections to the law. President Jim Daly, spoke out against the bill online. Three analysts from the organization testified against the measure, and in support of parental rights and free speech, at the state capitol.

Despite the constitutional concerns raised by many Coloradans, the legislation was signed into law by the governor on May 16.

Complaint

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Defending Education, Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, Protect Kids Colorado, Do No Harm and Dr. Travis Morrell.

The complaint alleges the new law “punishes Coloradans for their speech and compels them to use language endorsing the State’s views on highly contested and highly political matters of sex and gender.”

Plaintiffs assert this law was “designed to punish disfavored speech.”

The purpose of H.B. 25-1312 is clear. The law punishes those who refuse to speak using chosen names and pronouns, and it does so in order to suppress traditional beliefs about sex and gender. In other words, the law openly discriminates based on viewpoint.

They continue, “The state cannot place its thumb on the scale to favor one side of a contentious public debate. It certainly cannot stifle viewpoints it doesn’t like simply because it finds those views offensive or disagreeable.”

The complaint goes on to cite several examples of bill sponsors confirming that the measure’s purpose is to suppress traditional views about sex and gender, including an example of lawmakers likening parental rights groups to Nazis and the KKK.

In an exclusive interview with Focus on the Family’s Daily Citizen, Vice President and Counsel for Defending Education, Sarah Parshall Perry, explained why the new law is especially dangerous.

This is Colorado’s maneuver to prevent any public disagreement with gender ideology anywhere, for any reason. The state has just taken a sledgehammer to free speech principles and free exercise of religion principles — both of which are guaranteed by the Constitution’s First Amendment. That kind of breathtakingly unconstitutional action should worry not just Coloradans, but every American in the country. 

Specific Violations

The complaint alleges HB25-1312 violates the constitution in four specific ways.

First, plaintiffs argue that the law’s use of the phrases “gender expression” and “chosen name” violates the First Amendment because it unconstitutionally compels speakers to use state-approved language.

Second, the complaint alleges Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) unconstitutionally includes a provision that prohibits making people feel unwelcome based on a protected characteristic. That provision is a violation of the First Amendment, plaintiffs claim, because it prohibits speech on gender and sexuality contrary to the state’s approved content and viewpoint.

Third, the lawsuit contends the law defining “chosen name” and “gender expression” is “impermissibly vague” under the Fourteenth Amendment, which will lead to arbitrary enforcement. Arbitrary enforcement is illegal because it violates the core principles of due process and equal protection.

Fourth, plaintiffs allege the unwelcome provision in CADA is “impermissibly vague” under the Fourteenth Amendment which will lead to arbitrary enforcement. When a law is arbitrarily enforced, individuals do not have fair notice of what conduct is prohibited and it invites biased enforcement of the law.

Parental Rights

This radical trans law continues to threaten parental rights.

Defending Education Vice President, Sarah Parshall Perry, had this to say about what is at stake for parents:

House Bill 25-1312 punishes Coloradans for their speech and compels them to use language endorsing the State’s views on highly contested and highly political matters of sex and gender.

Among its victims will be parents of children who might believe themselves to be transgender and with whom those parents disagree. If any parent in Colorado enters a place of public accommodation — which is described so broadly as to include virtually any public space — with that child and “misgenders” that child, the parent can be hit with a charge of discrimination under state law.

The law doesn’t just target parents who oppose gender ideology, it forces mandatory pronoun use on every Coloradan in a public place. 

Request for Relief

Plaintiffs in the case have asked the court to issue an injunction barring the state from prosecuting anyone for violating the law while the case is litigated.

The lawsuit also asks for judgment declaring HB25-1312 violates the First and Fourteenth Amendment and it be stricken down.

The case is Defending Education et al v. Sullivan et al.

The Daily Citizen will provide updates to this developing story.