transgender

Dozens of students and parents participated in a walkout at an Oregon high school last week to protest school policy allowing boys to use girls bathrooms and locker rooms.

The student-led event took place at Roseburg High School on October 8. Boys and girls alike left their seventh period class to join a crowd of supportive adults outside. They lined the street outside the school, waving signs proclaiming girls’ right to privacy.

“Honk to support our girls privacy,” one sign read.

“This all ends when enough of us say no,” proclaimed another bright orange marker.

Shannon Miller helped her daughter, Kyleigh, organize the walkout after Roseberg allowed a transgender-identified boy to change in the locker room.

Shannon told journalist Rick Dancer she met with the high school’s principle after learning two boys had been using the girls bathroom and locker rooms. The administration agreed to ask both male students if they would be willing to use the school’s private changing stalls and gender-neutral bathrooms.

One student agreed. The other continued using girls facilities.

The school told Shannon nothing else could be done because Oregon law prohibits discrimination based on gender identity in public schools. The administration suggested Kyleigh and other young women uncomfortable with boys in their bathrooms and locker rooms use the private facilities instead.

Multiple students say the private bathrooms are located in an auxiliary building and require a teacher to unlock the doors.

Roseburg High’s argument about upholding Oregon law is a cop-out.

True, the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) claims state antidiscrimination law protects students’ “right” to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their subjective gender identity, rather than their biological sex. It warns preemptively ordering transgender-identified students to change in a private area could be considered discrimination.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most left-leaning appellate courts in the country, affirmed ODE’s interpretation of Oregon law in 2020.

But policies and verdicts like these defy federal guidance on Title IX, which requires federally funded educational programs to segregate sports, bathrooms and locker rooms by sex. The federal government is working to withhold federal education funding from Oregon and several other states with laws that contradict Title IX.

Less than two weeks ago, the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services ordered Minnesota to revise policies allowing boys to compete in girls sports in public schools, noting, “To the extent state law conflicts with Title IX, federal law preempts state law.”

The Department of Education launched an investigation into ODE for Title IX violations in July.

Shannon and Kyleigh Miller say Roseburg High’s position proves women have fewer rights in Oregon than transgender-identified men.

“[The school] is telling me the state law says that those who identify as the other gender have essentially more rights than Kyleigh … and every other girl in Oregon — or boy, if this was flip-flopped,” Shannon told Dancer.

“I take that to mean these transgender-identified students’ right to be comfortable and to feel safe and to have privacy is more important than the rest of the students’ at Roseburg High.”

Students at the walkout seemed similarly fed-up with the school’s inaction.

“We just want to create a safe environment for all of us,” one student told a reporter. “When [boys] come into the [girls locker room] … it creates a dangerous place for us [girls], because there’s no one in those bathrooms making sure we are going to be safe.”

Locker rooms had similarly lax supervision, another student claimed.

The students demonstrated enormous courage to stand up for themselves in a school, district and state that routinely labels girls with expectations of privacy “transphobic,” “bigoted” or “discriminatory.”

Their participation is even more impressive given the school allegedly tried to quash the walkout. Students say the administration threatened to cancel homecoming and hand out detentions and suspensions.

Video of an administrative meeting following the walkout shows an adult reading written remarks from a student who wished to stay anonymous for fear of retaliation.

“[Admin at Roseburg] made it pretty clear they felt the need to scare children today about the walkout,” the adult commented.

The anonymous student’s story is at once ridiculous and heartbreakingly familiar. She doesn’t want to wear her nice school clothes to weight training, but she also doesn’t want to change out in front of a boy.

“Why do grown adults keep putting young girls in one of the most awkward, uncomfortable, unbearable situations?” she asks in the letter, concluding:

The brave students who participated in the Roseburg High walkout deserve the highest praise for taking a risk in service of what is right. Advocates for biological reality everywhere should be taking notes.

Additional Articles and Resources

California Students battle to Protect Girls’ Private Spaces in Schools

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies

Minnesota Allowed Boys to Compete on Six Girls Teams, Federal Investigation

Transgender Ideology is Inherently Destructive

Transgender Ideology is Inherently Destructive, Part 2

Genspect, a grassroots educational organization standing in direct opposition to gender ideology, is calling for what they call the “re-psychopathologization” of “transgender” identities. It is an important move for which they are getting expected pushback.

Yes, re-psychopathologization is an uncommon word in most people’s vocabulary, but it simply means reestablishing “trans” identity, not as something to be celebrated and affirmed, but as a psychological state of ill-health to be compassionately treated clinically in the mind of the individual.

As Mia Hughes, research analyst and author of the groundbreaking WPATH Files, explained at the September Genspect conference in Albuquerque, the “monster” in gender ideology is not necessarily the doctors performing experimental, body-modifying medicine on young people. The actual culprit is “an idea; the false belief that being transgender is innate, healthy and something to celebrate.” She stated this “is what is causing all the devastation.” And as a result, she explains, “to be absolutely clear, an entire field of medicine [“gender affirming care”] was built on a false belief; a fiction created by a political movement to serve its own agenda.”

Thus, no one is transgender.

As Focus on the Family has explained, “transgender’ means many different things … and nothing.The American Psychiatric Association explains transgender is “a non-medical term that has been used increasingly since the 1990s as an umbrella term” for anyone who rejects their biological sex believing their mind can be sexed differently than their body. There is no scientific discovery establishing this assumption.

These facts are why Genspect explains, “Re-psychopathologization means restoring transgender identities to their proper place in psychiatry – as conditions of the mind requiring careful therapeutic attention, rather than celebrating them as healthy identities.”

They also explain the term re-psychopathologization is “not an accident of phrasing, nor an unfortunate choice of words.” Nor is it an uncompassionate statement. Genspect hold it “is a deliberate and necessary response to the catastrophic decision made by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) in 2010 to “‘de-psychopathologize’ transgender identities.” That effort to depathologized “trans” identity in clinical practice continues today in examples here, here, here and here.

Genspect correctly holds that you cannot successfully and compassionately treat a condition if you hold an incorrect belief about the thing itself. They explain re-psychopathologization “is a call to restore clarity, compassion, and safeguarding by recognizing that transgender identification is not innate or biologically determined, but an all-consuming pathological belief heavily influenced by culture.”

They see this an essential act of restoring clarity in medicine as “psychiatry must address pathological beliefs rather than collude with them.” It is also a way to restore genuine compassion for people, as those “caught in this cultural wave are innocent victims who need help and support, not experimental body modification in the name of a political ideology.”

Why Now?

Genspect launched its de-psychopathologization effort because “it is now clear that the experiment of ‘gender-affirming care’ has failed.” This is evidenced in many recent factors. One is this year’s June 18thU.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Skrmetti which rejected the idea that access to experimental “trans-affirming” procedures is a constitutional right. Second, countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, and England have reviewed the evidence and moved away from allowing drug and surgical experimentation on children in the name of gender ideology. Third, people are increasingly learning of the harms gender policies are having on women, here, here, here and here, as just a few examples.

Genspect explains, “It is time to recognize transgender identification for what it is: a pathological belief requiring careful psychiatric attention, not celebration and widespread medicalization.”

This understanding is more medically and scientifically accurate. As such, it will serve mothers and fathers, children and the clinicians who serve them better.

Related Articles and Resources

If you or someone you know is struggling with transgenderism or other sexuality issues, and you don’t know where to turn, Focus on the Family is here to help.

Focus offers a one-time counseling consultation with a licensed or pastoral counselor free of charge thanks to generous donor support. If you would like to request a consultation with Focus’ Counseling Department, call 1-855-771-HELP (4357) weekdays from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM (Mountain Time) or complete our Counseling Consultation Request Form.

New Research Shows ‘Transgender’ Identity Dramatically Driven by Immaturity

‘Transgender’ Means Many Different Things — and Nothing

American Academy of Pediatrics Captured by Gender Ideology; Mainstream Professionals Are Calling Them Out

Transgenderism and Minors: What Does the Research Really Show?

What Does it Mean to Be Trans, Anyway?

Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie

New Research Confirms Previous Findings: Most Gender Confused Kids Desist

The Shifting Ground of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’

How the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue Attacks the Family

How to Respond to “Trans” and Gender Ideology? Simple: Live Not by Lies

Are Sex and Gender Different Things?

No, Trans Rights Are Certainly NOT Human Rights

The Embarrassing Crack-Up of the LGBT Project

Yes, Transgenderism is a False Belief System

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