The Equality Act Could Let Schools, Not Parents, Make Decisions About Children

We saw some of these unusual partnerships when President Barack Obama picked a fight over privacy. Even some of the staunchest activists realized that the debate wasn’t just about bathrooms-but kids’ safety, too.

Now, the political lines are even more blurred, as House Democrats aren’t just moving to force gender-free locker rooms on America, but the most extreme version of LGBT indoctrination in classrooms, sports, business, and social services, too. And for movements like the feminists’ suddenly party affiliation doesn’t matter.

Monday night on “Washington Watch,” Jennifer Chavez, a board member of the left-leaning Women’s Liberation Front, talked about just how dangerous the Equality Act is-and how important it is for a coalition as diverse as ours to fight it.

It’s crucial, she said, “for us to acknowledge that we disagree on so many, many things. But . the only way that people in a really polarized society can ever get to a point where we can work on problems is if we can agree on the fundamental importance of things like basic truth.”

And one of those basic truths is that “regardless how you feel about various different issues-that the word ‘woman’ is meaningful, and the word ‘girl’ is meaningful.”

This radical ideology-the same one the American College of Pediatrics calls “child abuse“-is no respecter of persons. It will haunt families-and rob futures-on both sides.

Chavez talked about this and how sad it is that the mainstream media refuses to talk about the threat of the transgender agenda.

Here in the United States, very few journalists with national reach and national name recognition are willing to even touch the issue of gender identity and transgender movement-unless it’s in a completely 110% . supportive way.

“When you search the term ‘transgender’ or ‘gender identity’ in, say, The New York Times or The Washington Post,” she said, “you see story after story of sappy hero stories or heart-wrenching stories about [children]. But what you don’t see here are the opposing views of women who are raising concerns . about this ideology and an increasing number of young women who did at one point identify as transgender and have now dissented and who are now saying that there are serious problems with the movement and its ideas. And it’s manifesting ideas that are really very harmful to young girls who are vulnerable.”

In most cases, she points out, parents aren’t even aware that their kids are talking about this. That’s because schools, she argues, are taking great pains to cut families out of the loop-even now, before the Equality Act.

What we’re seeing in schools is not just a push to support children and nurture them and accept their questioning . But instead, what we’re seeing is an aggressive push to dictate a particular way of looking at it-a way that says that if you have the feeling that you might be the opposite sex-if you really identify with the stereotypical things that are associated with the opposite sex-then you may actually, in fact, be the opposite sex.

That’s terrifying for parents, who are starting to see that these classrooms are being hijacked by an aggressive, take-no-prisoners LGBT agenda that doesn’t care about your rights as parents-or your children’s wellbeing.

If they did, they’d know that “98% of gender-confused boys and 88% of gender-confused girls accept their biological sex after puberty.” (Listen to some of the brave young people who are speaking out after going through it.)�

In a lot of these cases, Chavez explains, teachers and counselors are pushing kids in this direction, and it’s “a very, very confusing thing for a child to hear from anyone, much less from an authority figure.” But it’s in their assemblies and reading assignments-and most importantly, their curriculum, which she warns parents, “is being developed by advocacy organizations.”

As an attorney who’s represented�a lot of liberal families, Chavez is convinced this is no longer a Republican-Democrat issue.

We have heard from many parents who have reached out to us and expressed a great deal of concern and alarm . that they’re sort of losing their ability to work through these sorts of issues with their children in a loving way, in a way that they think is best.

And it’s not just anecdotal.

You can see it in school policies. For example, in the policy of the school where my child attends, it’s written right up there that if my child were to tell a teacher that he identifies as the opposite sex and said he didn’t want me to know, the teachers at the school would be prohibited from telling me. So there could be something really serious that my child was going through . and he’s trying to deal with, but I wouldn’t even know it.

Parents aren’t just being locked out of the conversation. They’re being locked out of the decision-making process.

Right now, at this very moment, there are 240 men and women in the U.S. House choosing whether moms and dads will have anything to say about how their kids are raised, what they’re taught, the kind of medical decisions they make, even who they share a shower with.

That’s just�one aspect of the Equality Act-but it ought to be enough to get every parent on the phone with their member of Congress, demanding to know how anyone could support a piece of legislation as profoundly un-American as H.R. 5.

Originally published in Tony Perkins’�Washington Update, which is written with the aid of Family Research Council senior writers.

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