Time For All Americans to Home School

Time For All Americans to Home School

By de Andréa

January 19, 2015

Autumn Leva, director of policy and communications at the Minnesota Family Council said state high-school athletic associations are under pressure to conform from the National Federation of State High School Associations, or NFHS, which is heavily influenced by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN.

She points to guidance language from the NFHS that quotes GLSEN as proof that individual state groups like the MSHSL are being forced to fall in line.

This obviously isn’t going away folks, this is just the beginning, and from here it will only get worse.

Earlier I published an article titled “Boys And Girls Shower Together in American Schools”, Identifying Minnesota public schools coming under these new rules.  Minnesota isn’t only state to adopt this outrages practice. So far 33 out of 50 states have passed and adopted similar practices.

But now it’s official. Come August of this year, high-school students in Minnesota and many other states will be permitted to play sports on teams with whatever gender they want, rather than what their biological gender would dictate, a leading Christian family group believes this is a recipe for disaster.

On Thursday, the Minnesota State High School League, or MSHSL, officially adopted new policies that would require all public, private and most Christian high schools if they play sports with public high schools in the league, to accommodate transgender students, effective Aug. 1, 2015. The decision came in the face of fierce opposition that delayed the decision by months.

“They passed a policy that will allow students who identify as transgender into   bathrooms, even hotel rooms of the opposite biological sex. This is very problematic for many students, parents and even schools around the state,” said Autumn Leva, director of policy and communications at the Minnesota Family Council.

The Minnesota Family Council is one of the leading public voices against this change in policy by the MSHSL. Officials say there will be criteria to determine which students can qualify to play for teams of different biological genders. Leva and her allies offered one of their own prior to Thursday’s vote.

“We brought forward our alternative proposal that is in place in three other states,” she said. “It would simply clarify that for the purpose of high-school athletics, a student’s sex is their birth sex and that they play on teams that match their birth sex, with the exception that already exists in state law that allows girls to try out for boys’ teams (such as football or wrestling). Even though this is a valid and completely legal policy that’s in place in other states, the High School League gave no attention to that proposal.”

She said the clear public opinion on the matter didn’t sway the league, either.

“Even though we brought forward a petition with close to 7,000 Minnesotans who prefer our’ solution to what the league is doing. Even public and private schools have signed on, saying this is what they wanted and the league didn’t even give it any air time. So it’s really been a pretty one-sided discussion,” Leva said.

Minnesota is the 33rd state to grant some sort of high-school sports accommodation to transgender students. Some states like California have transsexual policies as early as grade school. Leva said this wave happened very recently, so it’s too soon to chronicle the impact of the policies from around the country. She contends this is a major focal point of the gay rights agenda. Leva said state high-school athletic associations are under pressure to conform from the National Federation of State High School Associations, or NFHS, which is heavily influenced by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN.

She points to guidance language from the NFHS that quotes GLSEN as proof that individual state groups like the MSHSL are being forced to fall in line.

A bulletin from NFHS entitled, “Developing Policies for Transgender Students on High School Teams,” and dated Nov. 21, 2014, reads: “Transgender students are those whose gender they were assigned at birth does not match how they identify their gender. A student might have been identified as a boy at birth, but now identifies as a girl, or vice versa. Transgender students often report experiencing harassment and bullying from their classmates, as well as inaction from their teachers or coaches when they report being taunted or physically assaulted (GLSEN, 2011).”

The MSHSL did adopt an exemption for religiously affiliated high schools, but Leva said that provides far less protection for those schools than the league would have Minnesotans believe.

“The league actually narrowed the exemption, so now if a private Christian school is not directly affiliated with a particular denomination or a specific church, they are not protected under this policy,” she said. “So they will have to comply. That’s all of our independent Christian schools.”

Even the schools that make that cut, Leva said, could very easily feel the consequences of noncompliance.

“If a private religious school claims their exemption will they lose some standing in the league? Will they be forced to forfeit certain games? Will they be forced to allow visiting schools on their facilities to allow their students to use facilities of the opposite sex?” The answer is yes, any private school that is in the same sports league as a public school is required to comply.  “None of those effects of the exemption were totally clarified,” she said.

Leva said the practical effects of this policy are both obvious and subtle.

“Again, that will almost certainly lead to (transgender athletes) using the locker rooms of the opposite sex,” she said. “So we’ve got students’ privacy right implicated, putting students of opposite sex in very private settings, changing and using the restroom together. Obviously that’s a huge concern to students and parents.”

Leva added, “We’ve got Title IX implications and discrimination against female athletes, since our state statutes make very clear that we separate female teams for a reason, to ensure that they have an equal and fair opportunity to compete. This policy really flies in the face of that provision.”

“So what this new policy will do is say that actually doesn’t matter and that biological boys can now play on girls teams so long as they say that they identify as a girl.”

But what about the precedent that already exists allowing girls to play on boys’ teams in sports like football and wrestling? Is that evidence this is not as big of a deal as Leva and others fear? Leva said the two situations are not comparable.

“It goes beyond just having a girl complete as a girl on the wrestling team or the football team, since there’s not a girls’ football team,” she said. “It goes into saying, ‘This girl is actually a boy and is competing as a boy on the football and wrestling team and should therefore have access to the boys’ locker rooms, the boys’ hotel rooms on away games. The implications of this are very real and very serious.”

With the debate over policy over for the moment, Leva said it’s now families and school leaders who have to make tough decisions.

“It rests in the hands of parents, student athletes and schools to decide what they’re going to do,” she said. “The High School League is a volunteer association, though schools need to be a part of it in order to compete in state athletics. But they have a choice here to whether they’re going to comply with this policy. The league has made it mandatory, but the schools ultimately have a choice. Parents and student athletes also have a choice.”

THE BOTTOM LINE: Yes… They have the choice to remove their students from those schools and if enough parents did that it would shut them down altogether. 

When are parents going to stand up and fight this attack on moral values? 

"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.  It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government." -- Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837

Thanks for listening – de Andréa

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