Flushed with victory, Family Research Council attacking transgender child

 Perkins attacks smears transgender child

If you want to get a handle on why there is so much ignorance about the transgender community (and how that ignorance was parlayed into an exploitation of fear which led to the loss in Houston), one can turn to the anti-gay hate group, Family Research Council.

I will spare you the vile crowing FRC president Tony Perkins made about the defeat of HERO in his email. Unfortunately, however, buoyed by that victory, he chose to push more ignorance about the transgender community via an attack on a transgender child in Chicago. And that's something I need to bring attention to:

In one Chicago school, girls are getting a lesson in anatomy their parents never bargained for. In the latest chapter of madness at the Department of Education, the federal government is ordering Township High School to allow an adolescent boy full access of the girls' locker room because he "feels" female. And by "full access," we mean the ability to strip down in the company of young girls and parade around nude.Using Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to justify this outrage, the DOE is forcing impressionable girls to experience the fear and discomfort of sharing facilities with a naked boy. Two years ago, when the issue first surfaced, the school district rejected the idea flat-out. Then, when the family filed a legal complaint, administrators tried to accommodate the teenager by hanging a curtain in the locker room where he could undress.

Even that was "too discriminatory." One of the boy's advocates, an LGBT activist at the ACLU, insisted that he was being grossly mistreated. "It's not voluntary; it's mandatory for her. It's one thing to say to all the girls, 'You can choose if you want some extra privacy,' but it's another thing to say, 'You, and you alone, must use them.' That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she's not accepted and the district does not see her as a girl."

Obviously, the district doesn't see "her" as a girl, because he isn't one!

Perkins makes the child out to be an exhibitionist and is deliberately omitting several important points about this situation. His piece clearly links to an article in U.S. News and World Reports which includes the following details Perkins chose to ignore, including:

The transgender student has not been identified and wants to remain anonymous, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which helped the girl's parents file a complaint more than two years ago. She has been living as a girl since middle school, has changed her legal name, obtained a passport as a female, received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and is taking female hormones, according to the Department of Education's summary of its investigation. . . . The school district has allowed the student to use girls' restrooms and participate in girls' athletics. She is identified as a female in the district's computer system.

Gender dysphoria is a complicated condition which affects many children. It is not a mental illness and it has nothing to do sexual thrills of any shape or form. According to Medscape:

Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis that refers to people whose gender at birth is contrary to the one they identify with.

• Gender treatment should involve a multidisciplinary team
• People with gender dysphoria should have access to high-quality care without unnecessarily long waits
• People with gender dysphoria have a right to psychotherapy and counseling as part of their treatment
• Treatment should recognize the preferences, needs, and circumstances of the particular patient
• Treatments that have been initiated for adolescents should continue into adulthood without interruption
• More research should be encouraged, including research on patient outcome and satisfaction with interventions and transition

This girl is no threat to other girls. For Perkins to be so flippant about a serious medical issue and imply that this child is an exhibitionist is simply inexcusable.

But very deliberate on his part. He could care less about what gender dsyphoria is or how it affects children. All that matters to him is that he continues the game of scaring the public by conjuring up images of "predators invading girls restrooms and showers."

It's sad but not surprising. Perkins and his group doesn't think that adult lgbts are actual people with families and normal lives. Why should they  feel any different about lgbt children?