The transgender ideology that has been inculcated in America’s youth has gotten a lot of attention in the media, specifically with groups that advocate for parental rights and some agendas being pushed on children without parental consent.
This issue has come up in schools all over the country from Loudoun County, Virginia, to Leon County, Florida with minors “identifying” as transgender and an ongoing conflict between the schools and parents. When it comes to sports, transgender women playing in women’s sports has also raised concerns about the safety of biological women.
“We are being conditioned to use certain language,” Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., said on a Just the News Special Report sponsored by the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) entitled “Protecting America’s Kids.”
“I seldom refer to men as biological men,” she continued. “They’re just men. That is what they are. I’m a woman. I’m not a biological woman. I’m just a woman. The dude on the San Jose girls volleyball team is a man. He may have long hair…he may do different things physically to address the fact that he has different anatomy than I do. But he’s still a man.”
Over the past few weeks, multiple schools have canceled volleyball matches against San Jose State due to the team having a transgender player on the team who had been seen spiking balls into the faces of the opposing team during matches, according to Fox News.
Hageman said that she didn’t believe there was such a thing as “transgender,” rather someone who struggles with mental illness.
“Back to Common Sense”
“I think what we’re talking about is some people who have a mental illness and we have other people who society are pushing towards a certain in a certain direction,” she added. “And I think we need to bring these conversations back to common sense. Men and women are different.”
When it comes to parental rights and the transgender agenda, a parent in Florida paved the way for a parental rights bill that critics called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The bill never included any such phrase, and instead addresses material deemed “not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students” from kindergarten to Grade 3.
Leon County parent January Littlejohn alleged a few years ago that her 13-year-old daughter was having transgender ideology pushed on her without parental consent. “The bottom line is vulnerable kids like my daughter are being socially transitioned behind the backs of loving parents and oftentimes, everybody at the school knows this child is struggling and they are living a double life,” Littlejohn said on the AMAC special.
Littlejohn said that her daughter began to identify as transgender when members of her friend group started to and the school without consulting the parents asked her which bathroom she wanted to use. Littlejohn’s experience helped launch Florida’s Parental Rights and Education Act.
The Parental Rights and Education Act bars discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in public school classrooms from grades kindergarten through third. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the legislation in 2022.
“If your school uses words like ‘welcoming’ and ‘inclusivity’….. gender ideology is already in that school system and so parents need to not shy away from this issue,” Littlejohn said. “Do not put your head in the sand.”
“Do No Harm”
When it comes to minors undergoing transgender surgeries, there have been some in the medical field that have been speaking out about the harms it does to children, including nurse practitioner Michelle Havrilla. Havrilla said she put together a database that put together data between 2019 to 2023 regarding the number of kids that have undergone sex change operations.
“What we found as we analyze the data is that approximately 14,000 children have undergone some type of sex change treatment within that period of time,” she said. “So whether it would be a surgery, a body modification surgery or they received hormone blockers or puberty blockers, they were undergoing some type of treatment that would we would consider a sex change treatment,” Harvilla said on the AMAC special.
She said that healthcare needs to go back to the traditional “do no harm” medical culture that has guided physicians since the time of ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, and should not conduct these procedures that will leave lasting negative impacts on children.
“We really want to see healthcare, especially nursing, restored to what it should be…and that’s being the best provider that you can be in taking care of patients on an individual basis,” Harvilla said.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said that it is important to remember that the damage done to minors as a result of these transgender surgeries are permanent. “If you give girls testosterone, once they start growing a beard, it never stops,” Marshall said during the special. “Even though they stop the testosterone, the beard will continue if that makes sense. So much of this is irreversible.”
Charlotte Hazard is a 2022 Liberty University alumni who graduated with a major in journalism and a minor in government.
Reprinted with Permission from Just The News – By Charlotte Hazard
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.