By M.H. Cavanaugh
Christian Action League
December 17, 2020
Tuesday, the Wake County School Board gave its initial approval for including “transgender or gender identity” as a part of its policies, which are meant to prohibit discrimination, harassment, or bullying of its students or employees.
Wake, the largest public school system in the state, already prohibited discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, disability, or age.
Board member Karen Carter argued the revision would expand protections. “This policy goes a step further to make sure that we are inclusive of all students – and not only students but staff – in making sure that we are doing what we can to protect them from any type of bullying,” she said.
The new language will go into effect only after a final vote, which occurs in January.
Not everyone is happy about the change, and rightly so. The revision will allow transgender students to use the bathroom of the sex with which they subjectively identify.
“This greatly concerns us. Please consider providing unisex bathrooms rather than allowing men and women to be in the same bathroom. Strongly oppose. Thank you!” wrote Marinna Hin in the written comments submitted to Tuesday’s Board meeting.
“Strongly against letting a male enter a female locker room in a school or public area. That is stupid,” wrote Jin Wang.
Yan Yan wrote, “Males should not be allowed in the female bathroom. Schools should consider female students’ feelings because many female students are not comfortable with a male in their bathroom.”
Jack Ling wrote, “I have heard that Wake County Schools is contemplating allowing mentally ill, body diaspora, people into opposite-sex bathrooms…I strongly protest this with all of my heart and being. This action is pure nonsense and willing normalization of the mentally ill. Not only that, it provides an easy way for perverted sexual predators to commit assault and battery on unsuspecting INNOCENT KIDS doing their business. It is abhorrent such ill-conceived policies are even being discussed, let alone put into law. You are putting the majority of the law-abiding, normal citizens at risk. People escaped ‘progressive’ idiotic ideologies to come to N.C., only to face the same garbage spewed by ‘progressive’ states. Act with your mind, conscience, and do not cave to ‘popular’ but completely crazy beliefs that ‘trans’ people are normal. Use common sense and science to guide your decisions. Do the right thing and discard this law into the garbage bin…”
Here’s an abbreviated version of powerful comments submitted by Education First Alliance NC, a group made up of teachers, social workers, clergy, and citizens who advocate for student’s rights:
“We write to urge you to scrap your plan to allow ‘a-gender’ and ‘non-binary’ adult and youth males to use female bathrooms and locker rooms in the Wake County Public School System…
“Your policy will, for example, allow males claiming to be non-binary to enter locker rooms full of half-dressed girls…enable a group of males to occupy bathrooms with a girl who is already in that space by herself. This practice will rob girls of the most important liberty they possess; the right to privacy…
“As you know, there were 31 sexual assault crimes last school year, up from 9 the previous year.
“We believe that girls in the WCPSS deserve to feel safe and that parents deserve peace of mind knowing that their children will be protected while in the care of school employees.”
Education First Alliance NC also decried the process that School Board members used to approve the revised policy:
“Perhaps most troubling, neither you nor your Board consulted with the public you serve to get input before proposing this controversial policy. Rather, you proposed it immediately after you were elected and during the pandemic chaos.”
School officials argue that the policy change is being made in response to two high-level federal court decisions: Bostock v. Clayton County and Gloucester County School Board v. Gavin Grimm.
In the Bostock case, the High Court said that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was meant to protect against discrimination based on one’s sex, should also include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”
In Grimm, a transgender student, a girl who identified as a male, sued the local school Board because it forced Grimm to use the restroom consistent with her biology. The liberal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which North Carolina falls under, had once ruled in Grimm’s favor. Afterward, President Donald J. Trump would change the underlying Obama policy related to the Court’s decision, which resulted in the case being kicked up to the U.S. Supreme Court. The High Court then kicked it back down to the Fourth Circuit to be heard again in light of the new Trump policy, and due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bostock decision which occurred in the meantime, the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of Grimm for a second time.
However, Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League, said neither case requires the School Board to amend their current policy.
“What we’re witnessing is the bizarre doctrines of political correctness being imposed on parents and children. These policies are meant to provide civil rights for transgender persons, but they also take away civil rights and freedoms from others. Civil behavior would be males and females going to the restroom that matches their bodies. But such policies actually criminalize civil behavior,” said Rev. Creech. “They create a myriad of unnecessary problems, and parents should fight it tooth and nail. If they can’t win, then if at all possible, they should either homeschool their children or send them to a private educational institution where they know they’ll be safe. This doesn’t even mention the need to keep them safe from the influences of wrong-headed ideologies that could damn their souls.”
Creech warned concerned Citizen Christians should be on the lookout for LGBTQ activists who are now pushing School Boards, Town Councils, and County Commissioners in North Carolina to approve SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) policies.
“They’re quite clandestine about this, so you have to make sure you’re monitoring these political bodies,” said Creech.
