Schools throughout Illinois have implemented rules that require students to be allowed to use the restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity, but it is not clear exactly how many. So a trans boy, who is really a girl, is allowed to use the boys’ restroom and locker room. While a trans girl, who is really a boy, is allowed to use the girls’ facilities. The requirement is based on a guidance document from the Illinois State Board of Education.
The guidance document claims that the Illinois Human Rights Act requires schools to allow trans students to use the facilities based on their claimed identity. The document points out the law specifically states “transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming students have the right to use a school’s physical facilities consistent with their gender identity.” The general public is largely unaware of this legislation.
There are a couple of problems with this law, not the least of which is that there is no such thing as gender identity. That term is based on a fraudulent theory proposed in the 50’s by John Money. He theorized that our gender identity could be different than our biological sex, that it was independent and fluid. It remained a theory until he was given the opportunity to test it out on the Reimer twins. One twin, Bruce, had his penis catastrophically damaged by a horribly botched circumcision as an infant. His entire penis was burned off due to medical incompetence. The parents refused the procedure for the other twin.
Sometime later, the parents reached out to Dr. John Money, a psychologist from Johns Hopkins University, who had put forward the theory that any child born a boy could be raised as a girl, or vice versa. Nurture, not nature, determined a child’s gender identity, he claimed, and he convinced the parents that Bruce could have a normal life as a girl. Money enthusiastically took on the case and treated the boys for several years. He began writing articles about the case, underscoring how well the children were doing, pointing out that Bruce, being raised as a girl, had taken to her identity very well. The success of his experiment received international attention.
The real story was that the experiment was an utter failure. You can read about the case in a book by John Colapinto, “As Nature Made Him.” The bottom line is instead of proving gender identity was real, it proved the opposite. Money never acknowledged the failure and continued to pretend gender identity was real. One of the twins died of a drug overdose and Bruce committed suicide. I would say that was a failure, spectacularly so.
Despite this failure being made public in 2000, the psychological community ignored it. The idea that the theory of gender identity was real took on a life of its own and continued to gain adherents even with no evidence to support it and with two dead boys from the study that was used to confirm the theory. Who needs evidence, right?
Our Illinois State Board of Education and many of our local schools just roll over and conform to the fraud that is gender identity.
Some students at Waterloo High School in Waterloo, IL rebelled against this invasion of their privacy. Earlier this year, high school principal, Lori Costello, wife of Illinois Department of Agriculture Director, Jerry Costello II, allowed trans students to use the restroom of their choice. According to Ryan Cunningham of the nonprofit organization, “Speak for Students,” several students at the school identify as trans, boys and girls. Students told him that one of the trans boys (a girl) regularly uses the boys restroom. She reportedly stands at the urinal and uses a funnel which she washes out in the common sink. At least one student claimed that was not true. Whether it is or not, many of the boys were uncomfortable using the restroom with girls being allowed free access to the facility.
The students were told if they felt uncomfortable, they should use the nurse’s restroom which is for one person at a time. On March 17th approximately 150 students lined up to use it. The administration didn’t like that at all.
Brian Charron, the Superintendent of CUSD #5, issued instructions that any student in line who was late to class was to be marked tardy. If the protest continued, he directed that the students be disciplined. Reportedly, some students were. Cunningham said he helped several parents appeal and succeeded in having the discipline withdrawn. He is not sure what happened with the other students. However, to his knowledge the directive stands.
I sent a message to Charron asking the status, but so far have received no response.
The Biden Administration last summer proposed revisions to Title IX regulations which would redefine the meaning of the term “sex” to include gender identity. During the public comment stage over 240,000 comments were received. It is not known whether these comments will affect the final regulations. We will see in May, when the revised regulations are released publicly.
If the rules change the definition of sex to include gender identity, it is unlikely they will withstand a challenge which most certainly will be filed immediately. In West Virginia v. EPA the U.S. Supreme Court decided last summer that: “Precedent teaches that there are ‘extraordinary cases’ in which the ‘history and the breadth of the authority that [the agency] has asserted,’ and the ‘economic and political significance’ of that assertion, provide a ‘reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress’ meant to confer such authority.” In the case of redefining sex in Title IX to mean “gender identity,” Congress could not possibly have intended to give the Department of Education the power to redefine a foundational characteristic of all humanity since the dawn of time. This is exactly the same reasoning that the Illinois Human Rights Act is flawed.
Another case, in November last year, in Neese v. Becerra, a U.S. District court ruled that sex did not equal sexual orientation or gender identity. And in December, the 11th Circuit Appellate Court ruled in Adams v. St. Johns County School Board that a school board policy requiring students to use the bathroom that corresponded to their biological sex did not violate Title IX.
Since the idea of “gender identity” emanated from the deranged mind of John Money, and has no science that supports the alleged identities, the most prudent course for all school boards would be to reject the guidance on this issue from the Illinois State Board of Education.
One stumbling block for school boards could be the lawyers they are selecting to advise them. It seems many lawyers are advising boards to cave to the guidance. Apparently, they are too timid to challenge the misguided Illinois Human Rights Act. That is a mistake. While it may save the boards money in the short term, in the long run these misguided rules are going to destroy the schools.
School boards, when choosing lawyers to advise them, would be better off if they followed J.P. Morgan’s philosophy. Reportedly, his position was: “I don’t hire a lawyer to tell me what I can’t do, I hire a lawyer to tell me how to do what I want to do.”
In this case school boards need lawyers who can tell them how to implement policies that align with common sense. Obviously, Waterloo High School does not have such a lawyer. It’s a quality that appears to be lacking in the school leadership and in the district administration as well.
Time to clean house.
