Category: Parental Rights

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The School Choice Landscape Has Changed

In a recent episode of the 10 Blocks podcast, hosted by City Journal, Mene Ukueberuwa and Brian C. Anderson delve into the growing trend of school choice programs across the United States. These programs, which include school vouchers and education savings accounts, have been gaining traction, particularly in the last few years.

Ukueberuwa explains that the political will for such programs has been building, and since 2022, several states have passed universal school choice programs. These programs allow all students in the state to potentially pursue a private education outside of the traditional public school system. This is a significant shift in the education landscape.

The demand for these programs has been incredibly high, driven by a combination of factors. Public school enrollment was already decreasing from 2020 to 2022, largely due to school closures during the pandemic. Parents were looking for alternatives to traditional public schools, which were perceived as underperforming and slow to reopen. 

Another reason for the shift is because the pandemic exposed parents to the teaching methods and curricula used in public schools. Many parents were dissatisfied with what they perceived as radical pedagogies (gender ideology) and a lack of seriousness and expertise among teachers. This dissatisfaction, coupled with a desire to align their children’s education with their values, has driven many parents towards private schools, particularly those with a religious mission.

The way these programs work is by attaching a portion of the per-pupil public funding to the child. If parents decide to send their child to a private school, that money is subtracted from the funding that would go to the student’s public school and follows them to their new school of choice.

Ukueberuwa highlights Florida as one of the first states to make vouchers available to a wide proportion of students. Today, about 13% of all students in Florida are enrolled in private schools, an increase of about 30% from five to ten years ago. This growth can be attributed to the availability of approximately $8,700 per student for private school tuition.

The podcast also discusses the impact of these programs on traditional public schools. While some fear that the voucher programs could lead to declining funding for public schools, Ukueberuwa explains that states have tried to compensate by increasing teacher pay and substituting additional state funding for certain programs at these schools.

While school choice has become a popular cause among Republican candidates, conservatives are wary of expanding the role of the federal government in education. They fear that federal funding for private schools would come with strings attached, potentially limiting the freedom and flexibility that make school choice programs appealing in the first place. So they would prefer to keep it a local issue.

Even though there will be difficulties, in some states the educational landscape is changing for the better. Parents, through their legislators, are taking back control.

Check out the podcast for more information.

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Trans Center Whistleblower Admits To Tearing Families Apart

Jamie Reed is a 42-year-old former caseworker at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital from 2018 to 2022. She has described herself as a queer woman married to a trans man and “politically left of Bernie Sanders,” the U.S. senator from Vermont.

She became a whistleblower after alleging that she had witnessed “morally and medically appalling” treatment of transgender children and their parents during her four years working at the center. Reed has called for the center to be shut down and detailed her allegations in a sworn affidavit to Missouri’s attorney general, who launched one of three investigations into the center now underway.

She’s written a substack piece about a system that tore families apart. Don’t call her a hero, she says. For she waited too long to speak up.

Her account is a stark revelation of the practices within the gender center. She confesses to having been complicit in a system that prioritized affirmation over questioning, and in doing so, often tore families apart. The protocol followed by the center, she says, sides with affirming parents and maligns those who ask for more time or caution in the process of gender transition for their children.

She admits to using shaming tactics against non-affirming parents and disregarding their legal rights.

Mothers & Fathers Differ

Reed’s account reveals a notable difference in the reactions and approaches of mothers and fathers in the context of their children’s gender transition. She observed that it was often the fathers who were more skeptical and resistant to the quick affirmation of their children’s gender transitions. These fathers, she says, fought for more time in therapy, sought deeper exploration of their children’s desires to transition, and desired more comprehensive mental health assessments.

Conversely, she noticed that some mothers seemed more invested in the gender transition process than in the children themselves. She even suggested that some mothers showed signs of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder where a caretaker seeks medical help for made-up or exaggerated symptoms in their child to gain attention or sympathy.

These mothers, Reed says, often stood against fathers who simply wanted their children to have access to real assessments and therapy. This created a significant divide within families, often leading to legal battles and further strain on the family unit.

Read the whole thing.

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The California Legislature’s Gender Madness

I’ve had a few days to digest the proposed legislation in California known as the Transgender, Gender-Diverse, and Intersex Youth Empowerment Act.

I briefly blogged about this a few days ago. You’ll want to check out that video.

Dangerous California Bill AB 957 Enshrines Gender Affirmation Cult

The bill, if passed, would make it an offense for parents to refuse to affirm a child’s transgender identity, potentially leading to the loss of custody. This represents a dangerous shift in the definition of parenthood, not to mention an unimagined encroachment of the State into private family matters.

Obviously, State agencies like Child Protective Services (CPS) are in place to protect children from physical harm in the home, but these developments in California are different.

If passed, the state of California would consider any parent who rejected their child’s gender identity an abuser. It would be one “abuse” factor for the courts to consider in custody disputes, like parental drug addiction, or abandonment.

The bill is just one manifestation of the anarchic culture of identity, a societal trend where personal identity is judged to be fluid and wholly self-determined, often detached from biological realities. This identity culture is leading to a redefinition of parenthood from a biological relationship to a functional one, where parents are judged by their acceptance of their child’s self-identified gender rather than their biological role in the child’s life.

The bill defines this acceptance as intrinsic to the “health, safety and welfare of the child.”

Physical harm need not be present, only an unwillingness to use a preferred pronoun. According to AB 957 a parental unwillingness to deny reality becomes part of any future custody battle. Should the need arise. Typically custody battles are between two parents. But the language of this bill, and the assumptions built into that language, could one day be used by the State to take custody of a child over the objections of unaffirming parents.

Here we have a redefinition of the very essence of parenthood. “Parent” is essentially something you do. Not who you are. And is defined ideologically by the State. With this redefinition parental authority is diminished.

We shouldn’t question the motives of everyone involved. But, it must be said, some of them are like these sexual revolutionaries who seek to ‘re-educate’ our children.

Is this the world we want to live in?

Contrast this California bill with recent developments in Europe, developments my readers know well, where countries like the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, France, Norway, and the U.K. are reconsidering their stance on gender-affirming treatments for children and adolescents, citing unproven science and unclear benefits. For instance, Spain, despite its recent approval of a transgender rights bill allowing anyone aged 16 or over to change their gender on their ID card, has sparked a debate within its feminist lobby, with critics warning it could erode women’s rights. These European nations, once leaders in gender-affirming treatments, are now cautioning that such interventions may do more harm than good, especially for young people.

It seems this American push for gender affirmation is driven not by genuine concern for children’s wellbeing, but by a combination of radical, highly implausible, academic theories (Gender Theory, Queer Theory) and, it must be said, by the profit motives of the pharmaceutical industry.

Not that I would ever advocate for this, but if the State was really interested in protecting children’s mental health they should limit their exposure to social media and prosecute parents who give them smartphones. Social media is a primary tool through which the trans movement influences young minds. High levels of anxiety and low self-esteem spiked with the arrival of smartphones. Combine that with online pornography and you can see why many anxious girls give up on girlhood. 

Parents, buy your children a flip phone.  You'll still be able to text them short messages and they won't have the internet in their pocket!

The “trans madness” may end, but not without significant human cost. Those responsible for this “child abuse”—the doctors, clinics, and pharmaceutical companies—will hopefully face legal repercussions. Unfortunately this will only occur after the lives of many children have been irrevocably damaged.

The battle before us is a world-view battle. Many who do not share my particular world-view are recognizing, like the European nations I mentioned above, there are alternative approaches to these complex issues. We need to prioritize children’s mental health over political or commercial interests. The real problem resides in the mind, not the body.

Readers of this blog will know the work of Abigail Shrier. As a Californian and concerned parent she has a strong opinion about this bill and where it might take us.

Gender ideologues in California let the mask slip, or perhaps just tossed it away: A new bill, AB 957, directs family court judges to award custody based in part on “a parent’s affirmation of a child’s gender identity,” which the bill defines as intrinsic to the “health, safety and welfare of the child.”

It’s worth your time…..

Gender Cultists Make a Move for California’s Children

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