An Illinois anti-gay Christian hate group voiced its condemnation of a newly affirmed school policy for transgender-inclusion, claiming the "feckless school board has made a decision to accommodate, not the needs of gender-confused teens, but their disordered desires."
The East Aurora school board voted Oct. 15 to approve a policy that addresses the needs and rights of transgender and other non gender-conforming students, with policies such as allowing the student to use the restroom he or she associates with and using the modified name he or she has chosen, The Beacon-News reported.
On Tuesday, the Illinois Family Institue released an angry vitriol against the new transgender-inclusive policies.
"Apparently, all that’s needed for school personnel to be compelled to participate in a fiction is for a student to pretend 'consistently' at school that he or she is the opposite sex.
The school board is now imposing non-objective, 'progressive' moral, philosophical, and political beliefs—not facts—about gender confusion on the entire school. This feckless school board has made a decision to accommodate, not the needs of gender-confused teens, but their disordered desires and the desires of gender/sexuality anarchists who exploit public education for their perverse ends."
The IFI goes on to say transgender individuals "suffer" from a "mental and moral disorder." The group calls the school board's decision "biased, radical, and offensive" to taxpayers, warning that it could very well "embolden activists all over the state and country."
Think Progress corrected IFI's misinterpretation of transgender identities. "It’s important to note that in the new version of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Orders (DSM-V), set to print in May 2013, trans identities are no longer classified as mental illness under 'Gender Identity Disorder,'" writes Zack Ford. Affirmation, says Ford, should be the only response towards the trans community.
The IFI has a history of anti-gay hatred, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group has stooped to promoting the repeal of all laws protecting gays against discrimination, attacking anti-bullying programs and comparing homosexuality to Nazism.
Previously, the IFI called on parents to remove their children from classrooms led by teachers who support a gay-straight alliance, use LGBT-inclusive texts/learning materials, or support LGBT students.
[H/T Think Progress for the find.]
