You are whatever you want to be.

[phattonez]

Bet You Didn't Know
By Greg Crosby


The holidays are a busy time, so there's a pretty good chance that you weren't aware of a new California state bill which was passed a few months back and took effect last month. Better sit down for this one, it's a doozy! On October 12th Govern-ator Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law California Senate Bill 777. That bill eliminates Education Code 212, which defines "sex" as "the biological condition or quality of being a male or female human being."
In effect the bill redefines the term "gender" for all schoolchildren by adding Educational Code 210.7, which will read: "'Gender' means sex, and includes a person's gender identity and gender related appearance and behavior whether of not stereotypically associated with the person's assigned sex at birth." In other words, it is a redefinition of gender that says you are whatever you choose to be regardless of your anatomical make-up. It tells kids that just because you are born a little girl or little boy, that doesn't mean you are.

Public schools have been teaching cultural, social, and moral relativism for years. Now they'll be promoting sexual relativism too. All lifestyles are equally wonderful. All sexual orientation is equally wonderful. If you're a little boy, but you want to be like your sister - well, go for it. Dress like her. That's okay.

The ridiculous law has effectively banned use of the terms "mom" and "dad" from California schools. The reason? Using those terms promotes a discriminatory bias against alternative lifestyle parents. I never thought I'd live to see the day when "mommy" and "daddy" would be considered bad words. All kinds of vulgarity and foul language are just fine in these modern, progressive times - but you better not say "mom" and "dad!" That's wrong! What country am I living in anyway?

It's important to understand that this stuff will be taught to all children in the public school system beginning in kindergarten! Indoctrinating five and six year-olds to favor sodomy as a healthy and normal lifestyle choice has rankled some parents to say the least. Various Christian grassroots organizations have now joined together in calling for an "exodus" from the California public school system. The coalition includes Eagle Forum, the Campaign for Children and Families, and Exodus Mandate, as well as ten others.

Phyllis Schlafly, President of Eagle Forum, in an interview with Christian Newswire said the following, "Many of us have worked to reform public schools. Unfortunately, SB 777 and the related legislation represent a repudiation of 2,000 years of Christian moral teaching on human sexuality, marriage, and the family. The result is that California's schools are now promoting behaviors and lifestyles that are physically and spiritually dangerous for children. Consequently, in California, parents must try to find alternatives to the public schools."

Randy Thomasson, chief of the Campaign for Children and Families, is one of those who originally called for an abandonment of public schools. "First, the law allowed public schools to voluntarily promote homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality," Thomasson said. "Then the law required public schools to accept homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual teachers as role models for impressionable children. Now the law has been changed to effectively require the positive portrayal of homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality to six million children in California government-controlled schools. To rescue their children, loving parents need to find an alternative to government schools, and every church needs to make it a priority to help parents be in charge of their children's education again."

Alternative lifestyle groups claim that all they want is the end of discriminatory bias. Officials with the Gay-Straight Alliance Network and the Transgender Law Center already have outlined what they believe to be nondiscriminatory treatment in the school system. "If you want to use a restroom that matches your gender identity … you should be allowed to do so," the groups advise. "Whenever students are divided up into boys and girls, you should be allowed to join the group or participate in the program that matches your gender identity as much as possible."

Further, the groups advise, "If you change your name to one that better matches your gender identity, a school needs to use that name to refer to you." Get it? Take your choice. Who do you feel like being today - Max or Maxine? The advocacy group also warns schools against bringing parents into any such discussion with students. Yeah, keep those parents out of this by all means. It takes a village, not parents.

This is not about having tolerance for others. This goes way beyond that. This is not just tolerating, or accepting those who may be different from us - this is about promoting alternative lifestyles and selling the idea to young impressionable children without parents having a say in it. That's the deal. So, if you desire a good, solid, sensible education for your kids without state indoctrination better think about getting them out of the California school system, but quick. And that, as Robert Blake used to say, is the name of that tune.




Thoughts?

[Russ]

Wow. This is simple rediculous. Isn't gender supposed to be defined by the physical anatomy, not your mental feelings? California is silly for letting such a law pass.

[Aegix Drakan]

erm...what?

K, I have NOTHING against these "Alternative life styles" (heck I have a friend who's a BI), but this is going too far.

I don't think we should advocate that they're evil, but on the other hand, I think it's wrong to teach kids that it's OK. They are the exception, not the rule.

Sex ed shold be 100% about the human body, with NO relation to alternative life styles. If a person WANTS to live an alternate lifestyle, then they can discover it on their own.

and saying "Mom or dad" is considered discriminatory? What the hell. That's jsut retarded. Jsut as much as the using whatever bathroom you feel fits your gender. If you have a female body, you use the female resroom, since the whole point of differeing bathrooms is so that perverts do't go there jsut to see the other sex's body.

>_> And they're instituting this for kindergarden up?!? A kid that young has not developed the mentality to handle this yet. ...how much ya wanna bet that a bunch of people are gonna say they're gay, just to be in teh cool crowd?

...and why are the parents not allowed to have a say? It's THEIR kid for crying out loud! They should have a say!


So all in all, I think teaching kindergardeners that if they don't feel like being a guy/girl that day, they can just switch, is an absolutely stupid, retarded, and otherwise mentally deficient idea.

IMO, you CAN choose to be whatever you want to be, but please, don't teach kids that changing their "gender" at a whim is ok. This is teaching them to NOT deal with anything, and jsut take an easy way out. What's next? They can choose to change families if they don't like the one they live in? That's major help to kidnappers out there. Offer them no homework, and cnady, and BOOM! You got 'em.

The irony here is that the alts say they're being discriminated against, but now they're kinda doind the same to us. (plus, if there are no straight people anymore, the population of the earth is gonna die out.)

...to close this rant, I want to say this: You can choose to be whatever the heck you want to be, but don't teach it in schools to impressionable children.

...Total lack of common sense strikes again!

[rock_nog]

Oh great, yet another "War on our culture" battle cry. *shrug* Well, that's something "our culture" will always have, no matter what.

EDIT: I'm getting so sick of these that I don't even care what the actual issue at stake is.

[phattonez]

It doesn't make sense for children so young. They don't even know the difference between boys and girls at that age, so why would they want to say that they're male or female? If there's a chromosomal mutation I can understand having to teach them, but if you're XX or XY then just learn to live with it.

[Prrkitty]

phattonez... can ya post a link to the article ... please and thank you :)

[Russ]

If he does post a link to this article, I am going to be e-mailing it around a lot.

[phattonez]

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/crosby022208.php3

There you go, I can't believe that I forgot that.

[Cloral]

This guy's going out on a bit of a limb to say that 'mom' and 'dad' aren't allowed under the new guidelines. The truth of the matter is teachers have been discouraged from using those terms for quite some time, in the interests of children who are adopted (i.e. permission slips usually say "parent or guardian"). Nothing prevented the kids though from referring to their parents as mom and dad, and this won't change that either.

The truth of the matter is, the change is quite simple. It simply allows gender to be defined on something of a sliding scale, which is exactly what they have been teaching at universities for years. It was one of many things presented during the sociology class I took. Now that doesn't mean I entirely agree with it. I think the concept of "being a bit more of a woman than some men" makes some sense in that I think this is the sort of tendency many homosexual men exhibit. However, at the core, you are either a man or a woman (or a hermaphrodite, but that's another topic entirely). I think what the concept applies to more is the social construct of what it means to be a man or a woman, that our gender roles are defined by society. If you are a woman who plays sports, or a man who looks after children, that's ok in my book. But I digress.

I look at this bill, and I don't see how this will really change anything. I think this guy was just looking for something to be pissed off about. As I noted above, this won't prevent schools from using the terms 'mom' and 'dad' since they already weren't using those terms. Also, if you read this article, it becomes immediately clear that this man is a bigot. He clearly finds homosexuality morally reprehensible, and goes on to say that they will be teaching sodomy in kindergarten. Anyone with half a brain can tell you that isn't true as sexuality isn't taught in kindergarten. The truth is, he wants Christian values taught in schools, and this bill is about teaching nothing. It's separation of church and state, and that pisses him off.

[Pteryx]

I feel Cloral is right on the money here, for the most part. That being said, we should be careful not to leave elementary schoolers hopelessly confused about the norm -- the norm being that your emotional makeup will probably largely match your physical sex, the opposite sex is not to be seen naked or with its sexual organs otherwise exposed, and when you hit puberty you'll probably be attracted to the opposite sex for the purpose of perpetuating the species.

So-called "alternate lifestyles" aren't cliques you join, but facts about yourself that you discover that deviate from the norm. If you're a guy who likes pink and the other boys tease you for it, that doesn't necessarily mean you'd be better off in a dress or should go to gay bars, and nobody should be confused into thinking that. If you feel totally embarassed in the boys' locker room for feeling turned on, though, maybe there's something else going on there. -- Pteryx

[The_Amaster]

Read Aegix's post. That pretty much sums up my feelings.


So-called "alternate lifestyles" aren't cliques you join, but facts about yourself that you discover that deviate from the norm
*laughs without humor* Yeah, that's what it should be. Unfortunatly, more and more it's "cool" to be bi or gay. Standard nonconformism.

[bigjoe]

If only you could belong to any animal species you wish...

I would definitely claim to be a monkey so I can get in on some free bananas.

Not that I would happen to be a monkey or anything. I mean... what are the odds.... of .... that?

Anyway, I'd like to say something pertaining to the subject. At the core of the matter, while this partially eliminates discrimination against those with an alternate choice of gender, there will probably still be social discrimination in practice by classmates and peers. Now, I can't say I know much about California's system of education. However, I'm sure that there are those who despise homosexuality and transsexuality to different extents.

[Icey]

I find it amazing that this bill does all these things... the article lacks credibility and has all the red flags of "retarded far-right complaint about liberalism destroying the universe". Obviously a vast overreaction and a slippery slope argument. There are so many logical fallacies in this article it's not really worth my time to take it seriously. Next.

[Lilith]

---

[phattonez]

Yeah, I never said that I agreed with the article, but it was the only one that I found about the bill passing.

[Feasul]

I don't see how this bill changes anything, except for standardized test statistics, cause that's about the only place they ever even ask for your sex. I think it's ridiculous that they do, anyway. Just once I want to see every student in a school or even district put down a different race and sex than what they actually are, just to mess with the stat-takers. ("How does MIT suddenly have an 85% black-female student population?" :tongue:) Honestly, does it really make a difference whether little Johnny decides he wants to be called Joanne?

Wow. This is simple rediculous. Isn't gender supposed to be defined by the physical anatomy, not your mental feelings?
Actually, no. Gender roles are defined almost exclusively by culture. I say almost because there are obviously exceptions (e.g. in humans females are always the ones to give birth.) Everything from clothes (men traditionally wear what would be considered "dresses" or "skirts" in many polynesian islands and, of course, Scotland) to physical interaction (in many European countries men kiss each other on the cheek) is entirely defined by culture, so the ridiculous thing would be to not accept somebody who chooses to defy the American norms. I see no reason for thinking this law will cause any child to become "different" who is not already predisposed to doing so, and for any child who posseses such a disposition it would be wrong to prevent them from expressing it.
The only thing in the article that I think is at least plausible is that parents are being discouraged from talking to their kids about it. That wouldn't surprise me and I think it's ridiculous. Parents should be involved in all kinds of major decisions in their young child's life.

[phattonez]

So if I decide to act feminine I should call myself a woman? I'm pretty sure that I would still be a man, so we should only decide my sex from culture? I don't like that and it's kind of discriminatory.

[Aegix Drakan]

That could go so wrong...

Hypothetical high school situation (just because I know alot of assholes in my high schoo, and I could probably think of a few people who would try to do something like this):
*guy 1 likes pink*
*guy 2 insults Guy 1 excessively, and tells him that he's better off as a "girl" since "only gurls liek pink, lol"*
*Guy 2 decides to tell everyone that Guy 1 is really a girl, even though he just happens to like pink*
*everyone now insults guy 1 and keep considering him a "female". (even if they stop, the stigma of this will haunt guy 1 for as long as he is at that school, and maybe beyond that)*
*guy 1 spends the rest of his life trying to fit this "female" gender, since his peer group, led to this by guy 2, have pressured him into conforming to their views of him, and he starts thinking that they might really be right.*
*Guy 1 is miserable*

[phattonez]

Oh yeah, I'm not endorsing that bullying at all. But to call himself a girl is just wrong; he's not a girl. He may act in a way that we perceive as feminine, but it does not make him a girl.

[rock_nog]

So if I decide to act feminine I should call myself a woman? I'm pretty sure that I would still be a man, so we should only decide my sex from culture? I don't like that and it's kind of discriminatory.
It's no more absurd than the fact that who you are is defined by the fact that you have a penis. I just don't see what relevance that should have to the way you dress, or style your hair, or what toys you play with as a kid, or the way people treat you, or what sort of behavior is appropriate.

The issue of gender goes far beyond "Billy wants to be called Nancy." It's "Billy is fine being Billy, but he wants to play with Barbie dolls. Susie doesn't want to be teased by the other girls simply because she chooses to hang out with boys. Brad is the captain of the high school football team, but he also knits. Amy hates the way men constantly hit on her in the office and refuse to take her seriously."

I mean, yes, there is also the "Billy wants to be called Nancy," issue, but there's so much more to it. As a society, though, we're so drilled into accepting gender roles that we can only see the extreme cases. In short, what the entire debate about is whether or not any part of your personality, your interests, your social roles, etc., should be determined simply by what genetalia with which you happen to be equipped. Personally, I find the idea that genetils have any significance beyond simply biology is as ridiculous as saying that hair color does, but that's just me.

[Aegix Drakan]

Oh yeah, I'm not endorsing that bullying at all.

Nonono, I never sugessted you did. I was agreeing that having a femenine habit or two doesn't qualify him as a girl. Heck, just because in year one of high school, I said I didn't care about sex, a ton of people called me gay (which isn't true. I just didn't care about sex at the time.).



And Rock nog, I'm fine if people do things stereotypically associated with the other gender. IMO, let kids to whatever they want, as long as they don't hurt themselves or others, and aren't breaking the law.

However, if you're born with guy parts, you are highly likely to be a guy. Telling kids they can just choose to be either gender one day, and then another the next is stupid. At that age they are not able to understand the whole picture. Unless it's painfully obvious that their gender doesn't match their sex, we should treat a boy as a boy, and a girl as a girl. Most "alternates" only understand their inclination completely when they realize that they are attracted to their own sex/whatever it is. Kids don't HAVE that kind of drive at such a young age. They'd just change it to fit in with whatever group they want to fit in with that day.


and about:


It's "Billy is fine being Billy, but he wants to play with Barbie dolls. Susie doesn't want to be teased by the other girls simply because she chooses to hang out with boys. Brad is the captain of the high school football team, but he also knits. Amy hates the way men constantly hit on her in the office and refuse to take her seriously."

The problem there is stereotyping certain activities as only for one gender or the other, and sexism. It has nothing to do with the person's ACTUAL sexual preference. You are only gay if you want to sleep with men, NOT if you happen to like knitting, or cooking, or playing with dolls. If we cna stop stereotyping activites based on sex, then we can solve that problem. It has NOTHING to do with telling a kid they can just choose their gender as they wish.

Ergo, we can solve the problem be eliminating stereotypes and sexism. NOT by considering all people ingerently an unknown quantity, and letting them just be whatever gender they want to be at that moment. The second solution will just cause more problems than it solves.

[Icey]

I'm tired of people equating things that are completely different. Gender dysphoria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity_disorder) has nothing to do with being gay or lesbian. These are completely different things. I do agree it's stupid to be fickle about it, but also find that highly unlikely.

I would be interested in hearing Jennifer respond to this topic. I'm sure she has some worthwhile input.

[rock_nog]

I agree with you that sexism is the problem. However, it's not going to go away anytime soon. Not that I'm saying there's no hope, but do you see a day where gender means nothing in clothing selection (in terms of style, not having clothing that's designed for specific anatomy)? Do you see a day where certain traits are no longer considered "masculine" or "feminine"?

Here's my thoughts - to make my point a little more clear, hopefully. There are many different personality traits, preferences, and the like, that we arbitrarily label "masculine" and "feminine." If you don't conform, well, your SOL. I mean, which is easier? Saying that you're a woman, or saying that you're a man who happens to enjoy wearing dresses and make-up and has what would be considered a feminine personality?

I mean, yes, in a perfect world, gender wouldn't even exist. But this is not a perfect world. Gender is very much real, some people do struggle greatly with it, and yes, it is an issue that even young children deal with - this isn't about sexuality.