American public pushes back on transgender and nonbinary positions
COMMENTARY
By David W. Virtue, DD
January 15, 2025
As more states take action to protect female athletes from trans ideology, a new survey shows that a vast majority of US parents oppose this wokeism from infecting public schools.
The poll, sponsored by the parental rights advocacy group Parents Defending Education and conducted by CRC Research, is based on responses collected from 1,000 American parents of children 18 years old or younger from Dec. 12-18, 2024.
Only 19% of these parents agree that a school "should help a child change their [sic] gender identity." That is code for changing a child's name or preferred pronouns, allowing him to identify and dress as the opposite sex, and wearing breast binders, all without notifying their parents.
By contrast, 80% of parents said they disagreed with schools taking such an approach, with 62% strongly disagreeing.
The results also suggest an overwhelming opposition to “teachers, counselors, school nurses, classroom aides, coaches or administration withholding information about a child’s gender identity from parents.”
An overwhelming majority (75%) disagreed that schools should keep their student's gender identity from parents, with 59% expressing strong opposition to such a move. Only 24% supported withholding information about trans-identified students’ gender identities from parents.
You would think that ordinary Episcopalians reading this should put trans insanity behind them and join the world of normal and insist on a male-female foundation for sexual ethics. But apparently that is not going to happen.
The Episcopal Church which has been swinging the other way on the issue, now finds itself at loggerheads with the culture and the majority of American parents.
This is a foolish and dangerous place to be in. Having won the culture wars on homosexuality, LGBTQI and homosexual marriage, TEC’s deep thinkers believe they can move forward on the rocky road of nonbinary sex and persuade its small, aging congregations to follow them.
TransEpiscopal, a group that advocates for more inclusive church policies toward transgender people, joined The Episcopal Church’s Department of Gender Justice and Department of Racial Reconciliation, Justice and Creation Care in hosting a Jan. 13 webinar titled “Defending the Dignity of Trans and Non-Binary People in 2025 and Beyond.” Nearly 700 people registered for the Zoom event.
Aaron Scott, the church’s gender justice officer and a trans man, facilitated the webinar’s discussion. He stressed the need for Episcopalians to collectively advocate for transgender and nonbinary rights, not individually.
As a church, “we need to be more tightly in step with one another, maybe more than we have ever been before,” Scott said during the webinar. “When it comes to supporting one another and sharing information about how we are finding our way, we do not really need lone rangers right now, and we cannot afford to operate in isolation.”
In the lead-up to Election Day, now President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, amped up their opposition to all LGBTQ+ rights, especially transgender and nonbinary rights, using demeaning language at rallies, in interviews, on social media and in campaign videos.
If Episcopalians need to ask why Harris lost and Trump won, it is here in black and white. It is this writer’s contention that culture war issues played a much bigger role in the last election than border, money and jobs.
Americans are fearful, watching as they see their country going down the moral drain; and while Trump is no picture of moral perfection, he has stood with conservative parents on this most basic of issues: what does it mean to be human.
Anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment didn’t begin with the U.S. election season, however; it has grown steadily in recent years. One day after the webinar, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s and girls’ sports at federally funded schools and educational institutions.
When he was in office President Obama proclaimed June to be the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender [don't forget Transgender] Pride Month." Every federal worker and member of the armed forces received a presidential proclamation in their email. It labels all opposition to homosexual behavior as "prejudice," which, in effect, declares all traditional Christians to be bigots and enemies of the state's ideology of sexual "diversity."
"Hate speech" nowadays is usually nothing more than speech that the Left hates, particularly any questioning of the "trans" or "gay" agenda. The Left is also great at using hateful speech against faithful Christians, says Robert A. J. Gagnon a sexual ethics theologian.
The mounting opposition put Donald Trump back in the White House.
This is not about homophobia or transphobia; it is about a fundamental issue of definition and behavior.
Did not God create ‘male and female’? Genesis 1:27 states that God created humankind in His own image, both male and female. This phrase emphasizes the binary nature of human creation and God's authority. Jesus reaffirmed ‘male and female’ in his discourse on the family. “Have ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, Made them male and female?” – Mt. 19:4.
The Episcopal Church is out of step with the vast majority of Americans and 80 million Anglicans globally. Not even the Church of England has openly embraced transgenderism, though give it time and it probably will.
The church still has a role to play in terms of being salt and light for the culture at large in matters of sexual ethics. Now is the time to speak out if this insanity is to be reversed.
END
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