Family Council Joins Legal Brief Asking Supreme Court to Protect Parental Rights

Transgender,

On Wednesday, Family Council joined 65 other organizations in a legal brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to defend parental rights and stop a California school district’s secret social gender transition policy.

The case is Mirabelli v. Bonta. Parents and teachers are challenging a school district policy that required teachers to deceive parents about their child’s gender transition at school.

Advancing American Freedom led the amicus brief filed last week. In a statement, AAF said:

One of the families who brought this challenge did not find out that their daughter was being treated as a boy at school until after she attempted suicide.

The federal district court in San Diego rightly found for the parents and teachers and permanently enjoined Gavin Newsom’s California from imposing secret social transition policies on teachers and parents. However, the Ninth Circuit temporarily stayed the district court’s injunction leaving families and teachers exposed once again.

AAF’s brief on behalf of itself and other amici argued that this case is part of a nationwide pattern affecting parents and families, often irreversibly. The Supreme Court has, so far, avoided these critical questions. They must do so no longer.

Unfortunately the school policy in California is not an isolated incident. Over the years, we have seen pro-LGBT activists use public schools to promote transgender ideology and gender confusion to kids in many different ways.

Last year the U.S. Department of Education announced it was investigating four school districts in Kansas for alleged secret gender transitions after a complaint alleged that school officials let male students into females’ private spaces and sports at school and hid students’ sexual identity confusion from their parents.

Last summer, Family Council joined dozens of other pro-family organizations from across the country in an amicus brief regarding a New York school district that treated a middle-school girl as if she were a boy without her mother’s knowledge or consent.

Our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom have spoken out about how schools are hiding important information about students from their parents. But policymakers, legal experts, and parents are pushing back.

Arkansas has enacted good laws to help prevent schools from socially transitioning children or promoting radical pro-LGBT ideology in the classroom. These are good laws that protect children and affirm parental rights. But federal court cases like the one in California could affect schools nationwide. That’s why it’s important for us to stand up for students and parents in this case.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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U of A Rescinds Job Offer to Applicant Who Signed Legal Brief Against Fairness in Women’s Sports Law

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The University of Arkansas School of Law has withdrawn a job offer to an applicant who signed a legal brief against a state law protecting fairness in women’s sports last November.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette writes:

Less than a week after announcing Emily Suski as the next dean for the University of Arkansas School of Law, the university has rescinded that offer, citing “feedback from key external stakeholders.” . . .

Suski, a professor of law and the associate dean for strategic and institutional priorities at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law, was appointed dean of the UA Law School, effective July 1.

The newspaper also reports that Arkansas Senate President Pro Tempore Bart Hester (R — Cave Springs) told university officials he believed Suski was unfit to lead the law school after he learned that she opposed a law in West Virginia protecting fairness in women’s sports and that she supported former President Joe Biden’s nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2020, Idaho passed The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act to prevent male student athletes from competing against girls in women’s athletics at school. However, the ACLU sued, claiming the act is unconstitutional, and a panel of judges from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the law.

The case has been combined with a federal lawsuit against a similar measure West Virginia enacted.

Both state laws are currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, and a decision in the case could affect similar laws nationwide.

In November, Suski joined an amicus brief from the group Scholars of Equal Opportunity and Antidiscrimination Law encouraging the U.S. Supreme Court to rule against West Virginia’s law that protects fairness in women’s sports.

In 2021, lawmakers in Arkansas passed Act 461 preventing male student athletes from competing against girls in women’s athletics at school. Act 461 is very similar to the West Virginia law that the amicus brief opposed. Given that fact, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R — Jonesboro) told The New York Times that Suski’s views expressed in last November’s amicus brief are inconsistent with Arkansas law.

As Family Council has said for years, letting men compete in women’s sports reverses decades of advancements for women, and it effectively erases girls’ athletics.

It hampers their ability to compete for athletic scholarships and hurts their professional opportunities as adults.

Concerned Women for America reports that more than 1,900 male athletes who claim to be female have taken first place medals away from women and girls.

Female swimmers, powerlifters, cyclists, sprinters, volleyball players, and others have seen their sports radically altered by men who claim to be women. In some sports, it can even be dangerous.

Most Americans agree that athletes should compete according to their biological sex — not their gender identity.

Given what a significant role the dean has at the law school, we believe the University of Arkansas made the right decision by withdrawing the job offer, and we appreciate Sen. Hester’s leadership in this matter.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Federal Officials Act to Protect Children from Sex-Change Procedures

Transgender, ,

The week before Christmas, federal officials announced steps to protect children from sex-change surgeries, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it would propose a series of regulatory actions to protect children from these dangerous procedures.

Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., issued an official declaration, saying:

Sex-rejecting procedures for children and adolescents are neither safe nor effective as a treatment modality for gender dysphoria, gender incongruence, or other related disorders in minors, and therefore, fail to meet professional recognized standards of health care. For the purposes of this declaration, “sex rejecting procedures” means pharmaceutical or surgical interventions, including puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and surgeries such as mastectomies, vaginoplasties, and other procedures, that attempt to align an individual’s physical appearance or body with an asserted identity that differs from the individual’s sex.

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will also release a notice of proposed rulemaking to prevent hospitals from receiving Medicaid and Medicare funds if they perform sex-rejecting procedures on children.

All of this is really good news.

Public health experts and policymakers in the U.S., the U.K., Sweden, Finland, and other nations have found that science simply does not support giving puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to kids. These drugs and procedures carry serious risks — including infertility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density, and cardiovascular problems.

Whistleblowers have come forward to testify about how they were rushed through gender transitions as children without understanding the procedures’ risks, consequences, or alternatives.

Today we know pro-LGBT activists and medical organizations have been citing each other’s work in a circular pattern for years, manufacturing a fake consensus to support their agenda.

For the past 12 months, federal officials have consistently worked to protect children from these dangerous procedures.

Last year, President Trump issued an executive order prohibiting federal funding from being used for sex-change procedures on kids, and the federal government is expected to propose new rules that could help protect children from sex-change procedures nationwide.

Over the summer, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a public inquiry into whether U.S. doctors and clinics may have deceived parents and children about the risks of these procedures. The U.S. Department of Justice also subpoenaed doctors and medical facilities involved in performing sex-change procedures on minors.

In September, the U.S. Department of Justice sent Congress the federal Victims of Chemical or Surgical Mutilation Act. The proposed federal law would generally prevent doctors, hospitals, and clinics from performing sex-change surgeries on children or giving them puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.

In 2021, lawmakers in Arkansas passed the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act. This good law generally prohibits doctors from performing sex-change procedures on children or giving them puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. The SAFE Act was upheld in federal court last year and is protecting children in Arkansas right now.

It’s good to see federal officials taking serious steps to protect children from sex-rejecting procedures.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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