As Donald Trump Calls for Abolition of Dept. of Education, Transgender Advocates Face Major Setbacks

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Rebecca Hain: 513-479-3335

As Donald Trump Calls for Abolition of Dept. of Education, Transgender Advocates Face Major Setbacks

WASHINGTON / March 20, 2024 – In his recent address to the National Religious Broadcasters’ International Christian Media convention, presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced his intention to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. “We’re going to end the so-called Department of Education. We might have one desk, one person, just to make sure everyone is speaking English,” Trump announced during his keynote speech (1).

Much of the controversy stems from the Department of Education’s plan to issue a new policy that redefines sex to include “gender identity.” Such a change would give a boost to controversial initiatives to allow children to change their gender without parental permission (2).

Transgender advocates have seen a series of major setbacks in the past three weeks:

Indiana Ban: On February 27, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision to allow Indiana’s SB 480 to go into effect. The law prohibits physicians from providing “Gender Affirming Medical Care” for minors (3).
WPATH Files: On March 4, leaked files from the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) revealed that the organization removed minimum-age requirements for children to start puberty blockers or undergoing sexual-modification surgeries, and members frequently discuss improvising treatments as they go along (4).
Health Plan Coverage: On March 4, a federal judge in North Dakota ruled that the Christian Employers Alliance could not be mandated to offer health insurance coverage for gender transition treatments (5).
Suicide Attempts: On March 11, a California study revealed that men who undergo a vaginoplasty procedure to become a transgender female experience an attempted suicide rate that is double their pre-procedure suicide attempt rate (6).
NCAA Lawsuit: On March 14, the Independent Council on Women’s Sports filed a highly publicized lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletics Association for allowing transgender athletes to compete against women and use female locker rooms (7).

To date, 22 states have banned gender transition treatments for minors (8): AL, AZ, AR, FL, GA, ID, IN, IA, KY, LA, MS, MT, NE, NC, ND, OH, OK, SD, TN, TX, UT, and WV.

In support of these developments, SAVE is inviting candidates for political office to sign the “Candidate Pledge to Protect Schools, Children, and Families from the Federal Title IX Plan.” The Pledge states,

When elected to office, I pledge to work to assure that:

Schools and other organizations shall utilize the traditional binary definition of “sex.”
Schools shall obtain prior consent from parents for any use of gender pronouns, or gender-dysphoria counseling or treatments.
Parents shall have the right to examine and opt their children out of any school curricula dealing with sexuality and gender identity.
Schools shall only allow biological females to participate in women’s sports, enter women’s locker rooms, and use women’s bathrooms.
Schools shall adhere to Constitutional due process procedures to protect falsely accused males from Title IX complaints.
Schools and other institutions shall fully uphold Constitutional free speech guarantees.

The Candidate Pledge can be viewed online (9). To date, 68 lawmakers from 20 states have signed the statement (10). Candidates can indicate their support for the Pledge by sending a confirmatory email to: rthompson@saveservices.org

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