19 October 2012

IFI Wins (For Now)

The Illinois Family Institute are savoring their victory.

Yesterday, I mentioned that the IFI was trying to get the East Aurora School District to rescind its new transgender-friendly policy, which was adopted only four days ago.

The rules allowed students to use bathrooms, locker rooms and other facilities intended for the gender of their minds and spirits.  Of course, that's not the language that was written into the short-lived regulation.  But, for a brief period of time, at least one member of that school board showed an understanding of the fact that our genders are not simply a mater of sexual apparatus or chromosomes. 

Today, the Board is expected to capitulate to the pressure of the IFI--which helped to spur a campaign of negative letters, e-mails and phone calls--and reverse the policy.  

 According to School Board President Annette Johnson, passing the new regulation was a "mistake."  She claimed that board members had been misinformed that the district had to implement the guidelines in order to conform with a constantly-changing Illinois school code.  


The National Center for Transgender Equality says that allowing students to live in the gender in which they see themselves is critical in preventing bullying as well as host of other problems that follow.  When students can express who they actually are, and there are policies to protect that expression, most would-be bullies realize that they can't get away with the violence and harassment they can commit when young people are forced to repress their  expression of gender identity and sexuality.

Maybe the IFI will fall apart, or Board members will see the ight they saw this past Monday, when they voted for the transgender policy. Or so I hope.