Christians who reject transgenderism banned from adoption, working with children in Illinois
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has instituted sweeping changes to its policies and procedures
in caring for children who experience gender dysphoria that essentially
weed out all employees and volunteers who cannot in good conscience
support and promote transgender ideology.
Illinois now "requires that all LGBTQ children and youth be
placed in an affirming safe housing, receive LGBTQ competent medical
and mental health services, and have equal opportunity and access to
care."
However, in order to assure consistent achievement of that goal, the new policy requires
"any person who is involved with DCFS children/youth will complete
mandatory training in LGBTQ competency." This will be an integral part
of DCFS core training and will be a requirement to attaining a
child-welfare license.
Purging transgenderism’s non-believers
According to attorney Mary Hasson, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center
in Washington, D.C, “The new DCFS policies are less about safety and
well being and more about using state power to ‘overrule’ basic,
empirical (and common sense) truths about human beings and to replace
them with ideological assertions that validate adult feelings rather
than benefit children.”
The revised procedures command, "In no instance should
LGBTQ children/youth be placed with a non-affirming caregiver who is
opposed to sexual orientations that differ from the caregiver's own. Nor
should LGBTQ children and youth be placed with caregivers who are
unwilling/unable to support children and youth whose gender identity or
gender expression differs from traditional expectation.”
The revision goes further, insisting that “The
child/youth's chosen name and preferred gender pronoun (including
gender-neutral pronouns such as ‘they’ or ‘ze/hir’) must be respected.”
Guided by left forces
The
new procedures and standards were created under the guidance of the
American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois (ACLU), Pride Action Tank and
other pro-gay and transgender organizations. While the ACLU had sought,
but was not granted, the right to review the final version of the
policy revisions, the progressive rights group said it was “pleased that DCFS incorporated nearly all of the changes requested by the ACLU.”
Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council observes that, “While this portrays itself as being based in science, it is 100 percent ideological.”
Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute
agrees. “There is no research proving that children are best served by
having gender dysphoria affirmed. Quite the contrary, the best research
to date suggests that if gender dysphoria is not affirmed in young
children, it diminishes over time,” she explained. “Does the DCFS
believe it’s better for children to endure castration or double
mastectomies, a lifetime of cross-sex hormone-doping with its unknown
health risks, and social struggles than to accept their immutable sex?
In a landmark report
published last year, authors Lawrence S. Mayer, M.B., M.S., Ph.D.,
scholar-in-residence in the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns
Hopkins University and a professor of statistics and biostatistics at
Arizona State University, and Paul R. McHugh, M.D., professor of
psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine, found that only a minority of children who express
gender-atypical thoughts or behavior will continue to do so into
adolescence or adulthood. There is no evidence that all such children
should be encouraged to become transgender, much less subjected to
hormone treatments or surgery.
Mayer and McHugh added, “There is little scientific
evidence for the therapeutic value of interventions that delay puberty
or modify the secondary sex characteristics of adolescents, although
some children may have improved psychological well-being if they are
encouraged and supported in their cross-gender identification. There is
no evidence that all children who express gender-atypical thoughts or
behavior should be encouraged to become transgender.”
Discrimination Over Diversity and Care
Beyond being harmful policy, the new directive is,
according to Sprigg, “Discriminatory against anyone with traditional
moral values, in particular, Christians” and “will hurt children” by
limiting available resources.
Illinois Family Institute’s Higgins added, “Denying people
of ... faith the opportunity to foster or adopt children constitutes the
antithesis of a commitment to diversity and puts the lie to DCFS’s
claim to care about the needs of children. The number of available
foster and adoptive families will decrease.”
The revised procedures will have “a chilling effect on DCFS
staff, volunteers, foster parents, and others whose ‘speech and
behavior’ will be monitored and evaluated according to ideological
criteria by the state of Illinois,” Hasson said.
She continued,
“Forget the democratic process. Forget free speech, freedom of
religion, and the conscience rights of American citizens. Forget the
welfare of vulnerable children. The state of Illinois heels to the
commands of LGBTQ activists; it has embraced a new creed based on the
LGBTQ vision of the human person. The only winners are progressive
activists and lawyers eager to fill their litigation dockets. The
losers? Illinois’ most vulnerable children.”