The Minnesota Department of Education has just approved a transgender “toolkit” that will be distributed to all public and charter schools in the state.

The toolkit, which was authored by a number of transgender and gay-rights activists, directs schools to stop referring to students with gender-specific pronouns like he, she, him or her.  A decision to use a pronoun other than the ones preferred will likely be considered verbal harassment.

It also instructs schools to allow students to use the bathroom or shower facility of whichever sex they identify with, regardless of their actual sex.  In a nod to the extreme discomfort that such policies will produce, the toolkit advises schools to make single-user restrooms available—not to accommodate the rare transgender student—but for other students who feel uncomfortable sharing intimate space with a person of the opposite sex.

State Rep. Tim Miller, a 2016 alumnus of the Family Policy Foundation’s Statesmen Academy, took to the airwaves to address the situation on Fox & Friends.

Miller pointed to the hypocrisy of the transgender activists, noting that at one point they criticized him for speaking out against their agenda “since there are only a few (transgender) kids throughout the entire state of Minnesota.”  But now they claim that this broad, statewide policy is needed because there are so many transgender students.  “Common sense has sort of left the room,” said Miller.  You can watch a video of his appearance here.

“Though 67 Minnesota legislators authored a letter urging decision makers to prevent approval and distribution of the toolkit, they were ignored,” said Meredith Campbell, Policy Director for Minnesota Family Council.  “This irresponsible, disrespectful decision to ignore legislators’ recommendations is shocking, especially being that gender nonconforming issues remain unsettled in science, the courts and the Minnesota legislature.”

This is not the first time that transgender policy has been in recent Minnesota headlines. In May, we reported that a Minnesota kindergarten incorporated a transgender book, My Princess Boy, into its curriculum.  That’s because the parents of a 5 year-old boy—who has long blond braids, dresses in jumpers with tights and identifies as a girl—complained about bullying and asked school officials to proactively teach kindergartners about gender identity.

Family Policy Alliance is working with our state allies throughout the country to protect children’s privacy and uphold parental rights.  To support this critical work, please click here.

A report in The New Atlantis says there is no scientific evidence that people are born gay.

Lawrence Mayer and Paul McHugh worked to summarize research on the subject. They are concerned that more and more drastic measures are being taken to “help” those who are confused about their identity – with disastrous results.

For instance, research shows that adults who have undergone sex reassignment surgery are 5 times more likely to attempt suicide and 19 times more likely to succeed.

“Realignment surgery destroys healthy body parts, but genetically you will still be the same male or female,” said Regina Griggs with Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX). “Minors need to be taught to love and appreciate who they are as male or female, not some fictional concept that surgery can make everything happy and exciting.”

The report points to one study that showed up to 80 percent of adolescent boys who claimed to struggle with same-sex attractions no longer did as they reached adulthood.

The research team is concerned with the number of children being referred for hormonal treatment to delay the onset of puberty.

“This approach involves helping the children to self-identify even more with the gender label they prefer at the time,” they wrote. “One component of the gender-affirming approach has been the use of hormone treatments for adolescents in order to delay the onset of sex-typical characteristics during puberty and alleviate the feelings of dysphoria the adolescents will experience as their bodies develop sex-typical characteristics that are at odds with the gender with which they identify. There is relatively little evidence for the therapeutic value of these kinds of puberty-delaying treatments.”

In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Griggs cautioned parents.

“Parents need to read this study,” she said, “and work to help their children love and respect who they were created to be.”