LGBTQ Activists Face Rare Defeat in Florida

March 15, 2022

by Jim Breslo

LGBTQ activists are enraged at Florida’s legislature for passing the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which they mislabel the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

The bill seeks to ban teachers from instructing students about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. Few believe children of this age (five to eight years old) should be taught in school about homosexuality and transgenderism, but for LGBTQ activists, this does not matter. They call it oppression and have rallied their formidable forces to defeat it, even coercing the corporation most identified with children—Disney—to oppose it. They do not like to lose, and rarely do.

LGBTQ activists have been on an incredible roll in state legislatures throughout the country, using their tried-and-true practice of denigrating opponents, labeling them as homophobic and transphobic. And, naturally, it all started here in California.

San Francisco was the first city to legalize gay marriage in 2004. Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 while opposing gay marriage. Yet today, opponents of gay marriage are considered homophobes. California quickly moved far beyond gay marriage and began the practice of putting the state between parents and their children on matters of sexual orientation and gender identify.

In 2012, California became the first state to ban so-called “conversion therapy.” Twenty states have since followed, as well as twelve countries, including Canada, which just implemented its country-wide ban of the practice.

The California law prohibits “any practices by mental health providers that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation.” Specifically, it “includes efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

In a sweeping statement, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law, noting that “parents do not have a fundamental right to choose for their children a particular type of provider for a particular medical or mental health treatment that the state has deemed harmful.” In other words, the state decides what is best for your child, not you.

The path to getting these laws passed was paved by some of America’s major medical institutions. LGBTQ activists have successfully highjacked them, coercing them to embrace their agenda or face scorn and ridicule. These institutions include the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) and the American Psychological Association. Put succinctly, the agenda is that LGBTQ individuals are “born this way.” (The organization promoting the conversion therapy bans is named “Born Perfect.”) Bizarrely, they believe they cannot be accepted in society unless all believe this.

They pressured the AAP to issue a policy statement on the treatment of children. The primary focus of the statement is on discrimination, and the primary recommendation is transitioning the child as soon as possible. It expressly criticizes providing psychotherapy or taking a wait and see approach.

They reject therapy because it goes against the born this way narrative. Yet, we know people are not born LBGT because there have been numerous identical twin studies which reveal that the majority of time, when one twin is LGBTQ, the other is not. Same DNA, different outcome. Scientists have now mapped the entire human genome. No gay or transgender gene has been found.

The most likely explanation is that it happens in early childhood due to some form of trauma, just like so many other conditions which manifest later in life. Gender dysphoria can be treated in the same way as other disorders through traditional psychological counseling. This is not shaming or “pray away the gay” as some seek to label it.

Nonetheless, they seek to impose their opinion on everyone by making it illegal for parents to take their children to a psychiatrist or psychologist to see what may be going on with their child. Parents who want to help their children reduce gender dysphoria are not permitted to do so. They are only permitted one treatment option: help their child transition to the opposite sex. This means changing the child’s name and clothing, taking hormone blockers, and ultimately changing their genitalia. This is all in the name of reducing stigma, but it really amounts to an unscientific experiment on children, also known as child abuse.

Incredibly, at the same time they ban parents from talking about the issue with professionals, they want teachers to talk to our children about it! No doubt because they want teachers indoctrinating children into believing that gay and transgender is normal and natural and that they are born that way.

The activists’ loss in Florida will likely just be a small bump in the road. They are already seeking to make it illegal for adults to make their own choice to seek such treatment. Such a ban has been introduced in California and is included in Canada’s ban of the practice. The punishment in Canada for someone who dares to provide such therapy? Five years in prison.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/lgbtq-activists-face-rare-defeat-in-florida_4337279.html