'Generation Indoctrination': What's being done to protect kids legally from gender ideology?
As gender ideology continues to pervade every realm of culture, legislators and public policy experts alarmed by its effects on children have taken numerous steps to thwart it from taking root in state laws.
When Arkansas state Rep. Robin Lundstrum learned that children in her state were undergoing experimental gender medicalization, she knew she had to act.
“At first, I was very surprised,” Lundstrum said in the fourth installment of The Christian Post’s documentary-style investigative podcast series, "Generation Indoctrination: Inside the Transgender Battle,” which was released Friday.
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“I thought ‘surely not,’ and the more we investigated, the more we realized it was happening here in Arkansas,” she continued, upon being told by one of her legislative colleagues that this was not limited to the East and West Coasts where she knew it was occurring.
Moved to action, Lundstrum was the lead sponsor of the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, prohibiting the chemical and surgical trans-ing of minors in that state. The bill was passed overwhelmingly through both chambers, but then Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, vetoed the measure. With sizable majorities in the House and the Senate, Lundstrum and her colleagues then overrode the veto. The law is currently being contested in federal court.
“It’s a lot like seeing a car accident. Do you not dial 911? What adult looks the other way when you know this is happening to children?” Lundstrum posited. “In every state, we set parameters for children under 18. You can’t buy spray paint or cough syrup. But we would look the other way while they’re cutting themselves? I don’t think so.”
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the number of gender-dysphoric females who have undergone medically unnecessary cosmetic surgeries to appear more masculine as they attempt to identify as opposite sex quadrupled from 2016 to 2017.
Jeremy Carl, a Trump administration official who worked in the Department of the Interior and is a contributor to American Greatness, believes that people should face criminal charges and that Americans should put aside politics to prevent children from being harmed.
“I think there need to be legal consequences,” Carl tells CP in the podcast interview, speaking of those who — if discovered through a subpoena process in a legal context — repressed science and facts in service to an ideology where children wound up abused and permanently maimed.
“And ultimately, I think that is a very significant part of where we need to go if we really match the outrage we say we have,” he said.
Aside from laws prohibiting the chemical and surgical trans-ing of children, another development on the legal front has been increased protections for parental rights.
Earlier this year in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Parents Rights in Education Act, which critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The law forbids teachers from instructing young students on sexuality and gender identity topics at young ages, from kindergarten through the third grade. The law also requires schools to inform parents if their child expresses an interest in identifying as the opposite sex or is struggling with their “gender identity.”
For Florida resident January Littlejohn, who was featured in episode one of CP’s podcast series and was a proponent of the bill, the legal measure was a welcome development, particularly after the approximately year-and-a-half long “nightmare” she endured with her daughter mired in gender confusion.
“I was happy to see steps being taken to further solidify and protect parental rights in our school system,” Littlejohn said, adding that she doesn’t “think this is going to be the end of what we see.”
These laws should not even be necessary in light of current statutes and constitutional provisions, she lamented. “It’s really going to come down to … holding the schools accountable when their rights are violated.”
Littlejohn’s attorney, Vernadette Broyles, believes the law was needed and that it was to make explicitly clear that schools cannot withhold the information. School officials should have already recognized the rights of parents. But in recent years, they have not, particularly when it comes to gender. The new legislation was to make it “unmistakably clear” that these rights must be sacrosanct, she said.
That critics have seized upon one sentence in the bill forbidding the instruction of sexual orientation and gender for young ages shows that the agenda of these teachers really is about ideological indoctrination of children into “gender identity,” she said.
“It’s an appropriate piece of legislation to ensure parents have the critical information they need to watch over their children while they’re in school.”
The final episode of the "Generation Indoctrination" podcast series will be released on Friday and feature the story of a young woman who has detransitioned.
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