Forget about the National Enquirer, TMZ.com or any other lurid tabloid publication. No need for MAD Magazine or Al Goldstein’s “Screw” Magazine anymore. If you really want to be entertained just go to www.leginfo.ca.gov and read some of the laws that are being proposed by the far left assemblymen and women who populate the halls of our state capital in Sacramento.
Perhaps the current most controversial bill (although “controversial” assumes there are actually people who agree with this proposal), is AB 266, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco). The bill notes in it’s preamble that existing law prohibits public schools from discriminating on the basis of specified characteristics, including gender, gender identity, and “gender expression”. It also notes that the law requires that participation in a particular physical education activity or sport, if required of pupils of one sex, be available to pupils of each sex.
This means that in California, if a young lady wants to try out for a high school football team, or a young lad, as improbable as it seems, wants to play field hockey, then he or she has the right to do so. OK, fair enough. The Constitution after all does require that every citizen be afforded equal protection under the law. What the Constitution does not do is mandate that boys who decide that they’re actually female, or girls who decide that they’re male, be afforded the opportunity to realize their gender transformation in a public school setting.
This Constitutional reality however is of no moment to Assemblyman Ammiano. His bill and proposed law, which is set for a hearing this week, would require that a pupil be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs, activities, and facilities, including athletic teams and competitions, consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil s records.
Translation: If John, who “identifies” himself as Jane, wants to play on the girls JV volleyball team as a girl then he must be permitted to do so. In addition, the bill would also require opposite-sex access to “sex-segregated facilities” such as locker rooms and bathrooms. We all know that would present no potential problems…right? Wrong.
At a time in life where teenage sexual hi jinx are at a peek, this new law is just what schools need to cause even more chaos for teachers and administrators. Who after all decides whether a male child’s claim to actually being female is legitimate? Do lawmakers create a panel of taxpayer funded psychiatrists to evaluate each child, or are teachers just forced to take a students word for it when that student says “I’m not what I appear to be”? After all, letting young boys into the girls locker room is a recipe for costly lawsuits, and potential criminal charges, to say the least.
To his credit, Ammiano worked with prominent gay activist Harvey Milk in 1977 to defeat an effort that would have prohibited gay teachers from working in California. There are a great many outstanding teachers who benefited from the work of those two. But to take the leap from that effort to this one is an exercise in absurdity.
In a state where schools are already suffering the consequences of laws and policies that promote dysfunction and chaos, enacting this proposal will be like tossing gasoline on a campfire. Policing and implementing this proposal would be the nail in the coffin for many school districts that do not have the resources…economic or otherwise…to do so.
The fact that a bill of this nature is even being considered is a strong indication that the political pathology that infected Sacramento a long time ago is still alive and well. Boys need to stay boys and girls need to stay girls, at least until they graduate high school.