Wisconsin parents quickly united to block a pro-homosexual activist from pitching her pro-transgender claim to their six-year-old kids, despite getting only one school day of warning from local school officials.
The activist was invited by the school board to read her book, I am Jazz, which celebrates a confused boy who thinks he is a girl.
The book and the boy are being used by “transgender” activists who argue that new civil rights rules should be changed to prevent American schools and popular civic groups from tailoring their practices to benefit each of the two different sexes, male and female. The transgender activists argue there is no clear biological difference between males and females and that evolved social rules should be changed to help sexual minorities — such as former Olympian Bruce Jenner — who express their personal preferences, regardless of the cost to normal girls and boys.
A 2010 study by an official at the Census Department concluded that 0.03 percent of Americans have changed their name to a name associated with the other sex.
One website for gays, Advocate.com, blasted the parents’ support for their kids as “Hate Group Forces School to Cancel I Am Jazz Book Reading”
The Nov. 23 reading was blocked when one parent asked Florida-based Liberty Counsel to write a letter of complaint to the school board. The Liberty Counsel letter charges the announcement to parents “appears designed to catch parents off-guard, to prevent them from opting their children out of this reading and subsequent discussion.”
The book was to be read to first graders, which would largely include six-year-olds, “under the guise of ‘anti-bullying, ‘diversity’, and building a ‘safe and nurturing environment,’” according to the Liberty Counsel letter.
I am Jazz is a picture book intended for small children that tells the life-story of a boy, “Jazz Jennings” from the age of two and how he “transitioned” to be a “girl.” Jazz’s parents have raised him as a girl and allowed him to have drug and hormone treatments that both inhibit his growth as a boy and encourage the growth of female breasts.
Jazz says he hopes “the book can go into schools and teachers will read it so everyone can learn to accept one another and everyone can be happy.”
The book, written by homosexual activist Jessica Herthel, begins, “I am Jazz. For as long as I remember my favorite color has been pink. My second favorite color is silver. And my third favorite color is green.”
“Jazz” started his career with YouTube videos, talking about his life as a “girl.” They became a huge success among progressives, and he now has his own reality show on TLC. “Jazz” considers himself “pansexual,” which — in the new parlance — means he is gender blind” when it comes to his 15-year-old sexual attractions.
“Jazz” says a major point in the book is where “Jazz” explains, “I have a girl brain but a boy body. This is called transgender. I was born this way.”
All proceeds from the book go to the “Transkids Purple Rainbow Foundation,” set up by “Jazz” and his parents who only allow their first names to be used.
The Liberty Counsel letter says, “…as you may know, ‘Jazz’ Jennings is a male child ‘transgender’ activist, who has been permitted to undergo harmful gender reassignment drug therapy and hormone blockers, resulting in permanent physical changes to his body. The book is false and misleading book” that would result in harm done to the children who have the book read to them.
The letter cites a number of Supreme Court decisions determining the right of parents to decide the upbringing of their children, that children “are not mere creatures of the state.”
The letter also challenges a number of claims made by the school district, including the claim that gender is “arbitrarily assigned at birth,” that “a girl who likes short hair and likes a boy name is now a boy,” and that it is possible to have a “girl brain in a boy body.” The school district also told parents there are “a wide-range of genders,” a notion not supported by science or society.
Dr. Paul McHugh, former Chief Psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University, who is a longtime opponent of sex-change surgeries and the transgender ascendancy wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “…policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered” by not treating transgender “confusions… as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention.”
Dr. Ray Blanchard of the Clark Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto has identified two main types of men interested in appearing as women; homosexual transexuals who want to attract masculine men, and “autogynephilic transsexuals” who are sexually aroused by appearing to be women.
Walt Heyer, a man who lived many years as a woman and now runs a website called “Trans-Regret” believes that the transgender impulse is evidence of a psychological disorder that hormones and surgery will do nothing to help and most likely will do long-term harm. He believes that encouraging transgenderism in children is a form of child abuse.
Liberty Counsel concludes with the threat of substantial legal ramifications.
Liberty Counsel is deeply concerned about this impending violation of civil rights, and if this request is ignored, will be tracking in which classes this book is read, and who reads it. If harm results to children, including gender confusion, violations of restroom privacy, or other harms, all options will be explored, including a federal lawsuit against teachers and staff in their official and individual capacities for violation of parental rights.
This was enough to scare off the school district for now. But it is likely they will continue their effort to advocate transsexualism to six-year-old children.
Follow Austin Ruse on Twitter @austinruse.