Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. Earlier this week, President Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced a crackdown on school districts that assist students with so-called transitioning without parental consent. Citing the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, Trump said this, quote, every public school in America is on notice. If they tell a child that they're trapped in the wrong body, they are committing child abuse, end quote.
The administration's actions are, of course, in stark contrast to the previous one. Almost immediately, advocates began to accuse the administration of lying about transgender children. Lisa Leitner wrote this in an article for MSN.com, quote, no, schools are not secretly medically transitioning children. They're not prescribing hormones. They're not performing gender-affirming surgery.
Teachers are not administering puberty blockers. Guidance counselors are not secretly arranging medical transitions behind parents' backs, end quote. It was as if a common script had been distributed. It became a loud chorus of just denial, deny what parents are in fact claiming, deny that teachers, counselors, and after-school clubs taught and even targeted certain children with gender ideology. Deny that students were treated as if they were the opposite sex on campus with new names, pronouns, and even sometimes outfits, all while hiding this social transition from parents.
And yet, moms and dads from California to Maine keep reporting that though their children were questioning their bodies and exploring identities, they were never notified by school officials. In many cases, these children were encouraged and assisted in this confusion by school officials. Often, if parents learned about their child's mental distress and protested, they were met with psychological threats like would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter? And in some states, even legal threats for so-called dead naming their children. But everyone should know, especially anyone being gaslighted by this it never happened talking point, there are receipts.
Erin Lee, director of Protect Kids Colorado, posted those receipts on X, and they included her own story. I quote. Fascinating how so many people out here are saying this doesn't happen and this is a made-up MAGA problem. Let me shed some light. This happened to my little girl.
I went public and discovered it happened to many others. I sued all the way to the Supreme Court, along with other affected parents. The school district admitted to and defended it in legal documents. Justice Alito called our case troubling and tragic and an issue of great and growing national importance. It was a living nightmare that almost destroyed my child.
Lee then cited numerous other examples, included six cases that have reached the Supreme Court and another 14 that are working their way up through the lower courts. This thing that isn't happening is apparently happening all over the country. Alliance Defending Freedom has reported on numerous cases and now represents a growing number of parents who were kept in the dark by school officials. In one of his opinions, Justice Alito cited an estimated 6,000 public schools in the U.S.
now operate under so-called gender-affirming policies that specifically exclude parents. And a group known as Defending Education keeps a list of offending school districts online.
So, thank God for these efforts by the White House to reign in the madness, but especially thank God for those moms, dads, and grandparents who stood up to the lies that were being sold to their children in secret and are now willing to expose them in public. We owe it to them to stand with them and especially to their children share these stories. The Apostle John wrote this, This is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than light because their works are evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
These works need to be exposed. The gaslighting has to stop. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Dr. Timothy Padgett.
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