A victim of gender theory

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced last month it was investigating a parental complaint alleging a Georgia school district’s transgender policy led to the sexual assault of a kindergartener.

City Schools of Decatur parent Pascha Thomas claims her daughter, known by the initials N.T. in public documents, was sexually assaulted last year by a male classmate in an Oakhurst Elementary School girls’ restroom. Thomas said her 5-year-old daughter complained of vaginal pain the evening of Nov. 16, 2017. When Thomas asked more, the girl said she was leaving a restroom stall when a little boy in her class came in, pinned her against the stall, and groped her genitals with his hands. She said she tried to get away and called for help, but no one came.

When Thomas reported the assault to school officials the next morning, they responded with “deliberate indifference” toward the assault and the victim, according to the complaint. Despite Thomas’ efforts to ensure justice for her daughter over the following weeks, she said, the school failed to conduct a meaningful investigation, discipline the alleged assailant, remove the child from N.T.’s class or ensure he would not use the girl’s restroom again, or offer any assurance of protection or psychological counseling for N.T.

At a meeting in December, the school informed Thomas the boy identified as “gender fluid” and was allowed to use the girls’ restroom per a districtwide policy opening restrooms and locker rooms to students based on their gender identity.

The gender policy dates back to 2016, when school Superintendent David Dude informed teachers and staff in an email that compliance with the district’s anti-discrimination policy meant a male student who identified as female should be treated like a female student, addressed with female pronouns, allowed to use female restrooms and locker rooms, allowed to try out for female sports, and allowed to room with females on field trips. Dude told staff the policy was in response to the Obama administration’s recent “Dear Colleague” letter advising schools that gender identity should be used to determine which private facility a student uses.

Six months later, Dude informed parents of the policy in a Facebook post, noting President Donald Trump had rescinded the Obama-era guidelines but the school policy would remain the same. Despite letters and public comments at district meetings claiming the policy would inflict a loss of privacy and safety on girls, the school stood its ground. The policy allowed the alleged assailant in the Thomas case, who identified as a boy some days and a girl other days, access to whatever restroom he deemed correct at the time.

“This situation was both deeply tragic and avoidable,” said Alliance Defending Freedom legal counsel Christiana Holcomb. “Schools have a duty to protect the privacy and safety of all students and the Decatur Schools clearly failed this young girl.”

Thomas transferred her daughter to a new school in January 2018. The school released a statement denying the assault ever happened.

The complaint claims the school’s actions violated Title IX regulations by creating a hostile environment for N.T. and other girls in noncompliance with the law’s prohibition against discrimination based on sex.

“Decatur School’s policies have created a stressful, unfair, and, as in this case, even unsafe environment—particularly for girls,” said attorney Vernadette Broyles, who is representing Thomas and her daughter. “We are grateful the OCR is investigating this tragedy, and we hope the agency helps this school district and others adopt commonsense solutions that protect the privacy and safety of all students.”

Campaign poster in Bucharest, Romania Associated Press/Photo by Andreea Alexandru

Why the Romania referendum failed

Officials in Romania this week voided the results of a long-awaited referendum on the constitutional definition of marriage after it failed to get the voter participation needed to validate the results.

More than 90 percent of those who voted over the weekend, nearly 4 million people, declared their support for a Biblical definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. But a little more than 20 percent of eligible voters participated, short of the 30 percent needed for the results to be implemented.

The lack of participation did not come down to a lack of support for traditional marriage, but instead a campaign of suspicion about the intent of the referendum, Adina Portaru, a Romanian attorney who works as legal counsel with the international branch of Alliance Defending Freedom, told me. The question on the referendum, determined by Romanian law, was ambiguous: “Do you agree with the law on the revision of the Constitution, as adopted by the Parliament?” This led to suspicion that the referendum was actually not about marriage, but instead a political agenda to give unfettered power to politicians to change the constitution.

Those who had been following the progression of the referendum the last two years—a grassroots effort to enshrine Biblical marriage in the country’s constitution—were unfazed by the question, but many others were convinced the question was a political power grab.

LGBT advocacy groups pushed the narrative that you cannot put human rights, or love, to a vote, but Portaru said the mistaken threat of carte blanche political power was the argument that received the most traction among Romanians and convinced many to stay home.

“If the question was clear on marriage we would have seen a different outcome,” Portaru said. “More on the no side and much more on the yes side. That was really the stumbling point on the referendum.”

But the referendum did unite a dedicated bloc of Romanians who believe in marriage. Nearly 4 million voters did not achieve the 30 percent necessary, but it’s a sizable force in a country of less than 20 million.

“These people now realize that there is an active role they can play in society and that they are a huge number,” Portaru said. —K.C.

Campaign poster in Bucharest, Romania Associated Press/Photo by Andreea Alexandru

A brave new world

Hundreds of British couples are illegally choosing the sex of their babies, according to an investigation by the Daily Mail published this month. The report found at least four doctors with the National Health System who charged couples thousands of pounds to ensure they have either a boy or girl.

According to the report, the doctors perform in vitro fertilization with the couple’s eggs and sperm and then extract cells of the resulting embryos to determine their sex. The doctors then refer the couple to clinics abroad—often Crete, Cyprus, or Dubai—for implantation of the embryo or embryos with the desired sex.

The investigation found a preference for boys among Indian and Chinese couples and a preference for girls among white couples.

The British government responded by denouncing the practice. “Sex selection is strictly prohibited in the U.K. and the Government takes these allegations extremely seriously,” a government spokesman from the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority said. The organization has launched an investigation into the practice and said any licensed U.K. clinic found to be offering sex selection would automatically be in breach of the law, though as long as clinics send patients abroad for the implantation, testing for sex is not unlawful.

“There are good reasons why fertility clinics are banned by British law from selecting the sex of embryos they implant, except for pressing medical reasons,” the Scottish Daily Mail editorial board wrote in an article published the day the paper released the investigation. “This immoral practice—increasingly widespread in cultures where boys are prized above girls, or vice versa—is a chilling step towards a brave new world of eugenics and designer babies.” —K.C.

Campaign poster in Bucharest, Romania Associated Press/Photo by Andreea Alexandru

Expensive homes are to blame

Changes in home prices could be a factor in declining birthrates. In an article for the Institute for Family Studies, researcher Lymon Stone compiled numerous academic studies and concluded higher prices, smaller houses, and more crowded neighborhoods are associated with lower birthrates globally. Stone noted his research does not prove causation. After all, if nobody is having kids, why not build a tiny house?

But he concluded that “at every stage, the housing situation for young people disfavors childbearing more than in the past, which is almost certainly a major driver of low fertility today.”

Though housing is a notable factor, Stone has argued the most compelling explanation for lower birthrates is declining marriage. —K.C.