Largest Illinois High School District Opposes Single-Sex Locker Rooms
 
Largest Illinois High School District Opposes Single-Sex Locker Rooms
Written By Laurie Higgins   |   09.13.19
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Just when you thought civilized first-world countries had deposited mythology and science-denying irrationality in the dustbin of history, the “trans” cult emerged seeking to force science-loving Americans to embrace the solipsistic, “trans”-centric worldview in which biological sex has neither reality nor meaning. Worse, you have ostensibly non-mentally ill school leaders capitulating to the “trans” cult’s absurd and offensive demands—people like Township High School District 211 superintendent Dr. Daniel Cates. Cates wants District 211—the largest high school district in Illinois with 12,000 students and five high schools—to sexually integrate locker rooms.

Cates wants to allow students who pretend to be the sex they aren’t to have unrestricted access to opposite-sex locker rooms. If Cates gets his druthers, whatever girls are permitted to do in girls’ locker rooms, boys who pretend to be girls will be permitted to do also. If girls are permitted to partially undress or wholly undress openly in girls’ locker rooms, then boys who pretend to be girls will be allowed to do so as well. Presumably, if girls are permitted to shower nude, so too will pretend-girls (aka boys) be allowed to shower nude.

Prior requirements that these boys change in private changing areas will be rescinded. In an email sent to parents on Thursday, Sept. 12, Cates referred to boys and girls in tortured, hilarious, politically correct language, calling them “adolescents with different anatomy.” I kid you not. He said that.

Cates is jim-dandy with girls and boys undressing together in locker rooms. How do I know Cates—who should be fired—is jim-dandy with co-ed locker rooms? I know because he said this in his pro-“trans” email:

[U]nderstanding and acceptance of transgender identity have advanced—societally and in our immediate communities—for the better. In our district and countless others, students, families and staff honor, respect and celebrate all manifestations of the human condition. (emphasis added)

Did an educated man really say that? Does he celebrate all manifestations of the human condition? How about racism, disease, intergenerational love, Genetic Sexual Attraction, polyamory, infantilism, sadomasochism, and zoophilia?

How does Cates demonstrate respect for those who believe “adolescents with different anatomy” should not undress or engage in bodily functions in the presence of peers of the opposite sex? How does he communicate his respect for those who believe the sexual integration of locker rooms undermines the belief that modesty derives from anatomical differentiation?

Cates has explicitly and unequivocally announced that the district has embraced a radical set of Leftist ideological assumptions created and advanced by the “trans” cult, without providing a persuasive reason why private space usage should correspond to subjective and often fluid “gender identity” as opposed to objective immutable biological sex. Nor has he shared his view on which locker rooms “gender fluid” students use.

Someone should ask Cates this question: Is it legitimate, valid, sound, reasonable, and good for girls not to want to share private spaces with opposite-sex persons? If it is, then what difference should it make to girls if opposite-sex persons wish they were girls? If it’s not legitimate, valid, sound, reasonable, or good, then why have any sex-segregated private spaces?

“Progressives” often ask snottily, “So, are we going to have genitalia police outside restrooms and locker rooms to confirm the presence of the right genitalia before people enter,” to which I reply, “Are we going to have ‘gender identity’ police outside restrooms and locker rooms to prove that the man seeking to enter really is ‘trans’ rather than a predator pretending to be ‘trans?’”

Since “gender identity” is subjective and internal, how do, for example, boys who “identify” as girls know the “gender identities” of the students in the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms? Let’s try this thought experiment: If most of the boys in the boys’ locker room at a particular school were to identify internally as girls and most of the girls were to identify internally as boys, which locker room should boys who impersonate girls use and why? It’s likely Leftists would answer that they should use whichever private spaces they want. And that, my friends, is where this is headed: The end game is the eradication of public recognition of biological sex everywhere for everyone, which means no private spaces anywhere for anyone.

Cates has either become a true believer in the “trans”-cultic mythology or he has sacrificed his principles and integrity on the altar to the almighty god of the greenback. Faced with a lawsuit against the district by a boy who pretends to be a girl, perhaps Cates—a graduate of the University of Notre Dame—would rather sacrifice science and the privacy and modesty of girls and boys than either district money or his job.

A man of real courage, principle, and integrity would never adopt such a foul policy. Rather, a man of courage, principle, and integrity would resign instead of adopting a policy that teaches girls and boys that biological sex has no meaning relative to feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when undressing.

A man of courage, principle, and integrity would resign before adopting a policy that implicitly teaches that opposition to sharing locker rooms with opposite sex peers is ignorant, bigoted, and hateful.

A decent and wise leader would know that it’s wrong to put normal children in the awkward position of having to ask for special accommodations because they don’t want to change clothes or go to the bathroom in the presence of opposite-sex peers.

A decent and wise leader would know that such a pernicious policy will desensitize children and teens to engaging in private acts in the presence of opposite-sex peers, thereby undermining what is left of respect for the necessary virtue of modesty.

I’ve had “progressive” parents tell me that their daughters are fine undressing in the presence of “trans”-identifying male peers. These parents are happy about their daughters’ socially constructed, unnatural feelings. They—like Cates—view the belief that biological sex has no meaning relative to modesty and privacy as social and moral progress. Compassion—in their distorted worldview—demands we pretend maleness and femaleness have nothing to do with biological sex.

Ironically, while rejecting the importance of biological sex, which wholly determined by biochemistry, “progressives” believe that if biochemistry influences the desire to be the opposite sex, such desires are supremely important and morally legitimate to act upon. But do they apply that principle consistently? If biochemistry influences the desire to be an amputee (i.e., Body Integrity Identity Disorder), should we allow students to socially transition at school? Should schools allow anatomically whole students who identify as amputees to use handicap parking spaces, use a wheelchair in school, and be given extra passing-period time?

Since we know that biochemistry can be disordered and influence both thoughts and feelings, how do “trans” cultists know that when there is a mismatch or incongruity between their biological sex and their “gender identity” (i.e., their subjective, internal sense of their maleness, femaleness, both, or neither) the error resides in their bodies rather than their minds?

How many dads and moms will show up to publicly and courageously oppose this feckless policy proposal? How many staff or faculty charged with supervising locker rooms will oppose supervising students of the opposite sex who are undressing?

District 211 encompasses a large geographic area in which there are many churches. It will be interesting to see if any pastors—who are citizens that enjoy the privilege of self-government and whose congregations include children in this district—will turn out to oppose the sexual integration of locker rooms. (Don’t hold your breath.)

Conservatives, get your kids out of government schools now. No child should be trained up by foolish, cowardly adults who refer to boys and girls as “adolescents with different anatomy” and let them undress together. Trust me, no matter what empty blather “progressive” government school administrators and faculty members spew about respecting diversity and “all manifestations of the human condition,” they don’t like conservatives or want them around—especially conservative Christians, you know, the “haters.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:



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Laurie Higgins
Laurie Higgins was the Illinois Family Institute’s Cultural Affairs Writer in the fall of 2008 through early 2023. Prior to working for the IFI, Laurie worked full-time for eight years in Deerfield High School’s writing center in Deerfield, Illinois. Her cultural commentaries have been carried on a number of pro-family websites nationally and internationally, and Laurie has appeared on numerous radio programs across the country. In addition, Laurie has spoken at the Council for National Policy and educational conferences sponsored by the Constitutional Coalition. She has been married to her husband for forty-four years, and they have four grown children...
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