In the recent controversy in Deerfield School District 109, it is alleged that administrators at Alan B. Shepard Middle School and the District forced young girls to change in front of a boy who identifies as a girl.

The mother of one of the girls drew national attention by talking about the incident on Fox News. The mother of the boy sought help from Trans Up Front Illinois, which marshalled local and national support and attention through its broad network of progressive organizations.

The school says no student was “forced” to change in the presence of the trans girl, that is, the boy. That claim has yet to be proved one way or the other. In the meantime, the case has been referred to the Justice Department Office of Civil Rights for investigation.

Nevertheless, the underlying issue is the conflict between various interpretations of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Title IX regulations. Title IX broadly addresses educational activities and programs.  Schools and colleges that receive federal funds may not discriminate against students or employees based on sex in admissions, programs, athletics, employment, or other educational opportunities.

Title IX also prohibits sexual harassment and assault that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim’s access to an educational opportunity or benefit.

Since its enactment in 1972, Title IX regulations have undergone several changes, although none that addressed the transgender issue until May 13, 2016 when the Obama administration, jointly by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice, issued a “Dear Colleague” letter that schools were required to provide the following:

• Schools must treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for Title IX purposes. This means transgender students must be treated the same as other students who share their gender identity, regardless of the sex assigned at birth or legal/medical status

• There is no requirement for a medical diagnosis, treatment, or amended identification documents for a student to be treated according to their gender identity

• Schools are required to provide a safe, supportive, and nondiscriminatory environment for all students, including transgender students

• Harassment or bullying based on gender identity, transgender status, or gender transition is considered sex-based harassment. Schools must promptly address and remedy any hostile environment that arises

• Schools must use the names and pronouns that correspond with a student’s gender identity, even if these differ from their legal name or sex assigned at birth

• Schools must protect the privacy of transgender students, including information about their birth name or sex assigned at birth. Disclosure of such information without consent may violate both Title IX and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

• Transgender students must be allowed to access restrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-segregated facilities consistent with their gender identity

• Schools may offer gender-neutral or single-user facilities for any student seeking additional privacy, but cannot require transgender students to use them if other students are not similarly required

• Transgender students must be permitted to participate in sex-segregated activities (such as athletics, single-sex classes, and housing) by their gender identity

• Any exceptions (such as for athletics) must be based on current, research-based medical knowledge and not on stereotypes or discomfort from others

• Objections or discomfort from other students, parents, or community members do not justify policies that single out or disadvantage transgender students

• Schools must ensure equal access and treatment regardless of community opposition

• Schools must take reasonable steps to protect students’ privacy regarding their transgender status and related records

• Disclosure of personally identifiable information about a student’s transgender status without consent can violate federal privacy laws

While these guidelines were voluntary, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other progressive legal groups already were pressuring schools to implement many of these provisions well before the letter was written. Since 2014, the Obama Administration had interpreted and enforced various sex discrimination statutes to include a ban on discrimination based on gender identity. Additionally, a guidance letter issued by the Department of Education and the Justice Department on January 7, 2015, issued an opinion that

“when a school elects to separate or treat students differently on the basis of sex… a school generally must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity.”

The positions gave the ACLU and others a means of attack. After the 2016 letter was written, the ACLU intensified its actions, broadened its efforts, and got some schools to submit.

Fortunately for the country, the first President Trump Administration rescinded the January 2015 and the May 2016 letters in a joint letter issued by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice on February 22, 2017. I could not find a copy of that letter on the federal government website. Still, a copy is available on the West Virginia website as an attachment to a letter from the West Virginia Attorney General to all school officials in that state.

All these federal actions did was add more depth to the position already in place in Illinois. In 2006, the Illinois Human Rights Act was amended to protect all transgender people from discrimination and thus recognize their gender identity for legal purposes.  This was when the law was amended to include “sexual orientation” as a protected class, and “gender-related identity” was defined within that category.

This made Illinois one of the first states to explicitly protect the rights of transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming individuals from discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and more. In 2011, the Illinois High School Association established policies, based on its interpretation of the Illinois Human Rights Act, allowing transgender students to play on the team that conforms with their gender identity.

And in 2021, the Second District Appellate Court of Illinois, in Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sommerville, ruled that transgender men and women had a right to use restrooms that corresponded with their gender identities.

So, this is the legal environment that birthed the controversy in Deerfield.

Illinois law mandates that trans girls are permitted in girls’ restrooms and locker rooms, with some accommodations by school officials. The problem is two-fold:

1.) did school administrators force the girls to change in front of the boys, and

2.) is there a requirement for Illinois to change these laws regarding transgenders in the girls’ restrooms and locker rooms based on President Trump’s executive order defining sex as based on biology not gender identity if they if they want to continue receiving federal money?

It is incredible that supposedly intelligent people can construct such a byzantine pile of garbage legislation that buries us so deep in the stinking quagmire it takes two pages to outline, JUST TO OUTLINE, how we got to this point.

Insane.

While this provides the context, allowing a better view of what happened in Deerfield, there is more.

How is it that there appear to be vast numbers of people who support the practice of allowing biological boys in girls’ locker rooms? Most people know it is wrong for biological boys to be in girls’ locker rooms and restrooms. They also know it’s wrong for them to play on girls’ teams.

You would not know that, though, if you based your views on attendance at the recent Deerfield School District 109 board meeting that addressed the controversy over girls being forced to change in the presence of a trans girl, a boy. Recent polls show the following on these issues:

• Republicans:93–94% oppose
• Independents:64–80% oppose
• Democrats:60–67% oppose

For everyone, combined, these are 80/20 issues.

Nevertheless, you would never know it at the Deerfield School District 109 board meetings on March 13th and April 10th. The majority of those present and who spoke at both meetings supported the 20% position. Any observer would have thought the majority of people believe in and are fully committed to the misguided trans ideology.

The reason is simple. Trans ideologues are committed activists, while those of us who are conservative, who believe the biblical and biological truth that there are only two sexes—male and female, he made them—are not so vocal or involved.

Moreover, trans identifying people are deeply embedded within the much broader field of progressive political organizations. As I mentioned earlier, when this issue first came up, the mother of the trans girl (a boy) contacted the organization Trans Up Front Illinois. The organization does not appear on the list of charitable organizations that the Illinois Attorney General maintains.

The Trans Up Front website reports that its charitable status is pending, so it has to be fairly new. However, the founders of the organization, Asher McMaher and Charlee Friedman, claim to have been involved in LGBT issues for over a decade.

That seems to be true. Charlee Friedman, the group’s director of operations,  used to be known as Cheryl N. Friedman. Cheryl had addresses here and in Wisconsin. I don’t see any indication that she was married previously. Currently, she is referred to as Asher’s “partner.”

Asher, on the other hand, has a convoluted background. She has worked as a Development Events Manager for the Latin School of Chicago since August last year. Previously, she worked for the Zhou B Arts Center for two years, and for a little over seven years before that, she worked for the Rainbow Family Support Services as a Youth and Family Advocate and a DEI educator.

Asher has been married and divorced twice before. She was first known as Syndee Kalick. She married Timothy McCord, but Syndee filed for divorce in 2017. They had two boys. One of them, however, decided at four years old that he was a girl. He is now known as Noella Bella, who is now 13 and has been a trans model for several years. Syndee has custody of both children.

Syndee McCord, fka Syndee Kalick, married Rachel M. Marie, who later changed her name to Ray McMaher. When they filed for divorce in 2022, Syndee had become Dee McMaher. It’s unclear when Dee McMaher, now Asher McMaher, fka Syndee McCord, fka Syndee Kalick, and Cheryl Friedman, now Charlee Friedman, met.

The bottom line is Asher (38) and Charlee (37)  are two trans men (women) who parent at least two children, one a trans girl (a boy) and the other a boy. And they both occupy at least part of their time running an unregistered charity, Trans Up Front Illinois. They also advise people and organizations about the law, the education of children, the science of transgenderism, and anything else that is a concern for the LGBTQIA+ community.

They don’t act alone. They are a front organization. Recently, they organized a demonstration in front of Lurie Children’s Hospital protesting the hospital’s decision to suspend gender affirming care for children in response to actions by the Trump administration. At that demonstration, multiple progressive organizations joined them, not just LGBT organizations.

They have associations with groups like the Human Rights Campaign through its Chicago chapter, the Indivisible Project through the organization’s multiple chapters in Chicago and around Illinois, and through the many area chapters of Parents and Families of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), the Chicago Teachers Union, and dozens of other organizations.

Notice the Indivisible Project. It is prominent in organizing and supporting left-wing actions all over the country. And it is here. That organization was established in 2016 by Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin in response to the election of Donald Trump. Their intent was to resist any attempt to move the country to the right. They have established chapters all over the country to carry out that mission. There are dozens in Illinois.

Indivisible Chicago was established in January 2017 as a coalition of neighborhood chapters and local progressives. The original corporation was dissolved, but is now incorporated as Indivisible Chicago Alliance Political Action Committee. The organization claims 40,000 members and has alliances and partnerships with dozens of other organizations to further causes such as climate action, environmental justice, voting rights, immigrant and refugee rights, racial justice, LGBTQ rights and health, gun violence prevention, women’s rights, public education, civil liberties, and more.

They have been involved in leading and promoting all the recent protests in the area, whether it has been the Hands Off campaign protests against the Department of Government Efficiency, the anti-Tesla protests targeting Elon Musk, the protests against the crackdown on illegal immigration, the demonstrations against stopping “gender affirming care” for children, and the Deerfield controversy.

They are key organizers for all of them. They have multiple funding sources, including private donors,  large foundations, and other non-profit organizations, which they use to provide logistical support for organizing these efforts. They also reportedly use ActBlue as a fundraising platform.

Another group that became involved in the controversy, although supposedly only as an advisor on the law, was the Center on Halsted, an NGO established to help the LGBT community in Chicago. While some of its money comes from donations, in 2022, its revenues were 7.8 million dollars, and $4 million was from government grants.

That organization assists all organizations engaged in the kind of activism we saw in Deerfield. Many of the other large organizations do the same.

Each of the dozens of organizations involved supports the others by publicizing their demonstrations and events on their websites, public and private Facebook pages, through email, and some have weekly conference calls to discuss the national and local issues that all groups need to know about and take action on. They even post consolidated lists that show daily events of all the groups so they can better support each other.

Conservative organizations are much less organized, and it shows.

The left is organized, determined, well-funded, and passionate. At the Deerfield School Board meetings, the pro trans spokespeople and their allies repeatedly accused the conservatives of being hate-filled, of having a hateful political agenda, and of being an unrighteous, uncaring, bigoted minority.

The opposite is the case.

Yet it is the conservatives, whose position is undeniably held by the vast majority, who ultimately will lose.

Right now, at this moment, conservatives have no heart to fight, no heart to support biblical values, no commitment to protect the innocence of children, not even their own children and grandchildren.  It’s not for lack of courage. It’s for lack of caring. Somebody else can do it.

And somebody else is doing it. Unwell and misguided people who are filled with passion for a cause they mistakenly believe is just are winning because they are showing up en masse, just like they did in Deerfield.

They are vocal and advance their cause with intensity. Tom Wolfe called this tactic “mau-mauing the flak catchers.”

This controversy in the Deerfield School District will not be resolved, nor will the larger problem of whether a person can change their gender be solved with an executive order by the President. The controversy in Deerfield applies to every district, every school in the state of Illinois. The trans agenda is entrenched in Illinois law, and there is an army of activists committed to keeping those laws in place. For this to be fixed, three things need to happen:

1.) Conservatives need to be at least as organized and as well-funded as the left

2.) We need to be willing to vote in every election, including local elections, and actively encourage every conservative we know to do the same

3.) And we need to elect state and local officials who will eliminate these insane laws, policies, and procedures as quickly as possible

What will it take to motivate you to be part of the solution?

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters,
if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?
Can such faith save them?”
James 2:14