Journalists Rage over Betsy DeVos Visit
to Catholic School that Calls Transgenderism
‘Immoral’ < >
Left-wing media are fuming that U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos visited a Catholic elementary school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that deems transgender ideology “immoral.”
HuffPost reported that DeVos’s “Back-to-School tour” included a visit Thursday to Harrisburg Catholic Elementary School in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg.
The headline read, “Betsy DeVos To Promote School That Bans Transgender Students And Staff.”
Other media reported in a similar vein.
CNN reported, “DeVos to Visit School that Refuses to Accommodate Trans Students.”
CBS News reported, “Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Visits School with Anti-Transgender Policy.”
The Olean Times Herald reported, “PA: Secy DeVos Visits Anti-Trans School in Harrisburg.”
The Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg has a specific stated policy, adopted in 2015, for its own students regarding “Gender Identity Questions.” The policy was adopted as gender ideology began to be mandated and inserted into public school education throughout the country.
The policy distinguishes between situations in which children are born with “sexually ambiguous genitalia” and those in which “the gender identity question is psychological in origin.”
“Catholic educators as well as all other members of the school staff and community are called to be witnesses to Jesus Christ and His Church,” the Harrisburg Roman Catholic diocese states, and continues:
In the first instance, where the sex of a child may be indeterminate at birth, one requiring time and medical testing before establishing an existing or dominant sex, it is common pastoral practice to collaborate with parents and medical professionals as they try to make a prudential determination on their child’s actual biological sex.
This policy addresses the circumstances where there is a clear biological determination of a person’s sex and subsequent efforts to chemically and/or surgically alter the given biology. This is understood in Catholic moral terms as self-mutilation and therefore immoral. To attempt to make accommodations for such persons would be to cooperate in the immoral action and impose an unacceptable burden on others in the school community.
In a recent interview with The College Fix, noted Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Dr. Paul McHugh warned that many in the medical and psychiatric industries “will come to regret” the ease with which they are now experimenting on children who claim to be transgender.
McHugh said treating young people with hormones and surgeries to change their appearance to be more in keeping with the opposite sex is “experimental” and “comparable to doing frontal lobotomies.”
He agrees that gender identity dysphoria and confusions “are mostly driven by psychological and psychosocial problems these people have.”
The Harrisburg Catholic school policy continues that parents who choose to enroll their children in a Catholic school understand that they will not act in opposition to Catholic teaching.
“Notification of a student’s determination to undergo a sex change procedure or that a student has undergone the procedure (condition #2 as described above) would violate that agreement,” the policy adds. “The student would be ineligible to attend or remain in attendance in a Catholic school.”
CNN described DeVos’s visit to the Catholic school – part of her annual tour promoting school choice – as another “brush with controversy over transgender rights.”
Another member of the Trump administration, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson, also angered the left when he expressed concern about biological men claiming to be women inserting themselves into homeless women’s shelters. The Washington Post based its report on the matter on the comments of “three [anonymous] people present who interpreted the remarks as an attack on transgender women.”
The report continued:
While visiting HUD’s San Francisco office this week, Carson also lamented that society no longer seemed to know the difference between men and women, two of the agency staffers said.
Carson’s remarks visibly shocked and upset many of the roughly 50 HUD staffers who attended Tuesday’s meeting, and prompted at least one woman to walk out in protest, the staffers said.
Carson has a history of making dismissive comments about transgender people. While running for president, he referred to transgender people as “abnormal” and said they should not be in the military. As HUD Secretary, he weakened Obama-era protections for transgender people, saying he believes in equal rights, not “special rights.”
According to the Post, one of the anonymous HUD staffers said Carson conveyed the sentiment that biological men claiming to be women “were not women.”
“Like we shouldn’t force people to accept transgender people in this context because it makes other people uncomfortable,” the staffer reportedly said.
to Catholic School that Calls Transgenderism
‘Immoral’ < >
Left-wing media are fuming that U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos visited a Catholic elementary school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that deems transgender ideology “immoral.”
HuffPost reported that DeVos’s “Back-to-School tour” included a visit Thursday to Harrisburg Catholic Elementary School in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg.
The headline read, “Betsy DeVos To Promote School That Bans Transgender Students And Staff.”
Other media reported in a similar vein.
CNN reported, “DeVos to Visit School that Refuses to Accommodate Trans Students.”
CBS News reported, “Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Visits School with Anti-Transgender Policy.”
The Olean Times Herald reported, “PA: Secy DeVos Visits Anti-Trans School in Harrisburg.”
The Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg has a specific stated policy, adopted in 2015, for its own students regarding “Gender Identity Questions.” The policy was adopted as gender ideology began to be mandated and inserted into public school education throughout the country.
The policy distinguishes between situations in which children are born with “sexually ambiguous genitalia” and those in which “the gender identity question is psychological in origin.”
“Catholic educators as well as all other members of the school staff and community are called to be witnesses to Jesus Christ and His Church,” the Harrisburg Roman Catholic diocese states, and continues:
In the first instance, where the sex of a child may be indeterminate at birth, one requiring time and medical testing before establishing an existing or dominant sex, it is common pastoral practice to collaborate with parents and medical professionals as they try to make a prudential determination on their child’s actual biological sex.
This policy addresses the circumstances where there is a clear biological determination of a person’s sex and subsequent efforts to chemically and/or surgically alter the given biology. This is understood in Catholic moral terms as self-mutilation and therefore immoral. To attempt to make accommodations for such persons would be to cooperate in the immoral action and impose an unacceptable burden on others in the school community.
In a recent interview with The College Fix, noted Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Dr. Paul McHugh warned that many in the medical and psychiatric industries “will come to regret” the ease with which they are now experimenting on children who claim to be transgender.
McHugh said treating young people with hormones and surgeries to change their appearance to be more in keeping with the opposite sex is “experimental” and “comparable to doing frontal lobotomies.”
He agrees that gender identity dysphoria and confusions “are mostly driven by psychological and psychosocial problems these people have.”
The Harrisburg Catholic school policy continues that parents who choose to enroll their children in a Catholic school understand that they will not act in opposition to Catholic teaching.
“Notification of a student’s determination to undergo a sex change procedure or that a student has undergone the procedure (condition #2 as described above) would violate that agreement,” the policy adds. “The student would be ineligible to attend or remain in attendance in a Catholic school.”
CNN described DeVos’s visit to the Catholic school – part of her annual tour promoting school choice – as another “brush with controversy over transgender rights.”
Another member of the Trump administration, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson, also angered the left when he expressed concern about biological men claiming to be women inserting themselves into homeless women’s shelters. The Washington Post based its report on the matter on the comments of “three [anonymous] people present who interpreted the remarks as an attack on transgender women.”
The report continued:
While visiting HUD’s San Francisco office this week, Carson also lamented that society no longer seemed to know the difference between men and women, two of the agency staffers said.
Carson’s remarks visibly shocked and upset many of the roughly 50 HUD staffers who attended Tuesday’s meeting, and prompted at least one woman to walk out in protest, the staffers said.
Carson has a history of making dismissive comments about transgender people. While running for president, he referred to transgender people as “abnormal” and said they should not be in the military. As HUD Secretary, he weakened Obama-era protections for transgender people, saying he believes in equal rights, not “special rights.”
According to the Post, one of the anonymous HUD staffers said Carson conveyed the sentiment that biological men claiming to be women “were not women.”
“Like we shouldn’t force people to accept transgender people in this context because it makes other people uncomfortable,” the staffer reportedly said.
