Thursday, January 18, 2018

Anti-LGBTQ group call books about gay families & transgender kids 'morally toxic'




A bigoted group, One Million Moms, called books about transgender kids and gay families 'morally toxic.'

At pretty much the same time the Trump Administration is instituting some "religious liberty" garbage at Health and Human Services, an anti-LGBTQ right-wing group is raising hell at Scholastic Books for focusing on same-sex families and transgender children. A representative of this group, One Million Moms, called books about same-sex families and transgender children "morally toxic."

According to OneMillionMoms.com, Scholastic, Inc. is no longer safe for children. Monica Cole, director of the online activist group, explains that Scholastic books is "publishing and marketing books that are not safe for your children" and "promoting pro-homosexual and pro-transgender picture books for children." 
 In an Action Alert to its supporters, 1MM says the Scholastic website features "morally toxic" reading lists for children, such as: 
 "Mother's Day Books for Two-Mommy Families" 
"Great Books for Two-Dad Families" 
"6 Picture Books About Transgender Children" 
"... We're concerned [that] Scholastic is pushing topics on children and introducing them to children as young as preschool age [that] should be left up to the parents to discuss," Cole states, "and [selling] books ... at book fairs at your child's school that you may or may not be aware of.

"It is shocking because we know the dangers and how harmful the lifestyle choices are and can be," she adds.  
 The pro-family group cites the American College of Pediatricians on the issue: "Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse." OneMillionMoms is calling on Scholastic, Inc. to stop pushing this agenda.

So according to this group, it's morally toxic to even acknowledge same-sex families and transgender children, even though according to a 2013 study by the Williams Institute as the UCLA School of Law found that:

As many as six million American children and adults have an LGBT parent. Same-sex couple parents and their children are more likely to be racial and ethnic minorities. An estimated 39 percent of individuals in same-sex couples with children under age 18 at home are non-white, as are half of their children.

And study after study found that being in these households do not harm these children. The spokesperson from One Million Moms, Monica Cole, chose to cite the American College of Pediatricians, a relatively minor organization which was cited as a hate group by the Southern  Poverty Law Center for its anti-LGBTQ bias and attempts to astroturf inaccurate and homophobic junk science as legitimate work.

And regarding transgender children, according to an article in March 7, 2017 of  Education Week:

Although it's generally believed that transgender children make up a relatively small share of the population, advocates surmise some are now more likely to "come out" and transition at younger ages than in years past because of greater public awareness of the issue. About 0.7 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds living in the United States identify as transgender, some 150,000 teenagers, according to an estimate released in January by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law. The think tank, which researches issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, based its estimates on statistical modeling rather than direct surveys of children.

A resource guide by the Human Rights Campaign shows that transgender children thrive when they are given support from their family and loved ones.

The only morally toxic thing about this situation is any attempt to erase these families and children or make it seem that there is something wrong with them for simply being who they are.

Make no mistake about it. All of this junk about protecting the "religious liberty" of healthcare workers by the Trump Administration and protecting children from "morally toxic" books by this group is all about erasing same-sex families, undermining LGBTQ health, and eliminating LGBTQ equality.

We need to call it all out for what it is. And we will call it out for what it is.

Hatred and homophobia. Bigotry hiding behind religion.

Furthermore, we are not going to stand for it and we are not going to let it win.


2 comments:

JoeBuddha said...

So the One Dozen Moms is having delusions of relevance again. Got it.

Patty said...

Just so it doesn't slip by their medical reference, The American College of Pediatricians has an impressive and legitimate-sounding name but it is a tiny splinter faction. The ACPeds consists of a couple of hundred people who place religion ahead of science.

The REAL professional organization is the American Academy of Pediatrics. AAPeds has north of 60,000 members and is a medical, not religious society.

The position taken by AAPeds is based not on wishful thinking and bronze age texts but on sound, scientifically valid understandings.

https://search.aap.org/find?source=aap.org&k=transgender