It’s hard for me to imagine the actual discussion language in meeting between Pacific Justice Institute‘s (PJI’s) president Brad Dacus, staff attorney Matt Reynolds, and board member Tim Lefever — all attorneys — where they developed plans and talking point for sexualizing trans female preteens by getting conservative Christian adults to think these preteens as future horny male teens, or planning how to message that trans female teens are inherently bullies even when there’s no evidence that they actually are bullies.
It’s even harder for me to imagine that such a meeting of PJI attorneys occurred where these attorneys discussed naked trans female youth, as well as how to directly or indirectly message on the idea of naked trans female preteens and teens in bathrooms and locker rooms.
However, public statements from Tim Lefever suggests that apparently there was at least one meeting where those things were discussed..
Recall what PJI initially released in their press release entitled Nightmare: Teen Boy Harasses Girls in Their Bathroom, Colo. School Tells Girls They Have No Rights:
Attorneys with Pacific Justice Institute sent a strongly-worded letter this afternoon to school officials at Florence High School, warning them against squelching student privacy and speech rights in order to cater to the wishes of a teenage boy who has been entering girls” bathrooms on campus.
“This is a nightmare scenario for the teenage girls—some of them freshmen—and their parents at this school,” noted PJI staff attorney Matthew McReynolds, who sent the letter to Principal Brian Schipper and Superintendent Rhonda Vendetti. “This is exactly the kind of horror story we have been warning would accompany the push for radical transgender rights in schools, and it is the type of situation that LGBT activists have been insisting would not happen.”
Parents at the school, located near Colorado Springs, became irate when they learned that a teenage boy was entering girls’ bathrooms and, according to some students, even making sexually harassing comments toward girls he was encountering
Then Cristan Williams of the Transadvocate fact checked PJI’s claims that a trans girl harassed cis girls in Florence High School girls bathrooms. In response to Williams’ queries to the high school, Rhonda Vendetti, the superintendent of schools for Florence High School, stated in an interview with the Transadvocate:
We do have a transgender student at the high school, and she has been using the women’s restrooms. There has not been a situation. All the students of these parents who say they feel uncomfortable just about the fact that the student is allowed to go into the restrooms at the high school, into the stalls — they don’t believe that that’s appropriate, so that’s where it stems from. There has not been an incident of harassment, or anything that would cause any additional concern.
PJI responded with a second press release entitled Update: Colo. School Story Sparks Backlash by LGBT Activists where they back tracked in what they believe is the harassing behavior by the student we at Transadvocate are referring to as “Jane Doe”:
PJI urged school officials to immediately identify any factual allegations they considered to be disputed. School officials have yet to respond to this invitation, but Superintendent Rhonda Vendetti instead gave an interview to a transgender activist in which she was defensive of the school’s actions and dismissive of some of the allegations. This interview was seized upon by advocates, who claimed it somehow proved the story to be a fabrication. Under intense pressure, several news sites took down or retracted their stories rather than investigating further. Not so fast, say PJI attorneys.
“Transgender activists are in full damage control mode because they know how explosive and damaging to their cause this story is,” noted Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute. “The central issue in this case — a high school’s decision to give a biological teenage boy full access to teenage girls’ bathrooms is both disturbing and not seriously disputed. It is very revealing that the Superintendent is seeking sympathy from transgender activists instead of addressing the serious concerns raised in our letter.”
As Williams’ noted in the Transadvocate post Anti-gay activist group admits trans school ‘harassment’ is fake:
After days of sidestepping any explicit statements about the exact nature of the supposed “harassment,” PJI now asserts that the mere presence of a trans person constitutes harassment and intimidation to cisgender people.
“Mere presence” — that is apparently the language of intentional strategic messaging from PJI in response to their being no actual harassment to latch upon.
In a podcast posted online on or about November 1, 2013 and scheduled for radio broadcast on November 4, 2013 for Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, Dr. James Dobson (formerly of Focus On The Family), his adult son Ryan, and Tim Lefever (a Pacific Justice Institute board member and the chair of the Capitol Resource Institute board) discussed AB 1266 (the California School Success and Opportunity Act). The following discussion is found within that radio show/podcast:
Ryan Dobson: What do the supporters of this bill say they’re trying to accomplish? I mean, really, this is putting many at risk for the perceived needs of a few. But the people who wrote this bill — the people that are supporting it — what are they saying they’re trying to overcome or accomplish?
Tim Lefever: Well as you might guess, they start with the idea of bullying. That somehow, bullying is going to be diminished by this…
Ryan Dobson: Ugh.
Tim Lefever: …and I have trouble with that. I can’t see how they can really have a straight face.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been in High School, but if you told the boy that was feeling awkward or uncomfortable in the boys locker room ‘Hey, we’ll stop bullying you if you just go and dress down with the girls, I don’t think that would work.
Ryan Dobson: Ugh. It’s crazy.
Tim Lefever: I think that is a cruel joke.
Ryan Dobson: It is. It’s terrible.
Tim Lefever: It’s not going to stop bullying there, but we’ve also taken the phrasing on this that you know what? Forcing boys and girls to share a bathroom doesn’t decrease bullying, it is bullying!
They’ve “taken the phrasing”; they being PJI, CRI, and the rest of the Privacy For All Students coalition; they apparently created the talking point at a PJI staff and board meeting that trans people are inherently bullies.
We can see a slightly modified version of this talking point being used by Matt McReynolds in the World Net Daily article Transgender Boy Invades Girls’ Bathroom (emphasis added):
“First of all, it’s our position that a teenage boy’s presence into the bathroom for teenage girls is inherently harassing,” said McReynolds, who is representing the families of the girls involved. “It’s inherently violative of their privacy rights. It’s also intimidating when you have a boy like this, who is not a freshman, going in there with younger freshman girls. They feel violated. They feel intimidated, and that’s been expressed to us.”
Early in the broadcast, both Dr. Dobson was speaking of trans female youth in terms of sexualizing a seven year old trans female by imagining this child as a Jr. High School aged potential sexual predator:
Dr. James Dobson: Here’s an example of what this [AB 1266] will do in the classroom if it stands: –and this actually happened. I had a parent who wrote me with this story. A 7-year-old boy, several weeks ago, came to his class. I believe it was a second grade class, and introduced himself again. All the other students knew him as ‘Mark’ — I’m going to use that name, that wasn’t his real name. But, he said ‘From now on you should call me Allison because I am a girl.’ And, this child has simply chosen to change his gender because it’s not something assigned by genetics, but can be chosen.
And if it’s chosen, this law — AB 1266 — requires the school to honor that decision, and there’s all kind of components with it.
And, you can imagine what’s going to happen when that boy or girl, as he’s chosen to be — he’s a boy, now — will be in Jr. High. And, he can shower and dress and use the toilets — go into the locker rooms of girls.
Tim Lefever is also thinking about that 7-year-old trans girl in terms of her being a boy in girls bathrooms.
Tim Lefever: [AB 1266] is a law that calls on us to have compassion, but compassion on a great number of levels. What you describe [Dr. Dobson, of that 7-year-old student who went from ‘Mark’ to ‘Allison’] coming into his class — I have nothing but compassion for that poor little boy who’s going to be mixed up all of his life. And, on one level I want to intervene in all of that.
But in this case we’re not even talking about that. We’re talking about the idea that his issues — his awkwardness or discomfort in a traditional sex separated bathroom ought to now become a problem for everybody else that’s already occupying that bathroom.
And, Tim Lefever has naked trans female preteens and teens on his mind — apparently so does staff at PJI and CRI since he’s on the board of both organizations.
Dr. James Dobson: Tim, I want to know more about how you’re going about that and the success of it, but just this question: suppose that you have a 7th grader, an 8th grader, or even one who’s in high school, who is mischievous — and a lot of kids are — and they say ‘Hey, I think it’d be fun to shower in the girls locker room. I think I’ll say now I’m a girl.’ How do we know he’s for real in what he is saying — or she, for that matter?
Tim Lefever: Under this law there is no challenge to it. This is not you have to submit a request to go into the bathroom. This is self-assessment: my sexuality at this moment.
And it’s fluid! You can be sexually identified as a girl one day and a boy the next day.
Dr. James Dobson: Oh goodness.
Tim Lefever: You can sexually identify as a boy at your own high school, and then when you’re on the intermural sports team and go to another school saying ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to feel my feminine side today and go into the bathrooms and locker rooms here at this visiting high school?’ It is self-assessment.
But let me add one other thing on that, because in our messaging we haven’t spent a lot of time on the sincerity factor. Because, I don’t want to give the impression that if somebody isn’t sincere in this that it’s okay. And, I guess the way that I’ve been putting that to people is that sincerity doesn’t trump nakedness. When a boy is standing naked in front of my daughter in the locker room, I’m not really concerned whether he is sincere in feeling like he’s a girl or not.
Sincerity doesn’t trump nakedness. So, you are exactly right — the system can be gamed on this and I think it will, but it doesn’t matter.
What doesn’t matter to Tim Lefever is that the system isn’t being gamed in Los Angeles where they have policy on trans youth since 2004 that has not resulted in trans female students preying on cis female students. To again quote the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Judy Chiasson, Ph.D., from her testimony before the California State Education Committee hearing on June 12, 2013:
At first we had our concerns. Would letting students participate in activities and facilities that were consistent with their gender identities create problems? What would happen? And, ultimately we decided that we as the adults needed to manage our fears and give the students the respect and dignity that they deserved. And I’m pleased to say none of our fears have been materialized. Our transgender students use facilities, participate in gym class and play on sports teams in a way that corresponds with their gender identity.
We treat our transgender students — our boys, our transgender boys and girls — simply like any other boys and girls with the same rights and responsibilities, rules, and obligations.
In the eight years that we’ve had our policy we’ve not had any problems. On the contrary, it has solved many problems. It’s a nonissue on our campuses. Our transgender students use the bathrooms for the same reasons as everybody else. They do their business, fix their hair and make-up, and gossip with friends.
One knows that PJI just had to have a board and staff meeting after Transadvocate fact checked their initial press release. Connecting the dots, it doesn’t take much imagination to realize that describing “Jane Doe” as bullying her peer female students for going to the girls bathroom to do her business is a tactic in a strategy of sexualizing trans youth — especially trans female preteens and teens — so that these preteens and teens are viewed as predators.
It’s the false, straw man argument of predation by trans youth — or by male students pretending to be trans female students — in girls bathrooms that matters to PJI and CRI. It’s their talking point “Forcing boys and girls to share a bathroom doesn’t decrease bullying, it is bullying” that matters to PJI and CRI.
It does matter…especially to “Jane Doe,” the minor trans female student. It matters that the adults associated with PJI and CRI are associated with have created an online environment where adults in article comment threads state that “Jane Doe” should be physically beaten for using girls restrooms.
PJI has been very transparent as to why they’re sexualizing trans female youth. “LGBT activists are sacrificing the safety and sanity of our schools to push an extreme political agenda,” stated PJI president Brad Dacus, in that first PJI press release. “This battle is no longer confined to California or Colorado; it is spreading to every part of the nation. It is crucial that we act now to prevent a crippling blow to our constitutional freedoms.”
PJI ended that press release with these last two paragraphs to explain their motivations for sexualizing Jane Doe and making her out to be a school girls bathroom predator:
PJI is demanding assurances from the school that privacy and expressive rights will be protected and any accommodations will not involve the girls giving up access to most of their restrooms, as has previously been suggested by the school.
Earlier this year, PJI led the opposition in California to AB 1266, the most sweeping legislation yet to assert transgender rights in schools. That law, which is set to take effect January 1, 2014, is currently being targeted by a citizen referendum drive. Californians who have not yet signed a petition should visit www.privacyforallstudents.com to get involved. PJI’s Notice of Reasonable Expectation of Privacy is available in both California and nationwide versions, and can be accessed at www.pji.org.
Sexualizing any and all trans female preteens and teens…doing it to paint them as predators without any conscience-driven thought of the real harm that they are doing to the targeted individual trans preteens and teens…that’s pretty much what attorneys Tim Lefever, Brad Dacus, and Matt Reynolds are doing. And, that’s pretty monstrous.