Dear Friend, The Old Town school board requires two separate votes in order to allow boys to go into girls’ bathrooms. The first vote was unanimous: 7-0 in favor. Clearly, this school board has no qualms about transgenderism in general. But something changed in the time between the first vote and the second, because after that period they “tabled” the proposal, effectively defeating it for now. Even if it would be wrong to assume that common sense has triumphed in this case, it shows that even an ideological school board can have hesitancies about this solution. If so, it merely repeats a larger trend that has been developing about even the most “progressive” and “advanced” European countries—countries that jumped on the gender transition boat very early on. Just consider countries like Sweden and England, who recently pumped the breaks on the same issue. Yes, both sides of this issue disagree about some really core questions. Whether or not a whim about becoming the other gender is grounds for mutilating children is certainly a divisive one today. But sometimes the debate does not have to be as much about core values. Sometimes the debate can be a matter of practicalities and common sense. Remember a few months ago when we discussed the kid who was trafficked in no small part because of her entry into the transgender world? The connection between transgenderism and trafficking is something that our Executive Director commented on in his testimony on some recent legislation, when he observed that “when we look in states and countries that have gone down this path,” we find that many of these minors become “vulnerable to predators and traffickers.” This highlights the need to be slow and careful with any attempt to accommodate children with gender confusion. Even if the goal is full accommodation, no governing body should try to achieve that goal immediately. Ignoring this simply causes unforeseen issues. For example, mixed-gender locker rooms may be a quick and easy solution to this problem, but can quickly create another issue: most sexual assaults in locker rooms occur in mixed-gender locker rooms. The bottom line is that there is still an argument to be made before even the most progressive legislatures and school boards. It’s not likely that we will convince them overnight to adopt a biblical view of gender and sexuality. But we can at least convince them that we’re rushing into things too fast. As the Maine legislature deals with several bills this session related to this question, we ask for your prayers that they will listen. Final note: We still need just a few more dollars before we can activate the $25,000 donation for our Beacon Campaign. Please prayerfully consider donating—this funds all of our work in the legislature, and it is all the more important this session that we have those resources available to fight for biblical values in the State House. CLICK BELOW TO SEE OUR BEACON CAMPAIGN VIDEO  | 
