Just this week, several parents showed up wearing pink armbands as symbols of support for girls-only sports as their daughters played in a soccer game. You would have thought a tornado warning had gone into effect. Officials sprang into action.

They stopped the game, demanded the parents remove their pink armbands, and issued police-enforced “No Trespassing” orders against the parents.

We have seen a man declared one of USA Today’s “Women of the Year” – a woman in the highest court in our land can’t define what a woman is and men are still knocking it out of the ballpark in ‘girls only’ sporting events. In this woman’s humble opinion, women had better unite around truth if things are ever going to get back on track – we are not obligated to participate in other peoples fantasies!

In 1971, Hellen Reddy came out with the hit song, “I am Woman.” It was heard during the closing credits for the 1972 film Stand Up and Be Counted. “I Am Woman” is about female empowerment; Reddy said she wanted to write a song to inspire women. It did. Helen Reddy died in 2020, but I have to wonder where she would have stood on our current ‘woman’ controversy?!

Here’s a selection from part of her famous song: I am woman hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore, and I know too much to go back an’ pretend.” Pretend? Humm! I also have to wonder if those words would even be allowed on some social media outlets today, knowing of the sensitivity of our ‘woke’ crowd and their hurry to censure anything and everything they don’t approve of.

Thankfully, there are many amazing, strong women working behind the scenes these days bringing truth, family structure, and Godly values to our lives. There’s a gal I know personally who was married fairly young at 20 to a great Christian man. They had known each other since they were children. They had a beautiful wedding, attended by almost everyone in their church family, but within just five months tragedy struck. Due to complications from a rare type of cancer, her husband passed away.

Of course, she was devastated as her life was turned upside down. She lost her home, declared bankruptcy and moved back in with her parents. It was rough going, but she eventually got back on her feet, moved into her own place again, and rebuilt her life. Five years later, this young lady remarried and eventually had two beautiful daughters.

One day, a position opened up for her at a local Christian school – they needed a new principal and she jumped at the chance to not only enroll her daughters but also build up a local school with Godly values and truth. And she did exactly that. The school has grown with integrity and values that parents stand behind and support. It’s an amazing story, actually of a successful, confident, and courageous young woman.

So – how do I how this lady? Well – actually, this is my youngest daughter Susanne. She is a no-nonsense gal who I would nominate in a heartbeat for a real Woman of the Year. But, then again, I’m her mom!

If we want to turn things around, I think it’s time we step up and start celebrating every woman we know of who is doing their best to bring incontestable truth to our local communities – because that’s where change has to start – at the local level.

Mother’s Day is in a few weeks – take time to personally thank a good mom, or a great school teacher, or a mom-neighbor – it’s an uphill battle these days, but it’s not impossible.

Sheryl Sandberg has said: “In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.” She is wrong! Let’s go with what Margaret Thatcher said instead: “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.’ As someone toasted – “Here’s to strong women; may we know them. May we be them. May we raise them!”

I’m personally in line with this super-cool quote: “As for my girls, I’ll raise them to think they breathe fire!”

Bob and Susan Beckett pastor The Dwelling Place City Church at 27100 Girard Street in Hemet, CA. For more information, you may contact them at DPCitychurch.org

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On the first day of the California Legislature’s new session, Assemblymember Kate Sanchez, an Orange County Republican, introduced a bill that would ban transgender high school students from competing on girls’ sports teams.

“Young women who have spent years training, sacrificing and earning their place to compete at the highest level are now being forced to compete against individuals with undeniable biological advantages,” Sanchez, of Rancho Santa Margarita, said in a video posted to social media.

“It’s not just unfair,” she added. “It’s disheartening and dangerous.”

Sanchez’s proposed law, called the Protect Girls’ Sports Act, is almost certain to fail in a Legislature controlled by a Democratic supermajority with a record of embracing inclusion for LGBTQ+ Californians.

But her introduction of it — notably, as her first bill of the session — underscores the persistent Republican emphasis on transgender issues, which continue to shape policy debates in California, where Democratic leaders have cast the state as a bulwark against President-elect Donald Trump, whose opposition to trans rights was central to his campaign.

Sacramento Democrats have blasted Sanchez’s bill as a political stunt, saying it is an unnecessary attack against transgender youth, who make up a tiny portion of California’s school-age population.

Assemblymember Chris Ward, chair of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, said in a statement that the caucus, whose members are all Democrats, “will not stand by as anyone attempts to use kids as political pawns.”

“Attacking kids is a failed 2024 issue,” said Ward (D-San Diego). “We are surprised the Assembly member introduced her first bill targeting a very small, vulnerable population of kids rather than using the opportunity to address key issues of affordability, housing and more that are impacting Californians.”

The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, which researches public policy around sexual orientation and gender identity, estimates that about 1.4% of American teenagers ages 13-17 — about 300,000 individuals nationwide — identify as transgender. Fewer play sports.

While polls show that most Americans support protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination, they are deeply divided on issues involving queer children, especially kids who identify as transgender or nonbinary.

In a nationwide poll conducted last year for The Times by NORC at the University of Chicago, about two-third of adult respondents said transgender girls and women should never or only rarely be allowed to participate on female sports teams.

“Regardless of where Sacramento Democrats are on this issue, they’ll need to face facts,” Sanchez said in a statement to The Times, noting public opinion on the issue.

On the other side of the political aisle, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) last week introduced the Transgender Privacy Act, which would automatically seal all court records related to a person’s gender transition in an effort to protect them from being outed or harassed.

“The incoming Trump Administration and Republican Congressional leadership have made clear that targeting and erasing trans people is among their highest policy priorities, and California must have our trans community members’ backs,” Wiener said in a statement about his Senate Bill 59.

Sanchez’s Assembly Bill 89, would require the California Interscholastic Federation, which regulates high school sports for public and private schools, to enact rules prohibiting any “pupil whose sex was assigned male at birth from participating on a girls’ interscholastic sports team.” It does not stop transgender boys from playing on boys’ teams or specify how the CIF would verify students’ gender.

California education code explicitly says students must be allowed to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including team sports, and must be permitted to use restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed those rights into law in 2013.

Sanchez’s bill comes after several recent high-profile fights across California over trans girls and women playing high school and college sports.

In November, a Christian high school in Merced withdrew its girls’ volleyball team from a state playoff match against a San Francisco team with a transgender player.

This fall, the San José State women’s volleyball team was embroiled in controversy after current and former players and an associate coach tried to have a trans player removed from the roster by filing a federal lawsuit. A judge later ruled the player could compete.

In November, two female high school students sued the Riverside Unified School District, alleging a transgender girl unfairly ousted one of them from a spot on the varsity cross-country team. The federal lawsuit also claims that when the girls protested the situation — by wearing T-shirts that read, “Save Girls Sports,” and, “It’s common sense. XX [does not equal] XY” — school officials compared it to wearing a swastika in front of a Jewish student.

The suit claims that the district’s policies unfairly restrict the girls’ freedom of expression and deny them fair and equal access to athletic opportunities.

Two Republican Assembly members from the Inland Empire, Bill Essayli and Leticia Castillo, called on the district’s superintendent to resign over her handling of the issue.

In 2023, Essayli, whose district borders Sanchez’s, co-sponsored a bill that would have required school employees to notify parents if their child identified as transgender at school. Critics argued the bill would out and potentially endanger trans kids, while violating student privacy protections under California law. The bill died in committee, but similar policies sprouted up on school boards in conservative parts of the state, showing how a Republican idea that gets squelched in the state Capitol can still drive debate on an issue.

In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 1955, which prohibits schools from mandating that teachers notify families about student gender identity changes.

Daisy Gardner, an outreach director for Our Schools USA, a nonprofit that supported AB 1955, called Sanchez’s bill and Republicans’ focus on transgender athletes “a very powerful organizing tool from the far right.”

The parent of an LGBTQ+ student who said she was speaking for herself, not on behalf of Our Schools USA, Gardner called Sanchez’s bill “a media stunt designed to whip up fear and hatred of trans people so that the far right can flip California red in 2026, and the casualties are trans lives.”

Gardner has been in contact with parents of two transgender high school athletes in the Riverside Unified School District amid the recent controversy and read a statement on behalf of one of the girl’s family during a raucous school board meeting last month.

“They are in pure hell,” she said of the parents. “They don’t know how to protect their kids.”

Matt Rexroad, a longtime California political consultant, said that while urban Democrats might be scratching their heads over Sanchez introducing this long shot bill on such a hot-button issue, it makes sense for her suburban district, which is “one of the more conservative areas of California.”

“It’s a good political issue for certain parts of California,” Rexroad said. “Clearly, Scott Wiener is not going to introduce this bill or vote for it, but not all of his bills pass either.”

Sanchez, he said, “is representing the views of her constituents.”

At least one of her constituents, though, was so angry about the Protect Girls’ Sports Act that she called Sanchez’s office and grilled a staffer about the specifics, like how a child’s gender would be verified.

Michele McNutt, a former Democrat who just changed her party registration to no-party-preference, said she was not satisfied with the staffer’s answers and called the bill “performative.”

“If it fails, they can frame it as, ‘California hates parents,’” said McNutt, whose two teenage daughters are student athletes in the Capistrano Unified School District. “I think the theater is the point, and it really isn’t about protecting girls’ sports.”

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