By Donny Ndoka –
January Littlejohn is a licensed mental health counselor, so when her 13-year-old daughter, influenced by an LGBTQ friend group, told her “I no longer feel like a girl,” she was surprised the usual array of mental health options were all channeled into only one: support her transition.
Her surprise turned to shock, however, when the Leon County, Florida, school district initiated the transition in 2020 without parental consent or even their awareness.
“The guidance counselor and assistant principal who said they could not give me any information about the meeting they had with my child, that my child was now protected under a nondiscrimination law,” January says.
This is what woke ideology has done: Either by legislation or school board policy – and sometimes with neither – LGBTQ groups are pushing school districts to implement policies to support transgender transitions secretly, without informing parents.
Parents should be kept in the dark, they say, because they might kick their kids from the home, punish and harass them, or even cause them to become suicidal.
January and her husband, Jeff, moved their daughter out of the public school and put her in a private school, where staff would work with the parents, not against the parents.
They also sued the Leon County school district in federal court.
“Our daughter, like so many other girls, was vulnerable to this ideology,” January says on a Genspect video.
It was the perfect storm: ADHD, gifted, emotional intelligence lagging behind intellect, overly sensitive, awkward, and artistic. Their daughter frequented art websites that also promoted LGBTQ values, as she sought to fit in and find friends in the LGBTQ crowd.
“For my daughter, who was desperately seeking for a place to fit and belong, having a friend group indoctrinate her into these identities, it was very enticing,” January recounts.
January drew on her mental health training in the 1990s, though gender-fluidity was not a discussion in the 1990s. As she researched, she was surprised because she was accustomed to finding a host of therapy response to help clients.
But all the literature she could find pointed only to one therapeutic option: support her in her transition. The literature has been commandeered by powerful woke activists.
“I was really confused as to why I was not finding an array of solutions,” she says.
January also noticed in her daughter a possible link between gender confusion and anorexia.
“Intuitively, we did not feel affirming this false identity that had come on so suddenly was the right choice for our daughter,” she says. “We realized she was simply confused.”
Their daughter asked for HRT, puberty blockers, binding clothes and a double mastectomy. But when asked by her parents about these things, she didn’t know very much at all.
“She couldn’t answer basic questions, like what do you mean you don’t feel like a girl?” January says. “What does it mean to feel like a boy? She couldn’t answer any of these questions with any depth of knowledge.”
As the new school year started, January reached out to her daughter’s homeroom teacher and informed her of what was going on.
The homeroom teacher also happened to be the school’s LGBTQ advocate.
January assumed that they would be coordinating with the school to help her daughter navigate her bewildering time.
Instead, the school went into solo mode and attempted to commandeer any guidance for the child. They held a meeting with the 13-year-old and asked all sorts of questions: What name do you want to use? Which bathroom do you want to use? On sleepover field trips, with which group do you want to sleep? Do your parents support you?
January found out about the meeting from her daughter but didn’t learn the details until much later. To get to the bottom of the story, she had to email constantly and demand meetings with school administrators. Eventually she was given the school’s “guidelines” for “helping” troubled teens.
Due to the guidelines, parents were excluded from the transition process, she found. Parents were cut out of the critical decisions.
“This really pits the child against her parents and sends the message that parent authority is no longer wanted or needed,” January says. “It sent a message to our daughter that she needed to be protected from us. This plan created a huge wedge between us and our daughter, and shortly after, her mental health spiraled.”
As January continued to investigate, she was eventually given a copy of the Leon County LGBTQ Guide 2020-21, which trained teachers, “Outing students, especially to their parents, can be very dangerous to the student’s health and well-being.”
January was indignant. “Parents who love their children more than anyone else, who are ultimately responsible for every part of their care, are being painted as enemies to their own children,” she says.
These guidelines were being pushed in every Florida County by the Equality Florida Safe Schools program of 2016. In many cases, the guidelines were implemented without even school board consideration, she says.
After trying to resolve the conflicting guidance given to their daughter from the school, January and Jeff removed her from public school and enrolled her in private school.
They have unconditionally loved their daughter as she heals, while not playing into the language of LGBTQ. They felt led to take her phone away because she was young and impressionable, while doing their utmost to give her compassion and support.
“We are walking our daughter through this confusion,” she says. “There’s no straight line out of this. It takes a long time.”
The LGBTQ militants are constantly recruiting. They’re online; they’re embedded in the schools. They wield incredible power through politicians and policies.
“When you pull back the curtain of what ‘gender affirming care’ is, most people are horrified to learn they are sterilizing vulnerable children, destroying their bodies with cross-sex hormones and disfiguring surgeries,” she says.
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Related content: California governor outlaws notifying parents about students’ trans decision, California PTA pushes trans laws, students are pressured to go trans.
About this writer: Donny Ndoka studies at the Lighthouse Christian Academy near Playa Vista Los Angeles.
