Focus on the Family says protections for trans students makes teachers into 'identity keepers'

Evangelical advocacy group Focus on the Family wants to mobilize California members to speak up against a state bill that would protect transgender students from discrimination and allow them greater access to school activities based on their identified gender.

Think Progress reported on Wednesday that the group's California affiliate, the California Family Alliance (CFA), released a statement urging members to call on Gov. Jerry Brown (D) to veto Assembly Bill 1266, which was passed by both the state Senate and Assembly in July 2013.

"This bill will create further chaos as teachers will be forced to become identity keepers for a small number of children confused about their identity," the CFA's statement read. "That confusion will be exacerbated as thousands of unsuspecting students will suddenly find themselves face to face with opposite sex peers in their bathrooms, changing rooms and showers."

But 16-year-old Ashton Lee, who has become an advocate for the bill, said in a July 2013 interview with the Sacramento Bee that AB 1266 would actually reduce confusion among transgender students.

"It'll help me so much at school, and people like me, and it will make it so much easier to graduate and be who we are and be accepted and understood," Lee told the Bee. "It's just going to make it so much easier."

According to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation (GLAAD), the bill actually allows students to use school facilities and take part in school programs, including athletics, in a fashion "consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil's records."

[Image: "Happy Cheerful Child Holding A Paint Brush Painting On A White Wall" via Shutterstock]

[h/t The Huffington Post]