On this episode of The Bespoke Parenting Podcast, host Julie Gunlock speaks to writer and mom of three Stephanie Lundquist-Arora about her decision to sue her local school district on masking, her own evolution on transgender issues, and her fight to remove radical gender ideology from schools.


TRANSCRIPT

Julie Gunlock:

Hey everyone, I’m Julie Gunlock, host of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. For those new to the program, this podcast is focused on how parents should custom tailor their parenting style to fit what’s best for them, their kids, and their families. Today, I’m excited to have my friend Stephanie Lundquist-Arora on the show. There she is. Hey Stephanie.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Hi Julie. Thanks for having me.

Julie Gunlock:

Great. I don’t know what is going on. I’m going to take a moment unprofessionally and fix my hair. There. I feel better.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

You look great.

Julie Gunlock:

Thanks for coming on. Stephanie is the mother of three sons, yay for boy moms, all of which are enrolled in the Fairfax County school system. For those outside of the Virginia area that watch this show, you should know Fairfax gets a lot of attention from the media for the completely loony things they do, their resistance to opening schools, their resistance to unmasking kids, and some of the sexual content that we’re now seeing in the Fairfax County Schools. So it gets a lot of attention, and Stephanie’s three children are enrolled in those schools and she’s fighting hard for reforms and we’ll talk about that.

Stephanie is an author, a small business owner and an IWN chapter leader. IWN of course is our sister organization and she leads the Fairfax chapter. We’re thrilled to have her. She’s also a contributor on the network so you can check her out there. Prior to this, Stephanie worked as a political analyst and speech writer, this is so interesting, for the embassy of the Republic of Korea in Australia. So I might have to find out about that. That is interesting. When not working, her hobbies include traveling with family, volunteering in her sons’ sports leagues, jogging, learning jujitsu. That’s kind of interesting. We do not share that interest. Reading, painting and trying new foods. So welcome, Stephanie.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Thank you.

Julie Gunlock:

Okay, so we have a lot of policy issues and some other things to get to, but the first thing I always ask people is, and you may not employ a particular parenting style, but if you were to sort of name or describe your parenting style, what would it be? And believe me, I am sort of a mix of many different styles. So where do you see yourself?

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Oh, that’s a really interesting question. I guess what I’ve learned along the way is, especially if you would’ve asked me this before I had children, I think I would’ve said something entirely different. But what I found with having three boys all with the same, what is it when you have siblings, like 99% of the same DNA or whatever is, they’re so different. All three of my boys, same parents, they’re so different from each other.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

And so, I think I would say treat them as individuals. So my parenting style with each of them is different. I have a parenting style which is tailored differently for each son. So I think very individualistic attention, I guess, would be the big thing for me. And I think also I guess being more strict when they’re younger so you don’t have to as much when they’re older, for us, has worked as kind of an overarching thing. You set the boundaries and they know where they are for the most part.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Everyone says you do the lectures when they’re down here so that you don’t have to do them as much when they’re up here. And my oldest one is now pretty much my height, so I’m really appreciating that idea.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Yeah. But that’s what I would say. All kids are so different. So I really appreciate that you do this because even just within the same family, three children are so different, and what is really effective with one can just completely not work with the other, send him in a direction that you don’t want him going in.

Julie Gunlock:

And that’s great advice. I think someone described it to me, one of my guests, as adaptive. You’re just very adaptive and you go with the flow and I think that is really important. And one reason we wanted to do this or I wanted to do this podcast, but I know a lot of people on the IWF staff sort of support this idea, that this narrative that there’s a right way and a wrong way of parenting is completely… What is the word? It’s stifling because you are told that by the experts. Go to the parenting section in your bookstore or on Amazon. There’s a thousand different theories. And I don’t like to say that it’s not good to read some of these books or look at some of these experts, and I think many of the experts would agree with us. But there still is this sort of judgmental nature around parenting that I think really needs to come down.

And so, I love this idea of, again, just the show’s whole mission is to tailor your parenting to the child. I think that’s the best way to do it. So I think about when I first started parenting, I didn’t see myself as this sort of activist. And then as I was told, “You have to do it this way,” then I felt like, okay wait, I have something to say about this. Of course that does not compare to… And I was looking at it from a policy perspective because there were policies in place that made it tougher. And I was worried about parents being sort of vilified for doing parenting in a certain way. But boy, did that change after COVID. I feel like suddenly everybody saw themselves as a parenting activist standing up for parents’ rights. And I assume that’s when you got activated, maybe not. Tell me. Was that the moment, and what specifically happened to get you more in an activist head space?

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

So initially, when I was very upset when the schools were closed down and I really appreciate the people who were on the front lines getting all of the signatures and the petitions and all that kind of stuff, it bothered me tremendously in March of 2020 when they shut down all the schools and a lot of the businesses. So as a small business owner, I was very, very upset about the business shutdowns because, as a small business owner, you’re still being charged rent and liability insurance and a lot of costs that go along with having a small business. So the state of Virginia shut down businesses for I think three months. But anyways, so at the same time, they also shut down the schools starting in March of 2020. And I was watching… I had at that time a first grader, a third grader, and a fifth grader, and I was kind of watching some of their… And it was a mess for the teachers too. And I don’t blame them because in March 2020, they weren’t used to online teaching. That’s crazy. I wouldn’t have-

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah. I didn’t blame them at first. I didn’t blame them at first. I think there was a ton of grace given, but two years later when they were saying, “Give us grace, I was like, come on.”

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

There’s a way to get better at, things that you do.

Julie Gunlock:

We all agree that everyone needed to be patient. That’s the first thing. But I’m always… I can feel myself breaking out in hives. Just even bringing that up, I’m like, we gave you so much grace and then you wouldn’t go back into the classroom. Anyway, go on. Sorry.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Agree. So anyways, initially during the grace period, I was watching this and it was like, what’s your favorite superhero? So instead of focusing on reading and they couldn’t, at the time. I was hearing these conversations and then I would see the screen go off because I had my own thing going on, and my sons would play with Legos and not listen at all. And I was like, this isn’t going to work for us. We’re just not an online learning family.

My boys are kind of like, I’m going to turn off my screen and do what I want to do. So I was like, this isn’t going to work. And then when they shut schools down again, or again for whatever the next year after that, I said this really isn’t going to work, so I’m going to put this in my own hands and homeschool my kids. So I did that for a year and that’s when I started to… I guess when you have a lot of things to do and you’re trying to educate your kids and you feel like the school district isn’t performing and the teacher’s union is shoving things down your throat, you start to feel really angry.

And that’s, I would say, the beginning of the activism is. So while I do appreciate the people who are on the front lines getting the petitions open, schools open, schools open, schools, I voted with my feet. I did not want the school district to get the $18,500 still for my children who were at home with me anyway. So I thought I want them to learn in whatever it is, $18,500 times three kids. I was like at least I’m voting with my feet. So they shouldn’t get that money for not actually educating children.

Julie Gunlock:

I love it. I love it. I love it. And it is galling. I’m still wondering where my refund is for my property taxes for when I homeschooled. I, like you, did homeschool my oldest. He was at that point in seventh grade. That’s a really important year, and math is harder. You’re doing like pre-algebra, and boy, that was fun. I got a tutor for that, and pretty high level at this point. He was doing biology and things that this wasn’t like two plus two and get your crayons out and let’s color a butterfly. This was hard. And I knew. And my son actually had an IEP so it was $36,000 going to the school and I was not about to let them get that money.

And we pulled our children out and put my other two in a Catholic school. So I too voted with my feet. And that is, I will say I hate the word empowering, but it is because you are depriving these public schools who really did phone it in for a solid year and a half. And so, it’s good to feel like you’re doing something. Your children are now back all in Fairfax. And I know there have been challenges. When they finally opened the schools, it was like, well we’re not going to give you guys everything because they kept them masked. Tell me about that episode because you are suing Fairfax and I’d like a status check on that lawsuit.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Well, it failed. We’re in Fairfax County and the judges see things a certain way. So what happened was they were masked and we follow the law. So initially when they went back to school, the kids were masked and they hated it and there were headaches and complaints and they felt like it was isolating them from friends. And it’s just strange. The whole mask thing is strange. I think we’ll look back at it in hindsight in several years and be like, what were we thinking? And most of us are thinking that now. But I think the branch COVIDians will eventually get there at some point maybe, but we’ll see. But anyways, so they were wearing the masks, whatever, they’re in person, that’s what everybody was cheering about. So then January came along and Governor Youngkin won thankfully, and he passed executive order two, which meant that starting on, I think it was, January 26 or something, the kids didn’t have to wear masks anymore.

So my kids were like, hooray, that’s great. And they didn’t want to wear masks. They didn’t want to wear masks. Whenever given the option, they chose not to. So anyways, masks are annoying. They felt like they were annoying, and so they said they weren’t going to wear masks. Well obviously the school district, like many of the things that the state does, said, Fairfax County Public School, said we’re not going to listen to the governor. And it was unclear how they could do that. It’s still legally unclear how they could not follow executive order two. So my kids didn’t wear masks, and the younger two were suspended for 15 days for not wearing masks. It was totally their choice. And I said, “I’ll back you up.” But every day… And my older one, it was nine days because he wanted to get back in and continue with his.

So I was like, “I’ll support whatever decision you make.” If you want to wear a mask because this is getting weird, wear a mask. If you don’t want to wear a mask, I’ll support you there too. So again, tailor your parenting to individual children. So anyways, so they were suspended for that long. So we sued. And on what grounds is still unclear to me, I still don’t understand how they could do this. And I do think, and I’ve thought from the beginning, and I still think this now, and there’s been a lot of evidence towards this, that they just consistently are into politically persecuting even children and their families, if ideologically they’re different than the school. All they did was not wear their mask. So we filed the lawsuit, lawsuit fails. That’s really unfortunate. We were like, if we got the same judge, I’m not sure the outcome would be any different.

I’m not really sure what to do with this. But we were never suing for money or anything like that. It’s just for the recognition that what they did was wrong. I don’t believe… I don’t support a litigious society. So anyways, I want people to be held accountable. And the way I see it, the Fairfax County School Board is not being held accountable for a lot of its decisions. So anyways, the lawsuit failed, and I appealed to the schools individually, and they claim that this is a school decision about expunging the suspensions. So I appealed to the principles of both the schools and my appeal to expunge the suspensions of my three wonderful children was denied. So it’s not like we did something wrong. I think that they should have said we did something wrong. We didn’t follow the law. We didn’t follow executive order two and subsequently Senate bill 739 until March 1st.

By the way, Senate bill 739, where it was codified into legislation, was signed with the emergency clause on February 22nd. So my kids were suspended an additional six days or something after Senate bill 739. But anyways, then the schools refused to expunge their suspensions. So now, my children are sitting with a lot of suspensions on their record. That many suspensions, you would think that they were just doing crazy things like selling fentanyl or something. Who gets suspended for 15 days? If you look at their records and you’re like, oh you were in fifth grade, what were you doing when you were?

Julie Gunlock:

But this matters because when they apply to colleges, they might see this on their transcripts, and that might signal… You talked about persecuting people who are not ideologically in line with you and think about… Okay, if K-12 is crazy, think about higher education. And I don’t mean to give you a heart attack, but I think about this. Then they apply to college, they look and they think, oh this is one of these kids who wouldn’t mask.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Right. You’re signaling.

Julie Gunlock:

Right. It’s a way to… By keeping it on the record, it is a way to continue to punish these kids and families. It’s absolutely despicable. And so you lost, the judge dismissed the case, correct?

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Right. So he granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss.

Julie Gunlock:

Just, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry about that. That is rough. But you know what? Honestly, I think that parents… I don’t think this is over, and I think it’s worth revisiting and continuing to hammer the principal, the school board on that. And they know you are very active on that. And hopefully once we see some turnover in the Fairfax school board, maybe we’ll see some changes in this policy.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Well also, I’ve contacted the attorney general’s office, so that’s kind of pending and hopefully they do something with it as well.

Julie Gunlock:

Good. I want to talk a little bit about this sort of social contagion that’s out there, gender ideology, and sort of the radical gender ideology that they are pushing in schools. This is not obviously only something that’s happening in northern Virginia. We see this across the country and in areas that are sort of ruled and run by Democrats. There is this idea that the schools are the better people to take care of kids than their own parents.

The anti-parent feeling that we’re seeing out there from government officials is truly frightening. It really is frightening to me. I know you have been very involved in this issue. You actually wrote a book on gender transitioning, and you’ve had an interesting sort of evolution. Your book was about being compassionate to kids who are identifying as another, self-identifying as being a transgender individual, or identifying as a different gender. And you wrote that book to help parents, to guide parents to dealing with this issue. But at that time, when did you write it? Because it wasn’t the same period as it is right now. When did you write that book?

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

So this is an interesting story. I left my job as a political analyst and speech writer when I had children. It wasn’t my intent. But when I held my first son in my arms, I looked at my husband and said, “I’m not sure what we’re going to do now, but I’m never leaving him.” And so make more money, husband. But anyways, so my plans changed when I had my first son, and I was trying as much as I could to be at home with him and get work that was flexible. So I did a variety of things. I became actively involved in the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators at CWBI, and I started writing. I wanted to keep my writing skills fresh. I started writing a lot. I published a lot in magazines and stuff like that. I wrote a lot of fiction stories for children and I started getting interested in writing nonfiction.

So eventually, and this is supplementing the income that I had lost because I wanted to be with my boys, but I did this for quite some time, and I submitted a resume and cover letter, as you do, with educational market publishers. Educational market publishers provide books to libraries in schools, and you don’t get royalties off the books, but basically they give you a contract, you write the book for them in the period that you decide, and then they pay for it. So you can supplement your income that way.

Julie Gunlock:

But it’s theirs. But it’s theirs.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Yeah, it’s theirs. It’s theirs. And they have procedures that they do. So anyways, I started writing these books. I’ve published eight of these educational market books, they’re low budget, and some of the books are wonderful. And the ones that I thought I would be talking about more in the future wasn’t necessarily this one.

I didn’t see what was coming down. But anyways, I’ve written eight of these different types of books that the publishers, the ones who submit your resume cover letter and some writing samples, they decide, oh, I like this writer. And then they give you a contract and you write the book. So I’ve written a lot of them on addiction and the dangers of vaping and refugees and the song God Bless America, and the range is large, on PTSD, on the topics I’ve written on. So I was assigned to write a book on coping with gender fluidity, which was kind of… I’m familiar with a lot of the feminist theory up through the nineties, the kind of evolution of feminist theory and the way that we’ve kind of understood gender and stuff like that, gender as connected to our lived experience as females. And I was like, well, this is a topic I don’t really know about. So the editor wanted me to write it from the position of the transgender community, or somebody who was coping with gender dysphoria and was having a really hard time. And I was like, okay. So I took the contract, and I know somebody who… A few different stories that have happened over time with just… I grew up in really a rural area. I knew a teenager who was coping with that issue and she wasn’t officially transgender, because in rural Michigan at the time I grew up, that’s not something that we said or they stated or anyone stated.

Julie Gunlock:

Well, no one. It wasn’t just rural Michigan, it was no one was talking.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Yeah. Yeah. So that’s true. Anyways, she ended up killing herself, and subsequently I had some kind of sporadic experiences with this issue, and I felt compassion because I thought this must be a hard lifestyle or identity to go through. And then there was another family at the time.

Julie Gunlock:

And look. And if I could just say something, growing up is hard, just period, right? I don’t know if you remember yourself when you were in seventh grade, but it wasn’t fun. I remember myself. It wasn’t fun. And kids are kind of searching for a feeling of belonging and then, you know, you add in all the things in our culture right now, our children’s addiction to tech, to being online, their exposure to things they shouldn’t see. Right? And all of those things combined have made things worse for kids today.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

And just social media. They’re always being portrayed. They’re always concerned about their image. They can’t just act and think somebody’s not recording this or posting about me. So it’s a very strange, awful time for children. I think it’s unfortunate they can’t just kind of go, as we used to do.

Julie Gunlock:

Stranger things.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

And play in the woods. Yeah.

Julie Gunlock:

Without the… What’s the-

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Without the monsters.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah, there’s a word for their world anyway, but the point is-

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Upside down.

Julie Gunlock:

The upside down, which frankly I feel like we are living in the upside down with some of the things I see at school boards. But yeah, I mean it’s tough and then you add all these other things to it. Anyway, so go on. I think you personally had a lot of compassion for people, but again, this was, what? Your experiences were, what, in the nineties and early aughts and then-

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Early 2000s.

Julie Gunlock:

Kids. And again, you start writing this, what, in 2018.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

’18 was when the editor. And so, I actually reached out to the person that I knew from my hometown who was experiencing this with her child. It was a situation, the parents were very supportive of their child in the way that just they provide a very loving home environment and they went through a lot. They lived in a rural area. And so, I wrote this book kind of considering what had happened there. And also, I used the Google sources that come up, and you know if you Google anything, they’re not showing you any kind of counter narratives or anything like that. You’re just kind of quickly… I had a six to eight week turnaround to do this. And so, I finished the book and I submitted it and the editor had a heavy hand, guided me along the way. And then I finished it and I thought, okay, and then I wrote several books after that one too.

Julie Gunlock:

Again, I think it’s really important to understand that in 2018 we are not dealing with the 500% increase in young girls who are identifying as trans. We are not having the top surgeries and the bottom surgeries and the school boards who are pushing gender ideology and gender affirming care seriously. In Alexandria school district, they’ve actually said we will provide this to kids, which means referrals to Planned Parenthood, who give hormone blockers out after one meeting and who will give you hormones after one meeting and will set you up-

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Sometimes over the phone.

Julie Gunlock:

Over the phone. That’s right.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

They do it over the phone too.

Julie Gunlock:

But this is not the same time. In 2018, this was not happening. School boards were not acting in this way. It’s interesting. There may have been the pornography and just shocking smut that’s in the school libraries. It might have been there, but it hadn’t been discovered yet. I don’t even know if it was there. But the point is, I feel like I can’t press this enough. 2018 was-

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

It was a different world.

Julie Gunlock:

Very different. It was very different. It gets published, and then suddenly, I guess around 2020, I feel like was when we first started seeing this and obviously post COVID.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Right? Well actually this book I wrote in 2018, and the way that the publishing market works is they do all of the formatting and the picture finding and all that kind of stuff, and then it comes out in July 2019, but it has a 2020 publication date on it. So to make it seem more recent is the reason that they do that. But then it was… You’re right, Julie. It completely predated all of the things with social contagion. So first of all, social contagion wasn’t an issue at that point. When I was talking about this, especially with the child that I knew like this, it wasn’t like, hey, try this on for size. It’s a great idea, you’ll be accepted. That wasn’t the type of community that that was, and it was just completely different. And then, something weird happened where it was we went from this you hope that all people… At the end of the day, you just hope that all people are kind to each other, I think, is the objective.

If we’re different, you just want people to be nice, kind to each other, right? We’re all different. Be kind to each other. But what ended up happening after that wasn’t just let’s be kind to each other. It was like the school board gets involved, the teachers get involved, we move from accepting of our differences to suggestive, which is happening now. So it’s suggestive from the top, and I’m not clear on why, but it seems pretty nefarious. So I’m like, why would you suggest that people try on this identity? Why would you do that? Why would you suggest that they should do things which are potentially harmful, like-

Julie Gunlock:

And irreversible.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Yes. So I was talking about a certain contingent of people, which I thought were the anomaly and needed compassion, not what people from the top, in a very strange way, seems trying to push children into.

So for example, my oldest is in middle school right now. And during his first week of school, he was given three surveys, which I didn’t see. Usually they’re supposed to. Anything that’s controversial, parents have the right legally at the federal level to see if they’re going to ask your child. But they don’t consider gender identity as one of those conservative things now, especially not in Fairfax County. So he was given three surveys in the first week of school on what is your gender identity, are you a girl. And I thought this is the first week of school. Shouldn’t they be doing something else? Shouldn’t they be learning? And so, that’s not just an accepting environment, if you have questions, we’re here for you kind of thing. It feels like they’re cramming it down their throats. And if you’re in elementary school, are you a tomboy? Are you sure it’s that you’re not a boy? These conversations, you see quite a bit. Some of them are recorded. It’s frightening. And that was not the type of world that I was writing this book in.

Julie Gunlock:

It’s just terrible. Stephanie, I really admire you and I admire that you have really looked at this issue fully and you have never veered away from compassion. You are steadfast in that, in kindness and compassion. But you have seen the danger of this and you have looked at this. You’ve really researched this a lot. You are really concerned about this. But I sort of hope this is the journey of a lot of parents who… Because I live in a very deep dark blue community where the school board in Alexandria has, I mentioned earlier, has said explicitly we will provide gender affirming care. It’s a phrase that sounds nice, right? It does. It sounds like it’s filled with compassion. But as I mentioned earlier, no, that means sending your kid to Planned Parenthood, anonymously getting on hormone blockers, anonymously getting on puberty blockers and hormones, which can cause irreversible damage.

I hope people are on Twitter, or whatever platform they’re on, seeing some of the videos of these de-transitioners, these girls who regret the decision they made when they were 16, 17 years old. They’ve had their breasts removed. They have been on hormones, on testosterone, for so long that they have receding hair lines, permanently deepened their voice, facial hair. Some of them are never going to be able to have children. They have rendered themselves infertile. It is absolutely devastating. And these girls, they might have gotten top surgery. Many don’t get the sort of bottom surgery. But boy, if they do, trying to create a phallus out of part of their arm. It is horrifying to see the pictures. And that’s the problem, is that I don’t think a lot of the very liberal moms who hear gender affirming care know these details.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

I don’t think they do.

Julie Gunlock:

No. And you went through that journey, and while still remaining compassionate, see the danger of pushing kids, and as you said, this sort of dark nefarious position of the school board officials and city council members, because that’s what’s happening in my school, or in my town, and other politicians pushing this on very vulnerable kids. Go ahead.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Well right now, they’re really trying to cut parents out of it too. And I think any time you’re talking about a child, no one loves a child more than his or her parents. So always, you need to have the parents need to be involved in the decisions concerning the child and stuff like that. And just recently, there’s an organization in Fairfax County, it’s called the Pride Liberation Project. And they have tried to, I don’t know, I don’t know what else to call it, but it seems like it’s a human trafficking ring. So they claim, the pride community, some in the pride community claim that this is a student run organization. And it’s been proven that it’s not actually a student run organization. The person who’s the figurehead for it is now a college student and provides all of the talking points.

And they have children, usually middle schoolers and high schoolers get up in front of the school boards and say, “I’m queer, I’m uncomfortable. Generally, I feel alone and unseen and 50% of us are depressed.” And these are the talking points of these children. They get up and this is what they do. And then they say, “80% of us have contemplated suicide this year.” So you see the emotional extortion here. Right? And if you don’t do what we say, co-ed family life education or a unit on transitioning, then if we kill ourselves, the blood is on your hands basically. And that’s extortion.

Julie Gunlock:

It is. It is.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

And you have adults actually leading this. Okay. So anyway, this is what they do. And then they-

Julie Gunlock:

And Stephanie, you mentioned human trafficking, this same group has offered to re-home students, take them away from their own parents, and re-home them in a gay supporting or queer-friendly household. And then the thing I love the most is that in the guidance from this group, this Pride Fairfax, whatever it is, they say, “But just note it’s sad, but you’ll probably be put with a white family,” which just kills me because they’re like, “Sorry about that. We’re not intersectional enough.” We only have a few more minutes. But that is enormously scary. And going a bit further though, first of all, I don’t know why that organization isn’t being investigated for essentially establishing a child trafficking network.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Because now if they go to California, if they land in California, if they raise enough money, then they can go ahead and have the surgery. Let’s just call it what it is. It’s a double mastectomy. It’s not just top surgery. They use these terms for us. But it’s actually you’re cutting your breasts off. It’s not just top surgery. It sounds nicer. It’s kind of like when everybody wanted to call female genital mutilation female circumcision. We use these words, which makes it sound culturally more friendly, but we should talk about it, what it is, not top surgery.

Julie Gunlock:

You’re right. And I appreciate that reminder because I called it… I use those when I’m talking quickly about it, I’ll use their words. And it’s very important.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Me too. It’s hard to.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah, it’s very important. You say a double mastectomy on perfectly healthy breast tissue.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

It’s often of a minor.

Julie Gunlock:

Of girls who just developed. It is tragic. They will never get that back. There are many things that are irreversible about these gender affirming care, about gender affirming care. For instance, the lowering of the voice and possible sterilization. But there have been cases where, okay, if you’re not on long enough, you might be able to… It might not be. Although I think the voice deepening is something that happens pretty quickly. But the point is, is that you cannot ever go back after you’ve removed your breasts. And I’ve seen some people say, “Well you can always get implants,” as if implants are capable of lactation, as if implants feel the same, as if there aren’t problems, as if there aren’t problems with sensation.

It’s absolutely monstrous how these people pushing it just gloss over those things. And on the mind of a 15 year old, a 16 year old, even a 10 year old, and let’s be clear, even a 24 year old, their brains are still developing. And it is just terrible, the misinformation that people, that kids, are getting. And I want to talk though a little bit more because as I’m saying, oh, the misinformation kids are getting, in your mind, you’re like, well, at least there’s a parent there to protect them. And you mentioned parents are increasingly getting cut out of things. Shockingly, honestly, and why am I shocked? Why am I shocked?

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Why are we ever shocked anymore?

Julie Gunlock:

Why am I ever shocked anymore? Right? There is a representative in Virginia. For those outside of Virginia listening, we’re a Commonwealth and we have the House of Delegates. And in the House of Delegates, there is a woman representative, Elizabeth Guzman. She does represent a northern part, a northern district of Virginia, so Northern Virginia, where all the loony tune elected officials are. She has introduced a bill to criminalize parents, essentially, who do not affirm their child’s suddenly identifying as another gender. Right? And so if you do not accept their new pronouns, if you don’t accept their new name, if you don’t provide them with care in order to transition, you might face a felony. This just happened yesterday. I’d love to get your thoughts on that.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Just like you said, it’s shocking that I’m surprised. I think that this is just awful. But really, it begs the question, do we not live in the United States of America right now? Is Virginia not actually in the United States? Because we’ve got the first amendment, which says that you don’t need to be forced to do things against your religion. And this is definitely a religious violation for many people, or against your freedom of speech. So the forced pronouns is compelled speech. So there’s that issue. And then just the 14th Amendment issue, do we not have any kind of parental rights over our children anymore to make decisions about what’s the best for them? So I don’t understand how this is constitutional, and what’s really scary is even if you can challenge it in the courts afterwards, if it were to be passed, how many people will this actually affect? How many parents will they actually just throw in the slammer for not doing what they want?

Julie Gunlock:

I think it’s even more insidious than that. I actually don’t think… First of all, Elizabeth Guzman is so done with her career. This woman should literally buy a farm and start, I don’t know, gardening. Because there is no way this woman has a future in Virginia politics. This is worse than what Terry McCullough said. Terry McCullough, who blew away any kind of political career simply said, well, didn’t simply say, but he said, and it was provocative, but he said parents shouldn’t have anything to do with curriculum. That is nothing compared to Elizabeth Guzman saying that parents should be thrown in the slammer when they don’t affirm their children’s new gender ideology. Now this is the thing too, is that if you look at some of the studies, we know that the majority of people who suffer from this, or who claim to be transgender suffer from a multitude of-

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Underlying conditions.

Julie Gunlock:

Yes. Okay. So whether it’s depression or anxiety, which who didn’t when you were in middle school, and then body dysphoria, you have autism. Many, many of these kids are on the autism spectrum, and who knows about that? Maybe some school counselor, it’s in their file or something, but it’s the parents. And the parents are the ones who are on the front lines dealing with their kids and all the other-

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Know them well.

Julie Gunlock:

Know them well, and then you’re going to cut them out. We need a new word for government overreach. Government overreach doesn’t quite capture what delegate, I keep calling her rep, but what Delegate Guzman has done here. I think this will… And thank you, thank you Delegate Guzman for doing this right before the midterms. I think this is something that will definitely get people-

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Yes. Well timed.

Julie Gunlock:

Yes.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

There’s no way to motivate parents than to just threaten to throw them in jail because you don’t like the way that they’re raising their children or you don’t agree with their political perspective.

Julie Gunlock:

So I want to conclude here on a happy note and kind of get your thoughts on, what do you think the future of Northern Virginia schools, schools across the country, the role of teacher… I always wonder, are teachers going to start coming back to reality? I know that the teachers’ unions are a disaster and that’s a whole other issue, but what do you think? Are we going to win this? Are parents going to win this fight?

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Oh, I would love to say yes. And that’s what I’m hoping. You don’t know if you don’t try. So a lot of people say you’re fighting a losing battle, but I think any battle is lost that’s not first fought. So I think it is a battle worth fighting. The odds are all stacked against us, but there have been a lot of battles that have been won when the odds are stacked against you. So I wouldn’t be fighting if I didn’t think it was winnable.

That said, I am also in tandem while I’m fighting, starting to seriously consider private schools while I fight this fight because I think right now is a very hard time. I think they’re recruiting teachers who are drinking the same Kool-Aid that they are. I think that that’s intentional right now. So they’re drinking… The teachers that they’re choosing, they’re purposefully selecting, and that has generational impact as well. The good news is that the parents are waking up. So that’s the most promising thing that we have. Institutionally, we need the turnaround, and hope isn’t a method, so we need to fight. So I don’t know that it will be immediate, but I think it’s winnable if we all work together. I guess I’ll try to end on optimism too.

Julie Gunlock:

Well Stephanie, thanks so much for coming on, and I encourage everyone to go on IWN. That’s IWN. I’m sorry, iwnetwork.com, and check out Stephanie’s work there. She also publishes op-eds. I feel like you publish an op-ed a week. I can’t even keep up, but she is-

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

I have a lot to say.

Julie Gunlock:

Yeah. She is in local Virginia papers as well as national outlets. I think you’re… Have you been published in the Federalist yet? Yeah, so she’s over at The Federalist and other places. And Stephanie, if there’s any social media or a platform where they can find you, why don’t you tell them that now?

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Thank you. I’m actually completely off social media. I think it’s toxic. So I’m taking a break.

Julie Gunlock:

Good. Smart.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

But thank you for that.

Julie Gunlock:

But Stephanie, real quick before we let you go, you’re also shadowing the Fairfax School Board, and people can watch that. I know another IWN parent, Harry Jackson, runs that and you’re often on there with him. So maybe the place that they can find that podcast, which is great fun to watch, by the way.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Thank you. So that’s USAnow.tv. Sam Mataro is the producer of that. And we livestream our comments just the same time that the school board meeting is going on. And we’ve actually received quite a lot of pressure from different people and phone calls. A lot of people have been trying to shut that down. It’s wildly unpopular with school board members, so that’s how you know you’re on target. But yes, please do sign in and watch that USAnow.tv.

Julie Gunlock:

All right. Well, thank you again for all you’re doing to improve life in Fairfax and getting the word out on these important issues and really appreciate you joining me today.

Stephanie Lundquist-Arora:

Thanks, Julie.