[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Hi, everyone, Steve Abubato.

We kick off the program talking about a compelling, controversial important issue with Shawn Hyland, Director of Advocacy for an organization called New Jersey Family Policy Center.

The website will be up.

Mr. Hyland, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you, Steve.

Thanks for having me on today.

- You got it.

Shawn, help us understand.

What is the greatest concern you and others at the New Jersey Family Policy Center have as it relates to public school education policy in the state of New Jersey as it relates to what parents should or should know, do or do not know, as it relates to their children and what their children are saying potentially to teachers and others about their sexual identity, their sexual orientation, and what's the problem?

- Well, there's a number- - This is not new policy.

- Yeah.

There's a number of issues that's been going on for a few years here in the state.

I think right now it's becoming a top headline issue because when school boards begin to really listen to the concerns of parents, and pass policies to make sure parents are notified and involved in their child's social and emotional wellbeing the attorney general slapped them with civil rights violations and that's when it's really became a top headline issue.

All we're asking for is to make sure parents are not kept in the dark throughout their child's own development.

It's a very trying time, adolescence, and to complicate that with gender identity issues, parents should be there with their child and not be sidelined by the state government.

- What about parents, many of whom I know personally, who are not okay at all with their child expressing, take transgender issues out of the equation for a second but have said if their child says to them, "I think I'm gay" at 10, 12, 11, 8, 14, whatever it is that the parent doesn't respond well and that child now is put at greater risk and has greater challenges at home.

What do you say to those children and those who believe those children need to be protected from parents who potentially are not as accepting as some others?

- Well, these policies that have been passed, specifically I know in the Monmouth County school districts, when a child comes in and asserts the gender identity or you know, their sexual orientation, that doesn't trigger a phone call right away to the parent.

The teacher, the administrator sits down with the student, talks to the student, tries to find out about the student's home life and family before they involve the parent or inform the parent.

And if there are situations where a parent is abusive, I mean, teachers are mandatory reporters anyway.

They would have to call Children and Family Services but to keep all parents in the dark because of those very few situations, that's problematic.

- Mr. Hyland, what do you say to those- we've had several people on and the transgender community who argue that they are more at risk than ever before.

They are being bullied.

They're being targeted.

They are at risk for physical harm.

Get this statistic, 80 to 90% of young adults, excuse me, young students who struggle with their gender revert back to their biological birth gender.

You have argued, "It's a phase.

We don't need hormones and sex reassignment."

You're saying it's a phase that, this is from you, a direct quote from you that children who say at 8 or 10 or 11, 12, this is what I think is going on with me, it's just a phase, it's a fad?

- Yeah, I think for many students as they're growing up now with social media and with transgender ideology just really saturated on social media, now being implemented in the schools, they're becoming more confused than ever.

Studies do show that most students, when the time they hit adulthood, do grow out of gender dysphoria.

That's why most nations, in the UK, Finland, Sweden that used to be the tip of the spear on this issue have hit a pause button.

They shut down the gender affirming care clinics for minors.

They're more cautious in transitioning minors 'cause they realize that many of them are going through a very troubling time of adolescence with their mental social development.

And they need coaching, they need love, they need therapy, they need counseling, they need help not harm.

Putting 'em on puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, sex reassignment surgeries, that's not the answer to this issue.

- But what does that have to do with public schools and what parents are told or not?

That has nothing, public schools aren't doing any of that.

- No, but when they know a child is struggling in this area and they know that these children that struggle in this area have a greater risk of mental health issues, have trauma in their lives, have different things they're wrestling with and struggling with, to tell parents that they don't need to be involved or informed of that situation, that's not right.

Parents shouldn't be kept in the dark.

No one loves a child more than their mother and their father, and I think we can all agree- - No one should love their child more than their mother or father.

But you do acknowledge that's not the case across the board?

- No, I would- no, except if it was a physical abusive situation, I don't know any other situation where the state- - How about emotionally and psychologically abusive in the sense that, No, we don't accept this.

We don't accept what you say you feel inside.

We don't accept you saying you believe you're gay.

We don't accept you believing that the gender that you were born into is not the right gender for you, for whatever reason.

Take physical abuse out of it.

So you don't believe that there are a significant number of parents out there who are not "accepting" and in fact, therefore, defacto put all kinds of pressures on kids that they shouldn't be facing because they're facing so much already.

You're the one who mentioned social media, but on top of that, being rejected by parents.

Not abused physically, I'm not talking about that.

- Well, I think that's a conversation we have to have in America.

I think right now what's going on is we're trying to impose upon all families that they have to adopt and agree with and affirm the religious beliefs, the sexual beliefs of the state government.

There's many parents- - Hold on, where's the religious part?

- Well, because coming from sex and gender, there's a very subjective view that's been introduced now in a, I guess, relativistic, postmodern debate in the 21st century.

It used to be biological, it used to be a very objective category that male and female meant man and woman.

- So you've argued that the family unit, the traditional family unit, the family unit as you define it, is one man and one woman only, one man and one woman only.

Am I, do I have that wrong?

- No, that is the traditional family unit.

That's still the mainstream global view of the family unit in 85% of all nations around the globe.

According to our belief system, the Christian-Judeo belief system, it is the very first institution God ever made.

It's a divine institution.

It's a very good institution.

The mother, father, family unit.

- So if someone, if two women, they're lesbians, and they consider themselves Christians, Judeo-Christians as you describe, and they want to have a family and I know many of them personally, very close to me personally, they have the wrong family structure because they are two women who are raising a child?

Two men who are Judeo-Christian, but happen to be gay, they're raising a child, they're wrong?

- I mean, I, among millions of others across the world, tens of millions of others across the world, we have very firm biblical convictions about a family unit consisting of a mother and a father, a man and a woman, a husband and a wife.

And that's the religious beliefs of millions of people around the world.

It doesn't have to be your belief or anyone else's belief.

You have to respect the religious beliefs of other cultures.

- Do you respect people's sexual orientation and how they choose to build a family given their unique situation.

And the fact that you don't get to decide that it's a male and a female, and that's the way the family is.

One size fits all, right?

- Yeah, I don't get to decide.

I think the Supreme Court made a decision here in America along those lines, but we have the right to express and teach and believe religiously what a family unit is.

Someone cannot impose their beliefs upon me, and I cannot impose my beliefs upon somebody else.

It's a religiously free society.

- Shawn Hyland is a Director of Advocacy for New Jersey Family Policy Center.

Mr. Hyland, I wanna thank you for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you, Steve.

I appreciate it.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

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