Here at JDFI, we are mourning the passing of our founder and leader, Dr. James Dobson. We ask that you keep Shirley and the wonderful Dobson family and our team in your prayers.
Dr. Dobson’s Christian faith informed everything he did throughout his life. Of course, he was also renowned for his parenting advice and his counseling on how to maintain strong marriages.
My work with him involved another of Dr. Dobson’s passions. He wanted American Christians to be bold and engaged citizens and the church to be actively involved in the community, confronting evil as well as helping those in need.
Dr. Dobson was a tremendous advocate for parental rights, and he also regularly reminded us of our parental responsibilities. He would be outraged about what is happening right now in Loudoun County, Virginia.
Loudoun County is one of the wealthy suburbs of Washington, DC, located about an hour west of our nation’s capital. Twenty years ago, it was a bucolic, semi-rural county. Over those years, it has changed dramatically due to immigration and the growth of the federal bureaucracy.
The Loudoun County public school system increasingly resembles what you would expect in one of America’s far-left big cities. The school board vehemently opposes any effort to remove graphic sexual material from school libraries. There are regular controversies involving LGBTQ ideologies being forced on students. Primarily conservative parents are seen as troublemakers.
In 2021, Loudoun County made news when a boy claiming he was a girl sexually assaulted a girl in the girls’ bathroom. The county actually tried to cover up the crime. They transferred the boy to another school where he attacked yet another girl.
Transgender ideology and parental rights played big roles in deciding the outcome of the Virginia gubernatorial race that year.
Once again, Loudoun County’s transgender policies are making headlines. This time, a girl claiming to be a boy went into a high school boys’ locker room and secretly recorded the reactions of the boys who were changing clothes. Why was this girl recording the boys? Was it a setup? Was it an attempt to advance a particular agenda?
What happened next was telling.
What do you expect boys to say if they see a biological girl walking into the boys’ locker room? Local media obtained the girls’ video recording in which one boy said, “There’s a girl in here? There’s a girl?” Another said, “Why is there a girl? I’m so uncomfortable there is a girl [in here].”
That is all the boys said. But the leftist-controlled school board labeled those words “sexual harassment” in violation of the school board’s policy against sex discrimination.
Not long ago, sexual harassment would have been defined as a member of the opposite sex walking into the other gender’s locker room. Now, because of today’s cultural revolutionaries attempting to turn reality upside down, a normal reaction to such an event is being described as “sexual harassment.”
The three boys initially accused of sexual harassment by Loudoun County school officials included two Christians and one Muslim. All punishments for the Muslim boy were later dropped. The two Christian boys were suspended for ten days. Having suspensions for sexual discrimination on their records will negatively affect them the rest of their lives.
Where are the parents of Loudoun County? Where are the decent citizens and taxpayers of Loudoun County? Where are the churches of Loudoun County? How is the county going about its business when two Christian students are being crushed by LGBTQ ideology in a public school?
One pastor is speaking up. When the incident occurred, Pastor Gary Hamrick of Cornerstone Church in Leesburg, Virginia, brought the boys and their parents up on stage, told their story, and prayed for them. He has also reminded his congregation every time there is a school board meeting.
In recent years, Dr. Dobson praised what Pastor Hamrick and others were doing in Loudoun County. But most county residents looked the other way and went about their lives as if it were business as usual.
So, what are the county’s parents telling their sons and daughters? I can only assume it is, “Keep your head down and your mouth shut if a girl walks into your bathroom.”
Parental rights mean nothing without parental action. Our liberties are not secure if people are afraid to exercise them.
I guarantee you, if an illegal alien was about to be arrested near any Loudoun County high school, a mob of leftists would be in the streets trying to stop the arrest. If someone lay down in front of a Loudoun County abortion clinic door, there would be no shortage of outraged people, and that person would be on the docket charged with a serious crime. But too many citizens yawn when their boys are being crushed.
Many schools are back in session. Others will start after Labor Day. So, we are back into the swing of the school year—getting up early, checking homework, and going to Friday night football games. We are also back in the ideological war Dr. Dobson and I have warned about for decades—the effort to destroy our children and take their minds captive with alien ideology that flies in the face of all reality. As much as we may get excited about high school football, that pales compared to what is happening in classrooms across America when it comes to teaching our children about what to believe regarding everything that matters.
Transgender ideology was a major issue in last year’s presidential campaign. Numerous analysts believe it is one reason independent voters were drawn to President Trump. He aggressively exposed Kamala Harris’s extreme views in favor of taxpayer funding for transgender surgeries.
There are some real heroes fighting the transgender juggernaut. Female athletes, including Riley Gaines, Payton McNabb, and Stephanie Turner, have had enough and are fighting back. There are incredibly courageous young women, including Chloe Cole, Clair Abernathy, and Soren Aldaco, who were themselves deceived by this ideology and had their bodies mutilated. At great embarrassment and humiliation over what was done to them, they are now standing up and telling parents, “Don’t let this happen to your child.”
President Trump’s Department of Education is warning school districts that refuse to respect biological reality that they could lose federal funding. A lot is happening, but where are the parents? Polls show Americans overwhelmingly oppose transgender extremism in our schools and in women’s sports. Why aren’t 5,000 people showing up at local school board meetings? Why are there no picket lines at public schools?
In the months leading up to the 250th anniversary of the founding of America, I have been delving into some of the great history books about what our Founders did under the literal risk of death for the cause of freedom. Our country was founded by men who risked their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.”1 Today, too many Americans are AWOL in the battle for faith, family, and freedom.
There is no better way to honor our country, founded on the belief that our liberty comes from God, and to honor Dr. James Dobson, than to stand up against the radical indoctrination of our children.
- “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription.” National Archives and Records Administration. Accessed August 25, 2025. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript.
