Target shocked the world with their announcement of transgender bathrooms as the masses cried out in outrage. Protesters boycott the store while the ACLU director quits her job because she says it threatens women’s safety after her girls were visibly upset at having used a restroom with towering transgender women.

The real question is how we got here.  It obviously didn’t happen overnight.

Since my kids are in their twenties, I’ve seen a slow eroding of modesty that didn’t exist a decade before they were born.  Long gone are the days when schools enforced dress codes that were written in black and white and parents didn’t question the authority of school officials when their kids were sent home or given something else to wear for the day.

While most of us can look back at that A-Ha moment when the world was not what we thought it should be, mine was when my 9 year old was on the swim team.  I remember well the excitement when the outdoor pool was covered with a dome for winter training for the first time.  While typically changing out of wet swimsuits would take place in respective dressing rooms, kids would now be forced to run wet through the cold outdoors to get to the inside changing areas.  

Oh my, we can’t have that.

Enter make-shift dressing rooms on the pool deck.

Curtains on iron rods were situated on opposite corners of the pool deck–one for girls, the other for boys.  It seemed like a good option–until the season was in full-swing.

By mid season, the older kids seemed to shun the improvised dressing rooms.  Deciding it was easier to just dress on deck, teen girls would be seen dawning t-shirts over wet swimsuits, pulling the wet suit down half way and putting a bra on underneath while 9 and 10-year-old kids were entering the pool area for their designated swim time.  

Next thing these impressionable kids would see would be a girl shimmying the rest of her suit off  and gently pulling on her lace underwear.  Yes, she was covered by her longer t-shirt or sometimes a towel, but of course those t-shirts or towels weren’t always fully hiding everything.  And towels would accidentally drop.  And the giggling would start.

Soon the high school boys were doing the same.  Not the bras, mind you, but you get the idea.

And parents and coaches stood by and said nothing. “Oh well, we can’t have them get sick from the cold. At least they’re covered.”

Meanwhile my impressionable 9 year old was taking notice of how the world operated.

Fast forward almost a decade and things were continuing to evolve.  By now, school officials might have a dress code for students, but it was rarely if ever enforced.

Volunteering as a chaperone for a homecoming dance opened my eyes yet again to the real world my child lived in.  The dress code had been made clear but I stood mouth gaping open as I witnessed a high school principal look at a girl’s dress that left little to the imagination and said, “You know that outfit doesn’t meet dress code, but I’ll let you in this time without calling your parents.” 

The girl put on her smile and boldly walked into the school gym while parent chaperones stood appalled.

By the time my third was in high school band, I realized how far the getting dressed in the same room had gotten. Now it was a given.  Even for school functions.  Boys and girls changed clothes on the bus for every competition without thinking a thing about it. 

Why can’t they use separate buses as dressing rooms?  For heaven’s sake, if you are driving four buses to an event why not designate two for boys and two for girls as dressing areas?  How difficult is that?

But no one thinks of that any more.

Our kids accept it as normal because the adults in their lives have learned to accept it as normal.

1 Peter 5:2a

Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them

1 Peter 5:8

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

Outraged parents are vigilant in their out-lash against Target, but are we being as persistent when it hits a little closer to home?  Are we willing to take a stand in our own communities–in our kid’s schools or activities?

Is the ‘creep’ of unacceptable to acceptable happening under our eyes as parents and we’re oblivious to it?

Dare you to look at your values and take a stand in your ‘neck of the woods’.  And while you’re at it, take time to talk to your kids about what you see in their world.  Engage them in the culture battle.

“Let go…and let God”,

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