Donalt Trump has been spewing the baloney sex change operations in schools for years now (here he is repeating the falsehood in 2024), so lying about it a couple of weeks ago (in front of actual young humans, and aided in the lying by Linda McMahon) is par for the course (particularly for a guy who beats par on the course by lying ). Meanwhile, Attorney General Todd Blanche has declared a "pandemic" of gender transitions in schools.
The notion that schools where there aren't enough classrooms or books or staff, but somehow the reading teachers is taking time out of her class schedule to perform sex change operation in a fully functional OR is so stunningly absurd that it defies satire. Of all the things that never happened, secret sex change operations in schools didn't happen the most.
However, there's a real issue behind this absurdity, and whether Dear Leader has distorted it by passing his partial understanding through the funhouse mirrors of his brain or whether he's deliberately distorting the case, his secret school ORs run the risk of distracting people from a real issue being tossed into the courts.
Out in California, brought by a couple of teacher-parents, Mirabelli v. Bonta made it to the Supremes, and another in New Jersey, brought by Moms for Liberty was just filed. Mirabelli is probably what Trump was referring to.
These cases get complicated, but they revolve around one basic question-- do public schools have an obligation to out LGBTQ students to their parents, or do they have an obligation NOT to do so?
For the Parental Rights crowd, it's a simple question. They have should have complete control over all aspects of their children's lives at all times. The view of the extreme members of this crowd is that parents have rights and children have none. When they say, "My child is not the property of the government," the unspoken rest of the sentence is "My child is my property" and not, unfortunately, "My child is a living, breathing human being who does not belong to anybody."
Cases like the New Jersey case invoke the parental right "to direct their children's religious and moral upbringing."
I wish they would also invoke their parental responsibilities or their children's rights, but I really do understand their point. I would certainly prefer, for instance, that my children's teachers not deliver instruction on how LGBTQ persons are delusional or mentally ill. I am absolutely responsible for the upbringing in all its aspects, and I really don't want the school working against me.
If my children do encounter ideas that run counter to what I want for them, the major tool their mother and I have is an open line of communication. In fact, as they get older, that's pretty much the only real tool I have.
If your child is using a new name at school and you don't know about it, there are two parties that are not telling you. If your child has come out as LGBTQ and you don't know about it, the only reason is because they have chosen not to tell you.
If a child comes out to a teacher or other school staff, that adult has a responsibility to encourage the child to talk to a parent about it. But they also have a responsibility to listen to a child who says their home will become unsafe if they come out there. LGBTQ children are a disproportionate part of the homeless population, more likely than their straight peers to be thrown out of the house. To insist that a school must out an LGBTQ student no matter what is irresponsible.
Both schools and parents have a responsibility to look after the health and welfare of the child, and a child's health and welfare is best served ideally by a strong relationship with their parents. It helps if the parents and schools communicate regularly and openly. At the heart of all this should be care and concern for the education, health and welfare of the child-- not absolute authoritarian power of the parent-- or the school-- over the child.
Of course, many policy makers don't care a bit about parental rights. Witness the states, like Texas, where if the parent wants the school to recognize their child's trans identity, the state says "too bad." Sometimes these battles aren't about parental rights at all-- they are about policy makers' desire to erase LGBTQ identities, a stance that puts the health, welfare, and education of the child absolutely last.
The group for which I have the least patience or sympathy is those teachers who don't want to call students by their chosen name. Grow up, get over yourselves, and call the student whatever the student prefers to be called. Spare me your religious objections; if your religion is defined by the people you are called to reject and deny, the students you think Jesus wants you to tell, "Your identity is not welcome here," you are following a brand of christianism I do not recognize.
The one thing we are not called to do as teachers is to tell students who they are in defiance of who they say they are.
As a parent, I often think of the words of Russell Barkley, who argues that we do not engineer children, but serve as shepherds. We don't beat them into the shape we prefer, but guide and support and nudge them along, and if they don't grow up exactly as we ordered them to, that is not a sign that someone has surreptitiously out-engineered us.
If your child feels unsafe talking to you about highly personal stuff, it will not aid your cause to make sure that they can't trust any adults at school, either. It will just ensure that your child will feel very isolated at a very vulnerable and scary time, which opens them up to the kinds of problematic influences that you were worried about in the first place.
Parental rights are real and important, but when they are "protected" and extended at the expense of children's rights, that's bad for everyone. Children deserve acceptance and guidance, support and safety, autonomy and guardrails, and providing those things requires a tricky balancing act by all the adults in their lives. It's a balancing act that's best managed by centering on the rights of the child and not hamfisted lawsuits, policy declarations, and press conference bloviating.
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