A new report by Parents Defending Education has raised concerns about the growing number of U.S. schools adopting policies that conceal students’ gender identities from their parents.
The report found that more than 1,040 school districts, encompassing more than 18,000 schools and roughly 11 million students, have embraced such policies. Notably, 593 of these districts are located in California.
Meg Kilgannon, of the Family Research Council, expressed her gratitude towards Parents Defending Education for quantifying what many parents have felt or experienced, stating, “It is important to support with evidence what many parents know by instinct or experience: our educational system that is supposed to work with parents will often work around parents instead.” Kilgannon warns parents to be vigilant, suggesting they “need to assume they will be deceived by their school if their child makes a gender identity declaration to a teacher or counselor at school.”
These policies, termed “Transgender/Gender Nonconforming Policies,” have been the center of nationwide debate and protest, with parental rights organizations like Moms for Liberty and Mama Grizzly emerging to challenge such policies. Kilgannon emphasized the importance of engaging with those who advocate these policies, stating, “[I]f we have the ability to do so, we must engage with people and systems that view this parental deception as good for children. Obviously, something is very wrong if some people can believe the answer is government first, parents second or never.”
In a recent case from New Jersey, a state judge barred several school districts from implementing a policy that would have mandated faculty and staff to notify parents about their children’s gender identities. The judge argued that such policies could negatively impact transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary youth. The policies in question would have required staff to inform parents if a student, for instance, used a bathroom not aligned with their biological sex or requested a change in pronouns.
The debate over these policies is part of a larger conversation about why more children are identifying as transgender or non-binary. A study from earlier this year labeled this trend a “socially contagious syndrome,” suggesting that some youths, particularly female adolescents, might be mistaking social and mental health challenges for gender dysphoria.
While some believe that the increase in children identifying as transgender is due to peer pressure and the rising societal acceptance of transgenderism, others, such as Mama Grizzly founder Stacy Langton, argue that it is the result of teachers sexually grooming children.
