Somewhere in your town, there is a teenager rattling around the internet trying to figure out his life. This teenage, like all teenagers, is curious and maybe a bit confused about puberty, sex, and sexuality. This teenager, like all teenagers, is feeling lonely, unknown, and unknowable. This teenager isn’t too excited about puberty, the development of sexual feelings, or a future vision as a sexual being. This teenager, however, will find a quick internet diagnosis for his feelings of discomfort with the body and general social awkwardness: transgenderism. He must have been “born in the wrong body.”
Once a teen has self-diagnosed that she is transgender, she will train her focus on next steps: social transition and medical transition. The internet tells her that if she doesn’t transition, she’ll kill herself (not true!) and there are hundreds of internet testimonials of how wonderful and awesome and completely worthwhile that effort will be. So when her teacher enquires about preferred pronouns at school, she responds “he/him” or perhaps “they/them.” She may have even decided on a new name.
And if the school has thoughtfully developed a “gender transition plan,” this teenager can go and ask the school to change the pronouns and name on the school records and informal documents. A school representative will ask the child if he feels “safe” at home sharing this information, and if the answer is no, the school will duly note this. The school will then use one set of name/pronouns with the family, and one set of name/pronouns at school, and the family will never know.
The school is painting themselves as the virtuous do-gooders here. They think they have the child’s best interests at heart. They think they are being inclusive and thoughtful. But here’s the fundamental truth: no school teacher, no school representative, no adult of any type has the right to parent a child besides the child’s legal guardians.
Let’s just play this out with any other issue: you are hosting a child’s friend for a meal. You know his family keeps Kosher. Do you say “well, I think it’s no big deal, so we’ll eat the pork chops tonight?” Your child’s friend has a fear of water. Do you take her to a Water Park and tell her to just get in and face her fears – it will be good for her? The friend has anorexia. Do you force her to clean her plate because that’s your family rules? The friend hasn’t got a Covid vaccine yet. Do you just take him to the clinic? The friend just seems gay to you – you’ve got such a strong hunch. Do you take her to your LGB support group?
Absolutely not.
Because whatever your diet choices, personal preferences, family values, medical decisions, hunches, or sexuality are, you do not get to make those choices for other people’s kids.
Socially transitioning someone is a therapeutic choice to be made by the guardians, not a social nicety to be proffered by schools.
For some families, after years and years of therapy and a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria, they may make the choice to socially transition their child with a new name and pronoun. In those cases, it is also not the right of the school to deny that choice (though I do believe there is a valid debate to be had on locker rooms, restrooms, and sports teams.) Ideally, this social change will help alleviate some of the child’s gender dysphoria.
For other families, social transition may not be appropriate. Children with anxiety, depression, autism, ADHD, who have experienced trauma, or who may be gay can actually do much worse when they attempt social transition. Reinforcing the delusion can distract from the underlying cause of dysphoria, and delays the efforts needed to address to diagnose and treat those issues. Social transition can isolate the child further from peers and hobble the opportunity to develop healthy friendships or romantic relationships. Balancing these concerns is what the family, along with a psychologist, is best qualified to do. No school representative could ever have the breadth of knowledge needed to make that decision for a child.
Therefore, I propose a national “Defense of Parenting Act” to formally clarify that all physical, medical, and therapeutic choices concerning a child are to be conducted by the parents or guardians of a child, and never the school.
That seems pretty obvious. And numerous court cases are pushing that question forward right now. But let’s speed that up and clarify that parenting is for parents. Pretty simple. Let’s do this.
7 comments
This is a local level issue, not national. This would put too much power at the federal level, which has already amassed too much power.
ACTION!!!!
As former college teacher and mother I’d like to say this. It’s not just politically misunderstood actionism. In the UK in FE institutions there is method in the madness. Every teenager, who is diagnosed with ADHD, autism and gender dysphoria ‘makes’ double the amount for a college per month, extra resources are necessary for them. It pays off for colleges, in financial and political weight to have more of these students. This is a very obvious truth people seem to overlook in this context.
Sadly, the group behind parentalrights.org has been trying to get a constitutional amendment passed for maybe fifteen years now. I was hopeful for their work in the beginning, when I hoped some Democrat politicians could sympathize. But now, I feel the political winds are even more set against such a thing. Many on the left believe state institutions can raise kids better than parents. I doubt we could ever get two-thirds of Congress to pass such an amendment without some seismic cultural change. 🙁
The state wants to treat people like state property?
Jeez, must be a day that ends in “y” or something!
Indeed, schools took over parenting roles or have been trying for some time. Doing more dictating than actual teaching. I’ve always had a distain for the public school system. Let parents parent. That said, there are many that send their kids to school so they don’t have to parent, so that is also a problem. Woman were pushed out of that role as far as I’m concerned now to the point of inconvenience rather than any sense of responsibility to it. I was a tomboy, however I never wanted to be one. Sometimes I had moments where I wished I had been born a boy but watching men, it was only a momentary thought, and I was surrounded by those that reminded me that I was not so too bad Lol. I cannot imagine being a child in today’s environment. It must be very confusing and scary. It makes me so profoundy sad to the point I often just sit and cry. My childhood was learning, and exploring. There are no more adults in the world. Adults are acting like children, and children are being asked to act like adults. Male and female roles interchangeable into a lost world of bullshit, leaving kids paying the price. Being a parents may not be the hardest job in the world, it is one that should be taken seriously though.
Schools have traditionally functioned “in loco parentis” (see, e.g., Clarence Thomas’ recent dissent in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., for an example of how this can go wrong). This function was always ripe for abuse, a particularly ominous prospect in public schools. Similarly, DCYF and family court systems have powers over families that are sweet opportunities for corruption. All of these institutions nevertheless do some good as long as the people in them are acting in good faith and not out of ideology.
Surely it’s not feasible to ban schools from making any decisions about a child’s care. Would the standard be that schools could only make such decisions in emergency situations? (But the definition of “emergency” is slowly being diluted as well.)
P.S. In the meantime, homeschool! Pod school! School choice!