Two members of the Orange Unified School District board have been removed by parents who opposed a policy requiring school staff to out transgender kids.
Parents in Southern California have voted to remove two conservative school board members after they spearheaded a policy that forcibly outs transgender students to their guardians.
Members of the Orange Unified School District board voted 4-0 to enact the policy in September. It was passed at 11:30 p.m., after the three opposed members walked out and withheld their votes.
The policy states that parents must be notified when a student seeks “to be identified as a gender other than the student’s biological sex or gender listed on the student’s birth certificate or any other official records.” This includes names, nicknames, and pronouns, and applies even if the student hasn’t taken action but has discussed the matter with a counselor.
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At the initial meeting in September, the board was overwhelmed by crowds who showed up to either protest or support the policy. However, the majority of the attendees voicing support did not have children in the district’s schools, and most were not residents of the area, according to the Times.
I honestly don’t know how I feel about this. If my kid (which I do have one) was trying to pass as another gender in school, but not home, I would want to know. It’s generally not good for kids to keep big secrets like this from the people looking out for them. That’s how they end up getting in to trouble in life.
At the same time, I’m not the kind of parent that wouldn’t support my kid through such an issue. I understand it could be dangerous for some kids to be outted to their parents, but I don’t know that we should be governing based on the worst possible outcomes, when keeping the secret could also be dangerous to some.
It is telling to me that most of the supporters that showed up had no skin in the game. I don’t think this specific issue is as cut-and-dry as it appears at first. My mind has certainly changed on it the more I think about it.
Many LGBT youth are hiding that fact from their parents because those parents will either throw them out of the house, send them to reeducation camp, or physicallt abuse them for coming out.
This policy is trying to hurt children.
Don’t be a shitty parent and you don’t have to worry about this. That’s really how easy it is on this specific topic.
If your kid feels safer talking to their teacher about their identity than they do their own parents, then you have absolutely failed as a parent.
The danger to trans kids can’t be understated more in your comment. Outing a kid to parents against their transition is a good way to get them shunned and bullied to homelessness and/or death. Unsupported and bullied kids have astronomically higher rate of suicide, homelessness, and just plain chances of being murdered like that Oklahoma trans teenager recently.
Teachers can support a kid in coming out to their parents or out the kid to their parents based on their judgement rather than being required to do so. Your child has a right to privacy as well, depending on age and whether the secret harms others. Being trans at the point where they want to change their name is usually a high-school thing and being trans isn’t harming anyone.
I think you and others who thought the policy was a good idea are missing the key reason why it isn’t.
The rule forced schools to notify parents regardless of the circumstances. It did not say that parents must not be notified under any circumstances. That’s a massive difference.
As you said, this is not a cut and dry issue. If a school deems that a trans student’s health and safety are in danger and that the parents should be notified, then they can make the decision to do so. However, under most circumstances, if the parents are not already aware that their child is changing their gender identity then there is a good reason for that.
These situations are highly sensitive and must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis - the policy destroyed all that and put many students in danger unnecessarily by completely removing all nuance from the situation.