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.
When kids don’t trust their parents, there’s usually a good reason.
I didn’t tell my parents I
likedfucked both boys and girls, they eventually noticed who I was having over overnightI don’t think I ever told anyone about the gender dysphoria I felt when I was young, and I’m really glad that if anyone at school discovered that from something I said or did they weren’t going to tell my parents. They would have been supportive, but I wasn’t sure of myself at all and support might have pushed me too hard in one direction or the other
Absolutely not. This is a hot take that is not well thought out. At least the way I took your statement is that the parents are the reason the kids are hiding it. I.e. they won’t be accepting or there is some other notion that the parents are responsible for.
First off, kids in high school are constantly battling for their independence. Their autonomy is their goal almost exclusively until things go wrong. A good parent has to watch out from afar and hope they taught their kid well.
Second, the kid could have all sorts of reasons to hiding this. Maybe it was never talked about before. Maybe when it was they didn’t know how to say what they had to say. Kids have a hard time even saying feelings on food choices when they aren’t aware of the vocabulary for those feelings. They just flat out don’t know what they are feeling until they have a meltdown and talk about it.
Third, the parents aren’t always in the way. Kids don’t give parents enough of a chance to rise to the occasion without giving them a chance. Saying they acted this way or that way is not fair and not at all what a good relationship is about. They gotta give their parents a shot to handle it or all of it is speculation.
Let’s take a step back and look at the mandate in question because the scenario it puts forward is so farcical that I can’t imagine a situation where it’s true.
The idea of a kid being publicly out at school but not at home makes no sense. Kids might be out with their friends, sure, but having the entire school recognize them as a different gender than their parents? The only situation where this mandate would take effect is one where a kid has privately confided in a teacher or counselor, or maybe at a school LGBT group or something. All of which are situations where breaking the kid’s trust and consent are the worst way to go about things. A kid’s consent is just as important as an adults.
In the above scenarios, the way to go about it is encouraging the kids to help them gain the confidence to come out on their own or protect them from transphobic and homophobic parents. Snitching on them won’t help either way.
The only purpose of this mandate is to make trans kids afraid of being outed to transphobic parents. The cruelty is the point.
If the mandate is to keep it from abusive parents cool. I approve of this. My original comment had very little to do with the article. It has more to do with the comment that kids hide things from their parents because of their parents. Kids hide things because they don’t want to get caught in some instances. Especially if they are lying. Which is the original comment parent to the comment I replied to.
From the parent comment.
The comment you replied to and the parent comment were both about the mandate in the article, which is why you’ve gotten the pushback that you have. Neither had anything to do with kids lying to hide things other than protecting themselves from transphobic parents. The mandate in the article was expressly created for the purpose of outing kids to transphobic parents, hence the comment about kids not trusting their parents usually for good reason.
The parent comment absolutely said they did not know how the felt not knowing if their kid reported to school as transgender and then not to the parent.
Right, it also said this:
To which the comment you replied to said that when kids don’t trust their parents, there’s usually a reason. Which you disagreed with and called a “hot take.”
The whole conversation is about kids lying to their parents about being transgender, in regards to a mandate that forcibly outs them to their parents. We’re not talking about kids lying about drugs and alcohol or something like teenage rebellion, but about kids lying about a fundamental part of who they are. And the most likely reason that they would do so is because telling the truth would be dangerous. There’s no sensible scenario where a kid would be publicly out to the entire school without their parents knowing, so this would be the kind of thing a kid would confide in a counselor or something privately, and if this were a therapist or a doctor the kid was telling, there are literally laws preventing them from telling the kid’s parents without the kid’s permission.
There’s also the fact that the OP is based on a zero sum fallacy in which schools are either telling all parents or telling no parents, and that’s not how things work. Plus, now that I’m looking at that quote, “keeping the secret could also be dangerous to some”?? How could not telling a parent that their kid is trans be dangerous for the kid??
I understand the consequences about reporting to some parents. But my original response has nothing to do with the transgender discussion. It has to do with the tone that someone said “We know why they don’t say anything. It’s because the parents can’t be trusted.” Which is extremely damaging. Are there parents that shouldn’t know? Fuck yes. Are there shitty abusive parents that can’t accept their children? Absolutely.
But it’s also dangerous to not give parents a chance in this situations where it’s uncertain. Especially if you haven’t given them a chance. Bring a friend. Say it public where you can go elsewhere to think. I know it’s not easy. I’m not saying there are easy ways all around. I’m saying there are parents that give a shit and it’s dangerous to just assume they don’t care enough to listen.
That is putting their emotional response in place where they aren’t even given a chance.
Lotta text to say you don’t create an environment where children feel safe talking to you.
Lemme show you what we see when we read your post.
Obviously I’m taking massive liberties with your text, but so are you with every other family that isn’t yours. Doesn’t feel nice does it? That’s one reason why all of your posts are disliked.
I mean, is drug use any different?
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Is drug use any different than what? Kids wanting to go by a different name? Or self-harming?
On all 3, being required to tell the parents is a big issue as the parents might be a part of the problem. Plus, requiring staff snitch on kids is a great way to get kids to never tell anybody that they’re having problems and just bottle it up inside until it festers into some kind of breakdown or long-lasting mental health issue. My mom was a guidance counselor for many years, and she had to make plenty of house calls with CPS in tow.
Sometimes, kids need the help or advice of a third-party adult that they trust who isn’t their parents or their friends’ parents. Hell, in my 20s, I was a manager at a fish market, and even I played that role many times. Oftentimes, it was as innocuous as distracting an earnest and loving mom so that she would stop trying to answer questions for her kids during their interview with the boss instead of letting them answer for themselves, or helping them work up the courage to tell their parents something important like that they’re gay. But if I had broken their confidence and told their parents? The kids who asked me for advice on stuff like how to quickly save money so that they could get an apartment when they turned 18 because their mom was kicking them out of the house would’ve never dared come forward with that.
Demanding teachers put the feelings of some parents above the wellbeing of the most vulnerable kids by not letting them use their own judgment to do what’s best for each kid on a case by case basis isn’t the right way to go about this.
Your statement is extremely open-ended so it is impossible to know what you mean by this, so I can only answer generically.
Yes, drug use is different for various reasons.
A granular example is that some drugs, such as cannabis, limit brain development permanently when consumed below a certain age. Other drugs have similar impact. Since this causes measurable damage to a child’s development, it is different.
If there is a connection between a child wanting to keep information about their perception of themselves private from their care giver and the damage caused by some intoxicants I am failing to see it and would appreciate more insight into your rationale.
Finally, unrelated to your reply at all… I am realizing that autonomy itself is seen as harming a child by many parents. Controlling parents are not a new thing, so this is not surprising to me, but I think if we were to boil down opposition to this, in most cases, we would be left with, “I don’t see my child as a potential adult, I see them as a subservient to be controlled.”
The way to raise children to be functioning adults is to offer them the same respect, freedom, and autonomy that they will have when they arrive at adulthood. Does that mean let them do whatever they want? Obviously no. But there does seem to be an astonishingly large population that doesn’t seem to see their own children as being separate from their parents. Differing experiences, views, challenges that the parent has no idea how to deal with, or at worst, is openly hostile towards. Children are the experts on themselves, parents are mentors to guide the way, but many parents seem to treat their children as prisoners and their home as a comfortable prison. A comfortable prison is still a prison, and the prisoner will notice whether it be now or when they are older and start discussing their childhood with friends.
In short, children are far more aware than many give them credit and will develop into that awareness with confidence if guided by gentle mentorship. Or they will grow through the prison floor like a pissed-off dandelion if restrained.
I’m not a writer, open to critique always.
There are millions of things kids keep from their parents while growing up, and they do it for millions of different reasons, some good some bad and some goofy. Why do we need the government stepping in deciding which secrets, especially those that have nothing to do with the administration of education, are valid?
My point has never been that they should. My point is that it’s not solely the parent’s fault that kids hide things.
Everything requires context. Sometimes kids hide things because their parents may react with violence or some other form of extreme punishment. But regardless of the reason, I would be concerned that these mandatory disclosure policies are stifling the 1st amendment rights of the children, and even worse they are doing so based on a specific viewpoint.
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Nothing bothers me about that at all. It bothers me when people blame parents for not being close to their kids like it’s always the parent’s fault. Kids are secretive for millions of reasons and reducing it to “they are secretive when there is something wrong with the parent” is not fair at all to them.
Guess what? Kids exploring gender identities is not some scary dangerous thing, and if you have the right bond with your kids, they will tell you. These “outing” prohibitions are there to protect the kids from parents who have created such an environment at home that the kids don’t feel safe telling them.
Children aren’t some objects that parents own and control.
I never insinuated ownership. That’s a jump you made. Kids hold things back for more reasons than the parents. There are plenty of people that do things their parents don’t know about for whatever reasons they justify.
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@BreakDecks @GladiusB
Everybody needs to drink fresh water every day and mind their own business, and stay in their own lane, including the kids.
I never disagreed with any mandates or agreed with them in any shape or fashion. I disagreed with blaming parents for their kids not wanting to tell the parents.
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I live in this school district and was part of the group of parents that got these board members recalled. The issue is forcing educators to report it instead of trusting them to do the right thing. If they have a good relationship with the parents and know it’s for the best to tell them what is happening with their student, or if they suspect there’s something going on in the home where it’s better for the student to keep their confidence, the decision should be up to the teacher to do what is right. These are not black and white situations. Also, regardless of anyone’s opinion on the issue, the state had already made a policy, so these board members knowingly made a political decision that cost the district millions of dollars to defend in court, knowing they would lose. They didn’t care, because they have no kids in the schools here. They were political activists using our kids as pawns. To the curb with that trash.
I said this further down the thread, but demanding teachers put the feelings of some parents above the wellbeing of the most vulnerable kids by not letting them use their own judgment to do what’s best for each kid on a case by case basis isn’t the right way to go about this.
The odds of a kid being out at school but not at home are incredibly unlikely, in my opinion. With their friends would be one thing, but to be publicly out without their parents knowing? Makes no sense, especially with the chances of bullying or somebody else just snitching (intentionally or by accident) to their parents. I could see kids confiding in a school counselor or a teacher that they trust, but the way it’s worded is all about making trans kids afraid and nothing more. Under this mandate, if your kid asks a teacher to call them Bob instead of Robert, the school is required to tell you. The cruelty was and continues to be the point for these people.
Someone involved in this stuff should tip off the teenagers to the gratuitous malicious compliance that’s sitting right there (preferably with a teacher who’s in on it).
Just every day, whole classes should request to go by a different name. Then, the school is compelled to annoy the parents over teenage bullshit. And when the angry parents are pissed that they are getting spammed by the school, all the school can say is “we can’t change the rules, the current school board forces us to do this”.
I love this idea. Have a Spanish day where everybody needs to use a Spanish name, a French day, etc. You could go totally into it and even use it as a fun thing where you get to teach kids about different places and cultures.
Teach about different cultures?! But that’ll make the conservatives mad! 🤣
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.
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.
Try to remember when you were a kid. Would you want your teacher ratting you out to your parents for something personal and harmless, and that you aren’t ready to talk about with your parents?
How would you have felt? About the teacher, the school, your parents? Do you think this would have negatively affected your school work, social life, and home life?
I’d guess the rule isn’t really for you though.
If a kid would rather tell a thousand other people that they’re trans and keep it a secret from a parent, it’s not really someone that has a right to know. And in all honestly not really the sort of person that should be in charge of children at all.
I agree with you. I would be very upset if my public school didn’t report major changes to me.
I would also feel like a failure of having open communication with my son if I didn’t know something like that and he wasn’t confident in telling me or didn’t feel safe and loved.
If he was cutting himself and they didn’t tell me, I could attempt to press charges. I know people will not view self harm and identity the same thought because of sigma.
I wish we could create an environment where there’s no need to protect a kid’s identity issues because of ridicule and torment. There’s failures all around here.
It has nothing to do with stigma. Why are you equating gender identity with self harm? That’s a pretty shit take.
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They arent. I’m not saying gender identity is self harm. That’s why I mentioned your quote.
It point is regarding being selective about what is required to report and not. I dont feel comfortable with the school deciding which major concern to report or not.
Edit, not sure how I see you drawing that conclusion. I used the word stigma because of what people can go through.
You are less comfortable with schools being able to deal with sensitive situations in a nuanced manner than you are with forcing them to adopt a single, narrow, sledgehammer approach that could put many students in harm’s way?
That’s a rather peculiar take.
I hear what you’re saying.
My personal desire to have a school tell me what they know isn’t based on a lack of empathy.
Here’s the thing, the situation that this mandate was created for is so improbable that I literally can’t imagine a scenario where it would occur.
A kid being out publicly at school but not at home? It makes no sense. Out with their friends, sure, but the only way that I could see this mandate taking effect is in a scenario where a kid has confided privately with a teacher or school counselor, or at a school run LGBT group or something. And that’s not a situation where you would break the kid’s trust and tell their parents. It would be a situation where you help them gather the confidence to tell their parents on their own, maybe in the safety of the counselor’s office or something for support. But never go behind their back and tell their parents without their consent. A child’s consent is just as important as an adults. Self-harm or drug use? That might be a time when you need to get the parents involved, unless they’re the problem, in which case CPS comes into the picture.
The point of this mandate is to put the fear of being outed to transphobic parents into the hearts of trans kids and nothing more. The cruelty is the point.
That makes more sense to me. I would worry that it takes away a small group of people in an already limited avenues situation.
I don’t know how to do both. Giving a young person counsel to tell their family would be of great help. Maybe that could be a compromise? If I did something to make my son feel scared (again, I’d be mortified of that because of would feel like a major failure), I would be ok if the school was providing the assistance to help, maybe with the worst thing being they have to mention it eventually?
Requiring schools to mention it at all is an issue, though. There’s laws that prevent pediatricians and therapists from doing exactly that without the kid’s consent, and for good reason. Kids have as much of a right to privacy as adults.
Schools already provide that sort of counseling (at least good ones do). My mom was a guidance counselor for years, and she had the phone numbers of several therapists in the area to send kids and families to for help for all kinds of reasons. She also did house calls with CPS in the worst cases, but that’s beside the point.
Putting a timer on being forced to out kids isn’t going to help anyone. It’s just going to give kids in bad homes time to put together a bug-out bag and split before shit hits the fan, making them homeless and putting them in a vulnerable position for sex trafficking, drug use, and exploitation. And even in innocuous situations with accepting parents, that’s just telling someone who can’t swim that you’re giving them five minutes before you push them into the deep end of the pool.
Just because your kid doesn’t feel comfortable talking to you about some of this stuff isn’t a moral failing on your part or anything. It could be for any number of reasons. Anxiety sucks. It took me 10 years to come to terms with being trans and tell my parents, despite them being some of the most liberal people I’ve ever met and friends with the only trans person I know of in my hometown. And if I had been in school and my school had told them without my permission? The violation of my privacy would’ve been devastating and probably sent me to therapy.
Sometimes, kids just need a neutral third party to talk about things with. I mentioned in another post how I played the role of confidant and advisor to kids a ton as a 20-something year old manager at a fish market. Everything from distracting loving but overbearing parents so that their kids could speak for themselves to the boss to providing financial advice for a kid who knew he only had 2 years to save up for renting an apartment and buying a car when his mom would inevitably kick him out at 18. Having somebody with a viewpoint who is outside of your parents’ social circle to ask about things is a tool all kids should be free to take advantage of, and not everything talked about needs to get back to their parents’ ears.
But it is based on a lack of empathy though. Everything in this thread coming from you is about you, how you are perceived or judged as a parent or how much power you can exert. Authoritarianism with good intentions (I control you because I care) is still authoritarianism.
Even when discussing self-harm, you don’t mention the hypothetical kid’s safety at all. “I would press charges”, what does that accomplish? that doesn’t address any issue or solves any problem, your kid is still suffering so bad that they feel like they need to self-harm, a judge decision can’t change that.
Not single lick of empathy there, but posturing and high horse riding. “I dont feel comfortable with the school deciding which major concern to report or not”, feel as uncomfortable as you want but that won’t change the fact that schools actually have to do that every single day. For all sorts of reasons. It comes with the territory. That sentiment is just an expression of desire to control. Schools need more nuance and preparation to make those decisions, not less. It’s impossible to have any social system where the system agents don’t have to constantly decide what to say to whom. It’s called being in a society.
I see your point. As I’ve been thinking about the need for kids to have resources somewhere, the school is a pretty good place for it. They need a safe place.
I don’t need to control my kid. I don’t do that now. I believe in setting the condition for honesty and growth, like making mistakes, without being crushed for it. Feels like that’s working so far.
I would support the ability for them to get counseling on how to deal with parents and how to deal with a world that seems to shit on and oppress small groups of people. I just would want them to get me involved at some point. Maybe there are cases where that’s not in the best interests of the young person. That’s the argument for giving the school discretion. I see that.
My self harm comment was because of my concern for my kid’s safety, that’s why I would personally be mad. I wouldn’t think that needed spelled out, but I’m guessing you’re using its omission to support your judgement.
I disagree with your high horsing assertion. You’re allowed that opinion of me, but working through things is easier when you aren’t called names. It feels like most of your comments are high horsing from the other side. I’d rather you just ask questions.
No name calling on my part. I was just expressing the public impression that your comments creates. If you take that as an insult, then maybe do some introspection on why you consider other’s feedback to be derogatory, and only seem to be comfortable with interrogatories. To give opinions means necessarily subjecting ourselves to other’s opinions about our opinions. Why would you be mad that a school determines that the best course of action is to protect the child’s privacy and conceal some part of it from you? maybe you are the problem, that’s always a possibility, and that’s not a personal attack on you as a parent, it’s protecting the child from you. Often times that’s the only recourse the school has when dealing with abusive and overbearing parents. Like I said, schools need more flexibility and nuance available for their response, not less.