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.
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.
Thanks for this. Honestly, I see this a bit differently from my initial thoughts.
This is why these kinds of things are so dangerous. They’re designed in such a way as to gloss over any nuances and appeal directly to people’s emotions.
It takes so much effort to show how harmful these actually are, while these people go on to pass more harmful laws while you’re busy getting rid of the first one. Republicans put forward over 200 anti-trans bills in the first 6 months of last year, amounting to something like 1.2 new bills every day.
If I wasn’t a part of this minority group and didn’t have the experience working with kids that I do, I don’t think I could point out the issues in this well enough that other people could see what I’m seeing. I can see them clear as day, but that’s because it’s part of my lived experience.
Whenever I see something like this, I always ask myself, “If this were aimed at adults, would I feel differently?” and “Is there hard data to back this up, or is it entirely running on assumptions/emotions?” Children are a favorite demographic to use for political stunts because everybody wants to protect them, and they can’t speak up for themselves about what they actually want and what would actually help them. It’s why Republicans hate Greta Thunberg so much. Because she’s so vocal and an activist standing up for what she believes in, and it goes against what they want you to think about kids.