California parents oust school board members who enacted anti-LGBTQ+ policy
California parents oust school board members who enacted anti-LGBTQ+ policy
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.
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.
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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.
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
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.
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 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 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.
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! 🤣
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 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.
I know people will not view self harm and identity the same thought because of sigma.
It has nothing to do with stigma. Why are you equating gender identity with self harm? That's a pretty shit take.
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.
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.
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.
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.