California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Monday against the Chino school district, ordering an end to a policy that requires notifying parents if their children change their gender identity, alleging it is discriminatory and violates civil rights and privacy laws.
The “parental notification” policy, which has been proposed by a handful of conservative-leaning districts in California, puts transgender and gender-nonconforming students in “danger of imminent, irreparable harm” by potentially forcibly “outing” them at home before they’re ready, according to the lawsuit.
Why would your child be so terrified of you that they don’t want to tell you their gender?
They wouldn’t. They know if anyone tries to tell them to keep a secret from Mom and Dad that person is bad person.
And who is telling them that in this situation?
But that isn’t what is happening in this situation. The teachers are not telling the child to keep a secret. The child is asking the teachers to keep a secret. It’s literally the opposite situation.
That’s true, and it’s the teacher’s duty to report any change of behavior to the administration and parents. Imagine your kid coming home with a black eye, and when you call the school to ask WTF happened they responded “we don’t have to tell you.”
Hang on. You completely mischaracterised the situation in your previous comment, but then when that is pointed out to you, you just continue on without acknowledging that you had the situation completely backwards?
No. Acknowledge that you previous argument was nonsense.
Why are you imagining a completely different situation and pretending that it is relevant to what is happening here?
A child trying out a different name or pronouns is not harmful to the child or anyone else. A child suffering physical abuse is.
A black eye is direct harm. If you’re suggesting that being gay is equally a direct harm to a person, then you’re just an objectively bad person.
I’m not suggesting anything. I’m clearly stating that withholding information from parents about their children makes you a monster.
The kids are the ones asking for a secret, their secret, to be kept from you (and I don’t even mean the general you, I mean specifically you, because you’ve made it clear you view your kids, if you even have any, as your property, and any child to a parent like that would be keeping more secrets from you than you will ever be willing to admit), not the teacher, so as if your point wasn’t weak enough already, you’re literally making no sense at all at this point.
And it’s the duty of a teacher to report any change of behavior to the parents and administration.
Ok, so the kid was always trans. No change of behavior. Therefore no report. Right?
So if a kid decides he likes strawberry milk instead of chocolate milk, that needs to be reported to parents and administration? If a kid makes a new friend who happens to be of a different race, should that be reported to parents and administration? Where do you draw the line in your ridiculous fantasy?
When are the teachers supposed to find time to teach if they’re spending the entire class writing reports because little Billy has a new favorite color and little Sarah decided she doesn’t like My Little Pony anymore?
It’s the duty of a teacher to nurture their students and keep them safe, and that should absolutely include keeping them safe from their own parents. Any teacher that feels otherwise is not someone you should trust with your kids.
Cool, so this isn’t about you then.
Not letting kids have any secrets or privacy in their lives is not good for them. You have to teach them the difference between harmful secrets that they shouldn’t keep, like when someone else is hurting them, and secrets that are safe and acceptable to keep for themselves, such as something personal that they should only tell people if they feel comfortable doing so willingly like whether they are trans or gay. You’re not teaching your kids to not keep secrets if you think forcefully outing them is in any way appropriate or acceptable, you’re teaching them to get better at hiding things from you. You should be teaching them to feel safe coming to you when they are ready because they trust you to let them do so on their own terms, not because they were forced to. Kids that aren’t allowed to have any secrets are far more likely to keep things from their parents, because they learn that they aren’t allowed to choose when and who to tell something based on whether they feel comfortable or safe doing so, and so keeping secrets becomes a way for them to take back that sense of security and control that you haven’t allowed them to have. If they don’t feel safe telling you something like this themselves, then that’s because you’re the one doing something wrong, not them, and it should be up to you to repair that broken trust. But forcing the secret out of them against their will is only going to further destroy any remaining trust they may have had in you, and teach them to never be open and honest with you because you’ve shown them that you are untrustworthy.