Here Goes Nothing - Gender Identity and School Response

The NY Times has a very good article (with good comments) about the issue of schools supporting students who believe they are trans to use new names. The name of the article is:

When Students Change Gender Identity, and Parents Don’t Know

Educators are facing wrenching new tensions over whether they should tell parents when students socially transition at school.

I had said I wanted to bring this up so here we go. A few early thoughts. 

I'll just note here that we are talking about gender identity, not sexual preference. (Naturally there's overlap but sexual preference is another whole topic. What schools know and what parents know on that topic is also worthy of conversation.)

I would also like to acknowledge that, on the surface, it may seem like many more kids are saying they are trans. But like other hot topics, is it that there is more public acknowledgement (especially within schools) that trans kids exist and therefore kids feel safer saying it out loud or is it kids who might be trying on new personas as teens have a penchant to do?

Naturally, a student saying they are trans is NOT the same as saying "I'm a goth." That's because the level of danger in saying you are trans is so much greater than almost any other thing a student might say about themselves. I think most students are well aware of what will await them at school for making this kind of declaration. 

My impression from this article and others that I've read is that there are some teachers who go further than just a name change and try to help the student learn more about transitioning including medication and surgery.

We should look at the issue as two parts:

1) Student feels they are in the wrong body and want to take steps to change that, with the first baby step being a name change. But the student knows either their parent(s) would out and out reject them for that OR they are unsure and just want to see how it goes before saying anything at home. 

vs

2) What rights DO parents have about what happens during the school day relative to the identity of their student? 

From the Times' article:

Although the number of young people who identify as transgender in the United States remains small, it has nearly doubled in recent years, and schools have come under pressure to address the needs of those young people amid a polarized political environment where both sides warn that one wrong step could result in irreparable harm.

Guidelines on social transitioning vary widely among school districts. Some states, such as California, New Jersey, and Maryland, expressly advise schools not to disclose information about students’ gender identity without their permission, while others offer antidiscrimination guidance that is open to interpretation.  

But other states, such as Florida, Alabama and Virginia, have passed sweeping laws or issued guidance that prohibit schools from withholding information about gender identity from parents. 

From GLSEN (organization that works to ensure that LGBTQ students are able to learn and grow in a school environment free from bullying and harassment.)

Anti-LGBTQ harassment and hostile school environments directly harm mental health and academic performance. A hostile school climate affects students’ academic success and mental health. Nearly one-third (32.2%) of LGBTQ+ students missed at least one day of school in the last month due to feeling unsafe. LGBTQ+ students also reported having lower self-esteem and higher levels of depression, as a result of the harassment. 

From the article, a specific case that exposes a number of problems in dealing with the issue:

The Bradshaws accepted their teenager’s new gender identity, but not without trepidation, especially after he asked for hormones and surgery to remove his breasts. Doctors had previously diagnosed him as being on the autism spectrum, as well as with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, PTSD and anxiety. He had struggled with loneliness during the pandemic, and, to his parents, seemed not to know exactly who he was yet, because he had repeatedly changed his name and sexual orientation.

Given those complexities, Mrs. Bradshaw said she resented the fact that the school had made her feel like a bad parent for wondering whether educators had put her teenager, a minor, on a path the school wasn’t qualified to oversee.

“It felt like a parenting stab in the back from the school system,” she said. “It should have been a decision we made as a family.”

What I might want to know is if this school knew of all the diagnoses that this student had. Because if the school had come to the parent and the parent relayed what they know to the school, there might have been a good discussion. However,

He had tried to come out to his parents before, he said, but they didn’t take it seriously, which is why he asked his school for support.

From the school's side:

The public school that Mrs. Bradshaw’s son attends is one of many throughout the country that allow students to socially transition — change their name, pronouns, or gender expression — without parental consent. Districts have said they want parents to be involved but must follow federal and, in some cases, state guidance meant to protect students from discrimination and violations of their privacy.

Schools have pointed to research that shows that inclusive policies benefit all students, which is why some education experts advise schools to use students’s preferred names and pronouns. Educators have also said they feel bound by their own morality to affirm students’ gender identities, especially in cases where students don’t feel safe coming out at home.

Back to thinking about parental rights (key point in bold by me):

But dozens of parents whose children have socially transitioned at school told The Times they felt villainized by educators who seemed to think that they — not the parents — knew what was best for their children. They insisted that educators should not intervene without notifying parents unless there is evidence of physical abuse at home. Although some didn’t want their children to transition at all, others said they were open to it, but felt schools forced the process to move too quickly, and that they couldn’t raise concerns without being cut out completely or having their home labeled “unsafe.”

And there are differing views from experts:

In November, Erica Anderson, a well-known clinical psychologist who has counseled hundreds of children over gender identity-related issues and is transgender herself, filed an amicus brief in a Maryland lawsuit in support of parents represented by a conservative law group. The parents have argued that their district’s policy violates their own decision-making authority.

Transitioning socially, Dr. Anderson wrote, “is a major and potentially life-altering decision that requires parental involvement, for many reasons.”

Parents who may have questions can run into a buzzsaw:

There is a network of internet support groups for “skeptical” parents of transgender children, some with thousands of registered members. Detractors have called the groups transphobic, because some want to ban gender-affirming care for minors, or have amplified the voices of people who call transgender advocates “groomers.”

But members say these groups are some of the only places to ask questions and air their concerns.

“It’s just been such a hard thing to navigate, because on the one hand, I’m dealing with my very extreme liberal values of individuality, freedom, expression, sexuality, wanting to support all of this stuff,” said a tearful mother. “At the same time, I’m afraid of medicalization. I’m afraid of long term health. I’m afraid of the fact that my child might change their mind.”

A strong stand from the ACLU:

Angry parents can put their child in private school or home-school them, said an A.C.L.U. lawyer, Jon Davidson, who is co-counsel for a school district that was sued by parents in Wisconsin.

“Parents don’t have a constitutional right to dictate to schools how they should create an optimal learning environment for students,” he said.

The article ends about where it started - who gets to do what?

“When parents say they need time or patience it can feel kind of like an excuse for them to keep misgendering you,” he said. “It feels like they are grieving for someone who is not dead, and it makes you feel like you’re not good enough.”

His mother reiterated that she loves her child no matter his gender, but voiced her own frustrations.

“The school is telling me that I have to jump on the bandwagon and be completely supportive,” Mrs. Bradshaw said. “There is only so much and so far that I’m willing to go right now and I would hope that, as a parent, that would be my decision.”

The comments seem to fall into two camps:

Camp #1

If a child is a danger to self or others then we must inform, otherwise they need a safe place and time to explore before they know who they are and a parent’s reaction is so weighty that it clouds the child/teens experience. It’s not “cool” like goth or punk, expressing one’s gender nonconformity can get you beaten or worse. Let kids do the work. 

Teenagers and young adults have a right to the space to explore and forge identities for themselves without making declarations or being narced out to parents before they are ready.

Queer adult here. I think schools, parents and broader society are doing teens a huge disservice by viewing a name change request or shifting pronouns as “starting down a path”. In my experience MOST people experiment with sexuality and gender as teenagers - they just used to do it in private. Take a deep breath, talk to your kids, and try to foster a culture that can handle a little fluidity and nuance.

As for decisions we make as a family, that's a euphemism for parent hypercontrols their children. 

 Camp #2

If there is credible evidence of child abuse, schools should contact Child Protective Services. Otherwise, the gender musings of students are THE STUDENT's business only, not the schools. The idea that school personnel have any right (let alone any competence) to withhold information of this sort from parents is not merely an utter outrage, it is a clear violation of the law, as is defined in detail by this letter from FAIR to the California Department of Education.

Parents are entitled to any and all information about their child’s behavior or mental state. Period.

For their mental health stability, whatever decision a teenager takes, the parents have to be involved and make decision with their children and the schools. Being left out and one day receiving official mail from the school district ( like grades ) with a different first name for their children is only going to make the situation more stressful for everyone. Even if a family is ok with a gender change, not being respect as parents won’t help. First names are sometimes very important for some religions and having a school allowing a student to change their first names without the consent of their parents can be extremely provocative.

Yet another thought:

The Telegraph, and yes I know it is right leaning, had an article yesterday about this, specifically teenage girls. Girls are 5 times as likely to claim to be transgender as boys as they go through puberty. There is strong evidence of it being a social contagion. 

 A surprising chart was shown that plotted online searches of "anorexia" against "transgender," which shows that transgender has replaced anorexia, with transgender exploding in popularity, and anorexia falling off of a cliff. 

 As a parent with extremely left leaning kids, I find it a bit disconcerting that people we would typically consider marginalized are how held up to have higher value that more typical people (and I'd say "normal," but that is a considered to be a bigoted term). Statistically, people under 30 are over 5 times more likely to consider themselves trans than the population as a whole (and they are a subset of the population, which means comparatively, they are even larger). Simple statistics point to this being a social contagion. 

My thoughts:

- Like rape before it, more young people believing they are trans may just be about more awareness and reporting of it, not that it is a social contagion. Trying to keep kids from knowing about fluidity and variance in both body and sexuality is a losing game.

-This is all dangerous because of the new "parents' rights" movement for issues like these AND so-called "school choice." It feels like those groups want to go back to the '50s where everyone was told their place and that just can't be an option.

- I do allow, though, for the possibility that as more possibilities are talked about, there will be a certain number of kids (a small number) who want to try on identities like they try on new hair color or clothes. Before I would even think about medical interventions before a student is 18, I would want my child to talk to a mental health professional. I am very much against any kind of surgery before 18 but my impression from reading is that it isn't even legal. 

 - At then end of the day, it would be my child's mental health that would come first. I would talk with my child's teacher(s) and school counselor about what my child (or other trans students) might be experiencing within that specific school community. 

Because yes, kids need, above all, to feel safe at school. 

Fire away.