School Policies Create a Parent’s Transgender Nightmare

Those of us who worried about the Rhode Island Department of Education’s transgender “guidance” (which quickly became a mandatory regulation) were especially concerned about the provisions encouraging schools to help students “transition” while hiding it from their parents:

… for children as young, presumably, as 14, the school may actively conspire with the student in hiding from his or her parents an issue that is supposedly central to their child’s very being.  In the next paragraph, the “family” is reduced to inclusion only as a parenthetical note, and the school is tasked with discussing “a timeline for the transition in order to create the conditions to provide a safe and supportive environment at the school.”

That is, through its schools, the government is not only seeking to accommodate the challenges of students’ personal lives to the extent necessary to accomplish the primary objective of educating them, but to become actively involved in transforming children’s beliefs and identities — perhaps including irreversible changes to their very bodies.

A recent essay by Jay Keck, an Illinois father whose autism-spectrum daughter declared her own transgenderism after becoming friends with another girl who had already done so, describes how extreme this can get:

She first came out as transgender to her school, and when she announced that she was a boy, the faculty and staff — who had full knowledge of her mental health challenges — affirmed her. Without telling me or my wife, they referred to her by her new name. They treated my daughter as if she were a boy, using male pronouns and giving her access to a gender neutral restroom. …

In an IEP meeting just after she told us about being a boy, I told the school that our wishes are to call her by her legal name at all times. The social worker present at the meeting stated that we have that right to make that request, so I assumed school staff would follow our directive. I followed up that meeting with an email, but later learned that my request was ignored and school staff continued to refer to her by the male name. …

My daughter told me that the school social worker was advising her about halfway houses because he thought we did not support her. The social worker confirmed this when I scheduled a meeting with him to discuss it. This felt like a horrifying attempt to encourage our daughter to run away from home.

We had our daughter evaluated by a psychologist approved by the school district. He told us that it was very clear that our daughter’s sudden transgender identity was driven by her underlying mental health conditions, but would only share his thoughts off the record because he feared the potential backlash he would receive. In the report he submitted to us and the school, he did not include these concerns that he would only share in person.

Why might the psychologist do that?  Well, it can’t help that Illinois (like Rhode Island) has a “conversion therapy” ban.  Even if a professional concludes that a child’s parents are correct that transgender feelings are incidental to some other problem, the doctor cannot try to resolve them.  As Keck indicates, this ban can prevent any correction even as a public school system ushers a child toward irreversible changes to his or her body.

This is madness.  And in keeping with the theme, it seems as if people feel they cannot express doubts about the movement.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in The Ocean State Current, including text, graphics, images, and information are solely those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the views and opinions of The Current, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, or its members or staff. The Current cannot be held responsible for information posted or provided by third-party sources. Readers are encouraged to fact check any information on this web site with other sources.

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