“Keeping this a secret from the parents infringes on the parents constitutionally protected rights and it endangers children. Without intervention, most kids grow out of their dysphoria; however, kids who social transition are more likely to progress to medical transition that will permanently damage, mutilate, or sterilize children who cannot consent to such treatment,” said Solas.

The “wisdom” of Big Government public schools includes that they forced young people to “mask up” in useless pieces of cloth that Big Brother now admits prevented no virus, and, according to Big Media censored medical experts, mask-wearing could cause irreparable harm. Now, it seems, the schools want more control over the young.

Does Big Brother – or in this situation, the town of Smithfield, Rhode Island – in essence own children, or are parents still parents with rights and responsibilities in America?

This past weekend on Saturday, June 17, 2023, the Smithfield School Committee held an open meeting “workshop” in which the public commented on a proposal to require teachers to notify parents if their middle school or high school student child is considering “transitioning.” The crux of the matter is if parents have the right to know if their child is considering “transitioning.”

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Watch The Current’s exclusive interview with two parent advocates who attended this Smithfield event – Laurie Gaddis Barrett and Bob Chiaradio on In The Dugout with Mike Stenhouse. Go to the 34:00 minute mark here.

Also discussed were the issues of students using an opposite sex restroom, and or calling themselves by an opposite sex name, pronoun, or other pronoun.

At the end of the workshop, no decision was made or announced by the Smithfield school committee whether it is now acceptable for school officials to keep secrets from parents, secrets that might have serious health and mental health consequences for their children.

Across the Atlantic during the same week the Smithfield meeting was held, England banned puberty blockers.  Previously, England closed its youth gender clinic.

On this side of the pond, US Deputy head of Health and Human Services Rachel Levine, a trans person, called England’s actions “ideologically motivated attacks,” and in Fauci-like “I am science” fashion, Levine also claimed England’s move is “contrary to the overwhelming science and evidence.” 

Apparently no second medical opinion allowed, just like when Big Brother gave no dissenting medical experts a voice on either the alleged need for the COVID “jab”, or the documented possible “side effects” of the “shot in the arm.” Now there seems no peep out of Big Brother on possible consequences of sex reassignment surgery, including for teens.

Opponents of such surgery cite studies.

“Rates of complications following penile inversion vaginoplasty range from 20% to 70%,” according to a 2021 study “Penile inversion vaginoplasty outcomes: Complications and satisfaction.”

Another study, “Urethral stricture after phalloplasty” found “phalloplasty is a complex surgery associated with a 51% urethral complication rate.”

Not disclosed by Big Brother is “the over-all mortality for sex reassigned persons was higher during follow-up, particularly death from suicide … sex reassigned persons also had an increased risk of suicide attempts…and psychiatric inpatient care…,” according to a Swedish study “Long-term Follow-up of Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden.”

“Finland, France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have all scaled back their gender transition policies for children over the last couple of years. Europe actually has been providing decades of research on this topic, with a Swedish study spanning 30 years and a Dutch study spanning 45 years, both finding that the suicide rate for transgender people remained the same before and after gender transitions. According to the Dutch study, “the suicide risk in transgender people is higher than in the general population and seems to occur during every stage of transitioning,” reported the Washington Examiner.

Nicolas Solas was one of the speakers at the Smithfield meeting. She said she was “so relieved to talk with the first school committee in Rhode Island willing to have a conversation about the parents right to know about the health and safety of their children who believe they are the opposite sex…”

Solas said, “using opposite sex pronouns, names, and other school sponsored social transitions is an active mental health intervention with mental health risks.”

“Keeping this a secret from the parents infringes on the parents constitutionally protected rights and it endangers children. Without intervention, most kids grow out of their dysphoria; however, kids who social transition are more likely to progress to medical transition that will permanently damage, mutilate, or sterilize children who cannot consent to such treatment,” said Solas.

She continues, “Now I understand you’re in a very difficult position you want to protect children and parental rights, but you don’t want to get sued by the Rhode Island ACLU who sent you a very despicable letter of intimidation advising against even reviving the discussion of parental notification of a child’s life threatening mental health symptoms.”

Solas mentioned a case from another state in which school counselor secretly counseled a young woman with alleged gender dysphoria; the girl tried to hang herself in the school bathroom

“One in five transgender youth tried to kill themselves last year,” said Solas.

“Someone probably will sue you, and it’s either gonna be the Rhode Island ACLU who wants to make an example out of you to carve out new rights against parental rights, or you will be sued by the parents of a dead child or a severely traumatized child. And the lawsuit you want is the one that’s gonna let each and every one of sleep at night. Call the ACLU’s bluff, and stand for the health and safety of children and the rights of parents to protect them. Parents are not the enemy of their own children, but they are the enemy of the radical trans cultists who prey upon the vulnerability of children to promote their political agenda.”

After that, Solas received applause and cheers, and some jeers.

As she continued, her opponents shouted, accusing her of supposedly speaking too long. The chair allowed her to continue speaking, and her enemies booed and tried shouted their opinions over her.

John Blakeslee, a volunteer for, and former board member of, the ACLU of Rhode Island (American Civil Liberties Union) and a “gay rights activist” according to a 2014 Providence Journal article, spoke, saying the Constitution protects students’ privacy rights.

Among other statements he also said, students have a right to use restrooms that correspond to their gender identity.

The ACLU is the union that sued South Carolina for banning mask mandates in schools; specifically to keep masks on “students with disabilities, including certain underlying medical conditions, which increase their risk of contracting COVID-19 and/or increase their risk of serious complications or death from a COVID-19 infection. These conditions include asthma, congenital myopathy, Renpenning Syndrome, Autism, and weakened immune systems—many of which have been identified by the CDC as risk factors for severe COVID-19 infections.”

Yet months earlier, Russell Blaylock, M.D., neurologist and scientist, was warning that wearing a face mask can cause “significant reductions in blood oxygen,” and neurologist-neurophysiologist Dr. Margarite Griesz-Brisson MD, PhD, had stated, “to deprive a child’s or an adolescent’s brain from oxygen, or to restrict it in any way, is not only dangerous to their health, it is absolutely criminal. Oxygen deficiency inhibits the development of the brain, and the damage that has taken place as a result CANNOT be reversed.”

The two page letter to Smithfield about the ACLU’s concern for students reads in part:

“The ACLU of Rhode Island has followed with both interest and deep concern the recent discussions at your school committee meetings regarding the school district’s “Transgender, Gender Non[con]forming, and Transitioning Students Policy,” specifically with respect to parental notification. As you know, the district’s current policy is based directly on the R.I. Department of Education’s long-standing guidance on this topic, and we are concerned about possible plans by the school committee to amend it to more broadly authorize school officials to notify parents, and possibly others, of a student’s transgender status over the wishes of the student. Although the policy is not on tonight’s school committee agenda, we offer the comments below in the hope that the committee will recognize the inadvisability of reviving that discussion at any future meeting. That is because we believe that any revisions along the lines of past discussions are problematic both as a matter of policy and of law, and should be rejected.”

Another speaker was Robert Chiaradio. “It is not within the administration’s purview to determine whether notifying parents of a child  caries risks for the student. You aren’t qualified to assess that more importantly you don’t have the authority to make that decision; instead, it is your obligation to inform parents of legal guardians should this has come to your attention.”

Chiaradaio evoked laughter when he said, “Madam superintendent, your answering of questions via word salad style would make Kamala Harris proud.”

He got more serious: “Both you and Mr Kelly [the principal] said flat out you would lie to parents  need be. That is unacceptable.”

He also said parents entrust their children to schools to educate them core content knowledge, citizenship, and skills to become competent adults, and schools aren’t mental health clinics and don’t replace parents.

“A teacher should not be a student’s friend. Period,” said Chiaradio.

What’s more, he said policies that drive a wedge between parent and child attempt to make the school the primary influence over the child, which creates an “unsafe environment threatening the traditional family unit.”

Laurie Gaddis Barrett was another speaker, She’s with Parents United Rhode Island and said some of the parents of that group are from Smithfield including some “progressive left,” and yet they ”…still would like parent notification to be the norm…”

Some members of the audience tried silencing Gaddis Barrett, demanding to know if she’s from the town. Her statements included that the rights of the parent are protected by the first, ninth, and fourteenth amendment, and that the state and the parent do not have a balanced interested, and not even an equal interest in the student.

She mentioned a well-known trans-gendered person who writes briefs and contends “the parent is fundamental to the process of true gender affirming care.”

Gaddis Barrett said “when it comes to the health safety and well-being of the child, there is no expert better than a parent, and if that parent needs medical and legal advice they’re the best person to advocate for their own children.”

“I have you heard you say you that will keep secretes from parents,” she said, wondering what would happen if a transgender student were to be bullied.

Amazing teachers, Gaddis Barrett noted, do wonderful things, then she added a warning that a once trusted teacher in another Rhode Island town is now waiting trial on child molestation and sexual assault charges.

Smithfield might allow teachers to keep secrets from parents. They haven’t decided or haven’t announced a decision to the public yet. Only time will tell what the public and taxpayers and parents of the children enrolled in Smithfield schools will demand, and if what the school committee decides is wise.