We take it for granted, don't we, that our children are ours to raise — to nurture, teach, guide, and have the final say as to what influences they should and should not have in their young lives? Parental rights exist for a reason, namely, that minor children do not yet have the wisdom or maturity to make life-changing decisions. After all, we do not allow them to sign contracts or buy a rifle, shotgun, or a glass of beer. We don't let them join the military (at least not without parental permission), and we sure don't let them vote.
California, though, seems to be heading in the other direction, as long as the minor in question identifies as "transgender."
On Wednesday, a group of California legislators introduced a bill in Sacramento that would effectively ban policies requiring the notification of the parents of minors who are identifying as "transgender."
A group of Democratic California lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled a proposal that would prohibit schools from implementing transgender notification policies.
The announcement comes as more than a dozen school districts across the state consider policies that would require teachers to notify parents if their child identifies as transgender.
Assemblyman Chris Ward, D-San Diego, said he plans to gut and amend AB 1955 to ban the policies. He said the measure specifically prohibits any school employee or contractor from being required to disclose any information related to a student's identity, orientation or gender expression without consent.
The measure would also protect teachers from any retaliation on the basis that the employee supported a student who is transgender, according to Ward. He also said the measure would also provide support and resources for families to support those working towards acceptance on their own terms.
In other words, this bill effectively strips away the rights of parents to know when their minor child is considering a decision with possibly life-long consequences, which include mental health issues, sterility, and irreversible effects from surgeries and hormone treatments. These are things that the California legislature is willing to allow the schools to hide from parents.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the Chino Valley Unified School District Board over such a policy in 2023. More than a dozen California school districts have these policies.
Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday announced his office filed a lawsuit against a Southern California school district for its new policy that requires parents to be notified if their child is transgender.
The Chino Valley Unified School District Board approved the policy in July, despite pleas from the State's Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and LGBTQ+ groups who said the policy would be harmful to transgender students. The policy specifically requires parents to be notified if their child identifies with a gender that is not on their birth certificate or official records.
It's bad enough that women's and girls' sports teams are being taken over by mediocre boys and men who have discovered they can claim to be girls and stomp all over actual female athletes; now the California Legislature wants to remove parents not only from having a say in their children's "transgender" decision but to prevent them from even finding out about it until there is already damage done. It's not a stretch to point out that, as King Lear famously said, "This way madness lies."
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Madness isn't too strong a word. These legislators would prohibit parents from being informed of a major event in their children's lives. We have seen enough evidence of activist teachers who push this agenda. Teachers, for better or worse, have a lot of influence over children, even teenagers, who really ought to know better.
This isn't a complex issue. Parents, not teachers, not school administrators, should have the final say over any issue involving their children, except in those instances where the parent has been adjudicated to be unfit — which few, if any, of the parents affected by these ill-advised laws are. The education system — at all levels — has one purpose, and that is to produce young adults with marketable skills. This kind of idiotic agenda-pushing and abrogation of parental rights does precisely nothing to forward this goal.
If there is a better argument for removing government at all levels from education and privatizing the lot, I'm not aware of it. Privatize the schools, let a thousand flowers bloom — and make sure that people are damn well prepared to deal with the consequences of their decisions.
