Kids, not parents, must come first in debate over gender identification at schools | Opinion

California Attorney General Rob Bonta was quick to sue a California school district over its policy to mandate telling parents when their children ask educators to identify them by a different gender.

He is right to seek a court injunction to stop the misguided policy in order to ensure protection for all children, especially those who are transgender.

The trustees of Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County voted in July that staff must alert parents whenever a student requests to be identified or treated as a gender other than the biological sex or what is listed on a birth certificate. The policy also covers student requests for names, pronouns and bathroom and sports preferences.

During a stop in Fresno this week, Bonta told reporters that the Chino Valley board’s policy “violated and trampled on the civil rights and constitutional rights and privacy protections of children.” He paused, then repeated for emphasis, “of children.”

Sonja Shaw, the Chino Valley board president, justifies the policy by saying parents have a constitutional right to know about their children’s self-identification.

“We will stand our ground and protect our children with all we can because we are not breaking the law,” Shaw told the Los Angeles Times. “Parents have a constitutional right in the upbringing of their children, period. Bring it.”

Bonta indeed did “bring it” in a sharp rebuke to Shaw.

California codes are clear

Bonta said Chino Valley’s policy violates the privacy protections that minors have in the state Constitution, as well as Education and Government codes.

“You are not allowed to single out, and target, and hurt, children based on their transgender identity,” Bonta said. “The law makes it clear.”

He said research shows that 10% of young people who make their transgender identity known to their family get hurt by relatives. Fifteen percent of transgender youth wind up homeless, he added.

Bonta recognized that parents do have rights. But, he said, “I will tell you what rights they don’t have: The right to violate other people’s constitutional rights. No one has that right, and it is our job to protect the rights of those who are having their constitutional rights violated.”

Dangers to kids

The California School Boards Association, hardly a far-left entity, has told elected trustees that schools are required to respect limits that students put on disclosure about transgender status, “including not sharing that information with the student’s parents except with the student’s authorization.”

In a story published by the online news site Edsource, Bonta said Chino Valley trustees during meetings described transgender and non-conforming students as suffering from mental illness and perversion.

“There were claims that policies protecting these students are a threat to the integrity of our nation and the family system as we know it,” Bonta told Edsource. “One board member even went as far as to publicly state that transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals need non-affirming action from their parents to get better.”

Consider such a scenario for a moment: A high school boy tells his parents that he identifies as a female and will dress that way. In response, the angry father hits his son and yells at him.

That is not fictional. Such situations happen now. This is the danger that the district’s policy furthers. This is what Bonta is trying to stop with the lawsuit against Chino Valley Unified.

Shaw can claim all she wants that Chino Valley’s position on mandatory reporting is a form of protecting children. Actually, it is discriminatory and dangerous to trans youth.

If Chino Valley Unified’s trustees really cared about all of the district’s 26,000 students, they would rescind this harmful policy. But the board prefers to make political points against Democratic leaders in Sacramento who Shaw says push “perversion” on schools due to LGBTQ policies.

If going to court is the only way Chino Valley wants to handle this, then in Shaw’s words, “bring it.”