Schools must prioritize trans and nonbinary students’ need for support and privacy

Credit: Mercedes Mehling / Unsplash

Credit: Mercedes Mehling / Unsplash

Megan Goebel and Jon Cummings

May 10, 2023

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The mission of our public schools encompasses far more than shepherding students from early childhood to adulthood while teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Our schools must prepare our children — all our children — for engaged citizenship in a diverse contemporary society, not to mention the 21st century workplace. Teachers and administrators also must provide students with a safe, supportive and inclusive learning environment, a mandate laid out for California schools by the School Success and Opportunity Act.

The “parental rights” movement endangers all of that in pursuit of far-right ideology. For years, we’ve watched extremists push school districts to allow parents to “make their own curricula” in history, civics, literature, science and sexual health.

Now they hope to strip away the safety and support some students who identify as transgender or non-binary seek from teachers and counselors when they can’t count on a supportive environment at home. Their mechanisms are Assembly Bill 1314, almost certain to be rejected by the California Legislature, and a new lawsuit filed on behalf of two middle school teachers in Escondido. Both would force schools to reveal information to parents against students’ wishes — essentially “outing” them.

We expect lawmakers will maintain our schools as safe harbors, where students have rights and can confide in adults they trust. California’s courts should do the same.

We are supportive parents of trans young people who’ve attended schools in Thousand Oaks’ Conejo Valley Unified School District — a district that, unfortunately, has been one of California’s epicenters for bigotry against LGBTQ+ youth. Megan is the parent of an 8-year-old transgender daughter who socially transitioned at the age of 4. Jon’s son is a college student who began hormone treatments and underwent top surgery during high school.

We have helped our loved ones navigate their public-school environments while advocating for the rights of other trans and nonbinary students. Sadly, during that time we have witnessed the struggles of more than a few students whose parents denied them the gender affirmation they need.

We’ve seen parents refuse to use a student’s personal pronouns, provide the clothing of their child’s expressed gender or facilitate therapeutic counseling. Too many times we’ve watched students deal with emotional or physical abuse; we’ve even helped students find new places to live after their parents kicked them out.

Such negative outcomes are too common after students “come out” to uncomprehending or intolerant parents. Then there are kids who, because their parents have expressed prejudice in the past (or even mistreated them for other reasons), don’t believe they can confide in their parents in the first place.

School is often where young people express new ideas, explore new passions and, yes, experiment with their identities — not just because they’re surrounded by supportive friends, but because teachers and administrators nurture critical thinking, creativity and innovation. Often, educators who spark our kids’ imaginations become the adults they trust the most.

It’s clearly not the role of teachers or counselors to recommend medical treatments for gender dysphoria, or to take the place of a qualified therapist. However, listening and offering advice to students who question their gender identity — and excusing absences for therapy and treatments that students seek on their own — are entirely appropriate. They do not constitute “grooming,” in the current, ugly anti-LGBTQ parlance.

Studies repeatedly show that even one adult providing support to a trans or non-binary student can make a lifesaving difference. And particularly when such students don’t believe they can find affirmation at home, teachers, counselors and administrators must help them feel supported and safe at school.

If that requires educators to shield information from parents while they abide by a student’s request to call them by a new name, use different pronouns and help them exist authentically at school, then schools must take all those actions. California law on the subject applies across every grade level, as it should.

Hopefully, as that support is provided, students will be counseled to find a way to inform their parents themselves. As in all matters related to a student’s emerging gender identity, the school should follow the student’s lead, not the other way around.

Of course, the optimal scenario is always the one in which trans/nonbinary students can partner with supportive parents and educators to live as they identify. But when that’s unrealistic, our schools must prioritize their students’ need for affirming support and privacy, not to mention emotional and physical safety, over parents’ desire to impose their ideology or prejudices upon their child.

That’s not just state law — it’s the right thing to do.

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Megan Goebel is founder of the LGBTQ+ advocacy groups Navigating Gray and Unity Conejo, and chairs the Conejo Valley USD’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Council. Jon Cummings is co-founder of the advocacy group Indivisible: Conejo.

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