State Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Monday to stop a Southern California school district from outing transgender students to their parents, arguing that the policy violates students’ civil and constitutional rights and could cause them “mental emotional, psychological, and potential physical harm.”
Bonta’s suit against the Chino Valley Unified School District is the latest attempt by Democratic state officials to combat the recent adoption of such policies by conservative school boards. The outcome of the case could have bearing on other districts that have enacted similar rules in the last two months, including Murrieta Valley, Temecula and Anderson Union High School.
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The policy passed last month by the Chino Valley Unified School Board requires schools to inform parents whenever a student asks to use a different name or pronoun than what’s in their official record, or if a student requests to use facilities or participate in programs that don’t align with their assigned sex. A similar statewide proposal, introduced by Republican Assemblymember Bill Essayli, stalled and has almost no chance of becoming law in the Democratic supermajority Legislature.
I hate “parent’s rights” so much.
What about the rights of the kid? I wish that as a kid I had more rights and support outside of just my parents. Turns out not all parents are great. And I am never not grateful for finally being an adult and actually independent and free, with my own life in my hands.
Not having enough independence as a young teenager really feels like it harms development more than anything else.
Before I go in to this, I want to clarify that when I say “children”, I’m mostly talking about teenagers. I mean it more in the “not legally an adult” sense than like…little kids. Moving on.
I think the issue isn’t parent’s rights overall, just how the concept is being used by certain groups at the moment. Some choices should be made for the child, especially when they are very young. If I wasn’t able to make choices for my children, my 14 and 12 year old would never have gotten a flu shot because they don’t like needles. That said, I don’t think the parent has the right to know EVERYTHING about their child. Kids have secrets and that is healthy. I certainly don’t think that a parent has the right to force their child to hide their gender identity or sexuality.
I am specifying all of this and pushing back because I think the problem is how the conversation is framed. A lot of this conversation is either started by right wing fundamentalists (who obviously frame it in a way to push their agenda and want children to have basically no rights) or children. The problem is, children talk about their rights and wanting freedom about dumb shit as often as they do about legitimate things. My 14 year old step-son got mad at me about his “privacy” a couple weeks ago when I went in to his bedroom while he was at his after school sport. He was big mad about me not respecting his rights. Except the reason I went in there is because we had 7 missing cups and I knew they weren’t anywhere else. One of the cups had old apple juice in it and we haven’t had apple juice in our house for at least 3 weeks. His overall point (children deserve privacy and the ability to have their own space) was valid, but I deserve to both have a cup to drink out of and also to not have fruit flies upstairs.
I think the only solution is for people who agree that kids do deserve rights and privacy and some autonomy are more vocal about it, even if they don’t have kids themselves. Because as it is now, the only people very vocally arguing against it are literal children and while they might be right overall, they don’t pick their battles wisely and it makes the entire point look silly to an outside observer. If we don’t frame the conversation around things outside observers can agree with and not to the extremes that the right wing wants to push it to AND not the extremes that the children effected by this stuff will push it too due to the naivety of youth. I think it is very easy for a parent to go "well I SHOULD be able to make decisions for my kid. My kid doesn’t know better, " if we let the argument be controlled by people who will push it to the farthest limits.
That said, I do want to specify that I think children SHOULD be part of this conversation. I know I remember being a child but I also know my children know MUCH more about it than I could possibly remember (they are living it). I also know my children can and do bring up valid points that I may not have thought of. This effects them more than anybody and if they aren’t a huge part of the conversation then we can never reach something that is actually good I think. As an adult I know I risk falling in to “well this is how it was when I was a child” or “well I know better” because that is just easier. The children keep us honest.