On schools and parents - Katie J. M. Baker in NYT:

‘Jessica Bradshaw found out that her 15-year-old identified as transgender at school after she glimpsed a homework assignment with an unfamiliar name scrawled at the top.
When she asked about the name, the teenager acknowledged that, at his request, teachers and administrators at his high school in Southern California had for six months been letting him use the boy’s bathroom and calling him by male pronouns.
Mrs. Bradshaw was confused: Didn’t the school need her permission, or at least need to tell her? It did not, a counselor later explained, because the student did not want his parents to know. District and state policies instructed the school to respect his wishes.’

(…)

‘Although the number of young people who identify as transgender in the United States remains small, it has nearly doubled in recent years, and schools have come under pressure to address the needs of those young people amid a polarized political environment where both sides warn that one wrong step could result in irreparable harm.’ (…)

‘Schools have pointed to research that shows that inclusive policies benefit all students, which is why some education experts advise schools to use students’s preferred names and pronouns. Educators have also said they feel bound by their own morality to affirm students’ gender identities, especially in cases where students don’t feel safe coming out at home.’

(…)

‘Many advocates for L.G.B.T.Q. youth counter that parents should stop scapegoating schools and instead ask themselves why they don’t believe their children. They said ensuring that schools provide enough support for transgender students is more crucial than ever, given the rise of legislation that blocks their access to bathrooms, sports and gender-affirming care.
These disputes are unfolding as Republicans rally around “parental rights,” a catchall term for the decisions parents get to make about their children’s upbringing. Conservative legal groups have filed a growing number of lawsuits against school districts, accusing them of failing to involve parents in their children’s education and mental health care. Critics say groups like these have long worked to delegitimize public education and eradicate the rights of transgender people.’

(…)

‘Mrs. Bradshaw said she wouldn’t align herself with Republican lawmakers who sought to ban L.G.B.T.Q. rights, but she also felt as though her school’s policy left no room for nuance.
“It is almost impossible to have these discussions,” Mrs. Bradshaw said. “There is no forum for someone like me.” Other self-described liberal parents said they registered as independents or voted for Republican candidates for the first time as a result of this issue. Although they haven’t sued, some have retained lawyers affiliated with the largest legal organization on the religious right to battle their children’s schools.
In November, Erica Anderson, a well-known clinical psychologist who has counseled hundreds of children over gender identity-related issues and is transgender herself, filed an amicus brief in a Maryland lawsuit in support of parents represented by a conservative law group. The parents have argued that their district’s policy violates their own decision-making authority.
Transitioning socially, Dr. Anderson wrote, “is a major and potentially life-altering decision that requires parental involvement, for many reasons.”’

(…)

‘“Not all children in this area have safe spaces at home,” Mr. Walker said.
Some teachers have been penalized for notifying parents that their children changed names and pronouns at school. One father in Massachusetts, Stephen Foote, said he had only learned that his 11-year-old had done so after the child’s sixth-grade teacher, Bonnie Manchester, confided in him. Ms. Manchester was later fired, in part for disclosing “sensitive confidential information about a student’s expressed gender identity against the wishes of the student,” according to her termination letter.
Mr. Foote sued the school district, accusing it of violating his parental rights. A lawyer for the district said it disagreed with Mr. Foote’s version of events. Ms. Manchester said she didn’t regret her actions.
“I shined a light on something that was in the dark,” Ms. Manchester said. “I was willing to lose my job.” Other teachers believe they have a moral responsibility to withhold such information.
“My job, which is a public service, is to protect kids,” said Olivia Garrison, a history teacher in Bakersfield, Calif., who is nonbinary, who has helped students socially transition at school without their parents’ knowledge. “Sometimes, they need protection from their own parents.”’

(…)

‘Most said they identified as liberal, and that the living room was a rare safe space for them to voice their fears. Some parents didn’t think their teenagers were really transgender. Others thought it was too soon to know for certain. Most said their children had mental health conditions, such as bipolar disorder, or autism.
Here they could ask: What if their children had been unduly influenced by their classmates to ask for hormone treatments and surgery? What if teachers were encouraging students to see their families as unsafe? And were right-wing partisans their only sympathetic audience? “It’s just been such a hard thing to navigate, because on the one hand, I’m dealing with my very extreme liberal values of individuality, freedom, expression, sexuality, wanting to support all of this stuff,” said a tearful mother. “At the same time, I’m afraid of medicalization. I’m afraid of long term health. I’m afraid of the fact that my child might change their mind.”’

(…)

‘So far, however, the parents who have sued lean Republican, such as Wendell and Maria Perez, who filed a lawsuit in Florida against their child’s elementary school district with the assistance of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign. They claim that only after their child made two suicide attempts did the school tell them that an employee had been counseling their 12-year-old about “gender confusion” for months.
Earlier in the year, Mr. Perez said, the school had notified them that their child had fallen behind academically. So why was this different? “We were always available,” he said. “I don’t know why they decided to hide this from us.” Mr. Perez said that although he was a Catholic who objected to his child transitioning on religious grounds, he respected the rights of families who disagreed with him because he believed it was up to parents to decide on such matters.
A district representative said it had investigated the matter and determined that the accusations in the lawsuit “are completely false.” In court filings, the district said it had never forced the sixth-grader to speak with a counselor or conceal the meetings from parents.
Courts have ruled that under the Fourteenth Amendment, parents get to make medical and mental health decisions for their children, as well as direct their education and upbringing in other ways, unless they are abusive or unfit. But lawyers for schools have countered that parental rights aren’t absolute. Under the Biden Administration, the Department of Education has said that discriminating against students based on gender identity violates federal policy, although its guidance doesn’t specifically address parental rights.’

(…)

‘So far, however, the parents who have sued lean Republican, such as Wendell and Maria Perez, who filed a lawsuit in Florida against their child’s elementary school district with the assistance of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign. They claim that only after their child made two suicide attempts did the school tell them that an employee had been counseling their 12-year-old about “gender confusion” for months.
Earlier in the year, Mr. Perez said, the school had notified them that their child had fallen behind academically. So why was this different? “We were always available,” he said. “I don’t know why they decided to hide this from us.” Mr. Perez said that although he was a Catholic who objected to his child transitioning on religious grounds, he respected the rights of families who disagreed with him because he believed it was up to parents to decide on such matters.
A district representative said it had investigated the matter and determined that the accusations in the lawsuit “are completely false.” In court filings, the district said it had never forced the sixth-grader to speak with a counselor or conceal the meetings from parents.
Courts have ruled that under the Fourteenth Amendment, parents get to make medical and mental health decisions for their children, as well as direct their education and upbringing in other ways, unless they are abusive or unfit. But lawyers for schools have countered that parental rights aren’t absolute. Under the Biden Administration, the Department of Education has said that discriminating against students based on gender identity violates federal policy, although its guidance doesn’t specifically address parental rights.’

Read the article here.

Many interesting questions. To start with, what exactly do we mean by a ‘safe space?’

Who can decide that a parent of a minor is not his/her/their best guardian?

Based on this article, it seems that in some cases the parent is at the mercy of the teacher and the school, who might have their own agenda, who might not act in the best interest of the child, or who have a very narrow definition of what that interest is.

To me, it seems that changing names and pronouns at school is something different than going into a medical procedure that can be irreversible, or at least that have consequences that are difficult to oversee.

We see this everywhere, not only in the US, just slightly more so in the US.

The assumption that two or more people cannot solve any conflict or possible conflict themselves. And for that reasons: procedures instead of a dialogue. A safe space is a space without any conflict?

As a man, a victim of false accusations in the Netherlands, told me: ‘We have created a second judicial space, where the verdict non-guilty is out of the question, because guilt is just a stinging rumor that will last forever.’

Most teenagers will have come to the conclusion that their parents are their worst enemies. I myself as a teenager was convinced that even though they loved me they were my worst enemies indeed.

But as an author, who is transgender, told me at a literary event in June in Brussels: ‘You are not transgender.’

I was reminded of the phrase, ‘but you haven’t survived the Holocaust.’

I said it before, the culture of victimization will give anybody the right to have his,her,their own Holocaust, in order to silence the other.