New York State’s ‘Best Practice’ Document Urges Schools to Keep Child’s Gender Transition from Parents

Susan Berry, PhD

The New York State Department of Education (NYSED) published a “legal update and best practice” document last week that encourages schools to keep a child’s claim of a new gender identity from parents.

“The student is in charge of their gender transition and the school’s role is to provide support,” the document states. “Only the student knows whether it is safe to share their identity with caregivers, and schools should be mindful that some TGE [transgender and gender-expansive] students do not want or cannot have their parents/guardians know about their transgender status.”

“School personnel’s acceptance of a student’s asserted gender identity should require no more than a statement from the student expressing their preference,” NYSED asserts. “Schools do not need to require permission, letters from professionals, or other proof of gender identity.”

“When TGE students disclose their gender identity to school personnel, it is because they feel safe,” the education department assumes in its document.

Among the resources the document cites to justify its stance on keeping children’s gender identity a secret from parents are, first, a school climate survey conducted by LGBTQ education activist organization GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Education Network), and various laws, including the state’s Human Rights Law (HRL), which was amended by the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA).

“The survey shed light on significant concerns regarding the safety and wellbeing of students who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and/or Queer (LGBTQ),” NYSED noted. “From the sample of 22,295 students between the ages of 13-21, 68% felt unsafe at school due to their sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression (SOGIE).”

NYSED’s document says the HRL now “expressly prohibits discrimination by educational institutions against students and applicants based on their actual or perceived sex and gender identity or expression—meaning their actual or perceived gender-related identity, appearance, behavior, expression, or other gender-related characteristic, regardless of the sex assigned to that person at birth, including, but not limited to, the status of being transgender.”

The state education document calls for “normalization” of practices that immediately affirm a child’s claim of a new gender identity and make immediate sharing of preferred pronouns “normal.”

For example, on page 20, the document states:

Schools will want to normalize practices that foster opportunities to affirm students’ and staffs’ gender identity, giving students opportunity to share their affirmed pronouns. School staff are responsible for ensuring students are referred to correctly. Intentionally referring to a student, verbally or in writing, by a pronoun inconsistent with the student’s gender identity or by a name other than the student’s affirmed name is a NYS Human Rights Law violation and is unacceptable.

On page 21, the document further states:

Schools can normalize all students, including TGE students, using affirmed names that are different from their legally assigned names. Everyone should share their name and pronouns at the beginning of each school year, the start of meetings, and regularly throughout the year.

“The key takeaway: if your child decides that he or she wants to socially transition to the opposite gender, it is now a ‘best practice’ for the school to lie to you about it,” wrote American Enterprise Institute (AEI) research fellow Max Eden at Manhattan Institute’s City Journal on Friday.

Eden highlighted the assumption in the NYSED document that parents who do not “affirm” a child’s claim of a new gender identity are somehow harmful to him or her:

“Only the student,” the NYSED declares, “knows whether it is safe to share their identity with a caregiver.” The baseline assumption, then, is that “unaffirming” parents are dangerous to their children. If Kevin wants to go by “Kimi” but doesn’t want his parents to know, the best practice, according to NYSED, is as follows: “The teachers call her Kimi and use she/her pronouns at school. When calling home for any reason, teachers use the name Kevin and he/him pronouns.”

“The paramount consideration in those situations is protecting the health and safety of the student, assuring that the student’s gender identity is affirmed and that their privacy and confidentiality are safely maintained,” NYSED says. “Prematurely disclosing a student’s gender identity can have severe consequences for the student.”

Among the other resources the NYSED document recommends are those from LGBTQ activists the Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming Schools and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice.

“Public polling suggests that NYSED’s policies on gender are massively unpopular,” Eden wrote, noting that some 70 percent of registered voters polled opposed teaching elementary school children about sexual orientation and gender identity, while 75 percent said schools should be required to obtain parental consent prior to helping a child transition.

“But when it comes to public education, the will of parents matters far less than the whim of activist-captured bureaucrats,” Eden said.

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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Child” by Caleb Woods.

 

 

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