Dennis Prager breaks down a New Hampshire court ruling that allows schools to keep students' gender identity changes secret from parents. A 9-year-old's mother sued after learning her child was using a different name and bathroom at school without her knowledge. Prager argues the policy language is deliberately ambiguous and criticizes parents for trusting public schools with their children.
Policy that allows school staff to keep a child's transgender status a secret does not violate a parent's fundamental rights under the New Hampshire Constitution, the state Supreme Court has held. So your daughter says she's a boy, she's 9 years old, and wants to be known as Jeremy and use the boys' room You don't have to tell the parents. Why parents would send their kids to a public school in New Hampshire, that's a puzzle. Well, it's not a puzzle. It's laziness. It's gambling. You're gambling with your child if you send your child to a public school and many private schools. My animus is not toward public school as such. Policy was challenged by a New Hampshire mother who sued the Manchester School District after finding out from a teacher that her minor child, identified as MC, had asked school staff and students to be called by a name typically associated with the opposite sex. According to the lawsuit, when the mother first asked the school to continue using her child's given name and sex-appropriate pronouns, two teachers wrote to her saying they were willing to comply. But minutes later, the lawsuit says, the school principal emailed her repudiating the teachers' cooperative responses. The school principal Good morning. While I respect and understand your concern, we are held by the district policy as a staff. I have quoted our district policy below, which outlines the fact that we cannot disclose a student's choice to parents if asked not to. If MC insists on being called MC's desired name. As a staff, we have to respect that according to the policy, or unfortunately, we can be held accountable despite parents' wishes. The principal was reiterating district policy that absent the child's consent, school personnel should not disclose information that may reveal a student's transgender status or gender non-conforming presentation to others. Non-conforming presentation. Wow, the language. 10 years ago, if this had been written, people would not have understood it. They would have asked that it be translated into English. The school justified the policy as recognizing transgender students' rights, quote unquote, to privacy. The court's response: the principal got the policy wrong. The policy encourages school personnel to not disclose information that may reveal a student's transgender status, but contrary to the principal's assertion to the plaintiff— that's in italics— the policy does not require nondisclosure. In other words, without the double negatives, the court re-read the policy's directive that, quote, school personnel should not disclose information about trans students to mean they can. It's just that they're allowed not to. So the principal did not accurately reflect the policy of her district.
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