California schools’ gender-identity lunacy needs to end

As a mother of four, I have spent more than two decades doing what mothers do: worrying, protecting, questioning, listening and trying to guide my children through an increasingly complicated world.

I know my children better than any teacher, administrator, politician or government bureaucrat ever could. I know when something is wrong before they tell me. I know their histories, their vulnerabilities, their personalities and their needs.

Still, I don’t know everything.

And California continues to advance an alarming idea: When it comes to some of the most personal questions our children may face, parents should not necessarily be told what is happening at school.

This week, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael Sachs ruled that California schools cannot be required to automatically notify parents when a student expresses a gender identity different from the one reflected in school records. 

If parents specifically ask, however, the school must answer them truthfully.

That is an important acknowledgment of parental rights, but it leaves us with a troubling question: Why should a mother or father have to know which question to ask?

California law bars school districts from adopting policies that require employees to automatically disclose a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression without the student’s consent, unless otherwise required by law. 

The state argues that such protections safeguard students who may fear rejection or abuse at home.

Protecting children from genuine abuse is unquestionably important. If there is credible evidence that a child faces abuse or danger at home, schools and child-protection authorities have responsibilities under the law.

But treating parental involvement itself as a potential danger turns the relationship between families and schools upside down.

Imagine a child is struggling with anxiety, bullying, an eating disorder or another serious personal issue. We would ordinarily expect parents and schools to communicate. We would recognize that a child’s family may need information to obtain counseling, provide support and understand behavioral changes at home.

Why should questions surrounding gender identity operate under an entirely different presumption?

Adolescence is complicated. 

Teenagers might experiment with identities, struggle with belonging and sometimes confide in teachers, coaches or friends before talking to their parents. That is nothing new. 

A compassionate teacher can listen without judgment and give a student space to work through difficult feelings.

But there is a fundamental difference between listening to a child and creating a school policy under which parents can remain unaware of a significant change occurring in their child’s life.

Parents cannot parent effectively without information and schools should not be placed in the position of becoming a parallel family structure, deciding which aspects of a child’s identity parents should or should not know.

California’s own Department of Education acknowledges that parents of children under 18 retain the right under federal law to inspect their children’s education records, including records containing information related to gender identity. 

The department also emphasizes that state law prohibits districts from mandating disclosure; it does not impose a universal rule requiring schools to conceal such information.

Those distinctions matter legally. But to parents, the larger principle should be much simpler: Schools and families should be partners, not adversaries. 

Parents are not perfect. Neither are teachers, but the presumption in public education should be that parents are responsible for raising their children and deserve transparency about consequential issues affecting them. 

Exceptional circumstances involving credible threats of abuse should be treated as exceptions, not as the foundation for a statewide approach to every family.

Mothers spend years teaching our children right from wrong, caring for them when they are sick, sitting beside them when they are scared and making difficult decisions about their physical and emotional well-being. We are legally and morally responsible for them.That responsibility does not disappear when they walk through the school door.

California’s elected officials frequently say their policies are designed to protect children. But protecting children should not mean pushing loving, responsible parents to the sidelines. 

If my child is experiencing something significant enough that a school is changing how it addresses or identifies that child, I should not have to stumble upon the right question before someone tells me the truth.

A government that genuinely values children should strengthen the bond between parents and schools, not create policies that can weaken it. 

Our children need teachers they trust. They also need their parents. 

California should stop pretending those two relationships have to be in conflict.

Shirin Yadegar is the founder of www.lamommagazine.com and a political commentator. 

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