Should teachers and schools be allowed to keep information about a student's pronouns or gender identity from parents?

Hot take: parents have a ton of power, and sometimes that power needs to be checked. This is one of those times. If it's a phase, they'll stop wanting to be called those pronouns. If it doesn't stop, it was never a phase, and their parents are simply not accepting who their child is.

Yes. Children are people, not property.

The real question is, why are we teaching children they get to choose their pronouns? Pronouns are exclusive to their sex which they also cannot choose. Dont get me started on the gender thing, the definition is arbitrary to start with.

You dont get to choose your pronouns anymore than you get to choose your skin tone or your height. Kids are confused enough as it is. This pronoun bs started because we adults started it and now they are more confused than ever, some even suicidal. Some teachers take it so far they're teaching sexual preferences and fetishes, what the hell is wrong with you? Its bad enough you can find porn with a click of button and its so heavily portrayed in media and now you want to mold them into sexual deviants? Let them decide when they turn 18.

Children do not have a firm grasp on reality, and unfortunately neither do many adults. They don't understand what it is they're saying. If your child came to you and told you hes superman, are you gonna allow him to leap from building to building? Granted thats an extreme case but deluding your child into believing they are a different sex is going to have serious consequences on their mental and social well-being.

I have family who've been educators, principals and administrators in schools and the school board for decades. Some of the horror stories I've heard made me cry. I don't have any children of my own but I'd like to think that if I did, they could come to me with just about anything and I'd be supportive and understanding. Some children don't have that option. I was once told of a parent who beat his daughter black and blue for listening and dancing to Katy Perry's "I kissed a girl". While more about sexual orientation than gender identity in that case, I can well imagine how her Father would have reacted had he been told she want to be called he/him or they now... I couldn't advocate for the child to undergo permanent changes before they are 16-18 and able to decide for themselves but I sure can understand wanting to experiment and feeling supported in their choices without the fear of being outed to parents who don't or don't want to be supportive of those choices.

Whatever happened to kids just being kids ?
When did all this 'preferred gender pronoun' stuff ever become relevant to the education of children ?
And why ?
Who does it serve ?

It's hard enough that youngsters have to go through all the puberty stuff at the same time as hundreds of their peers in the same setting.

But must be a thousand times harder if you feel you identify as anything remotely different from the expected norms, but everyone is supposed to make allowances for something you've not old or mature enough to understand the implications of anyway.

I think you can tie yourself up in knots trying to enact policy that you believe is inclusive but may well single individual children out and potentially put them 'in harms way' from the discrimination of some of their peers through hate or fear

I don't think teachers should be mandated to tell the parents. This seems to be largely a matter of circumstance and conditions. If the child confides in the teacher that his/her parents are unsupportive and she/he needs someone to talk to, the teacher should respect confidentiality. On the other hand, if there is an established parent/teacher relationship and the teacher feels the parent can help and needs to know that should be an option to help the child. Either way, it's a tough position to be in and there isn't an easy and convenient solution. By career choice, the teacher is in the unenviable position of being in the middle.

I've encountered a perfect example here on SW for why teachers being descrete about this kind of information is so important for protecting kids who may identify as trans.


Just listen to that hate and hunger for violence.
Imagine if he was the parent of a child coming out as trans. Would you be confident that the child would be safe with him?
I wouldn't.

You don't get to choose your sex/gender and as such, you don't get to choose your pronouns. Male = him/he. Female = her/she. If a kid has a mental illness, especially one that increases their risk of suicide, the parents have every right to know about it. Schools are theoretically supposed to teach kids not promote or enable degeneracy/mental illnesses/absurdities.

It probably depends a lot on the age of the kid.
At the primary school level, maybe it would be simpler and easier to stick to gender norms.
But I'm not even sure of that.

Kids have developmental phases. Between 7 and 9 most have a very black & white view of binary norms, and have difficulty in understanding variance as normal. This is made much worse by the cultural stereotypes that surround us all.
However, that could be changed by including diversity in stories - though at a rate of 1-2% so that it is proportionate to the actual rate of gender differences in the wider population.

I think there could be a third option.
The kid talks to the school counsellor about their prefered gender identity.
The counsellor has a tactful conversation with the parents to discover how open or closed they are on gender issues.
If they are open, the counsellor can encourage the parents to have a discussion with their kid about how he/she identifies. From then on, it would make the kid far happier to feel accepted just as they/she/he is.

Generally I prefer facing all truths and dealing with them openly.
I think the more we do so, the better we become at understanding and accepting one another's differences.

But if the parents are old fashioned in their ideas about gender and/or orientation, then perhaps the counsellor should postpone telling the parents about whatever the kid has confided - and should speak with the head and the rest of the staff. That kid is going to need protection from bullying and a lot of support.

The problem is, it is exceptionally difficult to keep things quiet in a school environment. Kids go to each other's birthday parties. Parents witness how their child and it's friends behave and talk.
One way or another, if all the kids are encouraged to use a non-cisgender pronoun, that will eventually be overheard, gossiped about, and it will get back to the parents.

So even the most conservative and religious parents are going to need counselling about their child's special needs - no different than if they had ADHD, autism spectrum, dyslexia or some other form of genetic difference.

Children's rights always comes first.

In Sweden the parents have no right to know if their child is seeing a school counselor or a nurse unless the child deems in danger. And thus, parents aren't entitled to all information about their children since parents opinions about their children aren't automatically safe for the child. In fact. Childhood trauma is often involving at least one abusive parent or caretaker.

Sorry moms and dads but your control needs isn't always what's best for your child.

Glad to see the overwhelming majority of folks voting here are on the side of protecting children from harm👍

Whatever a student chooses to disclose in confidence with a teacher or counselor should be respected as confidential, and not be disclosed to any other person (including both parents and other school staff) inside or outside the school. Such is in keeping with normal expectations or confidentiality.
For the school to implement an official policy with regard to the pronouns to be used by all staff with regard to a particular student, whilst withholding information about such policy from that student's parents is a far different matter, and is fundamentally wrong.
Schools, by long established convention, are both entitled and expected to act in loco parentis . They hold a quasi parental authority during school hours as a limited surrogacy for parental authority. But this limited authority is only lent to school employees by the actual parents who hold the primary authority as parents.
Apart from this, it is truly hazardous in a number of ways for a child to have one identity at school and another at home.
It can also be a severe violation of the conscience of a teacher who finds such a dishonest policy to be morally objectionable.

This would be a violation of parental rights.

Examples such as this are why some people, like myself, support free schools.

If a parent has no option but to send the kid to public school, then my answer would be no. If the parent can choose, and they decide to let some random adult they don't know spend almost as much time with their kid as they do, then that's on them. Ultimately, parents need more choice and more ability to protect their kids as they see fit. The state should not be raising our kids

I'm absolutely with you on this.

The only instance where I could see it being valid telling the parents is if the teacher/school see that the child is at risk of harming themselves or someone else. From what I've seen, the parents who are the most vocal and against this are usually the ones that would harm their own child for being or even wanting to be trans.

In the case of children of conservative parents where children may be coming to terms with their identity but know that their parents will be far less accepting then I think a situation like this would be justified.

I generally steer away from these posts, but it reminded me of this video by Steve Shrives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEufCSUdC3A

I’m on the fence about this. I would like to think that most parents would be supportive of their child yet I know some parents are not and are very abusive. I don’t know what the right answer is

Yes.

Subsitute the word 'gender identity' with 'sexual orientation' then a whole load of other people would agree with you. Obviously you shouldn't have to.

Reporting will be a real issue since both student and parents will read it

It's also that the Right is generally against public school because it makes it harder for them to get away with molesting their kids.

I think the teacher and parents could discuss it at a conference, if the parent asked and there was a level of understanding. I certainly don't support "forced outing". If conservatives had their way, if a teacher overheard a boy saying he had a crush on another boy, he should be reported as gay to his parents. 🙄

Unless the school is going around making medical decisions for the children, I don't see it as a big deal.

OMG
that's fucking ridiculous
NOTHING should be kept from parents until the kids are off LEGAL age

Children need to be protected so the parents don’t need to be informed.

So basically you are pro-chomo.