The Parental Notification Policy Kills Trans Teens

When asked what a school board should stand for, many students, teachers, and parents alike all agree that the safety of children should be their number one priority. When children are dying from drug use or shootings, schools do what they can to protect their students.

If a school were to enact a policy that encouraged teachers to shoot their students or offer them heroin in class, things would be disastrous. The story would hit national news, and the policy would never be enacted in the first place.

By that logic, a bill that encourages teachers to share sensitive information to parents that has been scientifically proven to result in the suicides of children would be considered immoral and irrational to pass, right?

On Wednesday, November 15, 2023, a motion was placed on the itinerary for the William S. Hart School District board meeting to discuss just that.

The bill is redundant and flawed in nature; it implies heavily that teachers are not already mandated reporters in times of crisis or danger (which they are). Legally, if a teacher is told something that could result in the harm of anyone, they must report their findings to the state or face prosecution and removal of their credentials.

However, the bill claims that teachers must alert parents as well, which could easily lead to more harm. Considering that a majority of cases in which a student is in danger involve domestic abuse, alerting the parent that a student finally opened up about said danger could result in more abuse or even death in some extreme cases.

Domestic violence cases have been rising in number at an alarming rate ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, and those are just the cases that end up being reported. Many DV victims never get out of the cycle due to fear of being kicked out or killed. 

This is especially true for queer children, who are statistically more likely to be homeless or attempt suicide due to dangers at home. 

Not-so-surprisingly, queer (specifically trans) students are the ones primarily targeted by the policy- the students whose lives would be most in danger in the event that this policy were to actually be enacted.

Shortly after the Don’t Say Gay law was enforced in Florida, suicide rates in teens from 9th-12th grade skyrocketed. The Trevor Project estimates that 45% of LGBTQ teens in Florida seriously considered attempting suicide in 2022, and 20% of nonbinary and transgender youth had actually gone through with attempts. For context, many studies estimate that 2 out of 10 people are queer, whether that’s out or closeted, and an estimated 4,492,518 residents of Florida are under the age of 18. That means 203,845 of them are or will identify as queer, and subsequently, 91,731 of them will seriously contemplate taking their own life.

In the 2021-2022 school year, there were 2,484 students enrolled in Valencia High School. Doing the rough estimates, that means about 497 of them are queer, and 224 of them seriously contemplated killing themselves at the least. That percentage of students is increased by 10 when accounting for transgender and nonbinary students, who are especially affected by this bill.

This policy is not about alerting parents about their children’s struggles. Being transgender is not a struggle on itself. It can cause struggles, yes, but being trans on its own is not something that is wrong. It is a simple part of who the person is, and the mental health issues that come with being trans are not a direct result of being trans, but rather how the world treats transgender individuals. 

When a queer individual wishes to come out to their family, it’s a long, difficult process, even when their family is open and accepting. One student who has asked to be left unnamed shared their experience with the Viking Vision:

“I grew up in a family where being queer was just a normal part of life. When I realized I was queer, the thought of telling my parents was still so scary. What if they changed their mind about me? What if I had to stay in the streets? I was lucky. I told them, and they accepted me. Not everybody is as lucky as I am.”

This policy is known as the “Forced Outing Policy” in liberal circles, and for good reason. Teachers, if this policy is enacted, would be mandated to report pronoun or name changes to parents without the child’s consent, which would forcibly out them as transgender before they were ready to do it.

Parents argue that they deserve to know these things about their child.

If they truly deserved to know, they wouldn’t need the school to act as a middleman for their kid.

This policy also violates anti-discrimination laws passed by both the state of California and the United States Federal Law, meaning if it were to pass, it would be taken to court and waste the precious resources of the school board that could be directed towards keeping their campuses fun and safe.

After all, the safety of the children is what matters most, right?

If this policy is added, that statement, which had formerly been able to be said with absolute certainty, becomes false.