By Thomas Ultican 9/1/2024
Less than 2% of Americans are born with gender-dysphoria, a mismatch between gender identity and their own personal sense of gender. Republican culture-warriors have made this group of people their latest victims, to insure evangelicals vote. Despite a strong showing of support by Americans including Republicans for LGBTQ+ equality, Republican dominated states have bombarded us with anti-LGBTQ+ legislation since 2020, particularly anti-transgender bills.
This month in San Diego County, the culture war bloomed in the Cajon Valley School District. All five board members voted to expand parental rights, including the right to review curricula and challenge books in the school library. However the most controversial part of the rules that had parents lining up to speak was the requirement that administrators must inform parents if any student under age 12 was requesting to change their gender identity by asking to be called by a different name or pronoun or use a different restroom.
In September 2023, Chino Valley School District enacted a similar rule and was immediately sued by California State Attorney General Rob Bonta. Judge Michael Sachs came down on the Attorney General’s side stating that “mandatory gender disclosure policies are facially unconstitutional as they violate the Equal Protection Clause of California’s Constitution and discriminate against transgender and gender nonconforming students.” In other words, students also have rights.
The state department of education has previously interpreted the equal protection clause to mean that schools must not notify parents or others of a student’s transgender status without getting the student’s consent; claiming doing so could endanger student safety.
In July 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a new law barring school districts from passing policies that require schools to notify parents if their child asks to change their gender identification. Cajon Valley was aware of this law which takes effect January 1st but apparently wants the fight.
The San Diego Union reported the new law came about after several California school districts passed policies requiring that parents be notified if a child indicated wanting to change their gender identification. This led to push-back by Democratic state officials, who say students have a right to privacy.
Parent’s Rights and Children’s Rights
Jill Filipovic in an opinion piece for CNN wrote, “And while ‘parents rights’ or ‘parental rights’ may seem like common sense – of course parents should have the broad ability to guide their children, keep them safe and make decisions that children are too young to take on – those terms are too often trotted out to strip children and teenagers of their basic rights …”
Some people refuse medical care for children in the name of Christ. Others have adopted a fundamentalist Christian child-rearing book called To Train Up A Child which advises raising children to obey without question by starting to spank when they’re just a few months old. The book has been implicated in the beating deaths of several children. Forced childhood marriages, which are get-out of jail free cards for statutory rapists, are still a common practice in much of this country.
Where do parent’s rights end and children’s rights begin?
Filipovic continued:
“In the meantime, many conservatives have exploited understandable parental fears about their kids making significant emotional and physical changes, casting transgender people and those who support them as ‘groomers’ and dangerous sources of indoctrination. They have drawn gender-affirming care and even the simple recognition of transgender people under the umbrella of ‘parental rights,’ and essentially tell parents, ‘No one should be making decisions about your child’s gender identity but you.”’
In an article for EdWeek, on the same subject, Libby Stafford reported that groups like Moms for Liberty (M4L) have been behind much of the criticism of schools when they don’t disclose a student’s transgender changes to parents. M4L supports eliminating mention of gender identity and sexuality from school curriculum and accuses schools of “indoctrinating” students with “woke” values through pride celebrations and other efforts affirming LGBTQ+ identities.
Two years ago, Florida passed an attack on LGBTQ+ rights known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. CNN’s report by Zachary Wolf says, “Suffice it to say the new Florida law suggests a minor child should not have the ability to speak in confidence to a counselor at school.”
Commenting on the new Florida law, medical director of the Thrive Gender Development program at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, Dr. Scott Leibowitz noted, “It basically sends a message to these young, vulnerable people that politicians are willing to sacrifice the youths’ emotional and physical well-being and health for political gain.”
Politico reported on a Saturday Night Live Weekend Update segment about the Florida anti-gay law. Colin Jost said to cast member Kate McKinnon, this bill “means that you can’t acknowledge that ‘gay’ exists at all.” McKinnon heatedly replied, “I am deeply gay — sorry, deeply concerned. It just seems like this is going to make kids, gay and trans — sorry, depressed and suicidal.” It is a valid point.
Killing Trans Kids
Many of the new laws popping up in Republican led states block physicians from providing care to trans children and block insurance companies from paying for it. Lillian Rivera, director of family programming for the nonprofit Gender Spectrum observed, “It’s very confusing when people put forth legislation that will harm the health and well-being of children and teens.” In some states, doctors are caught in a vice between living up to their Hippocratic Oath and following state law.
For many trans kids, finding good medical care and guidance is literally life or death. Ignoring the impulses is not an option. Some kids must have both the physical and psychological relief to survive.
A typical issue with trans children was shared by a Texas mom, Cindy Crawford. She and her gender fluid child, who just made a serious suicide attempt, were in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. The 14-year-old was saved but the pain that led to an attempted suicide remained.
Today Crawford says, “Gender-affirming care is what is keeping my child alive, literally.” After receiving a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the accompanying therapy and hormones, the depression and anxiety lessened. While there are risks associated with medical interventions, there are also significant risks associated with continued untreated gender dysphoria.
Reporter, Lisa Selin Davis, shared, “Despite rumors that parents are rushing their kids into body-changing hormones and surgeries, the opposite … is true.” And Lillian Rivera noted:
“No parent is having their 8, 9, 10-year-old undergo surgery to change their bodies. But that’s the narrative that folks are putting forth.”
In Texas and other states, laws are being considered that redefine “child abuse” to include administering gender-affirming care. Ignorance is a frightful thing. Making life saving practices illegal is senseless but led by lies and bad politics right wing politicians are attempting to do just that.
The GOP Embrace of Homophobia is Despicable
How benighted is the evangelical community that GOP politicians think attacking trans children will keep them voting? Both homosexuality and gender dysphoria are naturally occurring phenomena. They are not a mistake. There is nothing wrong with either set of human beings other than living with the craven fools in their environment.
I grew up on a ranch in Idaho where we had homosexual animals regularly appearing in our herds. For cattle and sheep ranchers, this just meant you were not going to select them as breed animals. In other words, homosexuality is a naturally occurring phenomenon throughout the animal kingdom. The same can be said about gender fluid individuals.
In the human realm, we have many examples of creative members of the LGBTQ+ community making significant contributions in science, art, law and so on. When the HIV/aids epidemic tore through the gay community in the early 1980s, Broadway and Hollywood were devastated spiritually and critically. Some of society’s greatest leaders are members of the gay community.
The bigotry and lack of human understanding shown the LGBTQ+ community and gender fluid children is unacceptable.
tultican 
Tom, this is such an important post. It has been such a cruel and tragic fight in Ohio.
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I’m very glad this anti-child nuttery hasn’t shown up in my area and school. These people should be ashamed, but they can’t because that emotion eludes them.
LGBTQ kids are protected and welcome in my district.
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Tom, I appreciate your concern for gender nonconforming children. I was one of them, and have continued as a gender nonconforming adult. Because of this, I have in the past been deeply supportive of trans identification, and I’ve continued to follow all things gender related. However, you do your readers a disservice when you characterize the resistance to “gender affirming care” for minors as being a right-wing phenomenon. There is a substantial and growing number of lifelong LGBT-supporting Democrats – including many gay and trans adults – whose reservations about this country’s approach to gender distressed minors are based in solid research, as well as our own experiences with gender nonconformity and same-sex attraction.
I would draw your attention to the Cass Review from the UK, the very best research we have to date on the topic, and on national policies in Norway, Denmark, France, the UK, Finland, and Sweden. The researchers in these countries who are now urging great caution are some of the same ones who developed the protocol for pediatric transition. They acknowledge that the documented risks of physical intervention – sterility, loss of sexual function, substandard bone and cognitive development, among others – outweigh the potential benefits, evidence for which is low. Instead, they have switched to a policy of watchful waiting, in which gender distressed youth receive ongoing psychosocial support through puberty and into young adulthood. The documented harms of puberty blockers cannot be ignored just because right-wing Republicans oppose them.
Another area of concern is the several thousand percent rise in the demand for transition services, particularly the exponential rise in the number of girls, who now make up 70-80% of referrals to clinics. The incidence of mental health comorbidities among gender-distressed youth is high and is not sufficiently accounted for in reports of the suicide rate for this group; the rate is comparable to those with similar mental health issues and no gender dysphoria.
A high percentage of these youth are experiencing same-sex attraction, as well as the effects of earlier sexual or other trauma. They deserve in-depth mental health care before making irreversible changes to their bodies that too many come to regret. Those of us, gay and straight, who experienced gender dysphoria and gradually reconciled to our sex understand the difference between short term pain and long term harm; between living with lifelong medical dependency, and enjoying a healthy body and fulfilling sex life; and we know that these things take some of us a longer time to build. Kids deserve the time and attention necessary to adjust to their sex and the circumstances of their lives.
The US is now an outlier on this topic, driven in large part by our for-profit medical system. That gender-affirming care is a growth industry with rosy market predictions should give us all pause.
I would direct anyone interested in reading up-to-date, compassionate information on all things relating to gender distress in kids to Transgender Trend (transgendertrend.com) from the UK; to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (segm.org), a group of physicians, therapists, and researchers committed to good pediatric gender care; and for an overview on the problem in the US to Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender (di-ag.org). Concerns raised about the Cass Review by the Integrity Project at Yale Law School are addressed by DIAG in this blog post:
https://diagdemocrats.substack.com/p/an-evidence-based-critique-of-an
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I really liked your post. Thank you. I do have one quibble. I do not think I did any disservice here. In fact, I think I highlighted a real problem with concern and care. I know that treatment of trans kids in England and Sweden bans hormone therapy because of its not well understood down sides. However, I think it is important that the inhuman response to these kids the last 4 or 5 years needs a light shined on it.
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Lifelong liberal, long time Democrat here.
I am flummoxed by Thomas Ultican’s position on gender identity in our public schools. Ultican, like others who oppose parents being informed as soon as their child starts to trans-identify at school, do so claiming that transphobic parents may prove dangerous to their own offspring. But this assertion is made without any supporting evidence whatsoever. Where are the medical stats of such children being harmed? Moreover, many…if not most… transactivists (including Ultican) believe that trans-identifying kids are at higher risk of suicide than other children. If this is true, shouldn’t it be 100% mandatory that parents of such kids be notified right away?
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Speaking of flummoxed. Where are you coming from? The evidence of benighted parents harming children who are gay and trans is well known and happens frequently . The higher risk of suicide in well known but I don’t understand your “shouldn’t it be 100% mandatory that parents of such kids be notified right away?” Outing a kid to their parents without the child’s permission and having some idea how the parent will react is a big risk.
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“The evidence…is well known…and happens frequently.” The evidence…at least when it concerns trans-identifying kids coming out to their parents…is not well known…to me. What sources are you using? I would very much like to review them.
And, as for for a teacher or school employee “outing” a child, if the school is calling a kid by / or keeping records under a different name or pronouns then, of course, the parents should know. They are the adults legally & morally responsible for the welfare of that child, NOT the teacher nor the school.
And, even assuming that there are parents who will hurt their child upon learning they trans-identify, what makes you think that parents finding out a year later…and, realizing that for the past 12 months the school AND their own child were lying to them…will behave any better?
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It seems we disagree and that is OK.
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I am an occasional reader of your insightful commentaries (there’s just too much good stuff out there to read them all), so I’m not sure if you have previously butted heads with Michael Allman’s wingman, Garvin Walsh. He writes right-wing opinion pieces for Coast News and California Globe. A recent topic was a rant against AB1955 and Elon Musk’s announcement that he was moving SpaceX from California because of the alleged attack on parental rights.
I wrote a comment in response to Walsh’s Globe column pointing out the need for children to have a safe place. I explained why children may not trust their parents with gender identity issues, using Garvin Walsh’s New Jersey criminal conviction for harassment of his teenage daughter as a case in point. While the conviction was reversed on appeal (State v. Walsh, 360 N.J. Super. 208 (App. Div. 2003)), it’s a fact that some parents have instilled fear and distrust in their children, and that this man, in particular, has no business preaching to anyone about parental rights and protecting children.
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Thank you for this insightful comment.
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