Ohio School District Spent $24,000 to Keep Kids’ Gender Transitions a Secret from Parents

It’s not surprising that the left tries to keep parents in the dark about what their children are being taught in school. For example, giving kids a completely skewed view of American History is part of an effort to replace what was a less critical and balanced telling of American history.

A FOIA request by Parents Defending Education uncovered a brazen attempt on the part of a public school district to avoid parental involvement in a child’s most personal life.

Columbus City Schools spent $24,000 for a two-day “Queer and Trans Inclusion” seminar. The seminar advised teachers to avoid disclosing a student’s new gender identity to parents and suggested that there should be a private place in the student’s record.

One of the slides of the presentation states: “Affirmed names should be used on all printed and written materials, regardless of the legal name,” Legal name is kept in segregated and confidential files. The student’s parents or caregivers should not know the affirming name of the student. A private space should be created in the student records that will allow staff to use the student’s name and pronouns, according to the student’s wishes.

It is unimaginable that a psychologist would deliberately falsify a child’s record to conceal from parents a serious mental condition. All the information must be provided to parents so that they can make an informed decision about the best treatment for their child, whether it is medical or psychological.

There is no “born this way” for transgender children. There’s no gene that “turns on” and morphs a child into a different gender. And when adults encourage (pressure?) kids to believe they’re not the gender they were born and keep the “transition” from parents, doesn’t that sound an awful lot like child abuse?

The presentation included multiple scenarios, one of which asked what an educator would do if the parent of a student was unaware of their gender. The scenarios were presented just a few slides after educators were told to refrain from speaking with parents of students about their gender identity.

Transgender students and non-binary individuals have FERPA protection for their right to privacy. This includes the student’s gender, birth name, sex at birth, and medical history. The seminar attendees were informed that this includes the privacy rights of parents/caregivers.

It’s unbelievable that privacy laws were made to hide this information from parents. Whatever legal loophole leftist instructors use to make this claim must be immediately closed.