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Education

Resisting Trans Activists’ Assault on Parental Rights

Hillsborough High School students protest Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill in Tampa, Fla., March 3, 2022. (Octavio Jones/Reuters)

Today on the homepage, Ryan Mills has an excellent report on a mom’s fight to save her daughter from transgender indoctrination at school. Fortunately, the mother had some success. Ryan reports that after a long, difficult struggle and outrageous meddling from the school, she

found her daughter in the kitchen talking with her dad. “She was like, ‘You know, Mom, I’m really sorry. Affirmative care really messed me up. They really made me hate you and Grandma. I know that you love me, and you just want what’s best for me,’” Theresa said. “She’s just a completely different kid.”

Not every family is so lucky, however. Ryan reports that:

 The [family’s] lawsuit, filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and the national Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), is one of a growing number of legal challenges popping up across the country pushing back on school districts with policies that shut parents out from decisions regarding kids’ gender identification at school. Similar lawsuits are being brought in states including CaliforniaFloridaMaryland, and Virginia.

Across the country, parents are being shut out of critical decisions relating to their own children’s mental health by school personnel who are neither authorized nor qualified to administer such interventions.

Their stories are a reminder of why laws such as Florida’s Parental Rights in Education are so important: The Florida bill states that schools “may not discourage or prohibit parental notification of and involvement in critical decisions affecting a student’s mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being.”

However, lawsuits against school districts are possible, even without laws such as Florida’s. That’s because parental rights are rooted in the United States Constitution. In Troxel v. Granville (2000), the Supreme Court declared that the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment protects the fundamental right of parents to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children.

In his report, Ryan further lays out the political and legislative landscape for protecting parental rights from transgender ideologues. We need reporters like Ryan to puncture the prevailing trans-activist narrative and to expose their vicious assault on parental rights.

If you appreciate the trans-skeptical reporting and analysis we do here at National Review, please consider donating to our webathon.

Madeleine Kearns is a staff writer at National Review and a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.
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