It's pretty intuitive to all decent people that if your child is trans, or even just experimenting & exploring their own gender, and they feel that they need to hide that from their parents, that the person at fault here is the Parent
Missouri HB.1739 contains provisions for the immediate dismissal and 4 year suspension from employment for any nurse, teacher or social worker who calls a student a name other than that which is on their school registration forms, or fails to report a non-cis identity.
legiscan.com/MO/bill/HB17...
JFC IKR. School is a terrifying place to experiment with identity. If you're *more* terrified of your parents finding out that the meatheads at school, something is really wrong, and the thing that is wrong is the parent.
Like, a functioning society would realize that in the rare case a child is fighting to keep core secrets from their parents, *that's the time to immediately and quietly bring in professionals in to see if there's a reason the child is terrified of their parents*, not to make it mandatory to out them
In my case it was mental health, not gender identity, but not having supportive parents in a system that will immediately contact one’s parents if one self-reports a problem totally sucks in horrible, awful ways.
Part of the problem, even in the 1970’s, is/was that statutes and regulations assumed a priori that parents have their child’s best interests at heart and are always supportive. At least in some places we now recognize that’s not always the case.
What drives me nuts is in other contexts we expect several professions to have a duty of confidentiality, enforced *aggressively* by the profession itself, because it doesn't work otherwise. From lawyers, to priests, to doctors. Mandatory disclosure rules (where there is no imminent harm) suuuucks.
If kids have no adults they can trust to help them with *at minimum* a hard-enforced confidentiality, they are placed in a vastly more precarious position; and it's a harm that'll be counted in body bags later.
Tell me about it. I spent my entire senior year in college deciding NOT to kill myself on a day-to-day basis. I had a plan and ready access to the means. To this day I’m still not sure why I’m still alive.
I mean, twenty-ish years ago my parents could, and did, just ask my psychiatrist what I'd talked about, because I wasn't 18 - and despite HIPAA now existing, a minor's parent or legal guardian *still* must be given any information they ask for.
I'm not saying that mandatory disclosure isn't worse - it is definitely worse - but in healthcare, even mental health, the expectation of confidentiality just isn't there for minors.
having had to hide a lot of shit from my aggressively religious mother and working in the university setting and seeing a lot of parent / adult child drama, i am not sure it's all that rare 😕
I don't think it's as bad as that.
I absolutely think there are a lot of cases where "child abuse" is the reason, but I am a parent and I remember being a child, and LOTS of times kids hide things from their parents that they don't actually need to.
"I don't think I'm, like, TRANS-trans, I just want to use a girl's name, and mom will make a big deal about it trying to be supportive and ask me about pronouns and then want to talk about safe sex again and ugh, so embarrassing" is a real thing, too.
Like, YES, absolutely, forcing kids to be outed to their parents is dangerous and will harm children and it's bad policy.
But I don't think it's fair to assume any child who is hiding things from their parents it's because the parents are dangerous.
Sure. But you kind of want to try and work that out. Is the reason why this kid wants to quietly transition because they are exhausted with their parents and just want to experiment, or is it because their dad will murder their "son" for "being gay", or is abusing them
It's surprising these legislators aren't worried about their own safety when they pass such violent legislation. Just shows that they know full well that LGBTQ people are objectively far and away morally superior and won't resort to violence in response.
Which is silly considering they are mortals with names and addresses and needs like sleep or defecation that can lead them to be quite vulnerable and alone.
i think even in families where kids aren’t terrified of their parents, there’s a lot of figuring out who you are that goes on in school as kids seek to define who “they” are as a person separate from their parents. and kids should be able to test out their own selves & push the boundaries w/o worry
I had a friend who was biracial and played around with their ethnic middle name and anglo first name, partially because one of their parents was an asshole. Kids need a little slack!
Republicans believe that parents literally own their children
You can make all the arguments you want about being a reasonable parent, but the highest priority for Republicans here is ensuring they still have completely control over their property
Right, should a teacher report to parents every time a kid changes their mind about their future career? What if a kid says something indicating they have different religious or political opinions than their parents? What if the child of racist parents has made a friend of a different race?
They should also be able to hide it from supportive parents, if they want to. Teens are exploring independence and they developmentally NEED to have some private choices.
I think this is the problem a lot of people have with their kids transitioning socially without their knowledge. Bigotry aside (obvs a huge part), it makes them feel embarrassed and ashamed. So they make it about some grand conspiracy. Kids being people too doesn’t even occur to them.
The parents that feel this way only had kids as proof they're Straight (TM). If they turn out Not Normal, that means the parents are Defective somehow.
These are for the comfort of their parents who want to make sure the teachers don't "break" their kid.
Not necessarily any Person at Fault! sometimes kids (heck, even adults) project onto parents/family/friends attitudes the greater society shows them, but when they actually come out, R accepted with open arms or simple curiosity from those close 2 them. All kids need protection 2 B who they R, yes!
I can't wait for some kid & their parents to demand that a teacher/school employee that supports this legislation to face the mandatory consequences for calling a student Mike instead of Michael (or similar use of common shortening of name/nickname that doesn't 100% match the birth certificate)
Great, but this isn’t a cis issue, and making it one takes the spotlight off the real issue at hand here, which is the targeting of transgender children by the school.
As a parent, it’s inconceivable to me to reject/shame/bully a child who is trans or experimenting/exploring their gender.
It’s heartbreaking to think of so many scared kids.
I’ve giving birth to four kids but I’ve help raise many more . I’ve raised my two oldest grandkids for 7 years , because of addiction. , they now live with there mom because she got clean , plus helped some of my kids friends when they needed a place to cool down after a fight with there parents.
Have any of the proponents of these bills tried to construct any kind of rational explanation for why parents need to be immediately notified about any gender stuff with their child? Teachers aren't generally expected to report every detail of a child's behavior to their parents
