Streeter: The fight over trans students’ pronouns is about much more than names

As a parent, it pains me to imagine my child going through something crucial that he did not feel safe or comfortable telling me about. Even in that sad situation, I’d want to know that he had a space where he felt he could be himself, including at school. I’d hope that those I trust with his education would also protect his emotional and mental health if he felt I would not.

This is why I vehemently disagree with the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Anne Arundel County Public Schools on behalf of anonymous parents. The department is challenging a former policy that allowed students to be called by their preferred pronouns and names at school without notifying parents. Using those very important personal identifiers is part of a social transition, which advocates believe is an important step in the healthy development of trans and nonbinary people.

The people who want to take that right away from these kids would deny them that development. They don’t want these children to be healthy in their true identities because they don’t want those identities to be true. However well-intended, it’s shortsighted and dangerous.

“It means, ‘If you don’t have to see queer people or trans people or have them going by the names they want to go by, maybe we can edit them out of existence and make them really unpopular,’” said Ever Hanna, policy director for advocacy group Trans Maryland.

That’s frightening. I spoke with Baltimore’s Melissa Schober, whose child, Rowan, began transitioning while in high school. While Rowan was already out to their family before coming out at school, Schober said she would not have minded if they had started using they/them pronouns without her knowing.

“I would have been worried about the safety of my child if every morning they were called their birth name while waiting for a court order,” she said. “Their external appearance did not match the name we gave them at birth. Being a teenager is awkward to begin with.”

The anonymous plaintiffs in the DOJ suit — parents of a child in the district who was using preferred pronouns without the parents’ knowledge — obviously do not share Schober’s philosophy. I do not know who these people are, and I am sure they believe this is the right thing for their child. But the kid, I imagine, does not agree.

“We are all very worried about that child,” Hanna said. “We don’t know who they are, but we’re worried about them.”

The DOJ did not respond to requests for comment. Bob Mosier, chief communications officer of Anne Arundel County Public Schools, said the district cannot comment on an ongoing legal matter.

One of the scarier parts of this lawsuit — and there are so many scary parts — is the precedent it may set. Hanna notes that the district amended its policy and is being sued anyway, which “means that the fear of the government coming in is working, that fear is changing people’s actions. That means that fascism is working. As a parent, I’m afraid for my child and what I would want for my child’s support. As a trans person, I see that if they’re coming for the youth, they’re coming for the adults, too.”

In August, the district revised language to clarify that a student’s gender isn’t considered confidential medical information and that the school won’t interfere with parental rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA. It’s a slippery slope toward eroding those kids’ privacy rights, Hanna said.

“A ruling that names or pronouns are part of the educational record for purposes of FERPA is really scary,” they said. “What other educational information or other types of things could they find?”

And what are they looking for? We live in a surveillance state as it is, and I think framing the mandatory disclosure of this sort of information as a parental rights issue is an end-run around protections for these kids.

“Ultimately, what this is doing is making school life so difficult for these young people that they lose a safe space,” said Phillip Westry, an attorney and the executive director of LGBTQIA+ advocacy group FreeState Justice. “People are not understanding the gravity of this.”

If the DOJ’s lawsuit succeds, it could set a precedent for every other family. I hate the idea that people who don’t want to protect vulnerable populations could decide what happens to everyone else.

The suit speaks for itself, Westry said. “It says that [this family’s] parental rights are to supersede the educational structure of all of the people who put our kids in the public school system. And to supersede the needs of the child and the needs of a lot of other parents who are saying, ‘Wait a second. What happens to my child’s rights?’”

The answer, I think, is that they won’t have them anymore. Social transition has been purposely and confusingly construed as schools medically transitioning kids without parental consent. It’s why the president of the United States has publicly insisted that public schools, which often have to crowdfund school supplies, are paying for kids to have surgery, hospitalizing them for three days and sending them home as a different gender. Wouldn’t you wonder where your child was? It’s a ludicrous idea.

The human costs of such an agenda are steep. LGBTQIA+ youth are at a particular risk of suicide, Westry said, because being alienated from their parents’ emotional and financial support leaves them untethered. “The majority of my clients are people who have lost connection with their families. If there aren’t specific places to go, they just feel lost,” he said.

My job as a parent — my only job — is to create an environment in which my child feels seen and accepted. Breaking off the means of support, particularly if I refused to provide it, is cruel, and bad parenting.