Education

Judge Stops Schools From Telling Parents About Kids’ Gender Transitions

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A New Jersey judge decided Friday that three school districts cannot enforce their policies that alert parents if their child is transitioning genders, according to NJ.com.

Democratic New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin sued the Middletown Township, Marlboro Township and Manalapan-Englishtown Regional boards of education in June after the governing bodies voted to adopt policies that would require educators to notify parents if their child wants to change their gender. New Jersey Superior Court Judge David F. Bauman granted a preliminary injunction against the school districts’ policies, prohibiting them from notifying parents of their child’s gender transitions, according to NJ.com.

“The state has demonstrated a reasonable probability of success on its claim that the Amended Policies, if implemented, will have a disparate impact on transgender, gender nonconforming and nonbinary youth,” Bauman wrote in his opinion, according to NJ.com.

The state alleged in its lawsuit that the policies violate New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination, which requires schools to not treat students differently based on their “gender identity and expression.” The state’s Department of Education’s Transgender Student Guidance mandates that school districts “accept a student’s asserted gender identity” and notes that “parental consent is not required” to allow the student to transition at school.

“As the Superior Court correctly recognized, the State is ‘not targeting parental rights,'” Platkin said in a press release. “Indeed, the State has never sought and never will seek a ‘ban’ on parental notification. All our lawsuits seek to do is to reinstate the same policies these districts found acceptable with little protest for years. Put simply, we can both keep parents informed about their children’s development and protect the civil rights of our most vulnerable students. Our laws require nothing less.”

Statement from Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin on Preliminary Injunction Prohibiting Discriminatory School District Policies. pic.twitter.com/d2TxHJzg6K

— Attorney General Matt Platkin (@NewJerseyOAG) August 19, 2023

School boards throughout the country are adopting similar policies to those of the New Jersey school board’s named in the lawsuit; in a 3-2 vote, the Murrieta Valley School Board in California enacted a policy on Aug. 10 that would notify parents if their child is transitioning genders. Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta opened an investigation into Chino Unified School District on Aug. 4 after the board voted to adopt a policy that requires educators to tell parents if their child has requested to change their gender at school.