When Republicans talk about parents’ rights, look for the child that is being harmed. This rule of thumb rarely fails. “Parents’ rights” is one of those phrases that sounds good on paper, encouraging people to imagine themselves — loving and protective parents who only want the power to do right by their child. But when conservatives invoke the term, their objective is to trump a child’s rights to be safe and healthy, despite what a toxic or even abusive parent wants to do to them.
That reality was revealed yet again last week, when the Supreme Court blocked a California law preventing teachers from outing trans kids to religious parents. The injunction is temporary, but most legal experts believe it is inevitable that the Christian right-favoring court will eventually rule against a child’s ability to decide when and with whom to share their gender identity — even if they fear being beaten, disowned or thrown out on the streets.
The case, known as Mirabelli v. Bonta, centers around a family who is refusing to accept their high school child’s self-identification as a boy, which, by their own account, began when he was in fifth grade. The teenager has attempted suicide, but still the plaintiffs argue that their right “to raise their child in accordance” with their “sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender” should prevail over a law protecting the child’s right to call himself by the name and pronouns of his choice at school.
For decades, Republicans have resisted efforts, both domestic and international, to favor children in conflict with parents who threaten their safety and wellbeing.
For decades, Republicans have resisted efforts, both domestic and international, to favor children in conflict with parents who threaten their safety and wellbeing. Efforts to ban physical violence against children, protect children from spiritual abuse or ensure children’s right to education are routinely undermined by Republicans in the name of parents’ rights. Now, the issue of trans rights is giving conservatives a perfect opportunity to go even further in prioritizing parental control over children’s safety.
There’s a lot of confusion around the issue, which has been aided by mainstream media outlets like the New York Times or The Atlantic giving voice to false claims that being trans is just a trend, or that it is somehow being imposed on non-consenting children. This anti-trans panic gives cover to a larger conservative effort to deprive children of basic rights.
“Schools have a duty to care,” said Imara Jones, a journalist and founder of TransLash Media. “They have to put the best interest of the child first.” As she explained to Salon, the kids protected by California’s nondisclosure law are only socially transitioning, which means using a different name and pronouns in school. It remains true that medical interventions like hormone therapy still require parental consent.
Conservatives are trying to reframe being trans as “a form of mental illness that is not acceptable,” Jones explained. The explicit goal of the plaintiffs in this suit is to give conservative parents the ability to compel a minor to use a name, pronouns and mode of dress the child doesn’t accept — to essentially force them back into the closet. But research is quite clear, she noted: When trans people are not allowed to openly live their gender identity, “there’s a big impact on mental health,” including increased rates of suicidality and dropping out of school.
Religious conservatives are unlikely to stop at denying trans kids the right to self-determination. As feminist journalist Jessica Valenti recently wrote in her newsletter, “it’s only a matter of time before Republicans argue teens shouldn’t have birth control at all.” The same forces opposing the rights of trans minors are pushing litigation to cut off contraception access in the name of parents’ rights, a move that would make it harder for all kids to retain access, even those that have parental approval. The Supreme Court recently went so far as to back parents who use “sincere religious beliefs” to abuse “opt-out” policies that make it impossible for teachers to use classroom books the parents don’t like.
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That case especially gives the game away. When conservative parents assert a right to censor their child’s education, they are also affecting what all the other kids in the classroom are able to read. Under their logic, the views of parents who take a more accepting, expansive view of child-rearing don’t matter. In the GOP universe, the only parents who have rights are conservatives. There is no Republican support for parents who assert the right to help a trans kid get health care, take a pregnant child to an abortion clinic or stock the local library with a variety of books so a child can learn and explore on their own.
On the same day the Supreme Court enjoined California’s law protecting trans kids from oppressive parents, Texas’ Republican attorney general — and a GOP candidate for Senate — Ken Paxton, insisted parents have no right to provide evidence-based mental health care for a child experiencing gender dysphoria. This came after Texas, against the advice of the medical establishment, banned doctors from prescribing physical interventions like puberty blockers for trans kids. Now Paxton has denied the rights of parents to get mental health help if the therapist follows standard psychological guidelines — which advise supporting trans youth care — in treating trans patients.
Paxton’s overheated legal opinion insists that it’s “indoctrination” and “child abuse” for a mental health professional to ever affirm a child’s trans identity. His accusation, Jones told Salon, is flat-out false.
“There are actually protocols in place for therapists to be able to walk through,” she explained. They “ask questions systematically [to] observe over time whether or not a person actually does have gender dysphoria.” Parents who offer this care and support to their children are doing the right thing. But because it offends the right, they may not be allowed to properly care for their children while living in Texas.
Even parents who don’t have a trans child should be concerned. Republicans are using the confusion around trans issues to build up case law that regards only right-wing, authoritarian parenting styles as legitimate. Children have no rights under this model. Parents who believe that children should be raised in open, accepting, inclusive homes would face serious restrictions on their ability to support their kids in their individuality, whether it’s in the books they want to read or their gender expression.
Republicans only seem to care about “religious freedom” when conservative Christians flout laws or impose their beliefs on others. But they show no concern about policies that harm other religious groups, including liberal Christians. As we’ve seen with their attacks on schools and libraries, for instance, the GOP doesn’t hold much regard for parents who believe children should have freedom to think and learn beyond what the boundaries of the right’s narrow agenda for them.
The phrase “parents’ rights” sounds good in practice. In reality, it means taking away rights from kids and parents alike who don’t agree with conservative beliefs on child-rearing.
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