School district lawyer tells parents to take kids elsewhere over policy to hide students’ gender transitions

An attorney defending a school district told a court that if parents don’t like the progressive gender policies of the school district, they can take their kids elsewhere.

“If the parents want to make a different choice, they can homeschool, or they can send their child to a private school; those are options available to them,” said attorney Meghan Glynn, who is representing the Manchester School District, according to the NH Journal.

The district is being sued over policies regarding gender and sexual identity choices by minors that the district tries to keep secret from parents.

The case is being heard in New Hampshire’s Supreme Court, after a parent filed a suit regarding the gender secrecy policies, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader. A superior court judge in New Hampshire had previously found in favor of the school district.

“(T)he right to make decisions about the care, custody, and control of one’s child is not absolute,” the judge in that case found, according to the NH Journal.

The school district is arguing that they need to provide “safe spaces” for children facing gender identity crisis, to protect them from parents.

Glynn also told the court that parents should not be able to challenge the district’s policies.

Concord lawyer Richard Lehmann, who is representing the parent in the case, argued that the policy leaves a parent unable to make medical decisions for their child when left in the dark, the Leader said.

Glynn countered that parents have the bulk of the time “uninterrupted by the school district to have conversations with their children,” and in the remainder of the time, the conversations between the child and the school should be private. The parents also have a voice when the school district crafts policies to make comments and voters can vote out board members who craft policies with which they don’t agree, said Glynn.

Lehman countered that the policy effectively leaves 8-year-olds in charge of their own healthcare, making the school district appendages of a determination made by a minor incapable of making such decisions.

Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald pressed the school district’s attorney about whether parents had a need to know about mental health problems that could accompany gender dysphoria, added a report from New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR).

Previously, the state House rejected a proposal that would force school districts to inform parents about questions of gender identity.

This year, a proposal banning gender secrecy rules of school districts has already narrowly passed in the state Senate. 

Legislators in states as diverse as Iowa and Louisiana are also grappling with similar legislation.