Tipsheet

Here's What an Ohio School District Is Telling Teachers to Do About ‘Unsupportive’ Parents of Trans Kids

Madeline Leesman
Madeline Leesman  |  May 18, 2023 1:30 PM

A public school district in Ohio reportedly advised employees to “consider” reporting child abuse to protective services if a “transgender” student’s parents are not supportive of their gender identity.

Documents obtained by parental rights organization Parents Defending Education show Cincinnati Public Schools instructing its staffers to be supportive of transgender students’ gender identities and to keep it a secret from parents, or, in some cases, report the parents. The guidance states that “parents may or may not be supportive of the student’s gender identity” and that information relating to a student’s gender identity “should not be shared with parents if disclosing the information to parents could put the student at risk of harm at home.” And, the guidance advises school staffers to “also consider whether there is a mandatory duty to report child abuse to 241-KIDS.”

The memo was published in the Board of Education’s meeting minutes in 2021. And, it includes that “students should be allowed to use the restroom according to the students’ gender identity.” This would allow biological males who identify as women to use women’s restrooms. In 2021, in Loudon County, Virginia, a young girl was sexually assaulted in a school restroom by a “boy wearing a skirt,” the girl’s father said, which Townhall covered. And, he added that it became known that the same boy attacked several other girls and that the school board refused to take accountability for the incidents. 

According to Fox News, the committee said the recommendations for the memo were based on practices advised by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Education Association, among others. CPS told Fox News that the memo is not “official district policy” despite being sent to the school principals in the district.

"It is unconscionable that a public school system would casually toss families into the wood chipper of the child protective services bureaucracy based on mere speculation that parents may or may not be ‘supportive’ of a child’s gender identity," Nicki Neily, the president of PDE, told Fox News. "Doing so not only strains an already overburdened child welfare system, but also subjects loving families to a nightmarish process where they are forced to ‘prove’ that they do, in fact, love their children."

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Erika Sanzi, PDE’s director of outreach, added that the policies are “a betrayal of trust.” 

"Treating a parent who protects their child from gender ideology as dangerous and deserving of a call to child protective services is a terrifying abuse of power,” Sanzi said.

Cincinnati-based radio station 700WLW wrote on Twitter that Cincinnati Public Schools said Fox News’ report on the district’s transgender policies is “filled with inaccuracies and misleading references.”