The New Attack on Parenting

A school board in Chino, California, was debating whether to notify parents about their children exploring varying gender identities or experiencing gender dysphoria.

The school board felt strongly that parents should be told and made it their policy.

Present was the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurmond, who argued against the proposal to include parents in this aspect of their children’s lives. The heart of his argument revolved around privacy laws, but more importantly, he called it a safety risk to LGBTQ+ students “who may not be in homes where they can be safe.”

Now, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has filed a lawsuit against the Chino school district ordering an end to the policy that requires notifying parents if their children change their gender identity.

Again, raising the specter of “safety,” the lawsuit brought against the school district alleges telling parents puts transgender and gender-nonconforming students in “danger of imminent, irreparable harm” by potentially forcibly “outing” them at home before they’re ready.

“They are in real fear that the district’s policy will force them to make a choice: either ‘walk back’ their constitutionally and statutorily protected rights to gender identity and gender expression, or face the risk of emotional, physical and psychological harm from non-affirming or unaccepting parents or guardians,” states the lawsuit.

Okay, it’s time to wake up.

The LGBTQ+ agenda has largely been advanced by co-opting emotional language and arguments that cut through resistance like a hot knife through butter. Specifically, making their case referring to such things as love and tolerance, and denouncing such things as bigotry and discrimination and hate. And, of course, things like true bigotry and hate should be condemned. But these words have been used, often erroneously and in misapplied ways, to sideline the deeper questions of morality.

Now we come to the last bastion of protection against a post-Christian culture that still stands: the home. And it’s driving those with some very clear cultural agendas crazy. The idea that children could be raised in countercultural ways is maddening to them. Imagine… parents raising and even homeschooling their children with Christian values as opposed to secular ones! How dare they!

Yet, until now, it has been very difficult for those with alternate agendas to make inroads into the home. What could possibly justify separating a child from their parent, or bracketing off the role of a parent and supplanting it with, say, the role of secular education?

Only one thing could justify such a draconian intervention:

“Safety.”

Just like the words love and tolerance, who can argue against safety? But again, like those other words, we are seeing the use of the same vocabulary but very different dictionaries.

Safety is no longer being defined as physical safety, as when a child is removed from a home due to physical abuse. Now, safety is about protecting whatever lifestyle a child might wish to pursue or is being culturally pressured to pursue. The threat of a parent is that they may want to interfere and intervene. Or as Thurmond was quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times, “What I can’t accept is the mistreatment of vulnerable students whose privacy is being taken away.” So, if we cannot remove parental authority, we can at least remove parental knowledge.

It goes without saying that in a parent-child relationship there is no inherent right of the child to privacy. They are not little adults; rather, they are children. Privacy ends where parenting begins. 

But the deeper, more insidious move has to do with raising the specter of “safety” in relation to children – which conjures up enormous emotional reactions – and then defining “safety” as anything a parent might do to thwart a child contemplating and even pursuing lifestyle choices beyond their years to process. And it is beyond their years. I’ve written about all things gender, including what is happening with gender and our children in a three-blog series: “A Theology of Gender,” “The Transgender Issue” and “Children and Gender Identity.”

At such moments, they don’t need safety from their parents,

... they need the safety of their parents.

James Emery White 

Sources

Mackenzie Mays and Nathan Solis, “California School Board Battles Over LGBTQ+ Rights Intensify After Transgender Vote in Chino,” Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2023, read online.

Mackenzie Mays, “California Sues Chino School District, Aiming to End Policy Notifying Parents of Student Gender Changes,” Los Angeles Times, August 28, 2023, read online. 

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.